At least a half-dozen states applied to be in the early nominating window for 2028’s Democratic presidential campaign, kicking off a contentious battle for securing an influential perch inside the primary calendar.
The usual suspects — New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan, who made up the early states in Democrats’ 2024 primary calendar, though not in the order set out by the Democratic National Committee — are all back, per their state parties. So is Iowa, hoping to reinsert itself into the process after it was bounced four years ago. Georgia also applied.
Virginia and North Carolina are both seriously considering applying, according to three people familiar with the state’s thinking and granted anonymity to describe private conversations, ahead of the deadline later Friday. Other wild-card states may also still apply before the cutoff, and the DNC declined to comment on which states have applied so far.
The presidential nominating calendar — which states are in it and in what order — will affect how Democratic presidential candidates tailor their strategies heading into a wide-open 2028 primary. It would inform which states to prioritize, where to place staff, how much money each state will cost a campaign — all calculations that have shaped previous presidential primaries. Unsurprisingly, Democrats have a lot of opinions on how that should go.
“The day after the 2026 midterms, people are going to launch into action, so the window needs to be set,” said Jay Parmley, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “It’s possible they not only start coming, but they could start putting staff on the ground the earliest we’ve ever seen.”
The process to set the process could stretch deep into 2026. Members of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee charged with setting the calendar are expected to winnow the field of applicants at their Jan. 31 meeting, according to three DNC members involved in the process and granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
States will then be invited to make presentations to the committee later that spring. One DNC member said they expected the calendar to be set over the summer and voted on by the full DNC at its August meeting, but the timeline could easily shift later into 2026.
Shaking up the presidential nominating calendar started back in 2022, after Iowa’s disastrous 2020 caucuses and accusations that the early states didn’t reflect the party’s racial diversity. Then-President Joe Biden — ahead of what was at the time expected to be a staid primary process — elevated South Carolina even earlier in the order, cut Iowa and added Michigan to the calendar.
Now, DNC officials have pledged to start the process from scratch. They’ve said they want all four regions of the country represented, as well as a potential extra state, to vote ahead of Super Tuesday. DNC members have also emphasized whether states represent racial and geographic diversity, the cost effectiveness for smaller presidential candidates and the general election competitiveness of the states.
“The early states should be swing states,” said Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “The investments we’re making on the ground [in the primary] are beneficial to the general.”
That’s led to two fights resurfacing: For some states, it’s about just getting into the window; others want to be first. Think Iowa, Michigan and Georgia for those hoping to be invited to the early window party. All three are vying to either return or get into it for the first time.
For Georgia, the path is more complicated. Democrats don’t currently hold the governor’s mansion or the Legislature and almost assuredly won’t have a trifecta after the midterms, meaning they’d need GOP cooperation to move up their primary should the state be selected. But Georgia Democrats are confident they could adjust their date.
“Even if there is a Republican [governor],” after the 2026 election, “Republicans in the past have very much wanted theirs to be earlier as well,” said Charlie Bailey, the Georgia Democratic Party’s chair. “All the logic in the world points to Republicans wanting to move up in their process for their own reasons.”
The second group — including Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina — are all pushing for the influential first-place slot. Nevada, in particular, has been aggressive in their lobbying push of DNC members. New Hampshire released a memo last fall, emphasizing they wouldn’t just rely on a “tradition” argument to maintain their first-in-the-nation status.
South Carolina, too, said it wants to keep its spot, after Biden elevated them to the coveted first official spot. (New Hampshire, however, still held its primary first in 2024 despite threats from the DNC, as required under state law.)
“Our hope is that we maintain the position, but, of course, we’ll fully respect the decision and wishes of the RBC, even if we are unhappy,” said Parmley, the South Carolinian.
In a statement, RBC Co-chairs Jim Roosevelt and Minyon Moore said: “The Rules and Bylaws Committee is committed to running a rigorous, efficient, and fair process that will deliver the strongest presidential nominee for our party. We look forward to continuing that work later this month when the committee begins consideration of state applications to hold their contest in the early window of the 2028 Democratic presidential nominating process.”
Samuel Benson contributed to this report. 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.
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.
James Talarico has leapt ahead in the Texas Senate Democratic primary with a 9-point lead over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, according to new polling from Emerson College released Thursday.
The data shows Talarico, a state representative from Austin, leading the Dallas Congress member by 47 percent to 38 percent ahead of their March 3 primary.
When Crockett jumped into the race in December, her national prominence and fundraising strength had some expecting her to take the lead in the primary. But Talarico has poured money into his campaign and built a large online following.
On the GOP side, the poll shows a tight race: Attorney General Ken Paxton leads Sen. John Cornyn by 1 point, at 27 to 26 percent, with Rep. Wesley Hunt sitting at 16 percent support. The race is widely expected to head to a May 26 runoff since no candidate is close to 50 percent support, which would extend the brutal GOP primary.
Democrats have long pined for winning statewide in Texas yet repeatedly fallen short. The party believes it can ride an anticipated electoral wave fueled by opposition to Trump to finally achieve that goal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told POLITICO earlier this week that he views Texas as a “very possible” pickup opportunity but didn’t list it among the party’s top four offensive opportunities.
There’s a stark racial split between Talarico's and Crockett's blocs of support. Talarico brings in majority support from Hispanic and white voters, while the large majority of Black voters back Crockett, according to the poll’s findings. Men support Talarico 52 percent to 30 percent, while women are evenly divided between the two, at 44 and 43 percent respectively.
Many Republican voters remain outraged at Cornyn for supporting a bipartisan gun control bill during the Biden administration and have threatened to vote him out of office as punishment. Paxton, Texas’ top attorney for a decade, has strong support from the MAGA base, despite facing multiple state and federal investigations.
Democrats are hoping that Paxton will win the GOP primary, believing his political baggage would turn off voters in the general election. The poll shows both Talarico and Crockett tied with Paxton at 46 percent in a hypothetical matchup. Cornyn would fare better: He would lead Talarico 47 to 44 percent, and Crockett 48 to 43 percent.
The economy stands as the top issue for Texas voters, followed by immigration and threats to democracy.
Sen. Bill Cassidy raised $1.65 million in the latest fundraising quarter and has $11 million in cash on hand, his team told POLITICO, as he seeks to ward off a right-wing primary challenge.
The Louisiana Republican is facing several primary challengers on the right fueled by his past criticism of President Donald Trump. Cassidy voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack against the Capitol, a stance that angered the GOP base in Louisiana.
Cassidy has consistently posted slightly higher fundraising numbers than his opponents, John Fleming, the state treasurer and a former congressman, and state Sen. Blake Miguez, but has a significantly larger war chest. Cassidy has raised more than $17 million this cycle to date. Fleming and Miguez haven’t released their latest numbers; they had just over $2 million and $2.5 million in the bank respectively as of the end of September. Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) has also flirted with a bid, though sources told POLITICO she is not expected to run; she had $2.3 million in the bank as of the end of September.
The senator will have some help. A pair of super PACs supporting Cassidy’s reelection will show they had $5 million in cash on hand at the end of 2025 and received an additional $2 million in the first two weeks of January, according to a person close to those efforts. The PACs expect to spend between $13 million and $15 million on his behalf.
Cassidy is one of a trio of GOP senators facing tough reelection fights where Trump is declining to endorse a candidate, along with Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Maine Sen. Susan Collins.
Cassidy’s Senate GOP colleagues are backing his reelection. On Thursday, Majority Leader John Thune will host a fundraiser for Cassidy in Baton Rouge that’s expected to bring in $600,000.
In 2024, economic anxiety and immigration concerns drove Latino voters to President Donald Trump. Those same issues are beginning to push them away.
Across the country, the cost-of-living woes and immigration enforcement overshadowing Trump’s first year back in office are souring Hispanic businesspeople, a key constituency that helped propel him to the White House. In a recent survey of Hispanic business owners conducted by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared exclusively with POLITICO, 42 percent said their economic situation is getting worse, while only 24 said it was getting better. Seventy percent of respondents ranked the cost of living as a top-three issue facing the country, more than double the number that selected any other issue.
That’s a particularly striking number from this group: nearly two-thirds of respondents in the organization’s final survey before the 2024 election said they trusted Trump more than then-Vice President Kamala Harris to handle the economy.
“The broader Hispanic community certainly feels let down,” said Javier Palomarez, the organization’s president and CEO. “It would be different if immigration and the economy had not been principal talking points for [Trump]. On both fronts, we didn't get what we thought we were going to get.”
The combination of ongoing economic uncertainty and stubbornly high prices driven by Trump’s tariffs — coupled with the economic impact of the Trump administration’s ongoing raids in immigrant-heavy communities — makes the situation increasingly dire for some Hispanic business owners.
Trump and his allies argue that they're just cleaning up the mess left by the previous president.
"Republicans are putting in the work to fix the Bidenflation mess we inherited. From lowering inflation to creating a housing plan, President Trump is fighting for the working families Democrats left behind," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Delanie Bomar.
Monica Villalobos, president and CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, told POLITICO about a South Phoenix restaurant hit hard by tariffs and labor shortages. Then, a series of ICE raids in the parking lot in front of the restaurant caused customers and workers to stop showing up and forced the owners to shut it down for several days. She predicted this kind of situation will blow back on Republicans in the next election.
“We certainly do sense that our members — our clients in Arizona and across the country — feel a sense of betrayal by this administration, given its excessive overreach,” Villalobos said. “Now that we've had a taste of [the Trump administration], I think you're going to see a big shift [in the vote].”
In 2024, Trump won 48 percent of self-described Hispanic or Latino voters, the highest mark for a Republican presidential candidate in at least a half-century, driven largely by economic anxiety. But polling shows Trump’s approval among Latino voters cratering as their satisfaction with the economy and immigration enforcement plummet.
In a November POLITICO Poll, a plurality — 48 percent — of Hispanic respondents said the cost of living in the U.S. is “the worst I can ever remember it being,” and a majority (67 percent) said responsibility lies with the president to fix it.
According to a November Pew Research poll, about two-thirds (68 percent) of U.S. Hispanics say their situation today is worse than it was a year ago, and just nine percent say it is better; 65 percent of Latinos disagree with this administration’s approach to immigration, and a majority (52 percent) said they worried they, a family member or a close friend could be deported, a ten-point increase since March.
“Small business owners are becoming a swing constituency, when you think about the midterms coming up,” said Tayde Aburto, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce. “And not because their values have changed—it's just because their costs did.”
Those elections are a referendum on Trump’s economy, said Christian Ulvert, a Democratic strategist and adviser to newly-elected Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins’ campaign.
“[Trump’s] agenda literally does little to nothing to help Hispanic families,” Ulvert said. “Worse, it preys on Hispanic families. And what we heard on the campaign trail most pointedly is the old adage: is my life better today than it was yesterday under new leaders? And resoundingly, not only verbally, but through the ballot box throughout the year, Hispanic families are saying, ‘no, my life is actually worse.’”
Joe Vichot, the Republican Party chair in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, said he knows many Hispanic Republicans in Allentown who are supportive of curbing illegal immigration and fighting crime. “But there's also stories of people who have been here for 10 years or more with their family, but they've never been legal, that are now caught up into the [deportation] system,” he said.
“There should be a way to find some type of common ground where that won't happen.”
“Joe Biden gave us a colossal catastrophe, but my administration has rapidly and very decisively ended that,” Trump said during a speech in Detroit Tuesday. “We have quickly achieved the exact opposite of stagflation — almost no inflation and super high growth.”
But cooling inflation rates just mean prices aren’t rising as fast as they had been — prices still remain much higher on many goods than they had been in recent years. And improving macroeconomic trends are not yet being felt by consumers, said Massey Villarreal, a business executive in Houston.
“I'm like most Americans. I hear the inflation number and I don’t translate it to my going to the grocery store, when I look at the cost of hamburger meat,” said Villarreal, a former chair of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly.
Palomarez, the U.S. Hispanic Business Council president, compared it to the Biden administration’s insistence that the post-Covid economy was healthy, even as consumer sentiment plunged. “While we were talking about GDP and unemployment and jobs growth rates, people were worried about the rent and the price of gas and the price of eggs. And we've got kind of the same thing here," he said.
In Chicago, where some of the most-publicized immigration enforcement occurred last year, Hispanic-run businesses have been hit hard. Sam Sanchez, CEO of Third Coast Hospitality, said 2025 was the hardest period for business of his four decades in restauranteering, aside from the COVID pandemic.
“It sends a really negative message to the 48 percent of Hispanic voters that voted for President Trump,” Sanchez said. “Everything’s just starting to fall apart.”
Virginia Democrats are launching their last big campaign in the redistricting wars this week — but big questions loom about whether they can agree on how to maximize benefits to their party and whether they can convince voters to support their power grab.
On Wednesday, the Virginia Legislature kicks off its first session since Democrats won unified control of the commonwealth in last November’s elections. A persistent divide has emerged however, between Democrats who hope to draw an aggressive gerrymander that could deliver them 10 of the state’s 11 congressional seats — a four-seat grab for their side that would wipe out all but one GOP congressional district — and those who want to take a more subtle approach to offsetting GOP gerrymanders elsewhere.
“It will be a real debate. I mean, we want to get as much as we can, but we also want the referendum to pass,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) told POLITICO Tuesday afternoon, adding that an expected Supreme Court decision this year on the Voting Rights Act could ultimately give Republicans more seats.
“[Democrats] basically have voting rights act seats in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana,” he said. “They could all be gone, right? So that's a great concern. So it's essential in Virginia that we look at the fairness argument from a national perspective, not just the Commonwealth.”
Virginia’s current congressional delegation has six Democrats and five Republicans, so under the new maps Democrats would likely pick up three or four seats.
Democrats are worried that some of their members won’t be as eager to take on so much in such a truncated period of time. The party will need to be unified if they stand any chance of selling voters on the urgency of empowering legislators to draw new Congressional lines within a matter of weeks.
“I haven’t heard a lot of people talking about how much work it’s going to be to pass it,” said one Virginia Democrat granted anonymity to discuss internal party discussions. The person added that some in the party are underestimating the amount of time and political capital it will take to prop up a statewide campaign for what is expected to be a special election in April.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the party’s group leading the charge on redistricting, confirmed to POLITICO it has presented two new maps to Virginia lawmakers. One remakes the map into a 9-2 configuration that only provides cover for districts held by Republican Reps. Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith from being eliminated. Another proposed map largely leaves intact Griffiths’ seat and, if approved, could deliver a 10-1 map, a development first reported by Punchbowl News.
John Bisognano, the NDRC president, argues that aggressive changes to the current Virginia congressional maps are necessary to respond to brazen gerrymanders Republicans drew in other states under pressure from President Donald Trump.
“Not for one second has Donald Trump laid down arms in this redistricting manufactured war that he created,” he said, adding that Democrats have so far fought him nearly to a draw after states like Indiana rebuffed Trump’s pressure campaign to take up recasting the state’s congressional lines.
Emboldened by their better-than-expected wins in statewide elections last year, Virginia’s legislative leaders say they want to eliminate as many GOP seats as possible.
“I said in August of 2025 that the maps will be 10-1 and I’m sticking with that today,” Virginia state Senate President Pro Tem L. Louise Lucas recently posted on social media. “Anyone in the congressional delegation who wants a seat needs to campaign for it and not expect a safe seat.”
Virginia’s Democratic House Speaker Don Scott also previously said he’s open to a 10-1 map that favors his party. Scott and Lucas did not respond to requests for comment.
State Sen. Ryan McDougle, the top Republican in Virginia’s upper chamber, criticized Democrats’ redistricting push just five years after voters passed a constitutional amendment that gave the authority to draw legislative and congressional lines to a bipartisan commission of state lawmakers and citizens. And he argued it would mark the permanent end of independent redistricting in the state.
“If this goes through, I find it hard to believe that we will not return to a path of gerrymandering in the future, because if [Democrats] can do it … I'm sure somebody will come up with a situation in the future that is just as egregious and do it back.”
McDougle is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to block Democrats from what it says is “an unconstitutional redistricting amendment.”
“It's an illegal and unconstitutionally passed measure,” said Michael Young, a Virginia-based Republican consultant working to block Democrats’ redistricting push in the state. Previous conservative-led legal challenges to the current redistricting battles in Virginia have so far been unsuccessful.
Virginia’s redistricting effort comes days after Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a special legislative session in April focused on mid-cycle redistricting that some predict could net Republicans between three to five seats. DeSantis said he wants to wait until April so he can get “guidance” from the Supreme Court since the justices are expected to rule later this year in a landmark voting rights case that could prohibit states from considering race when drawing new districts and give Republicans a freer hand to erase minority-majority districts. Some predict that, depending on the ruling, the high court’s decision could help Republicans gain upwards of 19 seats across several states.
“We know we have work to do, and I think we understand the assignment,” said state Sen. Lamont Bagby, who also serves as the chair of the Virginia Democratic Party.
Bagby said his party needs other Democratic-led states to join California, which passed a ballot initiative in November to help thwart Trump’s push to eliminate seats currently held by Democrats in red-leaning states. Already, Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri have changed their maps, though some GOP-led states like Indiana have bucked the president. Bagby said if Democrats stand any chance of taking back the House, they need to fight using new rules of engagement that Republicans are utilizing.
“They've already done enough to force us to put this to voters,” Bagby said. “I don't think anything's changed.”
An unanswered question is how big of a role the incoming Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who will be sworn in on Saturday, will play in the redistricting fight. She bested her GOP gubernatorial challenger Winsome Earle-Sears by 15 points and Republicans lost at least 13 seats in the House of Delegates. A week before those elections, Democrats approved the first step of a multi-step process to amend the state’s constitution to redraw congressional lines before the next Census in 2030.
In an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Monday she expressed a desire to make good on campaign promises of making life more affordable for Virginians, but made no mention of redistricting. During a POLITICO forum in Richmond last month, she stopped short of embracing a redistricting overhaul that other governors have championed, including Gavin Newsom of California.
After the Legislature gavels in on Wednesday, lawmakers are expected to pass another amendment that will pave the way for Spanberger to call a special election in the spring. That election will allow voters to decide whether to give state lawmakers authority to amend the state constitution and approve new congressional maps.
“In light of what Texas, Missouri and now, Florida seem to be doing, it seems like we have a right to be in a position where we can take action if … Virginia voters allow us to do so,” Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Democrat, said in an interview.
Surovell said he does not foresee any major hurdles to a new map passage, though he anticipates there will need to be some reworking of the elections calendar to accommodate new candidate filing deadlines for federal House races once new maps are approved. The current deadline for House candidates is April 2, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
Scott Adams, whose popular comic strip “Dilbert” captured the frustration of beleaguered, white-collar cubicle workers and satirized the ridiculousness of modern office culture until he was abruptly dropped from syndication in 2023 for racist remarks, has died. He was 68.
His first ex-wife, Shelly Miles, announced the death Tuesday on a livestream posted on Adams’ social media accounts. “He’s not with us right anymore,” she said. Adams revealed in 2025 that he had prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. Miles had said he was in hospice care in his Northern California home on Monday.
“I had an amazing life,” the statement said in part. “I gave it everything I had.”
At its height, “Dilbert,” with its mouthless, bespectacled hero in a white short-sleeved shirt and a perpetually curled red tie, appeared in 2,000 newspapers worldwide in at least 70 countries and 25 languages.
Adams was the 1997 recipient of the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award, considered one of the most prestigious awards for cartoonists. That same year, “Dilbert” became the first fictional character to make Time magazine’s list of the most influential Americans.
“We are rooting for him because he is our mouthpiece for the lessons we have accumulated — but are too afraid to express — in our effort to avoid cubicular homicide,” the magazine said.
“Dilbert” strips were routinely photocopied, pinned up, emailed and posted online, a popularity that would spawn bestselling books, merchandise, commercials for Office Depot and an animated TV series, with Daniel Stern voicing Dilbert.
The collapse of ‘Dilbert’ empire
It all collapsed quickly in 2023 when Adams, who was white, repeatedly referred to Black people as members of a “hate group” and said he would no longer “help Black Americans.” He later said he was being hyperbolic, yet continued to defend his stance.
Almost immediately, newspapers dropped “Dilbert” and his distributor, Andrews McMeel Universal, severed ties with the cartoonist. The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro, Massachusetts, decided to keep the “Dilbert” space blank for a while “as a reminder of the racism that pervades our society.” A planned book was scrapped.
“He’s not being canceled. He’s experiencing the consequences of expressing his views,” Bill Holbrook, the creator of the strip “On the Fastrack,” told The Associated Press at the time. “I am in full support with him saying anything he wants to, but then he has to own the consequences of saying them.”
Adams relaunched the same daily comic strip under the name Dilbert Reborn via the video platform Rumble, popular with conservatives and far-right groups. He also hosted a podcast, “Real Coffee,” where talked about various political and social issues.
After Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on ABC was suspended in September in the wake of the host’s comments on the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Adams stood for free speech.
“Would I like some revenge?” Adams said. “Yes. Yes, I would enjoy that. But that doesn’t mean I get it. That doesn’t mean I should pursue it. Doesn’t mean the world’s a better place if it happens.”
How ‘Dilbert’ got its start
Adams, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Hartwick College and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, was working a corporate job at the Pacific Bell telephone company in the 1980s, sharing his cartoons to amuse co-workers. He drew Dilbert as a computer programmer and engineer for a high-tech company and mailed a batch to cartoon syndicators.
“The take on office life was new and on target and insightful,” Sarah Gillespie, who helped discover “Dilbert” in the 1980s at United Media, told The Washington Post. “I looked first for humor and only secondarily for art, which with ‘Dilbert’ was a good thing, as the art is universally acknowledged to be… not great.”
The first “Dilbert” comic strip officially appeared April 16, 1989, long before such workplace comedies as “Office Space” and “The Office.” It portrayed corporate culture as a “Severance”-like, Kafkaesque world of heavy bureaucracy and pointless benchmarks, where employee effort and skill were underappreciated.
The strip would introduce the “Dilbert Principle”: The most ineffective workers will be systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage — management.
“Throughout history, there have always been times when it’s very clear that the managers have all the power and the workers have none,” Adams told Time. “Through ‘Dilbert,’ I would think the balance of power has slightly changed.”
Other strip characters included Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss; Asok, a young, naive intern; Wally, a middle-aged slacker; and Alice, a worker so frustrated that she was prone to frequent outbursts of rage. Then there was Dilbert’s pet, Dogbert, a megalomaniac.
“There’s a certain amount of anger you need to draw ‘Dilbert’ comics,” Adams told the Contra Costa Times in 2009.
In 1993, Adams became the first syndicated cartoonist to include his email address in his strip. That triggered a dialogue between the artist and his fans, giving Adams a fountain of ideas for the strip.
“Dilbert” was also known for generating aphorisms, like “All rumors are true — especially if your boss denies them” and “OK, let’s get this preliminary pre-meeting going.”
“If you can come to peace with the fact that you’re surrounded by idiots, you’ll realize that resistance is futile, your tension will dissipate, and you can sit back and have a good laugh at the expense of others,” Adams wrote in his 1996 book “The Dilbert Principle.”
In one real-life case, an Iowa worker was fired from the Catfish Bend Casino in 2007 for posting a “Dilbert” comic strip on the office bulletin board. In the strip, Adams wrote: “Why does it seem as if most of the decisions in my workplace are made by drunken lemurs?” A judge later sided with the worker; Adams helped find him a new job.
A gradual darkening
While Adams’ career fall seemed swift, careful readers of “Dilbert” saw a gradual darkening of the strip’s tone and its creator’s descent into misogyny, anti-immigration and racism.
He attracted attention for controversial comments, including saying in 2011 that women are treated differently by society for the same reason as children and the mentally disabled — “it’s just easier this way for everyone.” In a blog post from 2006, he questioned the death toll of the Holocaust.
In June 2020, Adams tweeted that when the “Dilbert” TV show ended in 2000 after just two seasons, it was “the third job I lost for being white.” But, at the time, he blamed it on lower viewership and time slot changes.
Adams’ beliefs began bleeding into his strips. In one in 2022, a boss says that traditional performance reviews would be replaced by a “wokeness” score. When an employee complains that could be subjective, the boss said, “That’ll cost you two points off your wokeness score, bigot.”
Adams put a brave face on his fall from grace, tweeting in 2023: “Only the dying leftist Fake News industry canceled me (for out-of-context news of course). Social media and banking unaffected. Personal life improved. Never been more popular in my life. Zero pushback in person. Black and White conservatives solidly supporting me.”
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump remembered Adams as a “Great Influencer.”
“He was a fantastic guy, who liked and respected me when it wasn’t fashionable to do so. He bravely fought a long battle against a terrible disease,” the president posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
Former Rep. Mary Peltola entered the Alaska Senate race on Monday, giving Democrats a major candidate recruitment win and the chance to expand the 2026 Senate map as they look for a route to the majority.
The Alaska Democrat’s decision is a victory for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited Peltola to run against Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). Peltola’s brand as a moderate problem-solver and the state’s ranked-choice voting system open the door for Democrats, but it’s still a steep climb in a state President Donald Trump won by 13 percentage points in 2024.
In her announcement video, Peltola pledged to focus on “fish, family and freedom,” while also calling for term limits and putting “Alaska first.”
“Systemic change is the only way to bring down grocery costs, save our fisheries, lower energy prices and build new housing Alaskans can afford,” Peltola said. “It’s about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska First and, really, America First looks like.”
Peltola’s campaign creates another offensive opportunity in play for Democrats, who must flip four seats in order to retake the majority next fall. The odds are long, but Democrats have become increasingly bullish about their chances since their victories in last year’s elections. Peltola carved a moderate profile during her time in Congress, occasionally voting with Republicans on energy and immigration-related legislation.
Even so, Peltola’s decision to run Alaska presents tough sledding for any Democrat. Peltola’s 2022 wins came in large part because of a bitterly divided GOP field, and besides her victories that year, Democrats have won just one other federal race in Alaska in the last half-century.
Peltola was first elected in a September 2022 special election to replace Rep. Don Young, who served 49 years in the House and died while in office. She cited Young and former Sen. Ted Stevens, both Republicans, in her Senate announcement, who Peltola said “ignored Lower 48 partisanship to fight for things like public media and disaster relief because Alaska depends on them.”
In November 2022, Peltola won a full term, beating a divided Republican field that featured former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich. But in 2024, Peltola narrowly lost in a rematch with Begich, when the Republican Party consolidated behind him. She had also been mulling a run for governor this year, making her decision to go for the Senate a big win for Washington Democrats.
Democrats have an easier time winning if Republicans fracture between candidates in a state where ranked-choice voting means every candidate faces off against each other in the first round of voting, and Sullivan has not drawn any serious GOP challengers.
Peltola will also be without a crucial bipartisan supporter from her past races. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) immediately endorsed Sullivan on Monday, after crossing party lines to endorse Peltola in both 2022 and 2024.“We've had a pretty solid team here in the Senate for the past 12 years, so we want to figure out how we're going to keep in the majority,” she told Alaska Public Media. “And Dan delivers that.”
Murkowski and Peltola go way back—they served together in the Alaska legislature starting in the late 1990s, and Peltola backed Murkowski in her 2010 write-in election general victory after she lost the GOP primary. But Murkowski and Sullivan have had a strong working relationship—she worked hard to help elect him in 2014, and he backed her in her race against a Trump-backed GOP challenger in 2022.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee jumped on Peltola's decision immediately, popping a digital ad accusing her of wanting to "make Alaska last again" by allowing "men in women's sports" and "open borders." It also attacked her for her support of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris."After voters rejected Mary Peltola's record pushing radical transgender policies and protecting Joe Biden's relentless attacks on Alaska energy, she immediately cashed out to lobby for special interests," NRSC spokesman Nick Puglia said in a statement. "Voters trust Dan Sullivan to keep fighting for the Alaskan comeback and will reject Peltola again."
Peltola was the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, and should she win this race would be the first to serve in the Senate.
Sen. John Cornyn raised $7 million during the fourth quarter of his reelection campaign — the highest total of his career as the Republican fights a bitter primary challenge.
The fundraising report, shared first with POLITICO, shows Cornyn has more than $15 million in cash on hand, including money raised through his two joint fundraising committees. It represents more than twice as much as he raised in the third quarter of 2025.
The four-term incumbent is up against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt. Polls show a tight race between Paxton and Cornyn, with Hunt in third, ahead of the early March primary.
Cornyn has poured money into attacking Paxton, a conservative firebrand who has wide backing from the MAGA base in Texas but has significant political and personal baggage. Paxton has faced multiple state and federal investigations and his wife filed for divorce last summer.
“Texans understand that President Trump’s legislative agenda and the Senate Republican majority are at risk unless Sen. Cornyn is the nominee,” said Andy Hemming, Cornyn’s campaign manager, in a statement. “We are executing our plan to win this race, and we will win.”
Paxton and Hunt have not yet released their own latest fundraising hauls. The race is expected to go to a runoff in late May.
Donald Trump has handed Marco Rubio the keys to Venezuela. It could make or break the secretary of State should he run for president in 2028.
Rubio has quickly emerged as the administration’s point person on Venezuela, the man standing behind the president as he declared “we’re going to run the country.” Rubio plastered his face across the Sunday news shows to explain the operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, then went on in the days after to defend it in briefings to Congress.
Photoshopped memes are now circulating of Rubio sporting a sash with the national colors of Venezuela, like those the country’s presidents wear. Rubio is in on the joke, taking to X on Thursday to humorously knock down “rumors” that he was “a candidate for the currently vacant HC and GM positions with the Miami Dolphins.”
But it’s the American presidency that could be at stake.
“Venezuela could make him president — or ensure that he never is,” said Mark McKinnon, a longtime political adviser and former aide to President George W. Bush.
POLITICO reported in November that Rubio privately had said that he’d back JD Vance for president if he runs in 2028, which Rubio publicly confirmed to Vanity Fair.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told Vanity Fair, a line his aides pointed POLITICO to when asked for comment for this story.
“He’s quietly stacking internal GOP capital, from what I hear from people in my circles within the Republican Party,” said Buzz Jacobs, senior adviser on Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “As of today, could Marco Rubio enter the presidential race and be very competitive, even against the vice president? I think the answer is undeniably yes.”
Rubio has spent much of his career railing against Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship, a close ally of the regime in Cuba, his parents’ homeland.
“Their experience with the evils of socialism and communism is in his DNA,” said Cesar Conda, Rubio’s first Senate chief of staff. “It guides his world view.”
Rubio ran against Trump for the presidency in 2016; he called Trump a “con artist.” But since Trump won and effectively commandeered the Republican Party, Rubio has adjusted many of his policy positions and his rhetoric. He has surrounded himself with America First staffers and advisers who help push forward the Trump administration's muscular foreign policy.
Trump has often cozied up to autocrats, but he has never liked Maduro. In recent days, he made it clear he sees Venezuela as a source of oil and other natural resources for the U.S. to exploit. Rubio has long painted Maduro as a thug who thwarted democracy.
For much of this year, both men pushed the idea that Maduro had to be dealt with, alleging he led a drug cartel killing Americans with its products. They got their wish: Maduro is now in U.S. custody in New York.
But the South American country’s fate is far from clear. Many of Maduro’s cronies remain in power, even though Trump insists that they will do what the U.S. demands. Trump told the New York Times this week that the U.S. could be running Venezuela for years.
“I understand that in this cycle and society we now live in, everyone wants instant outcomes. They want it to happen overnight,” Rubio told reporters after briefing the Senate Wednesday. “It's not going to work that way.”
Members of Congress were not notified of the Maduro operation in advance, and many are fuming about what they say is a continued lack of transparency.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Rubio’s briefing “raised more questions than it answered.”
“It's time to let the public in on this, and let the public see what's at stake,” said Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Venezuela is unlikely to be a quick or easy fix. The country is roughly twice the size of California, with a shattered economy, a varied landscape, and many armed groups in a population of 30 million. The Maduro cronies left behind have their own internal rivalries, and some control military forces.
Despite Trump and Rubio’s warnings to the remaining members of the regime to fall in line and capitulate to U.S. demands, it’s possible the Venezuelan state could collapse.
And it may not end with Venezuela: Rubio and Trump are warning other countries to get in line with what the U.S. wants from them, including Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.
“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned, at least a little bit,” Rubio said in a Saturday press conference just hours after the Venezuela operation.
The potential chaos ahead could leave Rubio on the outs with key GOP voting blocs. Those include anti-interventionist conservatives, who remain wary of Rubio’s neoconservative instincts, and Republican Latino voters, especially in Florida, some who desperately want regime change in the nations their families fled and others who are frustrated by the region’s instability.
Then, of course, there’s the general public, a good chunk of whom want the U.S. to avoid another repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the raid, 72 percent of Americans are concerned the U.S. will get “too involved” in Venezuela.
As Rubio has become the face of the effort, Vance, a potential rival in 2028, has largely kept away from it. He was not at the makeshift Mar-a-Lago situation room while the raid unfolded on Saturday, a fact his spokesperson attributed to concern “a late-night motorcade movement … may tip off the Venezuelans.” Vance was “deeply integrated in the process and planning of the Venezuela strikes and Maduro’s arrest,” the spokesperson said.
Rubio also has to consider some practical matters: If he wants to run for president, he will need to raise money, build a campaign infrastructure and take all the other steps needed before the GOP primary kicks into full gear.
That's especially difficult to do while secretary of State, a position that traditionally has stayed away from the partisan domestic scene. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been out of the Obama administration for more than a year before she publicly moved toward a presidential campaign.
Rubio would likely have to leave the administration after another year or so to have time for all the logistics, as jostling for the 2028 presidential campaign will kick off by early next year.
Most U.S. presidential elections don’t hinge on foreign policy, though candidates from John McCain back to Hubert Humphrey have been damaged by their party’s foreign adventurism. Still, the first year of Trump’s second term has been surprisingly heavy on foreign policy — and any Republican running in 2028 will likely have to grapple with the results of Trump’s bold international moves.
“The MAGA base is very loyal to Trump. It will watch if people are disrespectful to him,” said Alex Gray, a former National Security Council official during the first Trump administration.
There are also factions of the GOP — including members of the Cuban and Venezuelan diasporas — who will stand by hardline moves against the regimes there no matter what the cost. Mike Madrid, a GOP strategist, said he has heard from many Latino Republicans who are impressed by how much Trump relies on Rubio. Whenever Trump needs “an adult in the room, he seems to look towards Marco’s leadership,” Madrid said.
But Madrid and other party strategists aren’t about to start taking bets on the GOP primary yet. After all, the situation in Venezuela is just one of multiple Trump foreign policy adventures that could turn into quagmires.
For Rubio in particular, “what may look like the president knighting him as a sort of competent successor may actually, in fact, be him carrying all the weight of the unpopular actions of the president in a couple of years,” Madrid said. “There's a greater likelihood of that than not.”
Donald Trump said Thursday a Republican senator who is crucial to the party’s chances of keeping the Senate this year should “never be elected to office again.” Susan Collins has seen it before.
Trump issued the Truth Social broadside against the longtime Maine senator and four other Republicans on Thursday after they voted with Democrats to rein in his powers to carry out future military actions against Venezuela, a sharp rebuke of the White House’s unilateral outlook following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
The president’s online salvo comes as the Maine senator navigates a tough reelection in a blue state that Trump lost by 7 points in 2024. Her bid will rely on a coalition that includes independents and Democrats, many of whom have backed her in the past because of her breaks from Trump and other GOP leaders. But she also needs to turn out Trump’s MAGA base in a year he won’t be on the ticket to juice turnout — a tougher challenge if they’re actively feuding.
Collins told reporters after Trump’s post that she guessed Trump “would prefer to have Gov. Mills or somebody else with whom he's not had a great relationship” than her — alluding to a confrontation between Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Trump when the governor visited the White House last year. Mills, who is now running to challenge Collins, told Trump she would sue to fight his administration’s actions to restrict transgender youth from sports.
Trump’s attack on Collins was met with laughs from Democrats who said that they, too, would like to see Collins never elected again. She is their top target on a tough Senate map, and if they have any hopes of flipping the upper chamber they need to defeat the shrewd senator.
Mills painted the vote as one of election-year political expediency.
“Susan never does the right or hard thing the first time when it’s needed most — only when it serves her politically. She is always a day late and a dollar short,” Mills said in a statement to POLITICO. “To the President, I say ‘See you in the Senate!’ Wait until you see what I've got in store for your MAGA agenda.”
The campaign of Graham Platner, the other prominent Democrat challenging Collins, did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s anger at fellow Republicans has been enough to drive others from office. There is no indication so far the White House is serious about finding a primary challenger to Collins, and they are quickly running out of time if they were to try to do so. But any sustained animosity from Trump toward Collins could still spell trouble for her reelection.
A source close to the Trump administrations granted anonymity to speak candidly told POLITICO that the general thinking is Republicans will hold the Senate with or without Collins, but didn’t predict a sustained campaign against her: “Like a lot with the president, this is a moment in time, and what is said today does not necessarily hold for tomorrow.”
This is far from the first time Trump has gone after Collins. And criticism from the president ahead of her last reelection bid in 2020 was not enough to tank her.
“Trump has caused no end of problems for Sen. Collins,” said Mary Small, a Republican former state lawmaker in Maine and Collins ally. “I think she'd be in the 70th percentile right now of approval rating if we didn't have Donald Trump as president. So she's had to walk a very cautious line.”
Still, blowback from voters loyal to Trump in Maine might be offset by independents and Democrats who appreciate Collins setting her own path, Small said.
“Republicans have never been able to elect someone just on their own,” she said. “She has to have independents support her to get elected, and Democrats.”
Some who’ve been in similar spots say that’s not so easy to manage.
Mike Coffman, the Aurora, Colorado mayor and former five-term GOP congressman, empathized with Collins’ tricky electoral position. Coffman kept Trump at arm’s length during his 2018 reelection bid in hopes of siphoning Democrat support in his swing district, but it wasn’t enough: He lost that race to Democratic Rep. Jason Crow by 11 points in a state that voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton two years prior.
“That's very hard to navigate,” Coffman said of Collins’ relationship to the president. “Because when you distance yourself from Trump you might pick up some support in the middle but you're going to lose the hardcore Trump supporters whose loyalty is to Trump and not to the Republican Party."
In Trump’s first term, Collins broke with Senate Republicans to help sink the attempted Affordable Care Act repeal. Then, weeks before the 2020 election — the toughest reelect campaign of her career — Trump blasted her for not supporting his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. (Collins argued the winner of the 2020 presidential election should get to appoint a new justice.)
Collins still sailed to victory a few weeks later, winning 52 percent of the vote statewide while Trump won just 44 percent.
Democrats are hopeful that the 2026 midterms won’t let her replicate that success. Collins has not had to run for reelection in a midterm with a Republican president since 2002. Trump’s approval rating was 19 points underwater in a Maine poll last month, while Collins didn’t fare much better, at 17 points underwater. That same poll found her tied with both Mills and Platner in hypothetical general election matchups.
When Collins voted in 2021 to convict Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial, she avoided some of the blowback that other GOP senators encountered: Maine Republicans opted not to censure her. No primary challengers have emerged ahead of her 2026 run, with some in the state acknowledging that any alternative to Collins was far more likely to be a Democrat than another Republican.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from criticizing Collins. Just last summer, he posted on Truth Social that Republicans should typically vote “the exact opposite” of the Maine senator, while White House officials privately discussed who they might want to replace her if she opted not to run again.
Former GOP Sen. Mark Kirk, who distanced himself from Trump before losing a Senate race in blue-leaning Illinois in 2016, said he thinks Collins’ longtime popularity in the state will outweigh any attacks from the president. He recalled joking with Collins during a congressional delegation trip overseas about her winning one of her Senate primaries by a “North Korean percentage.”
“Susan Collins has reached that state of nirvana that all of us in the Senate want to reach, to be synonymous with her state,” Kirk said.
“People will say ‘Well, if Donald Trump’s against her, then I’m gonna vote for her,” he added. “My guess is on edge, he will have actually helped her with this.”
Alex Gangitano contributed reporting to this report.
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.
NEW YORK — Just as Democrats are finding their footing by focusing on affordability, their differences on Israel are threatening to tear them apart.
Spurred by polling that shows support for the Jewish state slipping among voters nationally, congressional challengers are lining up across the country to take on stalwart Israel supporters in an attempt to energize left-leaning voters. But the deluge of Democratic primaries being waged in some part over this issue also threatens to exhaust resources, muddy the party’s messaging and bloody candidates ahead of the general election.
Pro-Israel Democrats believe supporters should mobilize with urgency to confront this crop of challengers.
“The main, centrist Democratic Party as a whole is doing a terrible job managing this whole process,” said Mark Botnick, a former advisor to ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed more than $10 million to efforts opposing Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign. “That’s not to say the Israeli government has made it easy for them. It’s fine for someone to be against their policies, but it’s very different to be against the existence of the Jewish state, which in my eyes is antisemitism. The party has done an abysmal job of getting up and saying that.”
Next year’s midterms are pivotal: Democrats locked out of power in Washington need only net three House seats and four in the Senate — a tougher task — in order to seize control over either chamber.
Pro-Israel incumbents are facing challenges in New Jersey and New York, while primary battles in Michigan and Illinois are also being prepped by pro-Palestinian candidates. The coming contests have put Democrats on edge. As they try to win back power in the closely divided House, they are desperate to avoid messy primary races.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mobilizing too — months before the first vote is cast — to identify potential incumbents who need shoring up as the primary fields take shape.
“Our 6 million grassroots members understand the stakes in the upcoming midterms, and that is why they are deeply motivated and engaged to help elect pro-Israel candidates and defeat detractors,” said AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann.
The Democratic Majority For Israel’s political action committee got an early jump on the cycle as well — so far endorsing 26 Democratic House incumbents across the country, an initial slate that includes lawmakers in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The group’s board chair, Brian Romick, called it a “critical moment for the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Primary bids fueled by opposition to Israel are complicating Democrats’ path to victory next year, despite signs of increasingly favorable political terrain following wins in Georgia, Virginia and New Jersey. The efforts underscore the yawning chasm facing Democrats over Israel more than two years since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and a devastating war in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians. Jewish Democrats are alarmed by what they consider open antisemitism among far-left candidates encouraged by Mamdani’s success in the New York City mayoral race.
AIPAC-backed Rep. Rob Menendez in New Jersey appears likely to draw a challenge from Mussab Ali, a former local school board president with a strong social media following. Ali, like Mamdani, began criticizing Israel within weeks of the Oct. 7 attacks — early compared to most people with hopes of running for office.
Michigan’s open Democratic Senate primary offers another microcosm of the party’s evolving dynamics on the issue. The three-way brawl pits a sitting representative backed by the pro-Israel lobby against a former booster of the “uncommitted” movement to pressure a Gaza ceasefire and a progressive state lawmaker who’s shifted away from Israel.
The Middle East crisis is also reshaping the contours of at least two House Democratic primaries in Illinois — home to large Jewish, Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. Statewide the tensions are apparent as well in the U.S. Senate contest to replace retiring Democrat Dick Durbin.
And in New York City, home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, left-leaning challengers backed by the Democratic Socialists of America are eager to unseat Israel-supporting incumbent Reps. Dan Goldman, Grace Meng, Ritchie Torres and Adriano Espaillat.
That includes a Mamdani-endorsed challenge to Goldman by former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — a primary that promises to be a marquee intraparty fight over the issue.
If successful, candidates willing to criticize Israel stand to remake a Democratic Party that has historically backed the Jewish state since its 1948 founding — a path some party officials acknowledge already may be too difficult to alter after the war isolated the country. The challenges by Israel critics, too, highlight growing Muslim populations and commensurate political strength in pockets around the country.
Foreign affairs has divided Democrats before. Opposition to the war in Iraq helped Barack Obama stand out as a state senator in Illinois, while higher-profile pro-war Democrats — like Hillary Clinton — saw their electoral fortunes sink when support for the war became a disqualifying issue among Democrats.
Israel — and increasing hostility from the left toward it — has conjured deep-seated emotions among Democrats watching the situation unfold with disbelief. Taken together, there’s a pervasive worry among Jewish political leaders that shifting political winds in the United States will have long-term consequences for Israel — and Jews — in the decades to come.
“The whole democratic socialist movement has become very anti-Israel, which I don’t understand at all,” said David Weprin, a Queens state lawmaker. “I grew up with Israel being a very progressive country, a democratic country, one that tolerates everyone. It’s definitely something that I find disturbing.”
Democrats’ divisions over Gaza are perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in Michigan, where disparate views of Israel continue to roil state politics and where Democrats are grappling with how to re-engage Arab American voters who shifted toward Trump last year.
In Michigan’s marquee Democratic Senate primary, DMFI PAC endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s viewed as the establishment pick and who represents a substantial Jewish population. Stevens described herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat” in accepting DMFI’s support. She also said she’d fight in the Senate to “support Israel’s security [and] ensure the ceasefire holds in Gaza.” AIPAC’s PAC, which has funneled millions toward Stevens in the past, has yet to issue an endorsement this cycle but features her prominently on its website.
Her opponents have taken far more critical stances toward Israel.
Abdul El-Sayed, a past gubernatorial hopeful who backed the “uncommitted” movement during the 2024 presidential primary but later endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, has described Gaza as a Rorschach test for Democrats’ values. He has repeatedly criticized Israel’s military actions and the U.S. dollars funding them — and has used those stances to draw contrasts with rivals.
El-Sayed was the first in the race to call the conflict in Gaza a genocide, a stance state Sen. Mallory McMorrow later adopted. McMorrow also joined El-Sayed in rejecting support from AIPAC. And both said they would have voted in favor of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders blocking weapons sales to Israel — legislation Stevens said she would have voted against.
McMorrow, whose husband is Jewish and whose daughter was the target of death threats after the Oct. 7 attacks, has shifted on Israel in a way that reflects the broader transformation occurring within the Democratic Party. She initially declined to call the war a genocide, but changed her stance in October after a September United Nations report claiming Israel had committed one.
El-Sayed has indirectly criticized McMorrow for being a late adopter of his positions as the two progressives compete for the same slice of voters, including younger voters for whom Gaza remains an animating issue.
The primary will also provide an early test of whether Michigan Democrats have been able to reengage Muslim voters, like those in Dearborn who have historically backed Democrats but who split their tickets last year between Trump and Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
“The politics around Israel-Palestine have changed dramatically over the last few years,” said a Democratic strategist who’s worked on Michigan races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Senate primary's dynamics. “For 2026 and beyond, it’s less about candidates reacting and more about what they believe on the issue as a matter of core values. Just claiming to support a two-state solution isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
Tensions over Israel are also simmering in a pair of Illinois House races and the U.S. Senate contest.
The House seats are currently held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is retiring, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Durbin.
State Sen. Laura Fine, one of the top candidates vying for Schakowsky’s seat, has been the beneficiary of a supportive AIPAC email — even though the organization has yet to endorse or donate to her campaign directly. Other high-profile candidates among the 17 in the Democratic primary include the left-leaning suburban Mayor Daniel Biss and social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh. Biss is Jewish, and Abughazaleh is Palestinian-American.
The district spans Chicago and Evanston — home to Northwestern University — and includes suburban communities with significant Jewish, Muslim and Arab populations.
In the district now held by Krishnamoorthi, candidates Junaid Ahmed and Yasmeen Bankole have both made Gaza a campaign priority and are running against former Rep. Melissa Bean, who hasn’t been endorsed by AIPAC but is viewed as a more moderate candidate.
In New Jersey, Menendez is attempting to strike a balance in a district that has significant Arab and Jewish voters. While he supports Israel, he has also called for a two-state solution and has chastised colleagues for Islamophobia, including “vile rhetoric” directed at Mamdani.
“My record of delivering for all of our residents and standing up to the Trump Administration speaks for itself. The same is true for my approach to the Middle East, from advocating for the release of the hostages, to surging humanitarian aid to Gaza, to working towards a lasting and durable peace for the region,” he said in a text message. “I look forward to having that conversation and will forcefully push back on any attempt to misrepresent my record.”
As support for Israel has weakened, Menendez’s likely challenger Ali believes pro-Israel politics can be disqualifying for incumbent Democrats.
“Eventually, politicians who think that they can hide behind talking points will be outed,” Ali said. “You’re seeing that right now with a bunch of people challenging AIPAC’s influence.”
Mamdani’s meteoric rise has fueled far-left challenges to incumbent Democrats across the Big Apple. Several Democrats have expressed interest in running against pro-Israel Democrat Dan Goldman. In the Bronx, former Democratic Committee Vice Chair Michael Blake has predicated his campaign on running against Torres’ stridently pro-Israel views.
The dynamic facing the party is a reversal from the 2024 cycle, when moderate Democrats backed by millions of dollars in support from AIPAC ran to oust anti-Israel lawmakers. The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent more than $11 million on races across the country during the 2024 election as well, with 80 percent of its endorsed candidates winning their races.
In New York City's suburbs, Rep. George Latimer successfully defeated incumbent Democrat Jamaal Bowman after a bitterly fought race featuring plenty of rhetoric about Israel.
Latimer, who was among the incumbents recently endorsed by DMFI, said in an interview he expects another left-flank primary challenge next year, driven in part by opposition to Israel. Prominent Jewish leaders in New York, though, are skeptical the posture makes much sense when most voters are focused on pocketbook concerns — an issue effectively leveraged by Mamdani.
“Everybody in America wants to be Zohran Mamdani, but there’s only one Zohran Mamdani,” said David Greenfield, a former city councilmember and head of The Met Council, a Jewish charity. “The reason he won is not because of Israel, he won because of affordability.”
Republicans want a big Supreme Court redistricting win. They’re losing hope it will help them in the 2026 midterms.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais could weaken the Voting Rights Act and open the door to redrawing congressional maps, particularly across the South. Court watchers expect at least a partial win for conservatives that could let the GOP draw more seats for themselves by erasing Black- and Hispanic-majority districts.
But while that decision could theoretically come as soon as when the court returns on Friday, many experts think the case is more likely to be resolved with the flurry of decisions the court typically releases in late June.
The window of opportunity for new maps going into place before this November’s elections is rapidly closing, as states would need ample time to change deadlines, shift election calendars, vet signatures and print and distribute ballots. And the longer it takes for the Supreme Court to issue a ruling, the harder it will be for state-level Republicans to throw their maps out and draw new ones before this fall’s elections.
“It can get very complicated and very sticky, and that is not fast work,” said Tammy Patrick, the chief programs officer for The Election Center, a nonpartisan consulting firm that works with state and local election officials. “That is time-consuming, very methodical and detail-oriented work that needs to have sufficient time.”
Some state-level Republicans have already given up hope. In Louisiana, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, some state officials believe it's already too late and that the state will have to use its current map in its 2026 elections regardless of the Court’s decision, as the candidate qualifying period opens next month. Louisiana Republicans pushed back its 2026 primary election dates from April to May during a special session late last year, in hopes the Court would rule by the end of 2025 and give them time to install a new map. But the shift still wouldn’t be late enough for a late-term SCOTUS ruling.
Some national Republicans, however, say there's plenty of time to take on a redraw before November, arguing the Legislature can move the deadlines in order to redraw before elections are underway.
At the center of the Supreme Court case is Section 2 of the VRA, a provision that broadly outlaws discrimination in elections on the basis of race and has led to the creation of majority-minority districts, where Black, Latino or Asian voters make up a majority of the population.
Republicans have long argued such districts violate the Constitution and benefit Democrats. Democrats warn that the elimination of seats drawn to satisfy Section 2 could decimate minority representation in Congress and allow lawmakers to redraw lines in such a way to eliminate as many as 19 Democrat-held, majority-minority districts, many in the South.
Democrats in Blue states could also take advantage of a Section 2 change and redraw, but the party’s options are more limited, both because of geographic limitations and pressure from civil rights and minority groups.
But even as many legal experts expect the court to rule in a way that weakens the VRA, the case’s prominence has led many watchers to predict an end of term ruling in June. At that point, many states across the country will have already held primary contests and there will be no room to undertake redistricting.
“If it's in any way a big deal, we're not going to get that decision before June,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola Law School who worked in the Biden White House as an adviser on democracy and voting rights. “It's really hard for me to see a decision that does anything significant that wouldn't occasion a major dissent, and it's really hard for me to see that dissent not taking a fairly long time in the back-and-forth.”
Many southern states where Republicans stand the most to gain have early primaries — seven of the 11 states that belonged to the Confederacy have primaries scheduled before or on May 19 — making the timing even tougher for the GOP.
That doesn’t mean that lawmakers are done gerrymandering before the 2026 election.
At least three southern states — Florida, Kentucky and Virginia — are eyeing redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms, and lawmakers seem emboldened to attempt it with or without a Supreme Court ruling. In Florida, state House Republicans hope to tackle the issue during the legislative session that started this month, while Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special session in late April, in an effort to wait as “long as feasible” for a Supreme Court decision. And in Kentucky, some Republican lawmakers are weighing a redraw, even though the map would likely be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
But other southern states reliant on a weakened VRA to redraw, like South Carolina and Alabama, may be out of luck. Republicans in the Palmetto State — including Rep. Ralph Norman, who is running for governor — are pushing the legislature to draw out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn. But the state’s candidate filing deadline looms in late March.
Pushing back the filing deadline further in hopes for a Supreme Court decision would scramble the primary calendar and put elections officials in a bind.
“Anytime a state decides to redistrict, it creates a domino effect of administrative issues that need to be addressed,” said David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Election officials and voters are able to manage that when it's once every 10 years. When it becomes once every two years, it might get very, very difficult for that to be managed.”
Utah got a taste of the challenge of shuffling deadlines late last year after a district judge installed a new congressional map in November. The state’s top election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, immediately announced her office would move forward with the new map, even as Republican lawmakers fumed and vowed to fight it. “There will likely be an emergency appeal,” she noted on X, “but the process of finalizing new boundary details will take weeks of meticulous work on the part of state and county officials.”
The state’s Republican-controlled legislature went forward with an appeal — which is unrelated to the VRA — after it pushed back the candidate filing deadline by two months for congressional hopefuls during a special session last month, offering itself a window for potential judicial action. Should the legislature — which meets for its scheduled session this month — again adjust the electoral calendar, it would send elections officials statewide into a scramble.
“The questions we would be asking are, you know, how much time do we have to program our ballot? What are the new dates? What would we communicate with voters?” said Nikila Venugopal, the Salt Lake County chief deputy clerk. “We haven't heard any plans to do so at this point, and we're moving forward with the assumption that the elections will be held as planned.”
House Democrats’ biggest outside allies have set a new fundraising record for the organizations that will help boost the party ahead of the 2026 midterms.
House Majority PAC, House Democrats’ main super PAC, and its associated nonprofit raised a combined $121 million in 2025, more than they have in any previous non-election year dating back to HMP's 2011 founding.
The pair of groups raised a combined $81 million in the final six months of 2025, doubling its haul during the first six months of the year — a sign of donors’ growing optimism for the party tied to its overperformance in a slate of off-year elections. The numbers were first shared with POLITICO.
“As Democrats continue to expand the map and build momentum for the 2026 midterms, we could not be more excited to announce our record-breaking fundraising in 2025,” said House Majority PAC President Mike Smith. “We look forward to taking back the House in 2026.”
For comparison, House Majority PAC raised $72 million for the entire 2018 election cycle. The group didn’t launch its affiliated nonprofit until 2019. In 2023, the groups raised a combined $76 million.
House Majority PAC, closely aligned with House Democratic leadership, is often the biggest outside spender on the left in House races. Raising cash can help fuel candidates across the congressional map, but it's not the only decisive factor in a cycle reshaped by aggressive redistricting across the country. Nonetheless, Democrats are increasingly bullish about their chances, pointing to their recent double-digit victories in last fall's off-year elections.
It's also not clear if Democrats will hold a cash advantage in outside spending. Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC affiliated with Republican House leadership, has not yet released its fundraising totals. CLF and its affiliated nonprofit, American Action Network, outraised its Democratic counterparts over the first six months of 2025, $60 million to $40 million.
House Majority PAC did not release its cash on hand totals, so it’s not clear how much they have in the bank to spend on campaigns in 2026. The super PAC will file its next disclosure on Jan. 31, but its nonprofit will not file until late 2026.
George Conway wants to impeach President Donald Trump. He may soon get a vote to do so.
The attorney, pundit and staunch anti-Trump critic formally launched his bid for a Manhattan House seat today and is framing his run around an all-encompassing effort to oppose the president.
The rollout includes a 2-minute video that features images of Jan. 6, a woman being led away by immigration enforcement officers and photos of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Vladimir Putin. In the video, Conway calls Trump “mendacious,” “corrupt” and “criminal.”
He pledges to “not be an ordinary member of Congress” given the extraordinary political moment.
In an interview with POLITICO, he went even further, saying that Trump’s actions in Venezuela — including the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro to face criminal charges in the U.S. — are among the impeachable crimes he’s committed.
“He completely disregarded the War Powers Act,” Conway said. “He’s abusing his power as commander-in-chief. Don’t get me wrong, Maduro is a bad guy and he’s probably guilty of all the crimes he’s been charged with in the Southern District of New York. But President Trump is doing this without consultation to Congress.”
The White House did not return a message seeking comment.
Conway is a first-time candidate who only recently registered as a Democrat ahead of filing to run in the deep blue district being vacated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler. A former Republican, Conway left the GOP in protest during Trump’s first term.
He'll face a large field of Democratic contenders, including state Assemblymember Alex Borres, New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher, former Nadler aide and state Assemblymember Micah Lasher and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg.
The seat is unlikely to be competitive in the November election, making the winner of the Democratic primary Nadler’s likely successor
Conway’s positioned himself as a forceful Trump antagonist — the kind of aggressive posture that’s popular with Democrats eager for a sharp-edged approach to take on the president. Conway and his wife Kellyanne, a former Trump adviser, announced in 2023 they would divorce.
His House campaign will test the limits of how much Democratic voters want to express their disdain for the president. Many candidates this year are placing a focus on affordability — a buzzy political issue that Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode to success in their campaigns.
Yet Conway believes voters’ concerns all flow from one source: Trump.
“The politics of this aren’t divided in my view between talking about Trump and holding Trump accountable and then all the kitchen table issues,” he said. “They’re not separate.”
Conway will still have to persuade Democratic primary voters, though. His recent conversion to the Democratic Party will likely come under scrutiny. But he insisted his ties to the district are strong — adding that his kids were born in the city and that he now lives there.
“I made my life here,” he said. “This district has been the center of my life since I got out of law school.”
A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO's New York Playbook. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to New York Playbook.
Democrats hoping to win higher office this year are seizing on President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela to push a twist on one of his campaign promises: America first.
Across the country, candidates and lawmakers are slamming Trump’s decision to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and are using the moment to hammer their domestic affordability message.
“Ohioans are facing higher costs across the board and are desperate for leadership that will help deliver relief,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running to reclaim his seat, said on X. “We should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans – not Caracas.”
“The problem Trump was already having was that he looked like he was focused on everything other than what matters in people's daily life,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “And now he’s just supercharged that.”
Trump won in 2024 largely by running on affordability, and his less interventionist “America First” approach helped him win over more isolationist voters who had been alienated by the neoconservative approach of the Republican Party in the Iraq War era. But continuing economic uncertainty and persistent inflation, combined with his second-term shift towards a more aggressive foreign policy approach, threaten to hurt the president and his party at the ballot box.
Polling shows that cost of living will remain top of voters’ minds before November, something that Ferguson said “transcends every subgroup.”
In some of the party’s most competitive 2026 midterm primaries, Democrats are coalescing around messaging on Venezuela.
In Michigan, where the war in Gaza drew clear fissures between Democratic opponents, all three candidates sang the same domestically-focused tune.
“Americans have made themselves crystal clear: they don’t want to risk sliding into another costly war abroad. Families are struggling to buy groceries. People are skipping doctor's visits because they can't pay for healthcare,” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said in a statement.
“Taking over another country while Americans can't afford their rent and groceries is unacceptable,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
The issue isn’t just being used by midterm hopefuls. Potential Democratic 2028 candidates are bringing affordability to the forefront of their Venezuela messaging.
“As of this week, millions of Americans are now paying thousands more for health insurance,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday. “If the President and Congressional GOP think Washington has the capacity to ‘run’ Venezuela right now, why won't they fix the insurance cost crisis they've created here at home?”
Longtime Miami-based Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert thinks his party is right to remind voters of what they see as failures in Trump’s domestic agenda as he sets his sights abroad, including on cost of living issues — as long as that messaging doesn’t overshadow a cogent perspective on how they would approach relations with Venezuela. South Florida is home to one of the biggest Venezuelan communities in the country, which has been shaken by Trump’s recent revocation of Temporary Protected Status for those fleeing Maduro’s regime.
“Democrats need to also appreciate that many things can be true. It's not a single issue, especially in this moment, and we have to talk about it in a way where you can join Venezuelans in speaking up that Maduro being gone is a victory for Venezuelans,” Ulvert said.
Some Democrats who served in foreign wars have also chosen to center a critique of American interventionism in addition to joining in on the party’s pivot back to cost of living.
Graham Platner, a veteran of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan who is now running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, has seized on Trump’s vague suggestions that the U.S. will run Venezuela following Maduro’s forced ouster.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego — an Iraq War veteran — has been outspoken on the American military action in Venezuela, flooding social media and cable news with broadsides aimed at Trump. He expressed a similar frustration: “I fought in some of the hardest battles of the Iraq War. Saw my brothers die, saw civilians being caught in the crossfire all for an unjustified war. No matter the outcome we are in the wrong for starting this war in Venezuela.”
Republicans, however, are backing Trump and praising the action he took against Maduro.
“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country — crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and today he learned what accountability looks like,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X the day the operation became public.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz dropped out of the Minnesota governor’s race on Monday, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is considering jumping in to replace him.
Walz’s decision to not seek a historic third term upends the race and shocked the Minnesota political world. The two-term governor, who served as the Democrats’ 2024 vice presidential nominee, was facing a potentially tough reelection fight as Republicans sought to tie him to a federal probe into a massive welfare fraud scandal in the state.
Walz acknowledged that the scandal played a role in his choice.
“Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” he said in a Monday statement.
Dozens of people have been charged with felonies for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Covid-era government programs intended to help feed children. Republicans were eager to tie Walz to the scheme, though he is not accused of any wrongdoing.
“Many Democrats don't want him to run, including me,” said one senior Minnesota Democratic lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “He is certainly not corrupt, but he has not handled the fraud problem well and we worry about his electability.”
Walz met with Klobuchar on Sunday to discuss the campaign, according to two people familiar with the meeting. A person close to Klobuchar, granted anonymity to describe the senator’s private thinking, said the Minnesota senator is receiving encouragement to run and she's seriously considering it but has not decided on her plans. That development might be a boon to Democrats in the competitive state, as she has run well ahead of others in her party — including Walz — in past statewide campaigns.
Republicans face a crowded primary for governor, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, state Rep. Kristin Robbins and Minneapolis attorney Chris Madel.
The Republican Governors’ Association crowed over Walz’s exit, adding in a statement on Monday: “After presiding over one of the biggest fraud scandals in history it’s no wonder that Tim Walz is being forced to drop his re-election bid. Walz’s failed leadership is emblematic of Minnesota Democrats’ agenda and whoever Democrats choose to replace Walz with at the top of the ticket will need to defend years of mismanagement and misplaced priorities.
ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to center her reelection campaign on the cost of living. Doing so is putting her at odds with both the populist left and a resurgent Republican right.
She faces left-flank pressure to raise taxes on rich people so that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s expensive agenda comes to fruition. On the right, Republicans have pledged to exploit any effort to support Mamdani’s goals as a sign the moderate Democrat is beholden to the upstart democratic socialist.
Hochul holds wide leads over likely Republican nominee Bruce Blakeman and primary challenger Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, but the strength of her campaign will be vital for down-ballot Democratic candidates running in crucial House races. New York’s swing Congressional districts have the potential to determine control of the closely divided chamber and the future of Trump’s presidency.
Yet she must still work with both the untested mayor who vowed at his inauguration to govern unapologetically from the left and the volatile Republican president eager to shape the fate of Democratic-led states. Veteran politicians aren’t envious of the challenge she faces.
“I’m glad it’s Gov. Hochul and not me,” former Gov. David Paterson said. “You’re dealing with two very excitable people who are on opposite ends of the spectrum. My only suggestion to her is let them yell and criticize, but be the voice of reason. It’s putting yourself out there to your fellow New Yorkers.”
Yet the governor is showing signs that she’s willing to blend the policies of both the mercurial president and rookie mayor — making cost concerns a centerpiece for the coming year amid the expectation voters will reward her for sympathizing with their pocketbook problems.
Hochul plans to make a major push for free child care, a signature Mamdani proposal and an issue she’s supported during her time in office, with a multi-year plan to phase in a statewide program, she said in a recent radio interview — essentially backing a downpayment with the promise of future installments if she wins reelection. The governor also embraced a Trump-backed proposal to cap taxes on tips at the state level amid Republican pressure to do so, signaling plans to introduce legislation this year to the Democratic-dominated Legislature, which is set to reconvene Wednesday in Albany.
“As we welcome in the New Year, affordability remains my top priority and I am doubling down on my commitment to put money back in New Yorkers’ pockets,” Hochul said last week.
The governor, though, is facing opponents who will try to lay claim to the affordability mantle that Mamdani leveraged so effectively in his longshot bid for mayor. That will put pressure on Hochul to deliver on these populist themes — or potentially face the electoral consequences.
“Politicians are the original copycats,” said Democratic strategist Austin Shafran. “Zohran masterfully articulated an affordability agenda and was able to articulate concerns to a broader electorate. You’re going to see a lot of people try to thematically copy the message of his campaign and that may counteract a lot of the uncertainty.”
Hochul’s reelection will hinge on whether she can adroitly navigate a destabilizing populist tide that has consumed this political era — defined by voters fed up with rising costs and elections won by norm-shattering politicians like Trump and Mamdani. Hochul is drawing energetic challenges from Delgado, her own hand-picked lieutenant governor who is trying to channel Mamdani’s victory in his uphill bid, and Blakeman, a Trump-backed Republican who hails from a suburban bellwether county.
Impatient voters are increasingly willing to punish any candidate who fails to grasp their cost-of-living concerns. How Hochul adapts to this political moment will determine her electoral fate — and potentially provide a roadmap for fellow moderates struggling to make the center hold.
Mollifying voters’ affordability concerns is not an easy task and Trump’s low marks over his handling of the economy is a case in point. The president’s insistence that inflation is tamed, prices are down and the economy under his watch is on the rebound runs the risk of replicating voters’ complaints that Democrats were oblivious to how they felt about their financial plight.
Further complicating Hochul’s year is the unusual bind she finds herself in — essentially sandwiched between the two main characters of America’s political drama.
Mamdani’s free child care and bus service must be approved by Albany and will be difficult to deliver to voters in a deeply expensive city. Increasing taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and large corporations, while politically popular and drew enthusiastic cheers during Mamdani’s inaugural speech, opens Hochul up to Republican attacks as she runs for reelection. Trump may further meddle in his native state’s affairs by slashing federal spending to the Empire State. His administration shelved two offshore wind projects, including one near the Long Island coast, and Trump recently expressed frustration to Hochul with a controversial Manhattan toll known as congestion pricing.
Voters are willing to turn to Hochul-like moderates amid the Trump 2.0 era. In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger decisively beat Republican Winsome Earle-Sears. Mikie Sherrill retained the New Jersey governor’s office for Democrats by a double-digit margin — bucking an historical trend in the process.
Hochul, who often references her family’s economic challenges growing up in the Buffalo area, was sensitive to affordability concerns before it was a buzzy political concern.
As a new governor, Hochul backed a temporary suspension of the state’s tax on gasoline. She’s touted rebate checks to taxpayers, framed as a way of combating inflation. Hochul scaled back green energy plans amid widespread concerns over spiking utility bills — drawing complaints from environmental activists. And she reduced a controversial Manhattan toll from $15 to $9 after delaying its implementation for six months ahead of the 2024 elections out of political concerns.
But the political environment is giving her less leeway to pick and choose her policy fights.
This year, the staid governor is contending with a celebrity New York City mayor whose ardent left-leaning base will pressure her to back policies she’s been hesitant to embrace, like raising taxes. Hochul has repeatedly ruled out boosting income tax rates on the richest New Yorkers, but has hedged over hiking levies on large corporations.
Republicans pressed Hochul to back Trump’s push to cap taxes on tips by instituting a similar policy on the state level. After the governor announced her support to end taxes on up to $25,000 in tipped income, Blakeman’s campaign accused her of flip flopping on the issue — though her campaign said she never outright opposed the measure.
“Kathy, if you want more of my ‘tips’ on how to govern, just continue to follow my lead,” Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, said in a statement.
Left-leaning advocates, meanwhile, are mounting a renewed push for another state-level minimum wage increase — a move that is opposed by the governor’s allies in the business community. Hochul approved a 2023 measure that will link future wage hikes to the rate of inflation.
Hochul’s political bet, in part, is on voters preferring a steady hand on the wheel in an age of political disruption that has benefited both Trump and Mamdani. At the same time, she has strived to counter the president, including a successful effort that got him to restore $187 million in Homeland Security funding.
“She doesn’t have to be the disruptive leader that follows this trend because that might seem inauthentic,” said Basil Smikle, a former executive director of the state Democratic Committee. “What she does need to do is find a way to create a strong relationship with Mamdani. He can be the disruptive politician and be a counterweight to that, but still give a pathway to bring a lot of policies to the forefront.”
The new mayor has forged a publicly steady relationship with the governor despite their differences on key issues like Israel. Hochul has also approved of Mamdani’s hires, most notably the retention of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch — a favorite of the city’s business community.
Mamdani remains a lightning rod, though, especially among Jewish voters and suburbanites — constituencies the governor will need as she begins to campaign in earnest. The new mayor kicked off a firestorm on his first day in office when he revoked several executive orders meant to bolster Israel and deleted old tweets from his office’s X account about fighting antisemitism.
Blakeman, Hochul’s likely November opponent, is already blasting her for aligning herself with the 34-year-old democratic socialist. Hochul’s political standing is tied in large part to the incoming mayor’s success.
“It depends on how Mamdani does,” said longtime Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “If Mamdani fails in the first six months, then she’ll take a beating.”
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani rode the digital slipstream to success in New York. Now millennials and Gen Zers are banking on a similar wave to boost their political dreams.
The mayor-elect energized New York City’s youth vote, earning the support of nearly 70 percent of voters aged 18 to 44 in the general election. His publicity strategy — complete with shareable graphics, collaborations with content creators and local artists’ animations — appealed to a new trove of young voters, people who primarily get their information in short-form TikTok videos and social media posts rather than legacy media.
A wave of millennial and Gen Z Democratic hopefuls across the country are looking to follow that lead in shaking up an aging party — from a 25-year-old political influencer in Arizona, to a 35-year-old congressional candidate in Idaho, to a 24-year-old mayoral candidate in Georgia.
“The theme that we have seen this year, different from years past, is ‘I'm done waiting around. I'm sick of being told it's not my turn,’” said Amanda Litman, president of Run for Something, a candidate recruitment company focused on electing progressives under 40.
The surge has rippled far beyond New York, touching races in red and purple states alike as younger Democrats test whether digital-first campaigns can compensate for limited funding, party support and name recognition.
It also has reopened a debate inside the Democratic Party over what it takes to build a viable campaign — and whether traditional gatekeepers are misreading how younger voters engage with politics. While Gen Z and millennials span different age groups, both are entering politics with similar digital fluency — and similar distance from the party’s traditional power structures.
The effects are already visible in candidate recruitment. Run for Something reported a surge of 10,000 young Democrats across the country expressing interest in launching a campaign immediately after Mamdani’s primary win. Another 1,616 potential candidates signed up within one day of the shutdown-ending deal to reopen the government, the group said.
“We’re building a party of fighters, not folders,” Litman posted on X in November along with a graph of the sign-up splurge.
The push for younger candidates comes as Democratic leadership skews older than the electorate it represents. The average age in the House and the Senate is roughly 58 and 65, respectively, and the median school board member is 59, according to Pew Research Center. The median age in the United States is 39.
More than 20 progressives under the age of 40 have announced a congressional campaign for this election cycle, nearly half of whom are looking to unseat a member of their own party. And with the Democratic Party having no clear leader, the younger generation is looking to add new faces into the mix.
For inexperienced candidates who don’t have the money or institutional support to run a competitive campaign, social media offers a cost-free solution. The ease of building an online following has lowered the perceived barrier to running for office, even as the fundamentals of winning — fundraising, turnout and organization — remain unchanged.
Take Sam Foster, a 24-year-old from Marietta, Georgia. He rode his bike to the first video shoot for his mayoral campaign against incumbent Steve Tumlin, who is 78. Social media, he said, isn’t as much a strategy for Gen Z and millennial candidates as it is a native mode of communication.
“I hate when people call it a social media campaign,” Foster said. “I went into [making content] with the intention of just showing people who I was. We built a strategy off of that, but it wasn’t essentially the intention.”
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who polled at under 1 percent in February, soft-launched his campaign in July with videos asking New Yorkers why they voted for Trump. His later videos on “halalflation,” a fully suited polar plunge to “freeze” the rent and a Valentine’s Day voter registration proposal kept him prevalent on social feeds.
And the more he posted, the more users — even those well outside of New York City — responded.
“If done well, [social media] allows you to raise lots of small dollars from lots of different places,” said Chris Coffey, a longtime political consultant and CEO of Tusk Strategies.
One Mamdani video asked supporters to donate to his transition team. The comment section was flooded with promises of donations from people as far away as Europe — with in-country support from Texas, California and Florida as well. From July to the election in November, Mamdani raised over $750,000 from over 8,500 contributors outside of New York City, according to data from the Campaign Finance Board.
Coffey drew a comparison to Andrew Yang, who also had a strong social media presence and made history by raising $750,000 in just one day for his 2020 presidential campaign, with an average donation of $41.
“Both Yang and Mamdani were able to use their social media and digital media platforms to get lots and lots and lots of small donors, which then powered their campaign, de-emphasized big dollars and allowed them to play on a level playing field with all these other candidates that were going after bigger dollars,” said Coffey, who helped manage Yang’s 2021 bid for New York City mayor.
Mamdani's messaging inspired more than 100,000 volunteers to be visible daily on New York streets throughout the mayoral race.
His messaging also maintained an appearance of authenticity, focusing on issues that disproportionately affect young and working class New Yorkers, like housing, childcare, and affordability.
For young voters, authenticity is a major problem in the Democratic Party. And younger candidates are proving adept at conveying a message “from the heart,” according to Deja Foxx, a grassroots organizer and digital strategist who previously ran for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District.
“People have a different expectation of how they should be engaging with public figures [than they did 10 years ago],” Foxx said. “We are consuming so much on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where videos from our Congress person are mixed in with life updates from our best friend from middle school. It demands a different level of vulnerability that frankly a lot of our older electives aren’t comfortable with.”
The embrace of online-first campaigning has also blurred the line between political organizing and performance. Jack Schlossberg, the 32-year-old grandson of John F. Kennedy who’s running for Rep. Jerry Nadler’s congressional seat, is a provocative social media personality, sometimes offering raunchy and offensive political commentary to his 860,000 followers.
Schlossberg shares random, quotidian tidbits, like being called an “incel Frankenstein looking mother—” by a random passerby. He impersonated Melania Trump — wig and all — as he read a letter of support to Vladimir Putin, trolled his uncle Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's health policies — insinuating his uncle’s claims of autism being linked to circumcision came from personal experience — and gave crass explanations of political news like the release of the Epstein files, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ indictment (since tossed) and the government shutdown.
While his videos drive an audience, and have certainly got voters talking, they lack what other candidates are hinging on — promises and policies.
For those who aren’t Kennedys — like Kaylee Peterson, a 35-year-old Idaho candidate in the historically Republican 1st District — social media is their pathway into the otherwise pay-to-play world of campaigning.
“Social media is the only real affordable tool we have to reach disenfranchised Gen Z and millennial voters,” said Peterson. “Seeing [Mamdani] be successful and the massive national support he received gave us hope.”
Like many other progressive candidates in rural republican areas, Peterson said, she did not receive support — or even a call back — from the Democratic National Committee. Instead, she found her support, strategists and community on social media groups where other young candidates virtually congregated — like TikTok Live, Instagram and messaging apps.
Peterson ran a losing campaign against Republican incumbent Rep. Russell Mark Fulcher in 2022 with only $70,000. She focused on getting her message out and mobilizing progressives in her district. In her third campaign cycle, though still unsuccessful at claiming the seat, she raised just under $250,000.
Mamdani may ultimately prove to be the exception rather than the rule. His online success amplified preexisting strengths and allowed his reach to go beyond the five boroughs.
“Social media is an important part of [the campaign],” Coffey said. “But so is the messaging, and so is the staff, and so was their press apparatus, and so was their candidate's ability to do really hard and tedious work.”
The top Democratic contenders to succeed Donald Trump in the Oval Office excoriated the president for his overnight strike on Venezuela on Saturday, sharply criticizing the president’s foreign policy and trying to drive a wedge between the president and voters wary of foreign entanglements.
Trump, they argued, launched the operation to distract from a souring political situation on the home front.
“It's an old and obvious pattern,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote on X Saturday. “An unpopular president — failing on the economy and losing his grip on power at home — decides to launch a war for regime change abroad. The American people don’t want to ‘run’ a foreign country while our leaders fail to improve life in this one.”
It’s a sign of an emerging trendline that could mark both the upcoming midterms and the 2028 elections, as Democrats look to paint Trump as betraying his campaign promises by focusing too much on global affairs rather than domestic issues.
Trump rode to electoral victory in 2024 under the banner of “America First,” vowing to remove the U.S. from expansive overseas involvement and instead focus on the welfare of U.S. citizens.
During a press conference Saturday morning at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump defended the Maduro capture as “America First” because “we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. We want to surround ourselves with energy.”
“Donald Trump’s unconstitutional military action in Venezuela is putting our troops in harm's way with no long-term strategy,” he wrote on X. “The American people deserve a President focused on making their lives more affordable.”
The Trump administration, in the meantime, will “run” Venezuela, Trump announced in the Saturday press conference
“We'll run it properly,” he said.” “We'll run it professionally. We'll have the greatest oil companies in the world go in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela.”
Democrats quickly pounced on the president’s actions. Within hours of Maduro’s announced capture, the Democratic National Committee sent out a fundraising email deeming it “another unconstitutional war from Trump, who thinks the Constitution is a suggestion.”
“Trump promised peace, but has delivered chaos,” the fundraising email, signed by DNC Chair Ken Martin, read. “The most important thing we can do right now is work to elect more Democrats who will check this administration’s power and prevent more disaster.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) echoed the message. “We keep voting against dumb wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Libya,” he wrote on X. “But our Presidents bow to a foreign policy blob committed to militarism.”
Other 2028 Democratic contenders — including Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Sen. Mark Kelly, both veterans — condemned the administration’s open-ended approach to their takeover in Venezuela.
“I lived through the consequences of an illegal war sold to the American people with lies,” Gallego wrote on X. “We swore we would never repeat those mistakes. Yet here we are again. The American people did not ask for this, Congress did not authorize this, and our service members should not be sent into harm’s way for another unnecessary conflict.”
Kelly noted that Maduro is “a brutal, illegitimate dictator who deserves to face justice,” but questioned the U.S.’ end game: “If we learned anything from the Iraq war, it’s that dropping bombs or toppling a leader doesn’t guarantee democracy, stability or make Americans safer,” Kelly wrote on X.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back on Trump’s assertion that the Maduro operation was about drug trafficking.
“If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X, referencing Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to decades in an American prison on drug trafficking charges. “It’s about oil and regime change.”
One potential future Democratic presidential hopeful celebrated Maduro’s capture enthusiastically. "¡Libertad! Today I celebrate with the people of Venezuela in Colorado and elsewhere. The tyrant has fallen!” wrote Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
But in a separate post, he lamented the lack of insight into "what the plan actually is, or even who is in charge" and urged the White House to "present a clear plan for what a transition to genuine democracy and self-rule entails."
Republicans waiting in the wings to succeed Trump, however, loudly backed the president’s moves. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, two key administration figures seen as the GOP’s most likely heir apparents once Trump leaves politics, were quick to praise the president on Saturday.
“The president offered multiple off ramps, but was very clear throughout this process: the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States,” Vance, whose rose to political prominence in part by embracing isolationist tendencies, wrote on X. “Maduro is the newest person to find out that President Trump means what he says.”
“This is a president of action,” Rubio, who has long been more hawkish, said at the Mar-a-Lago press conference.”This is not a president that just talks and does letters and press conferences. And, you know, if he says he's serious about something, he means it.”
President Donald Trump’s primary super PAC raised over $102 million in the second half of 2025, carrying a war chest stocked with hundreds of millions of dollars into the midterms.
That massive sum, combined with even greater fundraising in the first half of the year and minimal spending throughout 2025, leaves the PAC with approximately $300 million cash on hand, positioning the president’s allies to wield massive influence over the midterms.
The disclosure, which which was reported in a filing submitted to the Federal Election Commission this week and goes through Dec. 22, shows MAGA Inc. with $294 million cash on hand. In a statement, a MAGA Inc. spokesperson said the PAC ended the year with $304 million cash on hand.
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, MAGA Inc will have the resources to help candidates who support President Trump's America First agenda of securing our border, keeping our streets safe, supercharging our economy, and making life more affordable for all Americans,” the organization said.
The enormous sum of money doesn’t represent the entire war chest at Trump’s disposal; several affiliated PACs have continued to raise money in support of the president, adding to the growing stockpile of cash that Republicans around the country will hope to tap into as they seek to maintain majorities in Congress in November.
MAGA Inc. made its first independent expenditures of the year in support of Rep. Matt Van Epps, who won a hard-fought special election in Tennessee’s 7th District in December. The super PAC spent $1.6 million to help boost Van Epps over Democrat Aftyn Behn in a district Trump won by 22 points in 2024.
The super PAC, which does not face donation limits, drew contributions from regular GOP donors and from leaders in the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency industries.
OpenAI President Greg Brockman gave $25 million and Foris DAX Inc., the U.S.-based arm of the company that operates Crypto.com, contributed $20 million on top of an additional $10 million it gave at the beginning of 2025.
Private equity investor Konstantin Sokolov donated $11 million, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who was confirmed in December despite Trump withdrawing his nomination in May before renominating him, contributed $2 million to the PAC last year, including $1 million in the second half of the year.
Democrats are accustomed to losing in rural America — especially to Donald Trump. Now they’re hoping the president’s own policies might prove to be the leverage they need going into next year’s midterms.
Democrats have a long way to go in rebuilding trust with rural voters. But conversations with more than a dozen current and former Democratic lawmakers, party officials and political strategists suggest they also feel the urgency of tapping into the discontent being generated by Trump’s agenda.
The party is trying to replace wishful thinking with a new shoe-leather strategy in rural communities where it has long lacked a presence and is deploying unhappy farmers in media campaigns. If Democrats mean to retake Congress in the midterms or have a shot at the White House in 2028, their candidates don't necessarily need to sweep rural counties — they just need to eat into the margins Trump was getting, which were frequently north of 80 percent of the vote.
“We have a unique opening because of all that's happening with this administration,” said Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), whose district includes significant rural and farming interests. Farmers and rural voters “might be listening in a more unique way than they maybe have ever in the past. And we need to walk through that door.”
Democrats have previously dedicated relatively modest amounts of money, staff and advertising to rural counties and districts outside of swing states. But after a string of off-year victories last month, House Democrats have launched their first-ever rural outreach program, an eight-figure campaign that will fund efforts to hire staffers for candidates, mobilize voters and run ads focusing on the cost of living.
Even some Republicans acknowledge the GOP can’t take rural communities for granted.
“Right now, the farm community is with [Trump]. I think the thing that Republicans should worry about is enthusiasm, in getting out and actually voting,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) said. “It's one thing to be supportive, it's another thing to actually go vote on Election Day.”
Joe Manchin, a Democrat-turned-independent former senator and governor, won six statewide races running as a Democrat in solid-red West Virginia. He said the party needs to focus on finding candidates who can relate to rural Americans by focusing on key issues — “common sense shit,” he explained, like fiscal responsibility and affordability.
For example, candidates like Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won their gubernatorial elections last month by distancing themselves from the Democratic Party’s brand and zeroing in on high prices.
“They're the kind of the centrist Democrats you need,” Manchin said. “They're the only ones who are going to win in these tough areas.”
The tariff play
The politics that defines much of the division between urban and rural voters emerged in the late 1980s, as post-Carter Democrats pushed policies that the latter saw as detrimental to agricultural and manufacturing sectors. That left rural voters especially primed for Trump’s brand of economic populism: He won 64 percent of them in 2024, the best performance of any presidential candidate in decades and beating his own 2016 margin.
"One of the reasons we were in such a negative place with rural voters is we sort of ceded that ground, stopped showing up, stopped talking to these folks, and really relied on the urban centers," Libby Schneider, deputy executive director of the Democratic National Committee, said. “And we saw how that gamble failed in 2024 when folks in urban centers stayed home.”
While farmers had stomached Trump’s tariffs in the first term — and voted to bring him back in 2024 — their economic position is weaker and the tariffs are much higher and more expansive this time around.
Farmers and businesses experienced whiplash as tariff deadlines came and went, confusing people throughout the food supply chain about how they would be impacted. Fertilizer and fuel costs rose and markets for exports like soybeans dried up. Some groups, including cattle ranchers who have long allied with Trump, publicly broke with the president's trade agenda when he suggested importing Argentinian beef to lower food prices.
While most rural voters are not farmers, agriculture is a critical piece of the rural economy, making farm policy one of the primary ways federal policymaking affects those communities. Some voters may support tariffs in theory in the hopes they could revitalize the labor market and prompt fairer trade terms for farm goods, but polling suggests they view Trump's plans as too arbitrary to achieve those goals.
A majority of people surveyed in an October POLITICO poll (53 percent) supported avoiding tariffs on imports if that meant keeping costs low for consumers.
National Democrats, excited by Spanberger’s success, have made their own moves: Beyond the DCCC’s eight-figure investment into rural voters and voters of color and the new farmer-focused ad campaigns, a caucus of more than 100 moderate Democratic lawmakers recently released a policy agenda that includes passing a farm bill, expanding rural broadband funding and federal funding for local food purchases.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai defended the Trump administration’s policies and said “supporting rural Americans has been a key focus,” which is why the administration has sought to use tariffs to open up new export markets for farmers.
The RNC isn’t fazed either.
"Rural America won't suddenly be tricked into thinking elite Democrats stand for their beliefs and values. The DNC spending a few bucks won't fool rural Americans into thinking Democrats have touched grass,” RNC spokesperson Delanie Bomar said.
One Big Beautiful Mess
Trump’s signature tax-and-spending law provides Democrats with another opening to contrast their pitch against Republicans.
Rural health care centers across the country have already shuttered in response to the law’s Medicaid cuts, which will disproportionately hit communities where hospitals are few and often primary employers. Low-income Americans are quickly learning they may no longer qualify for federal food aid — even as most of the tax breaks the GOP has touted will benefit the wealthy.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association and represents a ruby red state, recently called the law “a slap in the face to rural America.”
And POLITICO’s November poll revealed that voters are more likely to rely on Democrats when it comes to health care policy. More than 40 percent of those surveyed said they trusted Democrats to bring down health care costs for ordinary Americans, compared with 33 percent who said they trusted the GOP.
The message for Democrats is “wrapped up and with a nice, tidy bow on it in the Big, Beautiful Bill,” said Christopher Borick, a political science professor who runs the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. “It's cuts to your health care, it's cuts to rural hospitals. It's cuts to SNAP benefits, and it's just so tidy and neat for Democrats to go there.”
The strategy seems to be working. In a heavily Republican congressional district in Tennessee, Democrat Aftyn Behn beat expectations and outperformed Harris' 2024 margins in a bid to unseat GOP Rep. Matt Van Epps this month.
Behn’s ads largely focused on affordability and the fallout from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which she called the “one big BS bill.”
That tactic resonated with voters in an off-cycle election and will only gain steam: Americans' health care premiums are set to skyrocket ahead of the 2026 midterms after Republicans declined to extend Covid-era “enhanced” subsidies of Affordable Care Act plans in their big bill.
Will history repeat itself?
Still, some political experts question how much Democrats can loosen the GOP's hold on rural America.
The president's first-term tariff war also hammered farmers, but their political ties to Republicans hardly wavered at the time. Democrats in 2024 used roughly the same playbook they’re seeking to capitalize on now, arguing that Trump’s proposed policies would increase the cost of living and that his tariffs would impose a new tax on the middle class — but they failed to gain enough ground with rural voters, enabling Republicans to win a trifecta.
Many voters are wary of Democrats’ support for free trade agreements over the last 30 years, which hollowed out rural job opportunities and allowed the unchecked growth of corporate power, said Anthony Flaccavento, executive director of the Rural Urban Bridge initiative, a progressive rural organizing group.
“Both parties have really betrayed rural America, but the Republican Party got very, very good at seeing people and expressing solidarity and saying, ‘You're right to be angry,'” he explained.
Part of winning is showing up and listening, say Democrats like Rep. Shontel Brown of Ohio, who is weighing a bid for the top spot on the House Agriculture Committee. Brown, who hails from a wholly urban district, has traveled to other parts of her state and to Florida on a listening tour to hear directly from farmers.
“We've lost a lot of trust in rural America, so showing up and listening is half the battle, but then we have to be able to present an alternative,” she said in a recent interview. "We as Democrats have a real opportunity to make the case for policies that lower costs and make it easier for farmers, families and the entire food supply chain producers as well.”
Minnesota has been the white whale for Republicans in the Trump era. And 2026 could be the year they finally break through — if President Donald Trump and one of the most prolific peddlers of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election don’t sink their chances.
Republicans are growing optimistic about their chances of unseating Democratic Gov. Tim Walz next year, as he seeks a historic third term. But Trump’s increasingly caustic attacks on Walz and disparagement of Minnesota’s Somali community — and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s entrance into the gubernatorial race — could hurt Republicans’ chances of regaining ground in the state, some party strategists argue.
“When the president comes in with a flamethrower and just throws that type of rhetoric, there's no oxygen, and there's no space for the Republican to offer suggestions and to be thoughtful in that space, because the rhetoric of the president just paints them into a corner,” said Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota GOP who backed the Democratic ticket in 2024.
Republicans have insisted they can be competitive statewide in the blue-leaning Minnesota ever since Trump lost Minnesota by less than 2 points in 2016. But since then, winning the state has beguiled both the president — who faced a 7-point loss in 2020 and a 4-point loss in 2024 — and Republicans in other statewide races, including two fairly comfortable wins for Walz in 2018 and 2022.
Still, Republicans see an opportunity to win back the Minnesota governor’s seat for the first time since 2006 by hammering Walz, who is running despite scrutiny into his oversight of state benefits and a star turn as the Democratic vice presidential nominee that put him in the crosshairs of Republicans across the country.
At the same time, Trump has also used the arrests of some Somali immigrants in federal fraud cases to broadly characterize the state’s Somali population as criminals — leaning on his trademark use of divisive rhetoric that some Republicans worry will fall flat.
That risk, insiders warn, could be exacerbated if Lindell, a Trump ally, wins the Republican nomination.
“We’d be cooked,” said Dustin Grage, a Minnesota Republican strategist. “I’d be moving to Florida very shortly. We would lose pretty badly if Mike Lindell were to get the nomination.”
Those close to the president strenuously disagree, arguing the state remains on the map. House GOP Whip Tom Emmer, the most high-profile Minnesota Republican and an ally of the president, said he’s spoken to Trump about the governor’s race and is confident that any of the 13 Republicans seeking the party’s nomination could defeat Walz.
“We should be able to beat Tim Walz with a dog,” Emmer told POLITICO in an interview.
The White House declined to comment. At a rally in North Carolina on Friday, Trump praised Lindell and said he “deserves to be the governor of Minnesota.”
Walz faces a tricky path to reelection, with no Minnesota governor winning three consecutive terms in the state’s history. That’s been made more difficult by several investigations during his tenure leading the state that revealed a ring of alleged fraudsters siphoning money from public programs. In 2022, federal prosecutors charged dozens of people for pocketing $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the Minnesota Department of Education during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The massive scope of the fraud allegations (the Justice Department called it the “largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the United States”) triggered a state audit that found the Walz administration “did not effectively exercise its authority” to prevent the fraud.
In September, federal prosecutors charged eight people with defrauding a Minnesota housing and health benefits program of millions of dollars by submitting inflated and fake reimbursement claims. Six additional people were charged for participating in the scheme in December. That same month, a defendant previously charged in the pandemic program fraud pleaded guilty to attempting to steal $14 million from a Minnesota health care program that offers services to children with autism.
Prosecutors have broadened their inquiry into benefits fraud in the state to investigate billions of dollars in flagged billings of 14 public programs supported by Medicaid.
In response to a request for comment to a Walz spokesperson, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Richard Carlbom said in a statement that Walz “heads into reelection with a record focused squarely on working people and kitchen-table issues.”
“While the GOP clown-car primary remains consumed by infighting and loyalty tests for Donald Trump, Minnesota families are falling behind as Republicans unleash higher grocery prices, skyrocketing health care bills, and giant tax breaks for billionaires,” Carlbom said. “Minnesotans see the difference — a governor delivering for working families, or Republicans delivering loyalty to Donald Trump and a Washington agenda that puts billionaires first.”
In recent weeks, Trump has ramped up his efforts to link Walz to the abuse of government programs — while using incendiary rhetoric directed at the governor and the Somali community. In a social media post on Thanksgiving, he called Walz “seriously retarded” and accused Somali refugees of seeking to “prey” on Minnesotans. And at an early December rally in Pennsylvania, he again denigrated the Somali community while discussing “the great big Minnesota scam with one of the dumbest governors ever in history.”
Emmer, who said he spoke with Trump about the governor’s race as early as July, said he believes the president recognizes an opportunity in Walz’s vulnerability. “I think the president knows that Tim Walz is the weakest he's ever been in his political career,” Emmer said.
Former Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt, a Republican, said the fraud investigations are part of the risk for Walz in seeking a third consecutive term.
“If you can lay out a case that, ‘Well, you've been elected now for eight years, and you haven't fixed these problems,’ or ‘You haven't accomplished what you said you were going to’ … it kind of makes it an easier case to say, ‘Maybe it's time for someone new,’” Daudt said.
But the rhetoric Trump is using to highlight the fraud may reframe the issue to the detriment of Walz’s Republican opponent, said Brodkorb,the former party official. He believes Minnesotans are eager to weigh ideas on immigration policy and how to tackle abuse of public programs.
“The problem is when the president comes in and says things like, ‘Everyone in the entire Somali community is garbage,’” Brodkorb said.
Emmer, who adamantly defended Trump’s approach and his rhetoric attacking both Walz and the Somali community, credited him with shining a light on the state.
“If he hadn't said it exactly the way it is, and if he hadn't been so out there direct, guess what? Nobody would have covered it,” Emmer said.
The barrage directed at Walz and the state — including attacks from Trump allies, targeted probes from Cabinet officials and an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis — underscores the governor’s newfound national prominence since campaigning as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in last year’s presidential race.
Walz has emerged as a vocal critic of the second Trump administration, prompting a feud between the two. After a Democratic lawmaker was killed by a gunman and a second was seriously injured earlier this year, Trump said he would not “waste time” calling the “whacked out” governor.
Walz’s growing national profile both makes him a high-profile target in the 2026 midterms worthy of trying to defeat, GOP strategists say — but Trump’s intense focus on the race could also backfire given the state’s political makeup.
“Having Donald Trump being active in the race for a particular Republican may not be helpful, but it would be extremely helpful to raise the attention on Tim Walz and his record here in the state,” Daudt said.
And if Trump’s ends up throwing his weight behind Lindell — who conspired with Trump in 2020 to advance false claims that the presidential election was stolen — Republicans worry that could give Walz a clearer path to reelection.
“If [Lindell] is the candidate, that’s what the election will be about,” Daudt said. “It'll definitely be easier for Walz to make the election about Trump if Mike Lindell is the candidate. No question.”
Trump, who continues to claim the 2020 election was rigged, touted Lindell’s efforts to reverse the election results at the North Carolina rally, and empathized with how Lindell “suffered” as a result.
"He was just a guy that said, ’This election was so crooked, it was so rigged.’ He fought like hell," Trump told his supporters.
Lindell’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Some Minnesota Republicans hope that the party will back a more moderate candidate that can highlight Walz’s vulnerabilities.
But Emmer said candidates should do what they can to win the endorsement of the hundreds of highly engaged party activists who serve as delegates at the party’s nominating convention next year.
“I'm going to tell you the way you win this race. You go run your race to get an endorsement,” Emmer said. “As soon as you are the endorsed Republican candidate, you have won the primary in August, you are going to win the governor's race.”
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 a look back on the past year through the eyes of the cartoonists. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
After five years in the United States Senate, Republican Tommy Tuberville wants Alabamians to know one thing above all else as he embarks on a gubernatorial bid: his time as a college football coach.
That his campaign website is framed by a banner reading “Coach Tuberville for Governor” speaks to how much the GOP is relying upon local sports heroes to compete for offices up and down the ballot as the pivotal midterm elections approach.
Athletes and coaches are playing in some of the highest-profile races of the 2026 cycle, with control over Congress up for grabs in a year expected to favor Democrats. In Georgia, former University of Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley is hoping to capitalize on his athletic experience — and his father’s football fame in Athens — to break through in a competitive Republican primary and unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Former NFL kicker Jay Feely is running for Congress in Arizona. And former MLB star Mark Teixeira is a front-runner for Rep. Chip Roy’s open House seat in Texas.
Tuberville, who once led the Auburn University football team, still goes by “coach” around the Capitol.
Athletes-turned-politicians are hardly a new concept: former Rep. Jack Kemp brought his football background to the halls of Congress and the 1996 GOP presidential ticket; Jesse Ventura leveraged his WWE fame to win Minnesota’s governorship; and two-time NBA champion Bill Bradley served New Jersey in the Senate for nearly two decades and mounted a bid for the White House.
But at a moment of deep distrust and disdain for elected officials in Washington, both parties are looking for outsider candidates and athletes are increasingly fitting that mold. And the trend of leveraging sports fame for political gain has been supercharged in the era of Trump, who once owned a pro football team. The president has routinely campaigned alongside athletes and coaches, including Notre Dame hero Lou Holtz — whom he later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — and professional wrestling star Hulk Hogan. He backed Tuberville in his Senate run and endorsed former University of Georgia star running back Herschel Walker in his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2022.
This trend has been especially prevalent in the southeast, where college football culture reigns. Tuberville’s successful entrance into politics has inspired a new crop of football figures to make their own bids as Republicans in the SEC corridor, and many of them have consulted directly with the coach-turned-legislator about how to replicate his win.
Tuberville used his gridiron fame in Alabama to rocket to the Senate in 2020 without any experience in the public eye off the football field.
“I spent a lot of time in public life going to a lot of alumni meetings, shaking hands, marketing our program, selling recruits on the road, dealing a lot with parents — and it's no different than being in politics,” he said in an interview.
The party in Alabama isn’t making an active push to recruit former sports stars to run for office, but that hasn’t stopped other like-minded college athletes and sports figures from running their own plays for office.
“I think there's a natural bend towards these figures,” said Alabama Republican Party Chair John Wahl, who worked on Tuberville’s 2020 Senate campaign. “They already have some name I.D., they have fundraising capabilities, but they're seen as political outsiders and people who are going to represent the average, everyday American.”
Dooley, who is running for Senate with the backing of Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, approached Tuberville for some coaching prior to his run.
“The people that have called me, they ask: what is this? What do I have to do? And what does it entail? You know, first of all, being a senator, they all want to know first about campaigning. They want to know the ins and outs of it and what you have to do with raising money,” Tuberville said.
Dooley’s campaign did not make him available for an interview for this article.
Earlier this year, former University of Alabama star quarterback AJ McCarron launched his own bid for lieutenant governor — opening the possibility that, alongside Tuberville, the state could have been helmed by figures representing rival local football programs. He ended his bid on Wednesday, announcing he would no longer seek Montgomery’s second-in-command post “in order to accept a new career opportunity in football.”
Paul Finebaum, the lauded college football commentator, passed on a run for Tuberville’s seat earlier this month. He, too, spoke with the senator about the job as he was exploring a run, according to Tuberville. So did fellow Auburn Tigers basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who similarly opted against a bid after retiring from coaching.
But there will still be plenty of ‘Bama pride left: Sen. Katie Britt’s (R-Ala.) husband Wesley Britt starred for the Crimson Tide before playing three seasons in the NFL, a fact she was sure to highlight in her ads during her 2022 run for Senate.
This same trend is playing out in other parts of the country too. Michelle Tafoya, the longtime NFL sideline reporter, is inching toward mounting a bid as a Republican in Minnesota’s open Senate race. Meanwhile, Democrats have yet to significantly capitalize on that same trend in the deep-red part of the country to challenge the Republicans’ regional hegemony.
That isn’t to say they don’t have a bench elsewhere: former Rep. Colin Allred leaned hard on his bio as an NFL player in his unsuccessful 2024 Senate bid in Texas (he’s now running for his old seat). Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy played a few years of professional basketball in Europe before returning to the Bay State to launch her political career. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) is a former professional mixed martial arts fighter.
“Democrats tend to recruit a lot of ex-military or CIA people. They seem to think that’s more in their wheelhouse,” said long-time Democratic strategist James Carville.
“I think as people become increasingly turned off by ‘politics of Washington, ’you’re going to find these parties are going to be looking for different kinds of candidates,” he continued. “It might be a good idea to look for more opportunities like this.”
Nearly three-quarters of American adults are “frustrated” by the Democratic Party, an October Pew Research Center poll found. Sixty-four percent of Americans held similarly negative views of Republicans. That dissatisfaction makes the appeal of an outsider candidate who hasn’t touched politics before even stronger.
“I think people are ready for change,” said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and president of the progressive candidate recruitment organization Run for Something. “Often the best folks to shepherd that change are people who are new to the system, whether that's new to politics or new to community engagement.”
“I wouldn't say athletes is, like, a specific profile we're looking for, because you have to be really in it to solve a problem,” she continued, adding that wants to see “more artists, I want more musicians, and I want more nurses and teachers to run for office. I want more people who really care and who maybe come with a fresh perspective.”
While outsider candidates may prove a balm to those fiery sentiments, the public is not entirely sold on athletes wading into a political space. A late 2024 poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC at the University of Chicago showed that 26 percent of adults approve of athletes speaking out about political issues. 36 percent of respondents said they explicitly disapprove of athletes specifically sharing their political opinions.
“When you’re famous in athletics, everybody likes you,” Carville said. “In politics, as soon as you open your mouth, half the people hate you.”
Wyoming GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman on Tuesday announced her campaign for Senate, hoping to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis in next year’s election.
The Wyoming Republican is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, and with his backing she helped oust Republican then-Rep. Liz Cheney, a vocal critic of Trump’s, in the 2022 primary.
"This fight is about making sure the next century sees the advancements of the last, while protecting our culture and our way of life,” Hageman said in her launch video. “We must dedicate ourselves to ensuring that the next 100 years is the next great American century."
Lummis announced she would not seek reelection last week, saying she felt like a “sprinter in a marathon” despite being a “devout legislator.” Hageman, who had been debating a gubernatorial bid, was expected to enter the Senate race.
Hageman touted her ties to the president in her announcement video, highlighting her record of support for Trump’s policies during her time in the House and vowing to keep Wyoming a “leader in energy and food production.”
“I worked with President Trump to pass 46 billion in additional funding for border security, while ensuring that Wyomingites do not pay the cost of new immigration. We work together to secure the border and fund efforts to remove and deport those in the country illegally,” she said.
President Trump on Tuesday said Hageman has his "complete and total" endorsement, calling her "highly respected" in a post to Truth Social.
"I know Harriet well, and she is a TOTAL WINNER!" Trump said. He added that Hageman "WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN."
Trump won the deep-red state by nearly 46 points in last year’s election, and Hageman herself was reelected by nearly 48 points, according to exit polling.
Still, Hageman bore the brunt of voters’ displeasure earlier this year during a town hall. As she spoke of the Department of Government Efficiency, federal cuts and Social Security, the crowd booed her.
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