A group of President Donald Trump’s MAGA allies released a playbook Wednesday to fulfill the largest deportation push in U.S. history. It could very well split Trump’s coalition.

The plan from the Mass Deportation Coalition — an organization led by some prominent Trumpworld veterans, immigration restrictionist groups and hawkish policy experts — rests on one crucial pillar: A major immigration enforcement crackdown on workplaces, modeling the strategy that former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration used to deliver the nation’s largest deportation initiative in history.

“There is no chance for a mass deportation program if worksite enforcement is not the centerpiece,” the playbook, shared first with POLITICO, reads. “Enforcement at scale means focusing on physical areas where illegal aliens are concentrated: worksites.”

That strategy almost certainly promises to alienate some of the Trump administration’s allies in the agriculture, construction and hospitality industries, which all rely heavily on undocumented labor. Farm groups in particular hold significant sway in Trump’s Washington and have already shown prowess in steering the administration away from worksite enforcement when those efforts disrupted the industry.

Worksite raids could also prove deeply unpopular with voters, whose views have turned increasingly negative toward Trump on immigration and seemingly forced the administration to ramp down its deportation push.

The release of the group’s playbook — which also offers recommendations from digitizing the employment verification process to barring unauthorized immigrants from accessing credit — comes as the Trump administration enters a new stage of internal immigration enforcement.

In the months since an immigration surge in Minneapolis left two U.S. citizens dead, the administration pivoted its message on mass deportations while overhauling its leadership at the Department of Homeland Security. Border czar Tom Homan replaced Customs and Border Protection chief Greg Bovino in Minneapolis and drew down the immigration enforcement presence in the city; the president ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and tapped then-Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace her; and a POLITICO review of official administration social media accounts found that references to “mass deportations” sharply decreased in March.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson denied that the White House has shifted its deportation approach.

“Nobody is changing the Administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” she said in a statement. “President Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities. As the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said, approximately 70 percent of deportations to date have been illegal aliens with criminal records.”

Still, the Mass Deportation Coalition is trying to push the White House back toward a more aggressive immigration approach. Its members include Mark Morgan, the former acting commissioner of CBP under Trump; Erik Prince, a Trump ally and former Blackwater CEO who has pitched the White House on privatizing immigration detention operations; and a number of conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation.

The group commissioned a poll last month by McLaughlin & Associates, one of Trump’s pollsters, that found a majority of likely U.S. voters support deporting all migrants who entered the country illegally. The poll also found that 70 percent of likely voters support “strengthening workplace immigration enforcement to help raise wages for American workers.”

However, those results differ drastically from other recent polling on immigration, like a January POLITICO poll amid the Minneapolis surge which found that nearly half of U.S. adults say Trump’s mass deportation campaign was too aggressive, including 1 in 5 of his 2024 voters.

“Special interests and industry have been able to operate in the shadows, and to lean on lawmakers and administration officials,” said Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project and a member of the Mass Deportation Coalition. “We're taking that fight public, and we don't think that they're well situated to win that fight, because their arguments don't sell with the American people.”

The group’s stated goal of 1 million deportations in 2026 mirrors a private goal among White House officials, the Washington Post reported last year. It would mark a significant uptick in apprehensions: The Department of Homeland Security said it deported just over 600,000 individuals in 2025, though independent analyses put the number lower.

A DHS spokesperson said 3 million unauthorized immigrants left the U.S. during Trump's first year back in office and noted the agency is still targeting worksites — but they didn't directly respond to the Mass Deportation Coalition's plan.

“Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to protect public safety, national security, and economic stability while rescuing individuals who may be victims of labor trafficking or exploitation," the spokesperson said. "These operations target illegal employment networks that undermine American workers, destabilize labor markets, and threaten American communities."

Industry groups are warning worksite enforcement would disrupt supply chains. Last June, after immigration raids on farms and meatpacking plants sent a shiver through the agriculture industry and drew negative headlines, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and others successfully lobbied the president to pivot to focus on blue cities instead — a move that eventually culminated with the tumultuous operation in Minneapolis.

“The president made clear where he stands on the issue, and made clear how he wants to see the policy enforced,” said John Hollay, president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers. “If [immigration raids] were to occur again on farm operations, that’s going to disrupt the food supply chain, and we’ve made that very clear. We know the president is committed to ensuring our food supply chain is not disrupted and that prices at the grocery store are not raised unnecessarily.”

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© Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

In Nevada, a gallon of gas is approaching $5. In Pennsylvania, farmers are fretting about the prices of fertilizer. And in Michigan, supply chain woes are throwing a wrench into the manufacturing and auto industry operations.

One month into the war in Iran, a new political reality is sinking in for Republicans in these and other battlegrounds: The war may not end as quickly as they initially hoped, and the literal and figurative costs keep rising.

Each week the war drags on prolongs the pain Americans feel. Economists have warned gas prices could continue to remain high for months even if the U.S. immediately de-escalates in Iran. Extended conflict also raises the risk of increased casualties, especially if U.S. servicemembers are deployed to on-the-ground combat. And it could sour MAGA voters whose support of President Donald Trump hinged, in part, on their opposition to “forever wars” and foreign regime change.

Some Republicans worry the war will depress turnout among staunch “America First” proponents ahead of a crucial midterm election. It’s not yet a political crisis, GOP strategists and county chairs across the country said. They’re still willing to trust the president — for now.

But they’re also finding it harder to brush off the consequences.

“What’s the end game? I don’t think the president has been clear about that,” said Todd Gillman, chair of the Monroe County Republican Party in Michigan. “The gas prices are a problem. We’re concerned how this might affect the midterms.”

A POLITICO poll this month found the president’s most loyal voters continue to back his decision to attack Iran, even though some say it violates MAGA principles or even breaks his campaign promise not to start new wars. But it also revealed real political risk if more U.S. troops are killed or the conflict extends much longer than the promised four to six weeks.

“I don't think it's going to impact Republicans’ desire to vote Republican, but I do believe that that turnout will be an issue,” said Craig Berland, chair of the Maricopa County, Arizona, Republican Party. “If the war drags on, that is going to impact the turnout, unless we are very, very successful in communicating and educating. And that's our plan, to do that.”

The situation in Iran remains in flux, and Trump could choose to withdraw U.S. support and end the country’s involvement at any moment.

Until then, the prolonged conflict is complicating the White House’s cost-of-living message, which voters consistently say is their top concern. In recent months, Trump and Vice President JD Vance embarked on an affordability messaging tour, dotting the country to deliver speeches about the administration’s wins in lowering costs and providing relief for working-class families.

But the affordability road show has screeched to a halt in the month since the U.S. launched its war in Iran.

“These types of major events can become all-consuming,” said Buzz Jacobs, a GOP strategist and White House official under George W. Bush. “They certainly suck up political capital, and they make it very difficult for the most senior officials, particularly the President, to focus on any other strategic objective.”

After Bush invaded Iraq, Jacobs recalled, a digital board outside the Situation Room listed the same meeting topics for weeks: “Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, something else, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq,” Jacobs said.

The White House pointed to polling that shows a majority of Republican voters back the Iran war.

“The President has been clear that, while there may be some short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, ultimately oil prices will quickly drop once the operation’s clear objectives have been achieved and America will be back on its solid trajectory of cooling inflation and robust growth thanks to this Administration’s proven economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance,” spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

In several battleground counties, GOP chairs are holding out hope that the impact will be temporary even as the reality of the war sets in and gas prices creep toward a national average of $4 per gallon.

“Yes, it's painful now. We all realize that it's painful, with the gas prices,” said Carson City, Nevada GOP chair Susan Ruch. “I know prices are going to go up — but I do know this is short term compared to World War III.”

That optimism is shared by Decatur County, Georgia, GOP Vice Chair Jesse Williard, who also believes gas prices will plummet quickly after the war ends, setting up Republicans to buck historic midterms trends and post a strong showing in November.

“The economy, I think between now and then, is going to be great,” he said. “If it goes the other direction, it may be horrible, but I anticipate it's going to be a red wave.”

But other GOP county chairs see early fractures ahead of November’s election, driven by surging costs that are already causing pain for businesses and consumers. In the Phoenix metro area, Berland, the Maricopa County chair, said door-to-door canvassing has become more difficult since the onset of the war.

“We're even going around canvassing neighborhoods and registered Republicans are yelling out the door, ‘go away, or I'm calling the police,’” Berland said. “I find that very discouraging.”

Voters’ frustrations, he said, stem from “the war or the economy. And the economy is defined largely by energy prices.”

Across Rural America, the pain is even more acute.

Farmers in Pennsylvania, North Dakota and other agriculture-heavy states are feeling the impact of disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which sent fertilizer prices skyrocketing just ahead of planting season. Some producers have had to shake up their plans last minute and plant new crops that are less reliant on fertilizer.

The scramble could lead to lower crop yields, which potentially means higher food prices this summer, North Dakota Farmers Union President Matt Perdue said.

Farmers have long been loyal to the GOP and Trump. But the war now poses another massive financial headache on top of the tariffs that have increased their production costs and evaporated markets abroad where they could sell their crops.

“We've had just a pile of uncertainty, a pile of volatility in the markets that we buy from and sell to and we're just creating more volatility, more uncertainty as we move ahead,” Perdue said.

A chorus of farm groups — including the often Trump-aligned American Farm Bureau — petitioned the White House for a bailout last week. And the agriculture lobby is requesting an ad hoc aid package from Congress to cover the mounting fertilizer costs.

Monroe County, Pennsylvania, GOP chair Pete Begley acknowledged that supply chain woes and high prices are pinching some in his community. But he’s willing to offer Trump a long runway before he gets worried.

“If it turns into six months later, we're still there, and the Ayatollah's son is still supposedly in charge, that I think will cause concern,” Begley said. “But for now, I think people are standing by the president.”

© Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP

When Brandon Herrera ran for Congress in 2024, the Republican Jewish Coalition called him “a goose-stepping extremist” and spent big to take him down. Two years later, he’s the presumptive GOP nominee — and his former foes are staying home as the GOP establishment moves to embrace him.

Herrera, a gun shop owner and popular YouTuber known as “The AKGuy” running in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, has faced widespread criticism for past videos in which he mimics a Nazi march to Nazi music, jokes about the Holocaust and boasts about his 1939 edition of “Mein Kampf.” His 2024 opponent, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) called him a “known neo-Nazi,” a characterization Herrera disputes. Concern over Herrera’s comments were so severe that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s United Democracy Project spent more than $1 million two years ago and the Republican Jewish Coalition spent close to $400,000 to sink his campaign.

But now, a scandal forced Gonzales to drop out of the runoff, and Herrera is the GOP nominee in the sprawling, GOP-leaning Texas border district, which President Donald Trump carried by a 17-point margin in 2024.

And faced with the choice of a candidate they’ve long accused of antisemitism and a Democrat, these pro-Israel and Jewish groups are thus far choosing to sit on their hands.

AIPAC, which backs both Democratic and Republican pro-Israel candidates and usually focuses its efforts in primaries, has not endorsed in the race. AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement only that the group would “continue to assess where candidates across the country stand on issues that affect the U.S.-Israel partnership.”

And the RJC, which only supports Republican candidates, won’t get involved. “The RJC has a longstanding policy of speaking out against those who traffic in Nazi ideology, and this is another case,” said RJC political director and spokesperson Sam Markstein. “The RJC opposed Mr. Herrera in 2024, and he will not get our support now.”

But Markstein made clear it was likely they would sit the race out rather than oppose him in the general election. “We've never supported a Democrat, so that should tell you everything you need to know,” he said.

In the weeks since Herrera finished as the top vote-getter in Texas’ March 4 primary and Gonzales dropped out, the GOP establishment has largely embraced Herrera.

Last week, as lawmakers and donors socialized during a glitzy Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for the House Freedom Caucus, which backed him in the primary, Herrera made a triumphant appearance, according to an attendee granted anonymity to detail a private event and another attendee’s post on social media. Trump announced his endorsement on social media the same night.

“Brandon is strongly supported by many Highly Respected MAGA Warriors in Texas, and Republicans in the US House,” Trump wrote. “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Speaker Mike Johnson and House GOP leadership followed a week later, calling him an “America First grassroots leader” in a joint statement Thursday.

Trump’s endorsement brings “a little bit of comfort” to pro-Israel GOP donors who view Trump as a loyal ally, said Gabriel Groisman, a Florida-based GOP donor active in pro-Israel circles. “We trust the president and his team in their vetting of congressional candidates,” Groisman said. “But it doesn't mean we don't ask questions and we don't dig further.”And Groisman said that the "ugly truth about politics" is Jewish Republican donors are now faced with the option of him or a Democrat, rather than another Republican. "So the question is whether it's better to have him in [office], or not. That's a very, very difficult question to answer."

Herrera criticized AIPAC’s spending against him in 2024, calling it “Israel first bullshit.” “I’m not anti-Israel, I’m anti Israel buying American elections,” he wrote on social media.

He has also been critical of U.S. policy toward Israel, arguing American taxpayers should not have to pay for military aid to Israel. We shouldn't be spending a cent of taxpayer dollars on anything that is not either an investment or right here in the United States,” he said in a speech, Israel National News reported. “I don't hate my neighbor just because I don't want to pay his power bill. If they want to buy rockets from us, let's sell to them."

Republicans’ embrace of Herrera shows how seriously the GOP values maintaining control of the House this cycle, even as some Republicans warn of growing antisemitism within their own ranks.

Herrera’s campaign has continued to publicly push back on criticisms of his social media history, which they contend are taken out of context from his “work as a historical firearms educator” and omitting extended clips that include “comments ridiculing and condemning Hitler’s book.” 

“The accusations against Brandon were bizarre and false, manufactured by a desperate political opponent who misleadingly cut and pasted together disparate video clips,” Herrera campaign manager Kimmie Gonzalez said in a statement.

Groisman, the Florida-based donor, said Herrera’s allies are working to assuage concerns about his past statements through outreach to Jewish and pro-Israel donors in Texas and beyond.

“They're trying to send them what he has actually said, versus what people say he said, which they seem to claim that there's a big delta there,” Groisman said. “The concern is, are we, as a Republican Party, allowing in another potential Thomas Massie-type figure? Nobody knows the answer to that question.” Massie, a Republican member of the House from Kentucky, has been an outspoken critic of Trump and Israel.

Herrera’s campaign confirmed he is looking for dialogue with those same groups that have attacked him for years — including the RJC.

Katie Padilla Stout, the Democratic nominee in the district, has said that Herrera has “consistently been on the wrong side of history,” citing content from his YouTube videos that mocked veterans and another video in which he tested Nazi weaponry. Padilla Stout has started to make allegations of antisemitism core to her attacks on her Republican opponent, as outside Democratic groups — like the House Majority PAC — use his past videos as attacks.

"Given his documented history of apparent anti-semitism, it's no surprise our campaign has received an outpouring of support from people from all across the district and from both sides of the aisle, including support from the Jewish community,” Padilla Stout’s campaign manager, Yolitzma Aguirre, said in a statement.

Some of the Republican officeholders who have warned loudly about growing antisemitism within their party dodged when asked about Herrera.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has vowed to take on any Republican congressional candidate who espoused antisemitism, but when asked about Herrera said “I don't know what you're talking about, in terms of what he said.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who denounced podcaster Nick Fuentes as a “goose-stepping Nazi” during a speech last week, has stayed out of the primary, even as he endorsed in other U.S. House races in his state. He said questions about Herrera’s statements or actions should be directed to Herrera himself.

“I haven't seen the video you're discussing, and so you're welcome to ask him those questions,” Cruz said in a brief interview last week.

When asked how he would advise Texas voters to cast their ballot in Herrera’s race, Cruz refused to answer. “Those are the exact same questions a Democrat tracker would ask,” Cruz said before walking away. His office declined to elaborate on his answers.

While Republicans circle the wagons or duck the topic, a Jewish Democratic group that rarely plays in districts like this is thinking about investing in trying to defeat Herrera.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America is considering getting involved in the heavily Republican district, which would deviate from their norm of engaging only in districts with significant Jewish voter populations.

“If there was ever a chance that a Democrat could win a seat like this, maybe it's in these midterms,” said JDCA CEO Halie Soifer. “So it is something we're looking at. Certainly it is a priority for us to defeat Trump-endorsed neo-Nazis, like this candidate.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misspelled Halie Soifer's name and misstated her title.

© Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Top allies of President Donald Trump are furious at the White House's new rhetorical emphasis on deporting violent criminals over all unauthorized immigrants — and they're launching a lobbying effort to reverse that reversal.

A group of longtime Trump allies, immigration restrictionist groups and hawkish policy experts have formed the Mass Deportation Coalition to lobby the Trump administration to refocus its efforts on deporting all eligible migrants. The group has commissioned new polling from one of Trump’s top pollsters to back its thesis that doing so will ensure GOP wins this November, and plans to share that data with White House officials, agency heads and every member of Congress.

The new poll was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, a pollster that Trump has used in all of his presidential elections, and shared exclusively with POLITICO. It found that 66 percent of likely 2026 voters support deporting any migrants who enter the country illegally. When asked if they support deporting all deportable migrants, not just violent criminals, a majority (58 percent) say they do.

Eighty-seven percent of Trump 2024 voters surveyed, including 79 percent of Hispanic Trump voters, want the president to exceed the previous largest deportation effort in history, led in the 1950s by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“Overwhelmingly, Trump voters expect this from the administration. They don’t just support it, they expect it,” said Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, which advocates for conservative immigration policy. “This is a good way to re-energize the base as we move into the midterms, the same way that Trump was able to do so in the lead up to the 2024 general election.”

The new coalition includes Mark Morgan, the former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection under Trump; Erik Prince, a Trump ally and former Blackwater CEO; as well as a number of conservative think-tanks and lobbying groups close to the Trump administration including the Heritage Foundation, Federation for American Immigration Reform, American Moment, and the Claremont Institute.

Morgan, who also served as chief of the U.S. Border Patrol under both former President Barack Obama and Trump, said a deportation strategy that involves targeting only violent criminals, gang members or terrorists for deportation is “a Clinton-Obama-Biden policy. And it’s historically been a disastrous failure.”

The campaign comes as other Republican strategists and lawmakers warn Trump’s mass deportation agenda is becoming increasingly unpopular following ICE operations in Minnesota that killed two U.S. citizens, and could hurt the party’s chances of retaining control of Congress.

Since then, the administration has pivoted its message on immigration enforcement while overhauling its leadership at DHS. Border czar Tom Homan replaced CBP chief Greg Bovino in Minneapolis and drew down the immigration enforcement presence there; the president ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem last week and tapped Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace her; and even Trump, in his State of the Union address, focused mostly on border security and deporting violent criminals.

On Tuesday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair instructed House Republicans to curb their hardline rhetoric and instead focus on removing violent criminals. Blair doubled down in a post on X, writing thatRepublicans are focused on “deporting the violent/criminal illegals that Joe Biden & the Democrats in Congress let in.”

Those comments angered members of the coalition, who say taking a “worst of the worst” approach to deportations is not a winning policy.

Still, the coalition’s poll results differ drastically from other recent polling on immigration: A January POLITICO poll found that nearly half of U.S. adults say Trump's mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, including 1 in 5 of his 2024 voters. AFebruary NPR/PBS/Marist poll found that 65 percent of U.S. adults think Immigration and Customs Enforcements has gone too far in enforcing immigration laws.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson denied that the White House has shifted its deportation approach.

“Nobody is changing the Administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” Jackson said. “President Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities. As the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said, approximately 70 percent of deportations to date have been illegal aliens with criminal records. Thanks to President Trump’s strong immigration enforcement policies, approximately 3 million illegals have left the United States, either through forced deportation or self-deportation, with zero illegals coming through the most secure border in U.S. History for nine straight months.”

According to an internal DHS document obtained by CBS News, less than 14 percent of those arrested by ICE in Trump's first year in office had violent criminal records.

Hispanic GOP lawmakers have recently lobbied DHS and the White House, expressing concern that the aggressive deportation approach could alienate the Hispanic voters that helped secure Trump’s victory in 2024. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) acknowledged those concerns Tuesday, telling reporters that there has been a “hiccup” with some Hispanic and other voters who view DHS’ approach as “overzealous.”

“Everybody can describe it differently, but here’s the good news,” Johnson added. “We’re in a course-correction mode right now.”

But the Mass Deportation Coalition is hoping its poll — which was commissioned by Chmielenski’s Immigration Accountability Project and conducted between Feb. 27 and March 3 — will course-correct that course correction. The online survey had a sample of 2,000 likely voters and a margin of error of 2.2 percent.

Chmielenski said he views the first year of Trump’s term as “phase one” of this deportation push, and now wants to see the administration enter “phase two”: by focusing on worksite raids, targeting any deportable individual and reaching 1 million removals in 2026. The Department of Homeland Security said it deported more than 600,000 individuals in 2025.

“Now that we’re a year into the administration, the public sentiment hasn't changed,” Chmielenski said. “We still believe the Trump administration … has a mandate on mass deportations.”

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© Scott Olson/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Cruz and conservative pundit Tucker Carlson are again trading barbs over Israel and antisemitism, as they renew their feud over the war in Iran.

“I believe Tucker Carlson is the single most dangerous demagogue in this country,” the Texas Republican senator said Tuesday during an antisemitism symposium in Washington hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition and National Review, before promising to directly take on the popular conservative podcast host.

“I have seen more antisemitism in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime,” Cruz continued. “It is being spread by loud voices, the most consequential of whom is Tucker Carlson.”

Cruz’s remarks come after Carlson belittled Cruz and other Americans who trust Israeli military intelligence during his podcast last week.

“No offense to Ted Cruz or all the other dumbos who are always saying, ‘we get all this actionable intelligence, it's so important, we need [Israel] so desperately,’” Carlson said in the March 2 episode. “Really? Let’s evaluate the quality of that intelligence.”

The ongoing feud between the two leading conservative figures — both podcast hosts and potential 2028 presidential candidates — represents the latest flare-up in a major schism within the party and a likely proxy battle ahead of the next Republican presidential primary, when discussions over the U.S.’ alliance with Israel and combating antisemitism domestically could be defining issues.

Carlson, arguably the most influential pundit on the conservative right, remains close to the White House and buzzed about as a potential presidential contender, even as many Republicans — including Cruz — denounce him. And Cruz, who finished second in the 2016 GOP presidential primary to Trump, is positioning himself ahead of a possible run in 2028.

When asked Tuesday about Cruz’s latest comments, Carlson offered a curt response. “Pretty funny,” he said via text. "He’s running for president against me, which I find amusing since I’m not in the race."

Cruz has repeatedly criticized Carlson for hosting avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his podcast and not challenging Fuentes’ claim that the “big challenge” to unifying the country is “organized Jewry.”

Cruz has signaled that fighting antisemitism and standing with Israel could be a central part of a potential 2028 bid. “I don’t want to wake up in five years and find myself in a country where both major political parties are unambiguously antisemitic,” Cruz said Tuesday. “I think that is a real possibility, if Tucker and his minions prevail.”

The two have long held differing views on the Middle East — and have been directly sparring for months.

In June 2025, Carlson hosted Cruz on an episode of the “Tucker Carlson Show,” which consistently ranks as one of the most-streamed podcasts on Spotify. The two sparred over Iran, and Carlson said Cruz didn’t “know anything” about “the country you seek to topple.” Cruz, in return, implied Carlson’s criticism of Israel was antisemitic.

“You’re not talking about the Chinese, you’re not talking about the Japanese, you’re not talking about the British, you’re not talking about the French,” Cruz told Carlson. “You’re asking, ‘why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?’ That’s what you just asked.”

In a subsequent episode of his own podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz” — which was the most-streamed podcast of any sitting elected official in the U.S. last year — Cruz launched a defense of his interview with Carlson, saying Carlson was “off the rails.” Later, in November, during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit in Las Vegas, Cruz denounced Carlson as a “coward”; at a Federalist Society event in Washington days later, Cruz said many of his Republican allies are “frightened” to call out Carlson because “he has one hell of a big megaphone.”

On Tuesday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who spoke before Cruz at the symposium, seemed to downplay that concern. Though he didn’t say Carlson by name, he downplayed what he called “so-called influencers” who traffic in antisemitism. “They are not influential,” Cotton said. “They are at least not influential with Donald Trump, who continues to reject their kooky advice.”

Carlson’s anti-Israel ideas — which are the main subject of Cruz’s ire — have garnered increasing support, particularly among young Republicans. The latestYale Youth Poll found that Americans under the age of 35 are far more likely than older Americans to think that U.S. Jews “have too much power.” In the last three years, the share of Republicans under the age of 50 with a negative view of Israel jumped from 35 percent to 50 percent, pera Pew poll conducted last year.

His reply when asked if he might run for president in 2028: "Only if it's against Cruz."

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Scandal-embroiled Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) on Tuesday was forced into a runoff election after weeks of backlash to reports alleging he had an affair with a former staffer, who later took her own life.

He will face Brandon Herrera — a 2nd Amendment influencer who goes by “TheAKGuy” on social media — in late May. That sets them up for yet another expensive and prolonged contest like they experienced in 2024, when Gonzales prevailed by one percentage point.

Gonzales, who has represented the west Texas district since 2021, has faced calls to resign from several of his GOP colleagues after new evidence emerged of his alleged affair. Gonzales previously denied the affair and repeatedly said he would not step down.

Gonzales’ South Texas district favors Republicans, but could potentially become competitive should Hispanic voters sour on the GOP this cycle or stay home. Even with the scandal, House GOP leadership declined to rescind their endorsements of Gonzales and were content to wait and see how the voters decided.

“There’s a primary there in less than a week, these things will play out,” Speaker Mike Johnson said recently.

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© Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Rep. Chip Roy will advance to a runoff in the race to replace Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

He will face state Sen. Mayes Middleton, who led Roy by a double-digit margin with three-fifths of the vote counted.

The competitive primary turned into a fealty test to President Donald Trump. Reitz and Middleton slammed Roy for breaking with Trump in the past and calling for Attorney General Ken Paxton to resign after he faced charges of bribery and abuse, while brandishing their own MAGA bona fides.

Trump made no endorsement in the race.

Roy — the House Freedom Caucus policy chair who has represented Texas’ 21st congressional district since 2019 — earned a reputation in Congress as a true conservative ideologue. He has led in polling and fundraising and has been endorsed by well-known conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and fellow Freedom Caucus representatives.

But Mayes’ apparent first-place finish indicates that he begins the runoff as the favorite. It remains to be seen what the president, who once called for Roy to face a primary challenge, might do in the runoff.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Turning Point Action, the political organization founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, will bring together U.S. and international politicians at a conference next week — including members of far-right parties across the globe.

Markus Frohnmaier, a political leader from the far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), is among the announced guests at the Alliance of Sovereign Nations, scheduled for March 4 to 6 in Washington. Other guests include House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.); Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.); George Simion, founder of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians; and European Parliament members Barbara Bonte of the far-right Vlaams Belang party and Petra Steger of Austria’s right-wing Freiheitliche Partei (FPÖ).

In an interview, Turning Point Action COO Tyler Bowyer said the event was “spurred” by Luna and that more attendees will be announced soon. He referred to the parties that will be represented, including AfD, as “center-right.”

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in May 2025 classified parts of the AfD as “proven right-wing extremist” for being an alleged threat to the country’s democratic order and agitating against migrants. But the party filed a legal challenge, and a court made a temporary ruling this week suspending the designation until the case is fully decided.

“There's a lot of people from a lot of different countries that are representing center-right politics across the world. So it's important to hear everyone,” Bowyer said. “There's a lot of things going wrong in Germany right now. It’s important to hear everybody out.”

A spokesperson for Johnson didn't respond to an inquiry. A rep for Luna declined to comment. In a social media post Wednesday morning, Luna wrote, “Next week members of government from around the world will be coming together at the Alliance of Sovereign Nations! @SpeakerJohnson will be there!”

The conference’s mission statement declares “every country has a rightful obligation to defend its sovereignty and put their interests first,” according to its website. The conference is also sponsored by Republicans for National Renewal.

The AfD party has gained increasing support in Trump’s Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have condemned efforts to label the party as extremist. Frohnmaier has recently traveled several times to Washington for meetings with Luna and other Republican representatives as well as State Department officials. State Department officials have accused the German government of suppressing freedom of opinion, an accusation the German government strongly rejects. Sarah Rogers, undersecretary of State for diplomacy, this week called a criminal investigation by German police of a critical post directed at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz “a case of lèse-majesté.”

In October, Luna posted on X that she met with Anna Rathert, a member of Germany’s federal parliament who’s part of the AfD’s parliamentary group and member of the foreign affairs committee in Bundestag. She and other members of Congress also met with Kay Gottschalk and other members of the AfD in Washington in December. She praised the party as “actually working to strengthen ties with the United States and restore a healthy relationship between our governments” and accused Germany’s chancellor of “trashing our president and censoring German citizens.”

In an interview with Welt last November, Luna said she was planning the conference as an event that “will counter Davos” and be more focused on “the sovereignty of nations.”

In Germany, AfD currently polls in second place, only a few percentage points behind the governing Christian Democrats of Merz.

Last December, Frohnmaier was awarded a prize at the New York Young Republican Club gala for AfD’s “courageous work undertaken in the particularly suppressive and hostile political environment of Germany,” as the invitation stated.

Only weeks earlier, the New York State Young Republicans chapter was disbanded after POLITICO reported on a group chat in which leaders praised Adolf Hitler and joked about the Holocaust.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

The Supreme Court’s tariff decision left the door wide open for Democrats to hammer President Donald Trump for violating the law. This time, they’re not taking the bait.

Instead, Democratic campaigns are leaning into an argument they have been making for months: Trump’s tariffs are coming out of voters’ pockets. Some Democrats can’t help but hit the tariffs as “unlawful,” but they’re pivoting quickly back to affordability.

“The decision is a significant development, but prices are still high for folks across the country, and the administration is determined to keep them high,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.,) chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “We are laser focused on affordability and holding Republicans accountable for raising prices on families across the country.”

She said Democrats’ message would have been the same, regardless of how the Supreme Court ruled.

It’s a striking shift from the party’s strategy in 2024, when candidates took every opportunity to warn voters that a second Trump term would create lawlessness and threaten America’s democracy. Even after the nation’s highest court struck down a key plank in the president’s policy agenda, Democrats are eschewing talk of legal intricacies or executive overreach for a focus on the cost of living.

In Washington and in battlegrounds around the country, Democratic lawmakers, governors and candidates are folding the Court’s check of Trump’s executive authority into their continued argument that tariffs are raising the price of groceries and household expenses. Congress is newly considering legislation on refunding tariff revenue to American small businesses, though Speaker Mike Johnson threw cold water on its chances of advancing.

Even Democrats who are pushing a more aggressive message — that Trump “stole” from voters’ pockets — are tying it to affordability for American households, not abuse of power from the White House.

“Donald Trump stole your money with his illegal tariffs — and you paid higher prices on everything from housing to groceries,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media.

Voters remain overwhelmingly pessimistic about the economy, even as job growth and inflation numbers improve. Democrats targeting vulnerable incumbent Republicans from Colorado to Minnesota think they’ve found a winning message: Tariffs are making your life unaffordable, whether they’re legal or not.

“People aren't going to care whether that's under an IEEPA regulation or Section 122,” said Gabe Horwitz, senior vice president at center-left group Third Way. “The fact is, the Trump administration continues to push tariffs that hurt consumers.”

Democratic operatives point to a series of off-cycle victories late last year in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere, where candidates made cost-of-living central to their pitch. And a torrent of polling suggests Trump’s tariffs are unpopular with the electorate. In a November POLITICO Poll, a 45 percent plurality of Americans said higher tariffs are damaging the U.S. economy — in both the short and long term.

“Prices are increasing, and any time Trump gives us an opportunity to say something happened in the news today — and that is another point of proof that he's making things more expensive — is a good day for Democrats,” said Andrew Mamo, a Democratic strategist involved in 2026 congressional races, including the Texas Democratic Senate primary. “Every time there is an event that we can bring back to affordability is good.”

There’s also a growing push to send tariff revenue back to consumers, which Democrats believe plays perfectly into their affordability message.

Reps. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.), who both represent battleground districts, introduced legislation Friday that would require Customs and Border Patrol to refund tariffs collected over the past year to small and independent businesses. A group of Democratic senators — led by Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — introduced a similar bill Monday with the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The legislation is likely a nonstarter in the GOP-controlled Congress, but gives Democrats a way to put pressure on Republicans.

“When someone takes money that wasn't authorized and does it in a way that harms you, they've stolen from you, and that is what the Trump administration has done for the last year,” Horsford said in an interview.

It follows calls from several Democratic governors — and 2028 contenders — who quickly seized on the debate about refunds in their responses to last week’s court decision.

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois demanded the federal government refund families $1,700 per household. California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters that Trump has an “obligation” to return the money to consumers who paid more for goods as a result of the tariffs.

“He took hundreds of billions of dollars from working folks — from the ag community, from small businesses — for this vanity play, this illegal action,” Newsom said Friday.

At least one Democrat in a key Senate race is also embracing the demand for a tariff refund. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to unseat Jon Husted, said on Xthat he wanted a refund for every Ohio household and that Husted supported the tariffs “at every turn.”

Providing direct relief to consumers is resonating beyond highly engaged Democratic online circles more so than pointing out the illegality of Trump’s tariffs, said Parker Butler, a Democratic digital strategist and managing partner at Luminary Strategies.

“Pointing out the fact that, ‘See, look, Trump did something illegal’ — obviously that's worth doing, because he did do something illegal,” said Butler, who ran KamalaHQ in 2024 and now leads digital for James Talarico’s Senate campaign in Texas. “But unfortunately, I don't think that's going to permeate outside these sort of online political bubbles. If you want to actually break through beyond that bubble, which is what Democrats need to be doing, you can say, ‘Trump owes you money. He's been illegally taxing you for nearly a year.’”

Trump has only doubled down on his tariff plans in the wake of the court decision, saying Friday that he would use Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a 15 percent global tariff. But that would expire after 150 days unless Congress extends it — a vote that could squeeze vulnerable members just months before the November midterm.

Vulnerable Republicans and GOP strategists who quietly cheered the Friday court decision are worried that they’re heading into a heated, economy-focused election on their back foot.

Meanwhile, Democrats see the president’s insistence on keeping his tariff program alive as fuel for their affordability message.

“We can't communicate episodically. We need to be communicating constantly,” said Will Robinson, a Democratic consultant and ad-maker. “I think the theoretical thing about the Supreme Court and tariffs is less impactful than what's actually going on in the grocery basket.”

Brakkton Booker and Jordain Carney contributed reporting.

© Nam Y. Huh/AP

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox criticized the Trump administration’s approaches to prediction markets and artificial intelligence on Thursday — as well as the president’s lack of interest in unifying the country.

During an interview at POLITICO’s 2026 Governors Summit, the Republican governor and occasional critic of President Donald Trump pushed back on the Trump administration’s recent efforts to limit states’ abilities to regulate gambling and AI, saying the federal government “coming in and trying to tell us” to back off state-level fixes is “preposterous.”

“Look, this is a joke, and I can’t believe he tried to say this with a straight face,” Cox said, referring to CFTC Chair Mike Selig’s announcement earlier this week that the agency has singular authority to regulate prediction markets.

“I’m concerned about these new technologies, and what they’re doing to our kids,” Cox added. “It's one thing if we're fighting China, and you're developing your model. But once you start selling sexualized chat bots to kids in my state, now I have a problem with that, and I'm going to get involved there, and the Supreme Court is going to back me up.”

Last week, the White House sent a letter to the Utah Legislature warning lawmakers that a Republican-led AI regulation bill clashes with federal policy. Trump also signed a December executive order that warned states of consequences for attempting to regulate the fast-growing industry.

Cox said his approach does not conflict with his belief that the U.S. should win “the AI arms race with China and Russia,” and thus states and municipalities should support construction of data centers across the country.

“Let's use this technology to benefit humankind, and let's regulate it to make sure they don't destroy humankind,” Cox said.

He also made it clear he differs with Trump’s approach toward bringing together Americans from different perspectives. Shortly after Trump’s attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024, Cox endorsed him, saying he hoped Trump could bring the country together.

Cox said Thursday that hope had been “aspirational.”

Trump is “someone who, if he put his mind to it, could unify” the country, Cox said. “He's not putting his mind to it. He has said very clearly that he’s not, and that's okay. That's different than me.”

Cox also critiqued the growing “Heritage American” movement within his party, saying the nativist message is a recipe for electoral failure.

“I worry about it because that's a future where we lose a lot of elections in a very ugly way,” Cox said. “I worry about it because that's not where most Americans are. It's certainly not where I am.”

💾

Backlash to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is putting vulnerable Republicans in a tough spot, forcing them to shift their tone to appease frustrated Hispanic voters — or risk losing key battleground seats.

It’s a delicate pivot for Republicans in South Texas, who spent years taking a hardline approach on immigration and flipped historically blue districts in the process.

Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, representing a majority-Hispanic district, has gone from calling for mass deportations to focusing on the “worst of the worst.” In lieu of expediting removals, she wants to create new visa categories for undocumented workers to fill jobs in construction and agriculture. And instead of slamming the Biden White House for its "border failure," she's setting up private meetings at the Trump White House to plead for temperance in immigration enforcement.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district shares hundreds of miles with Mexico, wants his party to talk more about the border, and said he plans to “continue to advocate that the Republican Party needs to focus on convicted criminal illegal aliens” amid broad outrage over deportations of undocumented people with no proven risk to public safety.

Like other Republicans, they are trying to slowly distance themselves from the massive immigration crackdown that has quickly become political kryptonite for the GOP — but without being seen as disloyal to the president or undercutting their previous positions.

“President Trump made a promise, and he's kept that promise by securing the border. That was stage one,” De La Cruz said in an interview. “Now we're at stage two, which is having a conversation of true immigration reform.”

Republicans’ efforts to change the conversation will test their ability to maintain, or even extend, Trump’s 2024 gains with Hispanic voters — and play a pivotal role in the fight for control of Congress in November. A slew of polls in recent weeks has shown many Hispanic voters across the country, repulsed by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, are souring on the Republican president they supported to a historic degree in 2024.

It’s a warning the White House appears to be taking seriously. In recent weeks, after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by an immigration enforcement officer in Minneapolis, the White House has signaled openness to paring back its deportation operation. On Thursday, border czar Tom Homan announced the administration’s massive immigration surge in Minneapolis would come to a close.

Latino voters’ embrace of Trump was a political earthquake, and South Texas was the epicenter.

De La Cruz’s district — which sprawls from the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.-Mexico border up to the San Antonio suburbs — was represented by a Democrat in Congress for 120 years before De La Cruz won her seat in 2022. In 2024, Trump romped to an 18-point victory.

The 15th Congressional District was among those redrawn by the Texas legislature’s redistricting gambit last year, offering De La Cruz an even more favorable electorate. But that bet relies heavily on Hispanic voters sticking with the GOP: Nearly 80 percent of the district identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and if those voters flip back to the Democratic Party or stay home, it could erase much of the new map’s intended friendliness to Republicans.

“With the border secure and Latinos responding to ICE raids and government overreach, the districts that Republicans thought were their future a year ago are likely to be their undoing,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who is a frequent critic of Trump. “Hard to find another situation in the past 50 years where a political party has squandered a generational opportunity like this.”

Flipping De La Cruz’s district is a top objective for House Democrats this cycle, who are salivating at the prospect of winning back Latino voters. She’ll face either Bobby Pulido, a Tejano music star with widespread name ID recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or Ada Cuellar, an ER doctor who has an impressive penchant for fundraising.

Local Republicans have begun sounding the alarm.

Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group based in South Texas, said “Biden’s border chaos” was directly responsible for Texas Republicans’ victories in recent election cycles, including De La Cruz’s, but that moving toward the other extreme — a harsh crackdown — could again dissuade Hispanic voters who might otherwise support the GOP.

“We don't have to be a nation that has to decide between an ‘everybody-in’ or an ‘everybody-out’ approach,” Garza said. “I honestly feel that the counties across the entire Texan border shifted to the right because of the border chaos. … But this sort of everybody-out approach, I think, is also causing some reflection.”

The immigration crackdown has wreaked havoc for the area’s business community. Greg LaMantia, who runs a major beer wholesaler in the region, said his company’s sales are down as a result of the raids. “You have people that are legal that are scared to death to get caught up in this fiasco and deported,” said LaMantia, who voted for Trump and has donated recently to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. “It’s caused sales to go down, no doubt about it. It's chaos."

Daniel Guerrero, CEO of the McAllen-based South Texas Builders Association, said rampant ICE activity has sent a shiver through the construction industry, leading to massive delays. He said ICE is notorious for following concrete trucks to job sites, then apprehending workers as they begin pouring a foundation, leaving half-poured concrete slabs.

“The sentiment is pretty clear across the table, that nobody really expected this magnitude of enforcement,” said Guerrero, who voted for Trump and De La Cruz in 2024.

He said the Hispanic Trump supporters he knows are souring on this administration, an observation supported by recent polling. In the latest warning sign, Latino voters helped a Democrat flip a reliably red seat in Fort Worth last month. Taylor Rehmet, who picked up a state Senate seat in a special election, won about 4 out of 5 Hispanic votes across the district, a massive 26-point improvement over Kamala Harris in 2024.

Many Republicans are trying to steer the discussion around immigration to focus on how border crossings have dropped to historic lows under Trump — which they hope will remind Hispanic voters why they should stick with the GOP.

“The Hispanic population gives President Trump and Republicans a lot of leeway with just how bad things were before and where they're at now,” said Gonzales, whose sprawling border district is majority Hispanic. “They have a lot of leeway to get a lot of runway, if you will.”

De La Cruz successfully ran in 2024 on deportations and the “worst border security crisis in our nation's history.” Now she’s proposing a new visa category, H-2C, allowing employers like those in construction and hospitality to hire foreign workers. She also introduced legislation which would expand the H-2A visa category for seasonal agricultural workers.

In recent weeks, De La Cruz said she has taken constituents to meet with the Labor Department, the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson, pitching them on her bills and encouraging the administration to change its tact on immigration enforcement.

“There's limited resources, period. And we want those limited resources to be focused on the worst of the worst, the criminal immigrants that have come in,” De La Cruz said. “We have legal immigrants in our district who have work visas that they don't want to go out to work because some may have fear about the process that is currently being administered.”

But De La Cruz’s shift in messaging has simultaneously earned skepticism from some industry leaders and frustration with the base, underscoring the political tightrope she must walk until November.

Guerrero, the construction nonprofit leader, said he sensed political opportunism in De La Cruz’s newfound interest in helping his industry.

“People feel abandoned because you never showed face, and now that there's an actual crisis, you want to show face?” Guerrero said. “It's like, dude, it's a little too late, man.”

The MAGA base, meanwhile, doesn’t love the shift, either. Patricio County GOP Chair Rex Warner thinks De La Cruz has become too soft on deportations. “I align with some of it, but very little,” he said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled Ada Cuellar’s name.

© David Goldman/AP

National Republicans are throwing money and bodies at a down-ballot initiative to try to wrest back a congressional seat in Utah. Their efforts could blow up in their face.

With a looming February 15 deadline, Republicans have seen only half the number of verified signatures they need to move things forward. And the effort, which has the backing of President Donald Trump and support from multiple MAGA groups, has devolved into chaos.

Local county clerks are flagging hundreds of potentially fraudulent submissions. People have reportedly been repeatedly misled into signing the petition by signature-gatherers, with some telling local news outlets that they were told it was an anti-ICE petition. Those signature-gatherers have reported being assaulted by hecklers and their signature packets stolen or destroyed.

In the Beehive State, where politics are often seen by outsiders as cartoonishly friendly, this effort has turned so tumultuous that Republican Gov. Spencer Cox — who earned national attention for his pleas for civility after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated in the state — called on Utahns to “resolve [their] disagreements peacefully.”

While the GOP groups insist they’ll have the numbers needed, they’re still far short — which would represent a major failure in a ruby-red state.

The effort aims to overturn a new judge-ordered congressional map that hands Democrats one safe blue seat by attempting to repeal an anti-gerrymandering law that would allow the Republican-controlled legislature to reinstall a more favorable map ahead of the 2028 elections. It has garnered support from Trump and his allies, who had already spent $4.3 million on the effort as of November — and have only ramped up since.

The signature-gathering initiative represents an early test of Republicans’ ground-game efforts in a midterm year where they face strong headwinds in the polls.

Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr, have signaled support to the Utah initiative, with Trump recently encouraging his Truth Social followers to support the “very important effort” to ”KEEP UTAH RED.”

Turning Point Action — the 501(c)(4) founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was killed in the state last summer — is “all in” on the effort, its COO said, and is canvassing the state with a half-dozen events over the next week. A fleet of about 700 paid workers, many of them from out of state, have been hired to gather signatures, bankrolled by Securing American Greatness Inc., a 501(c)(4) previously run by former Trump White House official Taylor Budowich. MAGA celebrity Scott Presler parachuted in last month for a series of events. And Trump Jr. cut an 11th-hour ad begging Utah outdoorsmen to protect "their pioneer heritage" by signing the petition at the state's largest hunting expo in Salt Lake City next week. (Trump-loving country singer Ted Nugent, who will attend the expo, will autograph merch for signers.)

But so far, those efforts don’t appear to be paying off. As of Friday, the initiative had garnered just over 76,000 verified signatures, about half of the more than 140,000 required statewide for a measure to be added to this November’s ballot. A daily analysis conducted by independent journalist Bryan Schott shows the initiative on track to fall well short of the required signature thresholds: eight percent of all active registered voters statewide, and eight percent in at least 26 of the 29 Utah state Senate districts.

“The only thing that will matter is on the very last day, do we have enough signatures, and I strongly believe that we will,” said Brad Bonham, a Republican National Committeeman and initiative sponsor.

The initiative’s Republican backers claim the lagging signature count is part of their strategy. Bonham said the initiative’s sponsors have “many, many thousands of signatures” they are independently verifying and have not yet submitted. Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson said “many tens of thousands” more have been submitted to county clerks and are undergoing verification.

“We feel very, very good about the strategy that we are executing on and the momentum that we're building,” Axson said.

Dropping a large tranche of signatures close to the February 15 deadline could backfire, said Elizabeth Rasmussen, the executive director of Better Boundaries, the anti-gerrymandering group opposing the repeal, as signers still have a 45-day window after their signature is verified to remove it.

Rasmussen said her group mailed nearly 8,000 letters last week to petition signers encouraging them to remove their names, and will continue to do so in coming weeks. Her groups’ previous efforts have led to over 500 signatures removed, Rasmussen said.

And she’s not so sure that Trump’s involvement will help the GOP in a heavily conservative state whose voters nonetheless have long been skeptical of the president.

“Trump’s approval rating in Utah is at an all-time low,” Rasmussen said. “We’re not seeing that as a value add, if anything.”

The ongoing saga in Utah is an odd addendum to the nationwide redistricting push. In 2018, Utah voters passed Proposition 4, a ballot measure that created an independent redistricting commission to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Earlier this year, District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled that the GOP-controlled state legislature failed to comply with Prop 4 when it drew four safe Republican districts in the 2022 map. The GOP submitted another map with four safe seats last fall, but the judge selected a different map, which includes a blue seat in Salt Lake County, in November.

The GOP-controlled state legislature is appealing Gibson’s decision to the state Supreme Court, and two sitting U.S. House members joined a federal lawsuit pushing for the current, Republican-friendly map to be used in 2026. The state GOP’s signature-gathering push would repeal Prop 4 and allow the legislature to redraw a map ahead of the 2028 cycle.

If they meet the requisite signature threshold, the initiative will go on the ballot this November, where voters will decide.

In Utah County, the state’s second-most-populous county, the clerk’s office has flagged hundreds of signatures for possible fraud. Some appear to be forged signatures, and when the clerk’s office called the signers, they denied ever signing the petition; others appear to be made-up names and addresses.

“I think it's just the signature gatherers that are doing this are just trying to find an easy way to make money,” Aaron Davidson, the Utah County Clerk, told POLITICO.

The Salt Lake and Davis county clerks — the first- and third-most populous counties in the state — said they have not seen any significant irregularities. “The number of alleged fraudulent voters that Utah County has found, that is startling,” said Lannie Chapman, the Salt Lake County clerk. “We all take this very seriously.”

Axson, the GOP state chair, said some of the signature-gatherers under review were flagged by his team before submission, and several paid signature-gatherers who are under review for fraud have been fired. "I don't want a single fraudulent signature counted,” Axson said.

“Are there going to be a couple of bad actors, or bad examples, or places where the process has fallen short, or whatnot? Of course there are,” added Axson. “But what's not being talked about in all of these stories is the fact that out of 3,000 people engaged in this effort, you only have a small handful of bad actors.”

But as the signature push enters its home stretch, tensions have only accelerated.

“Violence is not the answer to any of this. I don't understand anybody that would do that,” added Bonham, the initiative sponsor. “It brings me back to Charlie Kirk losing his life here in our own backyard. It's like, what on earth is going on here?”

© Wong Maye-E/AP Photo

Immigration enforcement is sowing chaos in Minneapolis and across the country. Democrats, elections officials and civil rights groups fear it could interfere with this November’s elections — and are scrambling for a response.

They’re warning that the White House’s deployments of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents could act as a voter suppression tool should armed officers conduct raids at or near polling locations, scaring citizens into staying home.

“You have to see what's happening: Trump is trying to create a pretext to rig the election,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “It stands to reason that this private police [force] that he’s building is, in part, to be used to try to suppress turnout in the election.”

Senate Democrats considered a requirement banning ICE agents from polling sites as part of their demands in negotiating the Homeland Security funding bill, according to Murphy and Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). But that policy was not included in Senate Democratic appropriators’ final list of demands to avoid a partial government shutdown, leaving voting rights advocates and Democratic state election officials on edge about what’s to come.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called fears of voter suppression “Democrat conspiracies” with “no basis in reality.”

“President Trump cares deeply about the integrity of our elections — and so do the millions of Americans who sent him back to office based on his pledge to secure our elections,” Jackson said in a statement. “These Democrat conspiracies have no basis in reality and their claims shouldn’t be amplified uncritically by the mainstream media. ICE is focused on removing criminal illegal aliens from [the] country, who should be nowhere near any polling places because it would be a crime for them to vote.”

ICE's aggressive crackdowns have already led to citizens hiding at home, and election officials worry that fears of harassment and arrest could keep them from exercising their right to vote.

“In Maine, we saw people were afraid to leave their homes for groceries, to go to work or to go to school, because of fear of wrongful arrest and imprisonment,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who’s running for governor, told POLITICO on Thursday. “If people are too afraid to go to the grocery store because armed ICE agents are patrolling the streets, that may increase fears about going to vote.”

Bellows said her office is preparing for next month’s special legislative election by ensuring voters are comfortable with absentee voting procedures, especially those in areas with large immigrant populations that have been impacted by ICE’s recent crackdown in the state.

Immigration enforcement activity near polling locations could dissuade those with noncitizen family members or voters of color, who fear being racially profiled, from turning out. And widespread deployments of immigration officers to battleground districts could cause chaos in key races and swing close elections.

The Trump administration dispatched about 3,000 federal agents to Minneapolis to apprehend non-citizens in an operation that many in the state and elsewhere consider heavy-handed and excessive. The president and senior officials have indicated that the operation is about more than just law enforcement.

President Donald Trump called the Minnesota operation a “day of reckoning and retribution” and has tied the operation to welfare fraud in the state. On Saturday, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz demanding he turn over the state’s voter rolls, an action lawyers for the state of Minnesota described as a “shakedown” and a “ransom note.”

“The demand for the voter rolls tells you what this is really about,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who oversaw California’s elections for six years as secretary of state, told reporters Wednesday. “It’s about trying to rig the next election, and a desperate attempt to hold onto power.”

Federal law is explicit in banning “any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held,” unless to “repel armed enemies of the United States[.]” Many local election officials also take great care to avoid spooking voters by placing law enforcement at polling places, and some states even have laws regulating this. Voter intimidation is illegal across the entire country.

But Trump has falsely and repeatedly claimed for more than a decade that millions of illegal immigrants vote in the U.S., arguing that was one factor in his 2020 loss. He also pledged before the 2020 election to send “sheriffs” and “law enforcement” to polling places.

Some Trump allies have openly described the possibility of deploying immigration enforcement officers to polling sites to ensure non-citizens do not vote.

“They’re petrified over at MSNBC and CNN that, hey, since we’re taking control of the cities, there’s going to be ICE officers near polling places,” former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said during his show last August. “You’re damn right. … We’re not going to allow any illegal aliens to vote.”

Civil rights groups are preparing for the possibility that Trump exercises emergency powers to allow such a move.

Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the States United Democracy Center, told reporters this week that the Trump administration is “using these violent ICE operations as a weapon” for political ends.

“[Trump] might try to use an executive order or his emergency powers in the 11th hour to interfere with the upcoming election, which is, of course, something that no president in American history has ever done, but something that we need to be prepared for,” Lydgate said Monday during a press briefing.

The Trump administration has continued its focus on election administration. On Wednesday, the FBI executed a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office outside Atlanta. Last week, the Justice Department revealed that DOGE employees were secretly communicating with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states” and may have used Social Security data to match voter rolls. Last week in Davos, Trump suggested prosecutions are forthcoming related to the 2020 election.

State election officials in both parties are anxious to see why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi will address the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State on Friday. A DHS spokesperson didn’t respond to request for comment for this story.

Nonprofit legal groups are already gearing up to challenge any efforts to intimidate voters around the November midterms, said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward.

“Litigation is going to remain an incredibly important guardrail,” said Perryman, whose nonprofit led one of the lawsuits against DOGE’s access to voter information. “And there are many cases that can be swiftly filed on an emergency basis, or even potentially proactively, in order to try to keep the communities as safe as possible.”

David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, warned that election officials across the country — from secretaries of state to local officers — are seeing “a level of federal interference in their work which is unconstitutional and unprecedented.”

“I want to stress how unusual this is,” Becker, a former DOJ civil rights attorney, told POLITICO. “County election officials shouldn't have to be thinking about what the president of the United States might say about elections.”

Those elections officials are working to instill trust in the electoral process, Becker said, and will encourage voters to utilize a variety of alternative ways to cast a ballot, such as early voting or voting by mail, depending on the state.

An attempt to heighten immigration enforcement before the election could just as easily backfire for Republicans. Trump is now under water on the immigration issue, with polls showing a majority of voters believe his deportation push went too far and want to see it reined in. Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who worked in the Biden White House as an adviser on democracy and voting rights, pointed to high turnout in this week’s special elections for Minnesota legislature seats in Democratic-heavy districts, where Democrats romped.

“In places where there might be disruption, Minnesota is proving that you might well earn yourself a real significant backlash,” Levitt said.

But even talking about election suppression has a risk of discouraging voters, convincing them there is risk involved or that the elections might be rigged anyway. Conversely, talk of vote-rigging can do the same thing.

“Our fight right now is both to protect the security of our elections and people's faith in them, because they're deeply intertwined and they're both under attack,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

© Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP

Vice President JD Vance is the Trump administration’s unofficial envoy to Gen Z. But young Trump supporters may not be all that enamored with him as they weigh their 2028 options.

In a focus group of nine young men who supported Trump in 2024, conducted Monday by Longwell Partners and shared with POLITICO, they showed tepid enthusiasm about the vice president and suggested he is too bridled by the baggage of Trump's second term.

“I feel like it's just time for someone new, especially for the Republican Party,” said Alexandre M., a voter in Maryland, who raised concerns about Trumps’s handling of the Epstein files, “because JD Vance was also pushing that as well.”

When the 18- to 24-year-olds were asked who else they would like to see as potential candidates in 2028, they named Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback. When the moderator asked who wants to see Vance as the GOP nominee, just one of the nine raised their hand — and even he later signaled he is still unsure of his support.

Others in the group raised concerns about electability as well as Vance’s changing views.

“I don’t think Vance can win, because I think he's too connected to the current political establishment in Washington, which I think has a very negative approval rating right now,” said Sam Z., a voter in Minnesota. “If you look at what he was about in 2018, 2019, 2020, and you look at what he's about now, it's very, very different. … Somebody younger running in office would be awesome. So that's the one thing I wouldn't mind for Vance. But overall, I just don't think [he] can win. I think he's kind of flip-flopped on a lot of issues.”

The one voter who said he’d be open to Vance in 2028 said he liked Vance’s experience. “I think because he already is a VP, like he has more experience than most people will, which puts him at an advantage,” said Ruben T., a voter in Georgia.

Vance wasn’t the only topic where these voters split from the traditional party line.

Asked about U.S. support for Israel, five said they felt the U.S. supports Israel too much and four said the right amount. None said too little.

Some mentioned conspiracy theories — like Candace Owens’ assertion that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by the Israeli government — for steering their belief that the U.S. should support Israel less.

“I don't know how factual some of this stuff is, but after seeing a lot of things after Charlie Kirk's death and with Candace Owens’ private investigation, I kind of started to notice of, like, Israel was kind of always a big talking point with the Republicans,” said Richard B., a voter in Pennsylvania. “I personally have an issue with it.”

Some of them spoke in free-speech terms, through a humanitarian lens or from an America First perspective. “I just don't believe that death is justifiable in any way, and of course, Israel is responsible for many deaths,” Matteo R. in Illinois said.

“I think we should be more focused on eliminating problems that we have in our own country, versus one that's pretty far across the world,” said Sam M., a voter in New Mexico.

That domestic-first approach applied to Trump’s flirtations with Greenland. When asked, “Who would like to see the U.S. buy Greenland?” none raised their hands.

“No other president has ever said that,” said Mukeesh S., in California. “It's been part of Denmark. I think we should just respect it and leave it, and focus on what's actually happening inside the nation.”

Dillon, a voter from Rhode Island, added: “I think it's kind of an unnecessary thing to do right now, and it's not what our resources could best be used on.”

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