The field of Democratic hopefuls for the 2028 presidential campaign is expected to be massive, and candidates have a wide variety of voter issues to address. But they will likely focus on the cost-of-living crisis and questions related to the strengthening of American democracy. Plus, Democrats will be campaigning without President Donald Trump on the other side of the ballot for the first time in 12 years.

What are the issues?

Many Democrats who have been named as possible 2028 contenders, including the 2024 nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris, have “sought to hammer the issue of affordability, almost exclusively, as they seek to win back power in Washington,” said The Washington Post. But these candidates have also been “challenged to couple that with a more full-throated description of their civil rights agenda,” especially in an era when many in the party say democratic principles are under threat.

Some of these contenders have “shifted their views on border security, DEI, crime, climate change, Covid-era lockdowns and more,” said Axios. Party pundits believe they lost to Trump in 2024 largely because voters “didn't like some of their left-leaning policies, not just how they were communicated,” and some have been arguing for a push back to the center. Others in the party have “openly questioned whether anyone other than a straight, white man can win the White House,” said Politico.

Lowering the cost of living will likely be the number one concern for voters heading to the polls. Several Democrats, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), have proposed tax plan changes that would raise taxes for the ultra-wealthy, but “as actual solutions to the forces pinching Americans’ pocketbooks,” these plans “largely misread the problem,” said Slate. If Democrats “really want to allay the country’s anxieties about the cost of living, tinkering with the tax code probably isn’t the way to do it.”

How will candidates approach them?

Even with affordability at the forefront, Democratic bigwigs have largely agreed that the “restoration of civil rights should be central in the next presidential election,” said the Post. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has “warned that Republicans are promoting voter suppression,” while Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has “linked Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics to overall persecution of racial minorities.”

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg “accused the Trump administration of a ‘seek and destroy’ effort to harm disadvantaged communities,” said the Post, and Harris has “argued that the United States is losing its moral authority to stand up for human rights around the globe.” Many have also noted that Democrats are pushing to reengage with Black and Latino voters the party lost in 2024, and some see Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker as a solution to this problem, as he would “likely do well among Black voters,” said Bloomberg. He has the “brawn, the billions and the blue-collar affect to make him a contender.”

To communicate with voters, any good candidate will need to “speak directly and honestly to the electorate with tangible political platforms” and “tangible messages that are simply about what we’re going to do for you,” Maya Handa, the campaign manager for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), said at a Dartmouth University event. Democrats “should be recruiting candidates who are generationally talented communicators. But if we can’t, then I think we have to get more creative about it.”

Democrats are ready to be done with Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump’s critics are starting to talk more openly about removing him from office, using impeachment or the 25th Amendment. They assert that his recent social media tirades against Iran and Pope Leo reveal he is unfit for office.

Democrats in Congress mostly “steered clear of threatening impeachment” since Trump’s return to the White House, said The New York Times. The president’s threat last week to wipe out Iranian civilization “dramatically” shifted their calculations, spurring dozens of “formerly hesitant” House Democrats to back articles of impeachment. Trump “seems to be taking us on a path to mass war crimes,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on X. The president’s recent “erratic behavior and extreme comments” have “turbocharged” discussion of his mental fitness, said the Times. The challenge: Removal efforts are “doomed to fail so long as Republicans control Congress,” said The Associated Press.

What did the commentators say?

The “fate of the Earth depends” on Trump’s removal from office, Will Bunch said at The Philadelphia Inquirer. The president’s growing list of “embarrassingly profane and unspeakably evil” social media posts demonstrates that he is “mentally and physically deteriorating,” a danger given his command of the “planet’s largest air force and a large cache of nuclear weapons.” The threat is too urgent to wait for Democrats to win control of Congress in November. Americans should join a May 1 general strike called for by the organizers of the “No Kings” protests to make their feelings clear. “It is a time for action.”

Democrats’ talk of impeachment “plays into Iran’s hand,” Peter Lucas said at The Boston Herald. Despite his words, Trump “will not end civilization in Iran.” But he will end Iran’s attempt to develop its own nuclear weapon. Democrats are looking for an excuse to “impeach him anyway if they gain control of the House in November.” They should instead acknowledge that Trump “saved the day” by taking action against Iran.

The 25th Amendment is “having a moment,” Ian Millhiser said at Vox, but it is unlikely to be used against this president. The constitutional provision would allow the White House cabinet to “temporarily prevent Trump from acting as president,” but the process is designed to replace an executive who is “physically or mentally incapacitated” rather than one who is “merely bad at being president.” Other democracies make it easier to remove an “incompetent, unfit or unpopular leader.” The United States should join their ranks.

What next?

Democratic leaders are trying to “shut down” impeachment talk, said Axios. That is not the “best use of our time” given that the effort would inevitably fall short, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) said to the outlet. Dean and other senior Democrats want the party’s focus to be on “concrete issues like the war in Iran and affordability” as midterm elections approach, said Axios. An impeachment that fails to remove Trump, said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), “is worse than no impeachment at all.”

Should Democrats shun Hasan Piker? asked Lauren Egan in The Bulwark. The irreverent, far-left livestreamer, who has nearly 5 million subscribers between his YouTube and Twitch channels, has become a “litmus test” for the party. Some progressives view Piker, a 34-year-old video gamer and gym bro, as a “liberal Joe Rogan” who can reach “tuned out” young white men. “Operatives have hustled to get their candidates booked on his stream,” which runs eight hours a day, seven days a week. Recent Democratic guests include Tom Steyer, who’s running for governor of California, and Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan who invited Piker to campaign with him on college campuses.

But many Democrats say Piker’s extremism should be disqualifying: A self-described Marxist, he has said that it didn’t matter “if rape happened on Oct. 7,” and that “Hamas is a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state” of Israel. Piker has also used the C-word and other misogynistic slurs.

Piker’s language sometimes is unfortunate, said Aaron Regunberg in The New Republic. But moderate “Third Way” Democrats have, “in bad faith” and without context, seized on a few moments from “almost 20,000 hours of entirely unscripted, off-the-cuff streaming.” The son of Turkish Muslim immigrants, he is an anti-Zionist but not an antisemite, and in fact has warned that antisemitism is “a canary in the coal mine of fascism.” Piker didn’t condone Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women, but argued that the attacks didn’t justify Israel’s subsequent bombing and killing in Gaza.

Why any Democrat would want to associate with Piker “is baffling,” said Michael A. Cohen in MS.now. A recent poll found that just 55% of Democrats have ever heard of him, and of those, “only 13% view him favorably.” Given his history of toxic comments, going on his livestream show is “a potential liability.” Sure, Piker can be “an insufferable jerk,” said Jesse Singal in his Substack newsletter, but Democrats he interviews don’t need to endorse his views. Piker appeals primarily to young, disillusioned males “who are looking to rebel.” In 2020, many in this cohort voted for Donald Trump. “It’s unfortunate” that young dudes are drawn to transgressive loudmouths, but to win back power, Democrats must “go to war with the potential voters they have, not the potential voters they want.”

‘Hardly anyone checks this little box on their tax return. Why keep it?’

Adam Lashinsky at The Washington Post

There “was a time when nearly a third of U.S. taxpayers checked that little box on their income-tax returns authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to allocate $3 of their taxes” to “help pay for presidential campaigns,” says Adam Lashinsky. But now Americans “are — quite rationally — unwilling to fork over the cost of a Snickers bar to help elect the leader of their country.” Congress “ought to simply junk the checkoff as the relic it is.”

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‘Democrats need to start planning now for a return to power’

Symone D. Sanders Townsend at MS NOW

Democrats “are already talking about a wave election,” and “people are starting to ask: What would Democrats do with that power?” says Symone D. Sanders Townsend. It’s a “more important question now than ever because, this time, winning will come with more risk and more responsibility.” A Democratic win “will not just be a rejection of President Donald Trump. It will be an expectation that they can use power in a way that actually changes people’s lives.”

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‘Kalshi is half right about prediction markets and gambling’

Aaron Brown at Bloomberg

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour “has an argument why prediction markets shouldn't be regulated as gambling,” says Aaron Brown. Sportsbooks “profit from customer losses, making them structurally predatory. Kalshi, by contrast, operates as a peer-to-peer exchange.” He is “right about the business model distinction. He’s wrong that it answers the regulatory question.” What Mansour is “describing — a balanced book, fees on both sides, no house risk on outcomes — has been the operating model of sports betting, both legal and illegal.”

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‘Women’s brains are a $1 trillion opportunity’

Lisa Mosconi and George Vradenburg at Time

Nowhere is the “cost of ignoring women’s health more visible or more correctable than in the brain,” say Lisa Mosconi and George Vradenburg. Closing the “women’s health gap could add $1 trillion in annual incremental GDP to the global economy.” This should “reframe how every boardroom and budget office thinks about women’s health.” Researchers “need to mandate sex-disaggregated data and fund women-focused trials for brain disease,” and policymakers “need to recognize women’s brain health as a core input to labor force productivity.”

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Donald Trump’s political rivals have denounced him as an “unhinged madman” and a “dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual” after he directed a string of expletives at the Iranian regime. “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell!” the US president said on his Truth Social platform .

But Trump is far from the only potty-mouthed politician, and trends suggest that swearing in politics is increasingly going from taboo to mainstream.

‘Profanity seal’

Woodrow Wilson “broke the profanity seal” in 1919, when the then president recalled a time he made a “conspicuous ass of himself”, said Joseph Phillips, a politics lecturer at Cardiff University. “Since then, presidents, their seconds-in-command, and presidential hopefuls have used profanity at least 692 times” – but the vast majority of curse words, 87%, occurred in the last 10 years.

We’ve “come a long way from our shock” at John Major, not knowing he was being recorded, using the word “bastards” while prime minister in 1993, said Robert Crampton in The Times. Although “tough talk is nothing new in politics”, leaders “long avoided flaunting it”, said The Independent. But now, public vulgarity is “in vogue”. During a political rally in 2025, Trump “used profanity at least four times”. J.D. Vance has also sworn publicly, and former vice president Kamala Harris “earned a roar of approval from her audience” last October when she said of the Trump administration that “these mother******* are crazy”.

Members of Congress and the Senate have also sworn as a “volley of vulgarities underscores an ever-coarsening political environment” on social media. Posts that “evoke the strongest emotions are rewarded with the most engagement”.

‘Anti-intellectualism’

There’s a “misguided belief” that “profanity is more ‘honest’ or ‘authentic’ than polite speech”, said Solomon D. Stevens in the Illinois paper the Journal-Courier. This suggests that politicians who swear are “telling it like it is” or “being real”, while those who don’t must be “holding back and not telling the truth”. But “politicians who swear are just politicians who swear. They can lie just as easily as those who don’t swear.”

There’s also “an anti-intellectualism at work”, as politicians who swear imply that those who don’t are “putting on airs”. While some intellectuals can “certainly be pretentious”, “refraining from coarse language” is not in itself a sign of that.

Trump’s “disinhibited language” sounded like a “tantrum”, said Melanie Phillips in The Times. It “suggested that he’d lost self-control because Iran wouldn’t do what he wanted”. Swearing points to an “emotional release and thus a loss of reason”.

The president’s recent profanity also distracted from “the message itself”, said the Deseret News. A “rousing and well-crafted argument” could have “built a compelling case for ousting the country’s ruling regime”, because “when it comes to war, calm self-assurance speaks louder than ranting expletives”.

Politicians aren’t “bawling swear words because they can’t contain their outrage”, said Barton Swaim in The Wall Street Journal. They do it because, “like preteen boys trying to sound tough”, they believe “the odd public expletive enhances their authenticity” and gives them “an air of pugnacity apropos to the moment”. But they are mistaken. “Most Americans still prefer their leaders to talk like grown-ups.”

Nevertheless, Democrats are pushing back against the right, using bad language themselves and embracing more confrontational and crass tactics. They see it as a way to beat Maga at its own game, attempting to “step outside the bounds of the political correctness that Republicans have accused Democrats of establishing”, said The New York Times.

Endorsements are designed to help a candidate win. But President Trump’s endorsement this week of California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton may have the paradoxical effect of keeping Golden State power in Democratic hands.

Trump’s decision to back Hilton could keep Democrats “from an embarrassing lockout” in the June primary election, said Politico. Candidates from both parties compete together in the primary election, with the top two — regardless of party — advancing to the November general election. Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco had a chance of creating a “Republican-on-Republican general election,” but Trump’s endorsement seems likely to send GOP voter support mostly to Hilton, away from Bianco, and give Democrats an opening for the second slot. It is “weird to feel thankful for a Trump action,” said the anonymous head of a Democrat-aligned group to Politico.

The Hilton backing is the latest twist in an “unusually messy” campaign to replace outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom, said The New York Times. Aside from Hilton and Bianco, the slate includes “eight prominent Democrats” who created a field “so fractured that no clear front-runner has emerged.” The result: Democrats were “increasingly panicked” about the possibility of a GOP-only November election. Trump “may have solved their problem.”

What did the commentators say?

GOP voters are “badly outnumbered in California” Matthew Hennessey said at The Wall Street Journal. Democrats have twice the number of registered voters as Republicans in the state. The key to pulling off a Democratic lockout, then, was “keeping the split between the two Republicans relatively even” while letting their opponents divvy up voters eight ways. The president’s endorsement means the “dream of a complete Democratic lockout is probably over.”

Trump forgot that one should “never interrupt your opponent while he’s making a mistake,” Noah Rothman said at the National Review. Two Republicans facing off to win the governorship of a famously Democratic state would have produced the “funniest of all possible results” for conservatives. That was an “unlikely” outcome, but the prospect might have forced Democrats to spend millions to avoid it. The president’s intervention means the California campaign is much “less interesting” than it might have been. “It was funny while it lasted.”

California is already in the midst of the “weirdest campaign for governor in recent history,” Dan Waters said at CalMatters. But Trump’s support for Hilton “does not absolutely close the door” to an all-GOP general election. The “top tier” of Democrats includes Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and billionaire Tom Steyer. Without a breakthrough by one of them, Republicans could still win both slots despite “Trump’s tactically foolish intervention.” Time is running short. “The clock is ticking.”

What next?

Trump’s endorsement will help Hilton “coalesce conservative support” in the primary but could “become a liability” in a general election campaign against a Democrat, said The Associated Press. Hilton remains a long shot anyway: GOP candidates have “not won a statewide election in California in two decades.”

‘The return-to-the-office trend backfires’

Gleb Tsipursky at The Hill

Many “business leaders think that a stricter return-to-office policy will cause a surge in productivity. But in reality, the data tells a different story,” says Gleb Tsipursky. Companies that “commit to highly flexible models, including remote-first, report strong output, healthier engagement and faster growth than mandate-driven peers.” These are “not isolated anecdotes; they are economy-wide patterns.” If “flexibility supports performance and expands talent, what do return-to-office mandates do? A growing body of research answers bluntly: not what its champions promise.”

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‘From medals to the Capitol: When women are elected, everyone wins.’

Lauri Hennessey and Kiana Scott at The Seattle Times

Many of the “barriers that kept women, especially women of color, from full participation in elected leadership are still in place today, and are present in and beyond politics,” say Lauri Hennessey and Kiana Scott. While men “share the weight of family care more than they once did, the scales are still deeply unbalanced, forcing many women and families to make choices.” Women are “still fighting, in many ways, for equality. That’s part of why electing women matters.”

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‘Latinos are turning away from Trump’s GOP. That doesn’t mean Democrats are entitled to their votes.’

Luis F. Carrasco at The Philadelphia Inquirer

In 2024, Donald Trump “could rightfully point with pride to how he performed with Hispanic voters in Texas,” but last week Latinos “turned out in massive numbers for the Democrats,” says Luis F. Carrasco. This is “good news for Democrats, but here’s the caveat: they cannot draw the lesson that this is Hispanic voters coming home. Instead, both parties must understand they cannot take Latinos for granted.” Some Latinos have a “sense that Democrats are not properly focused.”

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‘The war with Iran is reaching places you might not expect’

Grigor Hovhannisyan at Newsweek

The world’s “attention in the confrontation with Iran has focused on the obvious places,” says Grigor Hovhannisyan. But wars “rarely respect the neat geography of news coverage,” and airlines have “begun funneling through a narrow band of sky over three countries that rarely occupy the center of American strategic thinking: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.” The “sudden congestion overhead is less a commercial opportunity than a reminder of geography. When great powers collide, smaller states nearby tend to absorb the pressure.”

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What happened

A coalition of two dozen Democratic-led states on Thursday sued President Donald Trump at the U.S. Court of International Trade, arguing that the 10% global tariffs he imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs are similarly illegal. The lawsuit was filed a day after a judge on the trade court ordered the Trump administration to start refunding the more than $130 billion collected under the nullified tariffs.

Who said what

Trump imposed his new tariffs, which he plans to raise to 15%, using the never-before-invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. “The president has once again exercised tariff authority that he does not have — involving a statute that does not authorize the tariffs he has imposed — to upend the constitutional order and bring chaos to the global economy,” the lawsuit said.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Trump was using his legal authority to address America’s ”large and serious“ trade deficit, and the administration ”will vigorously defend” the tariffs in court. The legal question is whether Section 122’s reference to “fundamental international payments problems” — originally meant to address a 1960s crisis tied to gold-backed dollars — applies to modern trade deficits. “They are not the same thing at all,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said. “The president either doesn’t know the difference or he doesn’t care,” but “he is breaking the law” either way.

What next?

The states want the trade court to “declare the new tariffs illegal” and “refund states the cost of the new tariffs while they were in effect,” Politico said. “The focus right now should be on paying people back,” said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield.

What happened

The 2026 midterms kicked off Tuesday with primary elections in three states, including closely watched Senate contests in Texas and North Carolina. In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett and will face the winner of a May 26 runoff between Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton. In North Carolina, Republicans chose Michael Whatley, a former RNC chair, as their candidate to replace retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R), while Democrats selected former Gov. Roy Cooper. Arkansas also held primaries.

Who said what

“This is proof that there is something happening in Texas,” Talarico told supporters before The Associated Press called the race this morning, when he was leading Crockett 53% to 46%. “Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope. And a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.” Crockett said she might take legal action after voters were “disenfranchised” by confusing polling rules in her Dallas stronghold that also affected Talarico’s home base in Williamson County.

Cornyn, who was leading Paxton 42% to 41% in a three-way race, said the “flawed, self-centered and shameless” attorney general would be a “dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans” if he wins the runoff. The four-term senator’s advancement to a runoff against the scandal-plagued Paxton was “both a credit to and an indictment of the $70 million-plus spent on his behalf,” Theodore Schleifer said at The New York Times.

In other Texas races, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R) became the first incumbent unseated this season when he lost to state Rep. Steve Toth. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R), embroiled in controversy over an alleged affair with a staffer who killed herself, was forced into a runoff against YouTube influencer Brandon “the AK guy” Herrera.

What next?

The win by Talarico, a “36-year-old Bible scholar who captured national attention” for “using faith-based language to talk about progressive values,” provides “an early indication of the direction that the Democratic Party and its base voters are heading” into the midterms, The Wall Street Journal said. No Democrat has “won a U.S. Senate seat in Texas since 1988,” The Texas Tribune said. So “for all the focus on Texas,” said the AP, the Cooper-Whatley race in purple North Carolina “could have a bigger impact on which party ultimately wins the Senate majority in the fall.”

Democrats have long fantasized about winning a statewide campaign in deep-red Texas. Just as it did when Beto O’Rourke ran, the party is dreaming big, with a U.S. Senate primary election this week setting the stage for the next attempt in November.

Texas Democrats are “itching for a fight” in the Senate election, said NBC News. Voters this week will decide if State Rep. James Talarico or U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett will be the party’s nominee. Both candidates are “casting themselves as fighters,” but they have differing approaches. Talarico is trying to “energize voters across the political spectrum” in a fight against elites, while Crockett is attempting to harness Democrats’ “core supporters in a fight against Trump.” The winner of the primary will “provide some clues” about how rank-and-file Democrats want to win back power in an era of GOP dominance.

Republicans, meanwhile, are “freaking out” about the primary battle on their side of the ballot, said Politico. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, with the chance of a follow-up runoff race in May because a third Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, may make it impossible for either man to win an outright GOP majority this week. Paxton, while plagued by scandal, is a “MAGA hero” seemingly well-positioned to knock off Cornyn. But some GOP observers worry a Paxton primary victory would “put Senate Republicans’ majority at risk.”

What did the commentators say?

“Democrats are going wild” over the possibility of a Texas victory in November, said Bud Kennedy at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. And there are “bright signs” for the party: Of the million who have already voted in the primary, “one-fourth are completely new to any party primary.” But Democrats still very much have an uphill battle to fight. Winning a statewide race will take “heavy turnout of Democrats, plus a sweep of independent voters” as well as GOP defections. Talarico “could get there” but Crockett has “yet to strike a chord with independent voters.” The lesson? “Do not drink the blue Kool-Aid.”

Texas “will be ground zero in the 2026 midterm elections,” said Ed Kilgore at New York magazine. The differences between Talarico and Crockett are “more a matter of style and strategy than of ideology,” while the divisions between Paxton and Cornyn “seem sharper and more deep-seated.” Establishment Republicans are “viscerally disgusted” by Paxton, whose supporters regard Cornyn as a “RINO sellout.” A general election between Crockett and Paxton “should be wild, loud, and unpredictable.”

What next?

Crockett has a “double-digit lead” over Talarico in pre-primary polling, said The Texas Tribune. Republicans, though, believe Crockett “would be a weaker opponent” in the general election, said The Downballot. That is why Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is running ads “pretending to attack the GOP’s preferred candidate while actually hoping to boost her with Democrats.” It is a campaign that comes while Talarico “otherwise enjoys a huge advertising advantage over Crockett.” The primary election is Tuesday.

Perhaps the second-biggest question ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday (behind “what will he actually say?”) is what, if anything, will Democrats do to mark the president’s first SOTU of his uniquely authoritarian second term? In the recent past, State of the Union addresses have contended with disruptive outbursts, coordinated shows of respectful disapproval and a growing cottage industry of high-profile rebuttals, some officially party-sanctioned, others largely self-promotional. But with tensions running high and Washington decorum to consider, Democrats now find themselves torn between calls for calm and calls for more visible forms of resistance.

Call for 'silent defiance'

Democratic Party leaders are “encouraging their troops to protest” the president’s State of the Union speech Tuesday evening, but “how it’s done” remains a “sensitive topic,” said The Hill. After party members “churned headlines” last year with a “series of in-your-face demonstrations” at the president’s joint address to Congress, leaders are eager to “avoid a repeat of those theatrics.” Democrats should attend in “silent defiance” or skip the speech entirely, said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Those skipping will have an opportunity to participate in a “variety of different alternate programming.”

Debate among Democrats over whether to disrupt, skip, or sit quietly through the State of the Union reflects “broader, ongoing divisions in party strategy,” said MS NOW. With an eye toward the upcoming midterm elections, party leaders are aware that “symbolic decisions” on interrupting or avoiding the speech “could resonate with voters back home.” For many, it’s “simply a dilemma” whether to “even attend,” said Axios. And for those who do attend, “don’t expect anything on the scale of last year” when disruptions repeatedly peppered Trump’s address. There will be “no organized choreography as far as I know,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) to the outlet.

“Central” to the Democrats’ intended “show of force” in standing up to the administration will be “victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” said Roll Call. The effort “starts from leadership on down” with multiple lawmakers, including party heads Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), expected to bring Epstein survivors as their guests. Lawmakers participating in an advocacy group-sponsored “People’s State of the Union” alternative event on the National Mall will also be “sharing letters on behalf of Epstein survivors.”

Risking a diluted impact

Attendees of the “People’s State of the Union” include many lawmakers who eschewed major Trump events, like his inaugurations in the past, “underscoring a small but consistent block of Democrats” who continue to “opt out of the president’s most high-profile events,” said Politico. But after many who skipped the president’s first inauguration ultimately attended his second, the shrinking number of those avoiding his appearances signals a “faded resistance from the first Trump era.”

Barred by party leadership from interrupting Trump’s speech, Democrats are instead “planning individualized responses” to “show opposition to his agenda,” said Axios. But by trying to mobilize “every faction of their coalition before the midterms,” the party risks the fact that a “range of messages could dilute their impact.” Still, while it may complicate efforts to present a “fully unified front,” it has nevertheless become “common for factions within both parties to deliver separate rebuttals aimed at different constituencies.”

With the midterm elections just months away, President Donald Trump has been telegraphing his intent to dominate on election night, despite not personally being on the ballot. Whether threatening that the GOP could “take over the voting in at least 15 places” or insinuating that he might deploy Department of Homeland Security forces to polling locations, Trump and his aggressive posturing have caught the attention of candidates, party officials and electoral experts on both sides of the aisle. While polling and historic trends suggest the Democrats, as the party out of power, can expect a good showing in November, Trump’s rhetoric has alarmed and galvanized those who work to keep America’s electoral system running smoothly.

What did the commentators say?

Although the White House has “no explicit authority over elections,” it has, for generations, provided local election officials with “intelligence gathering and cybersecurity defenses” among other services that “only the federal government can provide,” said The New York Times. The administration’s newly combative posturing is a “sharp shift” for secretaries of state “after decades of close alliance with the federal government.”

The “vibes” at this year’s National Association of Secretaries of State conference were “completely different,” said CNN reporter Marshall Cohen to Vox. Democratic election figures are “terrified and strategizing” for a “potential assault by Trump on the integrity of the midterms.” In particular, officials are “very afraid about possible troop deployments” as seen in Chicago and California, as well as DHS immigration forces “being sent at the last minute when it might be too late to stop, but early enough to cause chaos and possibly intimidate or disenfranchise.”

Trump’s threats have pushed the country into “uncharted territory,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to Face the Nation. There is a “very real threat” that “without reforms at ICE,” there could be DHS patrols at polling sites on election day. “You don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.” Trump intends to “subvert the elections,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to This Week, and will do “everything he can to suppress the vote.”

In particular, the “purpose” of the recent Tulsi Gabbard-led FBI raid for Georgia 2020 election data was to “establish a precedent for further federal intervention in state and local elections” as well as to “intimidate state and local officials from resisting such efforts,” said The Bulwark. Should Trump deploy federal troops, they could be used to “intimidate likely Democratic voters ahead of time,” as well as “affect the counting of the ballots.”

Congressional GOP pushes to enact laws like the SAVE and Make Elections Great Again acts, which would dramatically restrict voting access, “can be viewed as a continuation” of Trump's 2020 election denialism, said The New York Times. Similarly, they are seen by some Democrats, like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), as “part of a larger pattern” including Trump’s nationalization rhetoric and regret over not having seized voting machines in 2020.

While this administration has worked to subvert the electoral process in the past, the “scope and severity” of his midterms effort is “unprecedented,” said Andy Craig at his UnPopulist Substack. Even so, although some of the threats are “more serious and pressing” compared to others, the overall “temptation to doomerism” is something that “we should reject.”

What next?

Unlike a “theoretical replay of 2020,” the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain local voter rolls and polling data are “operational now through four means,” said The New Republic: “Formal Justice Department demands, active litigation, seized election materials and scheduled federal briefings with state officials.” But while the effort seems designed to support Republicans at the expense of Democrats, “pushback has crossed party lines” with election officials in deep red states like Oklahoma and Kentucky bucking the White House’s initial asks.

The public should “take this seriously,” said CNN’s Cohen. Not because people should be “conspiracy theorists,” but because “we’ve lived through this before” with Trump’s many previous attempts to challenge elections. Yet “despite all this noise, despite all the fears, despite what you’ve been told that our system is garbage,” the “nonpartisan experts in election administration” agree America’s electoral structure is “quite resilient.” The public should ultimately “rest assured” that their ballots will be “counted fairly, despite all the drama.”

‘Jesse Jackson envisioned a more inclusive politics — and made it happen’

Donna Brazile at The Washington Post

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson “profoundly changed American politics,” and his “life story is a triumph over adversity,” says Donna Brazile. Jackson “advanced a broadly progressive agenda” and “embraced the then-relatively new idea that diversity was a strength, not a weakness.” He “liked to talk about the nation as a quilt patched together by intent and accident,” and “made us see what could be, which helped so much of it come to be, and we are all the better for it.”

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‘Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants more time.’

Bloomberg editorial board

It “should be obvious by now that Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing for time,” says the Bloomberg editorial board. Putin’s “negotiators are dragging out peace talks, making enough conciliatory noises to fend off renewed U.S. pressure while Russian missiles and drones pound Ukraine.” Additional “pressure on Putin would have an impact,” and the U.S. and Europe “need to focus on further strangling Russia’s income from oil exports.” Nations have “agreed that wars should have limits.”

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‘American Ninja Warriors on ice’

Chris Schleicher at Slate

Pairs is the “best discipline in figure skating,” says Chris Schleicher. Pairs skaters are the “American Ninja Warriors of figure skating, doing X Games–level stunts with the gentility and grace of the Bolshoi Ballet.” Whether “you’re looking for beauty or you enjoy the NASCAR thrill of impending disaster, pairs has something for everyone.” It comes down to “who can sell us on their connection while forgetting for four minutes that every element they’re performing is absolutely insane.”

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‘The Mediterranean does not have to be a graveyard. Preventable failures are turning it into one.’

Amy Pope at Le Monde

The Mediterranean has “claimed lives that should never have been lost,” says Amy Pope. These deaths are the “predictable outcome of policy failure, criminal exploitation and a global conversation on migration that has become dangerously distorted – and they are largely preventable.” Migrant smuggling networks are at the “heart of this crisis — sophisticated criminal enterprises that profit from despair.” This is “more than reckless indifference; it is an appalling disregard for human life.”

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The Trump administration has spent a considerable amount of time and effort actively pursuing an array of the president's purported “enemies,” frequently targeting Democratic notables with histories of clashing with this White House. While the bulk of these actions have come in the form of bombastic Justice Department proclamations and hastily pursued prosecutions, many have failed to gain serious traction, since judges and juries have rejected efforts to criminally convict the president’s political adversaries. As the DOJ stumbles in its pushes for punishment, some Democrats have begun to embrace the attention, leveraging the missteps for their own political purposes.

What did the commentators say?

Democrats notched a “significant legal win” after the Justice Department failed to secure criminal charges against six lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who recorded a video reminding military members of their obligation to reject illegal orders, said Politico. Now those six are “looking to gain political momentum” and “build their campaign war chests” after the experience. Given the “attention-driven political economy” in which Washington now operates, President Donald Trump’s attacks have become a “valuable boost” to Democrats, including some with an “eye toward future leadership positions in the party.”

“Sitting down and taking it and being quiet doesn’t actually make you safer,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), one of the Democrats targeted over the video, to Roll Call. “Going on offense” seems the “only way to get their attention.” Trump officials who think they’re “going to intimidate us and threaten and bully me into silence, and they’re going to go after political opponents and get us to back down,” have “another thing coming,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who also appeared in the video, said to Punchbowl News. “The tide is turning.”

There has always been a risk that Trump’s “politicized prosecutions will backfire,” both by “empowering the political martyrs they create” and by “exposing their own corruption,” said Emptywheel. A new suite of legal motions from Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), charged late last year by the DOJ for allegedly assaulting a federal immigration official during her effort to conduct an oversight visit at a Newark detention facility, suggests such a backfiring “may soon happen.”

The dynamic of Democrats facing overt hostility from Trump’s Justice Department and then seeking to capitalize on it was on display this week during Attorney General Pam Bondi’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. Bondi’s “hostile performance” in many ways “played directly into Democrats’ hands,” Politico said. Democrats and “even some Republicans” believe “privately” that Bondi’s appearance will “probably help the Democrats during the fall midterm elections,” said Salon.

What next?

Beyond raising profiles and elevating potential political martyrs, Trump’s attacks on Democrats “often serve as their best fundraising tool,” said Politico. Oftentimes, Democrats’ “largest online fundraising spikes” occurred after a party member “stood up to or was attacked by Trump.” The public, meanwhile, seems to exhibit a “bit more skepticism” about Trump’s retributive prosecutions “than they ever did” the president’s own indictments, said CNN.

Americans believe by a 55%-45% margin that the indictments against Trump had been warranted, while a 58%-42% margin said the “charges against Trump’s foes were not justified,” according to a November Marquette Law School poll. The poll was conducted during the administration’s effort to indict former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, said CNN.

The White House’s “attempt to strong-arm” Kelly “into silence” with lawsuits and threats of military demotions has prompted the former astronaut and fighter pilot to respond in ways that “looked and sounded downright presidential,” said The Boston Globe. Still, if Kelly has presidential aspirations, he is “unlikely to announce them anytime soon.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers who appeared alongside Kelly have been slightly more forthcoming about their futures. Four House Democrats, including Crow, have “hinted” at plans for a “case of their own” after escaping indictment this week, said Fox News. “We are taking names,” said Crow. “We are creating lists.” His legal team has reached out to the Justice Department, “putting them on notice that there will be costs.”

While Democrats and Republicans work to reach an agreement on funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the parties remain far apart. Despite Republicans controlling Congress, they are unable to pass funding for ICE without some Democratic votes. Democrats in both chambers of Congress have put forth a series of changes they want to see at the agency, whose funding expires Feb. 13.

What did the commentators say?

These reforms at ICE are a “line in the sand,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). One major issue involves Americans’ homes: Democrats want to “bar federal immigration agents from entering private property without a judicial warrant,” said The Washington Post. ICE has previously advised its agents that they can “enter homes to make arrests without a warrant from a judge, outraging Democrats,” who say this violates the Fourth Amendment.

Americans largely agree with this idea, polls show. Nearly 70% of Americans believe ICE must have “judicial warrants to forcibly enter homes of people subject to deportation,” according to an Economist/YouGov survey. Despite the backing of most of the public, some in the GOP have “balked, arguing that the proposal would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy,” said the Post.

The widespread use of face coverings by ICE has also come under scrutiny, and Democrats are “pushing for a mask ban and identification requirements for federal agents,” said The Hill. ICE officials say that wearing masks prevents their agents from being doxxed online, but Democrats argue that officers’ practice of “masking and not displaying ID badges erodes accountability in these operations.” Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have “indicated changes to a mask and ID policy amount to nearly a nonstarter.”

The party seeks several other changes. They include prohibiting federal funds from being used to “conduct enforcement near sensitive locations, including medical facilities, schools, child care facilities,” and places of worship, said The Guardian. Democrats also want to stop ICE from “conducting stops, questioning and searches based on an individual’s presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent, or their race or ethnicity.” This last measure follows one notable video that circulated of an ICE agent claiming he was detaining a man “because of your accent.”

And while ICE has recently said it will equip all of its agents with body cameras, this has Democrats “running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters,” said Politico. Though the party has made these body cams one of their foremost demands, it must also navigate a growing “outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters.”

What next?

Democrats have rejected an offer from the White House, and “finding real agreement in such a short time will be difficult,” said The Associated Press. It will likely be an “impossibility,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), per the AP. And House GOP leadership is also “demanding that some of their own priorities be added to the Homeland Security spending bill,” including a provision that would require proof of citizenship before registering to vote.

What happened

White House border czar Tom Homan announced that he was pulling 700 immigration agents from Minneapolis and refocusing the enforcement blitz there, as Democratic lawmakers demanded Congress place new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies they say have descended into lawlessness. Homan—whom President Trump put in charge of the operation as outrage swelled over the killings of protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti—cited “unprecedented collaboration” from local officials, who are allowing ICE to take custody of undocumented inmates before they are released from jails. He said there would be a shift away from broad street sweeps to operations focused on immigrants with criminal records. But Homan stressed that Trump was still committed to mass deportations. “If you are in the country illegally,” he said, “you are not off the table.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the reduction “a step in the right direction,” but noted that with about 2,000 agents still on the ground, it was “not de-escalation.”

Homan’s announcement came a day after U.S. citizens who have been shot and violently detained by immigration agents testified at a Capitol Hill forum organized by Democrats. “I struggle every day with the pain and the suffering,” said Marimar Martinez, 30, a Chicagoan who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent after she tailed the officer’s vehicle in her car. Good’s brother Luke Ganger told the forum that federal agents’ aggressive actions “are changing the community, and changing many lives, including ours, forever.” House Democrats released a report slamming agents’ “unlawful” tactics, as lawmakers voted to end a partial government shutdown and negotiated over new accountability measures that would be built into a funding package for the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is “completely out of control,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.). “Congress has a responsibility to step in.”

In Portland, Ore., Mayor Keith Wilson demanded agents leave the city after they lobbed tear gas at demonstrators, including young children, engaging in a peaceful protest outside an ICE facility. In Minnesota, federal Judge Patrick Schiltz decried ICE’s defiance of court orders, saying the agency has ignored at least 96 judicial directives this year. That “should give pause to anyone, no matter his or her political beliefs, who cares about the rule of law,” wrote the George W. Bush appointee.

What the columnists said

Tensions in the Twin Cities remain high, said Louis Krauss in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, but residents, protesters, and city officials report “a seeming change in agents’ tactics.” They include fewer ICE caravans, fewer agents on foot rousting pedestrians, and “fewer confrontations with protesters.” But “intense fights still break out daily between agents and protesters following them.” Videos posted on social media this week showed agents pointing guns at observers trailing them in an SUV, forcing them out of the vehicle, and detaining them.

In neighborhoods “once alive with the pulse of immigrant communities,” the crackdown has “fractured families, rattled worried neighbors, and left residents feeling unsafe,” said Alaa Elassar in CNN.com. Ryan Strandjord never imagined he’d see “his tree-lined, lake-dotted hometown” transformed into a “battleground” by what he likens to a military occupation. U.S. citizens and immigrants alike are choosing to stay home and keep their kids out of school, he said. “There’s just overall a feeling of fear and dread.”

Far from de-escalating, ICE is seeking to expand its authority, said Noah Feldman in Bloomberg. The agency has authorized officers to arrest anyone they suspect of being undocumented, even if agents lack a warrant and the person isn’t a flight risk. That license for agents to “grab just about anyone they want” came on the heels of “another legally indefensible memo,” which said officers could enter homes of suspected undocumented migrants without a judicial warrant. It all reveals an agency bent on making its agents “into an all-powerful police force.”

Judge Schiltz flags another alarming trend, said law professor Ryan Goodman in The New Yorker—the growing “lawlessness” of an administration engaged in “flagrant” defiance of court orders. The nearly 100 cases Schiltz cited include repeated instances where the administration has refused orders to release detainees or present them in court, or has transferred them to other jurisdictions against direct orders. Their contempt of court is “truly extraordinary” and may be moving us toward a “constitutional crisis.”

Such actions are unsettling Americans, and not just Democrats, said William A. Galston in The Wall Street Journal. More than a third of 2024 Trump voters said in a Politico poll that while they back the president’s mass deportation campaign, they disapprove of how it’s being done. In a Harvard/Harris poll, majorities said “federal agents have gone too far and are violating civil liberties,” while a Pew poll found that Americans by “wide margins” think it unacceptable for agents to stop and question people based on their appearance or the language they speak.

Time will tell if the administration’s de-escalation talk is sincere or “just a cheap PR dodge,” said Andrew Egger in The Bulwark. But even if it’s the former, “these systems now have a logic of their own.” Homeland Security has systematically built ICE “into something that looks less like a disciplined law enforcement agency than a small paramilitary force,” recruiting bigoted “meatheads” with anti-immigrant “propaganda” and sending them into U.S. cities with minimal training. Once you’ve created the “monster,” it won’t be easily tamed.

What happened

Christian Menefee on Saturday won a special election for an open House seat in the Houston-area 18th Congressional District, whittling down the chamber’s already thin Republican majority. In a second Texas runoff election, Democrat Taylor Rehmet scored an upset victory over Republican Leigh Wambsganss for a state Senate seat in Tarrant County. Rehmet, a union leader, beat the conservative activist by 14 points in the solidly Republican district, which President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024.

Who said what

Rehmet’s victory was a “stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense” of “panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections,” The Texas Tribune said. Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) and Trump, “had been sounding alarms” about the “too close for comfort” race, The Wall Street Journal said, but “the 31-point swing leftward was a surprise across the board.”

Saturday’s victories “followed a string of wins in recent months for the Democratic Party in local and state elections across the country,” Reuters said. Strategists and analysts view special elections as a “barometer for measuring the national political mood and voter attitudes,” The Washington Post said. But Trump, who endorsed Wambsganss and sent out three get-out-the-vote alerts last week, “tried to play down any effort to connect the unpopularity of his presidency and policies” to the GOP losses. “I’m not involved with that,” he told reporters Sunday. “That’s a local Texas race.”

What next?

Once House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) swears in Menefee, 10 months after former Rep. Sylvester Turner (D) died in office, his majority will be so “razor-thin” he will be able “lose only one Republican vote,” the Post said. Rehmet’s “win will be short-lived,” the Tribune said, as he will face Wambsganss again in November for the full four-year term.

Donald Trump has said his administration is “reviewing everything” after an intensive-care nurse was shot dead by Ice agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.

The US president’s advisers have been discussing his “aggressive deportation policies” for weeks, said The Wall Street Journal, but the shooting of Alex Pretti has “brought new urgency to those conversations”. Some of Trump’s aides see the “increasingly volatile situation” in Minneapolis as a “political liability, even as the White House has publicly doubled down on its operations”.

What did the commentators say?

Federal agents have not only killed a US citizen “like authoritarian thugs”, said Zack Beauchamp on Vox, but “their superiors in Washington justified that killing with the kind of bald-faced lie that recalls Tehran and Moscow”.

Trump’s “sycophantic lieutenants” reacted to the shooting “with characteristic mendacity”, said Simon Marks in The i Paper. Officials described the 37-year-old nurse as a “domestic terrorist” and, despite video evidence and witness testimony to the contrary, said the federal agents acted in self-defence in the middle of an “armed struggle”. These brazen attempts to blacken Pretti’s memory, coming so soon after the shooting of Renee Good, “may serve as a turning point that sparks mass resistance towards the President and the thuggish regime that he leads”.

“Your eyes don’t lie,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told NBC. The contrast between what administration officials have claimed and what millions of Americans have seen on their phones this past weekend could be “crucial” in emboldening Trump’s “Congressional critics to confront him”, said Susan Page on USA Today.

Democrats, and even some staunch Republican supporters of the president, have called for an independent investigation into the shooting. Some have indicated they would block a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security until restrictions on Ice operations are put into place. This could lead to a stand-off in Congress or even another government shutdown – something the Trump administration is keen to avoid.

In this fight, “Democrats will prevail if they focus on a narrow set of reasonable demands”, while the president “will gain the upper hand if the left clamours for abolishing Ice” altogether, said The Washington Post editorial board.

What next?

Today, Trump sent his Border Czar, Tom Homan, to Minnesota. He had previously threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and flood Minneapolis with even more military force but he seemed to change course late on Sunday. Such a “violent approach” is “unlikely to succeed in a country like the US”, said Beauchamp on Vox. Its domestic security forces “are not equipped for the level of extreme brutality necessary to make it work in the face of growing public outrage”.

“How Trump responds to the democratic outpouring” on Minnesota’s streets and to the “growing unease” even in his own party “will determine just how dark and brutal the next few months will be”.

The dynamic among politicians has been shifting lately, as some Democrats embrace more confrontational, crass tactics from across the aisle. As the left ramps up for the midterm elections, it seems party members may be willing to try out less polite forms of communication, an approach known in online circles as ‘dark woke.’

What defines dark woke?

Party insiders say that Democratic politicians have been encouraged to “embrace a new form of combative rhetoric” aimed at “winning back voters who have responded to President Donald Trump’s no-holds-barred version of politics,” said The New York Times. This is an attempt to “step outside the bounds of the political correctness that Republicans have accused Democrats of establishing.” It’s an affect that “requires being crass but discerning, rude but only to a point.” Examples include California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s aggressive meme warfare and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s “alliterative insults” (“bleach blonde bad built butch body”).

Republicans have “essentially put Democrats in a respectability prison,” said Bhavik Lathia, a communications consultant and former digital director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, to the Times. There is an “extreme imbalance in strategy that allows Republicans to say stuff that really grabs voters’ attention,” while Democrats are “stuck saying boring pablum.” That has shifted with stunts like Newsom showing off knee pads on Thursday that he suggested were for leaders “selling out” to the Trump administration, said CNBC.

The objective of the dark woke agenda is to “subvert the qualities that people think made wokeness cringe — the virtue policing, the polite ‘when they go low, we go high’ posturing,” said Kieran Press-Reynolds at GQ. The left is now trying to “go Joker mode to make Democrats cool again.”

Dark woke is a “meme with amorphous contours,” said Unherd. Sometimes, it is “merely rhetorical,” other times, it “offers serious strategies to challenge MAGA with a dose of its own post-liberal medicine.” Either way, it is “rooted in the same demand posed by grassroots Democrats to the party establishment: throw some punches, or we’ll primary you into oblivion.”

Will it boost Democrats?

Some Democrats are all in for the harsher rhetoric. Being able to “use this strategy of being raw and unapologetic and unabashed about our beliefs is something our base really wants,” said Chi Ossé, the Brooklyn councilman whose “meme-fluent, sometimes confrontational presence” on X has put him “on the radar of national Democratic organizers,” said the Times.

Others say there is a “line that Democrats should be sure to toe as they ramp up their attacks,” said the Times. You do not have to be “cruel to be sharp,” said Annie Wu Henry, a communications strategist who has worked with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), to the outlet. “We can be bold, we can be petty, we can be punchy and still have a moral compass.” Democrats “don’t have to replicate the right’s formula.”

For some, the Democrats’ new focus on viral dark woke posts is just a “lot of hot air,” said Alex Peter, a lawyer and left-wing commentator, to the Times. Part of the problem with the “mainstream Democratic Party” is that it “all kind of rings hollow,” he said. “I don’t care about another clapback. People want concrete deliverables.”

Dark woke content “could serve as a cathartic release for the many jaded progressives fed up with the tame grandstanding and insipid inertia of their party’s leaders,” said GQ. But right now, it “mostly feels like an algorithmic fad built on quick thrills, destined to become cringe.” It is “a meme, not a movement,” and “many people are already dismissive.”

The “real trouble with dark woke” is that it is a “plainly false, calibrated attempt at gritty authenticity,” said Ross Barkan at Intelligencer. “It doesn’t mean anything or stand for anything.” It is “awkward and alienating” when politicians suddenly decide they must “dispense with decorum to catch up to Trump.” At best, dark woke is a “cheap trick” that offers “shock value and allows Democrats to think they can suddenly make the Joe Rogan and Theo Von fan bases trust them again.” But “young, male, and politically heterodox” voters are not “hunting for garden-variety Democrats who belch out ‘fuck’ and ‘damn’ every once in a while.”

After a year spent largely relegated to the congressional sidelines, Democrats have begun approaching 2026 with something approximating optimism. The unpopularity of the Trump administration’s major policy initiatives, shaky economic forecasts and historical tailwinds that typically boost off-year elections for the minority party have given some Democrats a sliver of hope that the Senate might be within striking distance. Ahead of the November midterms, are some in the party plotting behind rose-tinted electoral glasses, or is there a real chance at the majority?

What did the commentators say?

While party leaders see a “path to winning the majority,” the route is “one with very little wiggle room,” said The Associated Press. While a Democratic congressional majority “looked all but impossible at the start of last year,” the party’s prospects have ”somewhat improved as 2026 begins.” Democrats have a ”clear and strong path to winning back the Senate,” said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to Politico. “A year ago, no one thought that.” But while Democrats have been “boosted by a string of off-year victories,” Schumer’s optimism belies the party’s “own contentious and expensive primary season ahead.”

For Democrats, the path to the majority runs “primarily through four battleground states: North Carolina, Maine, Ohio and Alaska,” where the party believes it has the “best odds” of flipping seats, said The Wall Street Journal. To that end, Schumer is "celebrating a class of star Senate recruits" to run in those races. He has also used the “threat of two more Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices” to “bait top Democrats” into running this year, said Axios.

Schumer’s “key recruiting victories” for his Senate bid include former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, outgoing Maine Gov. Janet Mills, former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, and former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola. At the same time, Democrats must “protect” Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and block Republicans from an open seat in Michigan, where the “primary has turned ugly,” said Axios.

Ultimately, Schumer’s public position is a “rosy one,” said Semafor — “Part of his job” includes selling colleagues on a “vision of taking the chamber.” There remain “tons of obstacles” Democrats will need to “navigate around” to have “any hope of actually flipping a chamber that’s now a 53-seat GOP majority.” Previous “bold predictions of Democratic victories” by Schumer have “not always panned out,” said The New York Times, including in 2024, when Democrats lost the Senate.

Democrats “still have a difficult path to the majority,” said Roll Call. That the party is in a position where it “may need to rely on Alaska” is “evidence” of how “tough” a road to 51 seats Schumer has before him.

What next?

Before Democrats can “test their general-election appeal,” they must first endure “some primaries that highlight lingering divisions within the party,” said the AP. “Crowded or contentious primaries” are playing out in Maine, Minnesota, Texas, and Iowa, “forcing” the party to “devote resources even in states not central to their path to a majority.” In addition to primary headaches, Democrats must also contend with President Donald Trump’s super PAC, “flush with $300 million,” a “huge and unusual sum to be amassed by a second-term president,” said the Times.

A “key question” for Democrats this year — “really, the key question” — is whether the party can “win in hostile states anymore,” said The Center for Politics. Even if Democrats successfully defend all their seats, flip North Carolina’s open seat, and oust perennial target Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the two remaining seats needed to reach 51 would need to come from states that “all currently have Republican senators and voted for Trump by double-digit margins in 2024.”

Democrats “don’t have a preference, old versus young, more progressive versus a little less progressive,” when it comes to running different types of candidates in different races, Schumer said to Politico. “It’s who can do best in their state. There’s a lot of factors that go into that.”

What happened

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of “abuse of authority and undermining of the public health.” Stevens, who is running for Senate in a competitive primary, previously called on Kennedy to resign.

She has also filed the “Stop RFK’s BS Act,” which would “reverse funding cuts Kennedy has overseen,” said The Hill.

Who said what

Kennedy has “driven up health care costs” while “tearing down the scientific institutions” Americans rely on, Stevens said in a press release. With Republicans in control of Congress, The New York Times said, it would be “close to impossible” for her “all but certainly futile” impeachment bid to “get a vote on the House floor or lead to a trial in the Senate.”

Stevens is “part of a growing group of House Democrats effectively going rogue by mounting impeachment efforts without support from party leadership,” Axios said. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon accused her of “partisan theatrics” intended to “elevate” her “standing in a failing, third-rate Senate bid.”

What next?

Stevens said her effort was more than “political theater” and more substantive than the impeachment measures filed by Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas). But many Democrats expressed “frustration” at the move, Axios said. “You can’t swing a cat without hitting an impeachable offense in this administration,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif), but “it’s just deeply distracting and unproductive to make that our priority in this moment.”

What happened

Florida Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor of Miami Tuesday night, defeating Republican Emilio González 59.5% to 40.5%. Higgins, a former county commissioner, will be Miami’s first woman mayor and the first Democrat to hold the position in 28 years.

She will also be the “first non-Hispanic mayor since the 1990s” in a city where “Cuban American Republicans have dominated” politically for decades, The New York Times said.

Who said what

“Affordability was a key issue throughout the campaign,” CNN said. But Higgins also “spoke frequently in the Hispanic-majority city” about President Donald Trump’s “immigration crackdown,” The Associated Press said, and the “many people in Miami who were worried about family members being detained.”

Like the rest of Florida, “Miami has become more Republican over the past few election cycles, making a Democratic victory all the more striking,” the Times said. The position of Miami mayor is “technically nonpartisan,” the Miami Herald said, but “party politics became a major focus” after “major GOP politicians announced support for González,” including Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. Last month, the Democratic National Committee said it was going “all in” on Higgins. “Both national political parties were hoping they could point to the race as a win” and a “bellwether” for 2026, said the Herald.

The results were “not a rebuke of the president or the party,” Miami-Dade GOP chair Kevin Cooper said Tuesday night, per Politico, and Democrats are trying to “read something into this that it’s not.” Trump and González “made it into a national race, and they got clobbered,” said DNC finance chair Chris Korge.

What next?

Local races are “not predictive of what may happen at the polls next year,” the AP said, but “some local Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated” at recent Democratic wins and overperformances, including November’s off-year blue sweep. In Georgia Tuesday, Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a state House seat in a district Trump won by 12 percentage points last year.

What happened

Republican Matt Van Epps won Tuesday’s special election in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th Congressional District, defeating Democratic state lawmaker Aftyn Behn 54% to 45%. Van Epps will replace former Rep. Mark Green (R), who won the seat by 21 percentage points last year as President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points.

Who said what

Republicans won, maintaining their 219-213 advantage in the House, “but instead of celebrating, many are dreading what it means about the midterms,” Politico said. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) team “was bracing for a tighter-than-comfortable race,” but the “single-digit margin was still a hard pill to swallow after national Republicans pulled out all the stops — including a Trump tele-rally and Johnson visit to the district — to rescue Van Epps in the final days.” GOP-aligned groups spent $7 million in the race, versus $3 million for Democratic-aligned groups, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Trump hailed the “BIG Congressional WIN” on social media, calling it “another great night for the Republican Party!!!” Van Epps said his victory showed that “running from Trump is how you lose. Running with Trump is how you win.” Nobody in Washington “believed we could get even this close,” Behn said following her defeat. “Tonight isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a next chapter of Tennessee and American politics.”

What next?

The district’s “13-point shift toward Democrats” should be a “five-alarm fire” for Republicans “ahead of the 2026 midterms,” said elections analyst G. Elliott Morris. “A 13-point shift may seem extraordinary or jaw-dropping,” Nate Cohn said at The New York Times, but “for Republicans this year, it’s simply the norm.”

The longest government shutdown in US history ended with a whimper, said Nitish Pahwa on Slate. For 43 days, Congress had been in a stalemate as Senate Democrats withheld support for a government funding bill in a bid to force the Republicans to extend Covid-era healthcare subsidies.

The subsidies are set to expire next month, at which point the average health insurance premiums of millions of Americans will more than double. But last week, enough Democrats – eight senators – “caved”, allowing the budget to pass in return for the mere promise of a future vote on whether to revive the subsidies.

‘Angry activists’

How pathetic, said Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. The Democrats had been winning the stand-off. Polls showed that many voters blamed the GOP for the shutdown. Even as senators were preparing to capitulate, President Trump was booed by a crowd at an American football game. Talk about stealing defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Democrats were right to back down, said Michael Powell in The Atlantic. The shutdown was hurting too many people. Poor families were going hungry without food stamps. Federal employees were struggling to pay mortgages and bills without paycheques. Unpaid air traffic controllers meant flight cancellations. The Democrats, who take pride in defending the less fortunate, couldn’t sustain their position.

It’s always the way with government shutdowns, said The Washington Post. Parties instigate them to placate “angry activists”, only to have to fold, prompting a backlash from those same activists.

Democrats ‘may have dodged a bullet’

The recriminations among Democrats have indeed been bitter, said Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine. There have been calls for the replacement of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But “losing” the subsidy-extension battle is no disaster for the party. On the contrary, the Democrats “may have dodged a bullet”. Securing the extension would have neutralised one of the GOP’s key political vulnerabilities: the Republicans have “emerged from the shutdown row having abundantly displayed their lack of interest in soaring healthcare costs”.

That’s not a good look at a time when “affordability” has become such a big election issue, and voters will remember it when their insurance premiums soar. “The short-term stakes of the shutdown fight may soon be overshadowed by more enduring public perceptions” of what the two parties stand for.

With California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) term-limited and ineligible to run again, a massive group of contenders is lining up to take his job running the Golden State. Given the state’s strong liberal lean, most headlines have been focused on the Democratic candidates, many of whom have served or are currently serving major roles in government. But now they are looking to secure a seat in Sacramento come November 2026.

Over a dozen Democratic candidates

The numerous Democrats who have declared their candidacy include former Rep. Katie Porter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and activist billionaire Tom Steyer. Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of the most high-profile California congressmen, has also joined the race.

Swalwell “gained prominence during President Donald Trump’s first term in office when he was heavily involved in both impeachment proceedings,” said NBC News, and he has previously run for president. His opponents are “emblematic of the current state of the California gubernatorial race: A wide-open contest, shaping up to be one of the most expensive political battles of 2026,” said Bloomberg.

Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager, is “pitching himself as a Democratic anti-corporate crusader who would spur housing production,” said Bloomberg. Porter was originally seen as a frontrunner, but her “bid was tarnished after she angrily confronted a television reporter and a video of her shouting at a staffer surfaced.” However, she “still leads Democratic contenders with 11% of support.” Villaraigosa “says he has the experience his rivals lack, but has so far steered clear of specific proposals.”

As former President Joe Biden’s HHS secretary, Becerra has some name recognition from his time at the White House. But he has also become embroiled in a scandal “involving his closest aides siphoning money from one of his campaign accounts,” said Politico. There is additionally a major name notably not running: former Vice President Kamala Harris, who ruled out a run for governor earlier this year. California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was also considered a potential contender, but like Harris, he has declined a bid.

‘Lack of a blockbuster candidate’

Despite the number of candidates, the gubernatorial contest remains a “sleepy race filled with candidates looking for ways to catch fire in the 2026 election,” said the Los Angeles Times. Interest in the race among voters “remains relatively moribund” due to the influx of people running. However, the “lack of a blockbuster candidate in the race” has prompted others, such as Steyer, to throw their name into the ring.

Even as the candidate pool narrows down, it will be an uphill battle, as “getting elected governor of California is a difficult task, requiring the creation of a large apparatus to plan and execute a campaign strategy and raising tens of millions of dollars to pay for it,” said CalMatters. The “uncertainty underscores not only the daunting logistics of a California campaign, but perhaps some hesitancy” about running the state itself.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) may not have a tight grip on his post. Some Democrats are angry that their party surrendered in the government shutdown fight, and are placing the blame on the caucus elder.

Democrats are “questioning Chuck Schumer’s future” after the shutdown, said CNN. The 75-year-old is “facing more grumbling than he ever has” from fellow Senate Democrats and even his own New York constituents. There are few expectations of a “coup or immediate change” that would move him out of power in the near term. But some analysts say he “could go down in a primary challenge if he tries” to run for another term in 2028. Schumer is in his “last term, and he may be the only one on Earth unaware of it,” said one House Democrat.

What did the commentators say?

“It’s time for the Democratic Party to head in a new direction,” said Sara Pequeño at USA Today. Schumer is “incapable” of being a leader who is “quick on their feet and ready to do things differently” in opposing President Donald Trump. The shutdown is not the only issue. Schumer also “failed” to endorse Zohran Mamdani, the victorious Democratic candidate in the recent New York City mayoral election. The party’s rank-and-file voters are noticing these shortcomings: Just 35% of Democrats approve of the minority leader’s performance. There is a reason Schumer is taking heat from Democrats. “He deserves it,” said Pequeño.

Those poll numbers make Schumer the “most unpopular Senate leader with his own party” on record, said Ross Barkan at New York magazine. The senator is seen by progressives and “restive moderates” as a leader “out of touch with the current mood.” And in his home state, polls show him losing a primary challenge to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) by a substantial margin. Schumer has been a “lock to win reelection” for decades, but he now might be “wise to retire rather than run again.”

Those looking to replace Schumer as minority leader are “missing two critical ingredients,” said Axios. They do not have a “clear path to his ouster,” nor is there a Senate Democrat “who’d want the job.” Some observers say the movement to push Schumer out of leadership is just beginning. The conversation about his future is “legitimized and the conversation is moving forward,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

What next?

Schumer does have defenders, said NBC News. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has pushed back against critics like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) who have publicly called out the Senate leader. House Democrats “should focus on their own leadership,” Kaine said. But Khanna is pressing the case. Schumer is “out of touch with the grassroots” of the Democratic Party, he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Schumer isn’t going anywhere” for now, said Time. That is because “no one who wants him gone has the power to make it happen.” That does not mean he will regain popularity. Schumer has “come to personify Democrats’ discontent.”

What happened

The Senate Monday night voted 60-40 to end the government shutdown, now in its 42nd day, with seven Democrats and one allied independent joining every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). President Donald Trump said he would “abide by” the “very good” deal hatched by a group of moderate Senate Democrats and Republicans. But most congressional Democrats sharply opposed the package, which funds part of the government for a year and the rest through Jan. 30.

It does not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Democrats’ main demand, though it reverses Trump’s thousands of federal layoffs since Oct. 1, bans new firings through January and ensures back pay for federal workers.

Who said what

Even though most Democrats and Paul opposed the spending bill, they “ultimately declined to slow-walk the process,” Politico said. “Republicans own this health care crisis,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “They knew it was coming. We wanted to fix it. Republicans said no, and now it’s on them.”

Democrats are “descending into bitter clashes” over the deal, Burgess Everett and David Weigel said at Semafor. “But when the shutdown is over, the media and the public will move onto the next issue” — and Democratic leaders view next month’s negotiated Senate vote to extend ACA credits as the “key to putting pressure back on Republicans” over health care costs set to spike across the U.S. in January.

Democrats “believe they now have an issue to run on,” as the “party fighting for lowering health care costs” while Trump “attempts to deny food stamps to needy families,” Luke Broadwater said in a New York Times analysis. “But Trump officials have also learned a lesson. If they wait out Democrats long enough — and turn up the pain enough — they will back down.”

What next?

The House will begin voting on the shutdown-ending deal as early as Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told lawmakers. The Senate was scheduled to start a weeklong break today, so the House has to pass the legislation as is if the government is to reopen in the coming days. With Trump’s support, passage is likely but not guaranteed, The Washington Post said. House Republicans “hold a slim margin — they can lose only two votes and still pass the bill if all Democrats vote against it.”

After nearly a year of licking wounds and playing defense in the face of the Trump administration’s consolidation of power, the Democratic Party is suddenly poised to regain some of the momentum lost in its 2024 electoral drubbing. In special elections around the country Tuesday night, Democratic candidates notched striking victories, toppling political dynasties and securing historic margins in races that many have taken as an encouraging sign for next year’s midterms. Still, as Republicans move to downplay the latest blue wave, some Democrats are similarly hesitant to fully embrace their wins, fearful that highlighting progressive victories like that of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani could stunt the party’s efforts to move toward an electoral center.

‘Major questions’

For Democrats broadly, the electoral victories of Nov. 4 were a “circuit-breaker” that ended the past “annus horribilis” for the party, said Politico. Beyond simply winning “every closely-watched election,” the striking takeaway from the races is that their victories “were so sweeping.” There were double-digit gubernatorial wins for Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, two states previously expected to be close.

While gubernatorial success was “perhaps unsurprising in Democratic-leaning states,” their margins “far exceeded” those of former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 results, said Reuters. At the same time, the wins are an “early warning sign” for Republicans struggling to “mobilize Trump’s coalition when he is not on the ballot.”

The Democrats’ “good news” continued in “lower-profile elections” as well, said Vox, including in two statewide seats that Georgia Republicans had warned could be a “bellwether for the 2026 midterms.” But even if election night was a “sign of tides turning Democrats’ way,” the spectrum of candidates and their ideological leanings “leave major questions about the party’s path forward,” said The Wall Street Journal.

‘Tug-of-war’

Perhaps no race has engendered those types of “major questions” like Mamdani’s dark horse upset of Andrew Cuomo, scion of New York’s Cuomo political dynasty. While Mamdani’s specific policies are “broadly popular with the electorate,” his primary focuses are “not beloved by more moderate Democrats,” said The New York Times.

Many “top Democrats,” including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), have been “reticent” to embrace Mamdani for fear his progressive stances could “alienate their voters,” said Al Jazeera. Democrats are “embroiled in a tug-of-war over the future of the party” with moderates warning against “overreading Mamdani’s success in an overwhelmingly blue city,” said Bloomberg.

“The factional grifters will hate this,” said The New Republic’s Greg Sargent on Bluesky, but despite their ideological and campaign differences, the “Mamdani-Spanberger-Sherrill axis” isn’t a sign of intraparty discord at all. Instead, it highlights a “broad, emerging Dem coalition” focused on “affordability politics” and on being “anti-Trump.”

“It doesn’t really matter if you run as a Democratic socialist, as a moderate, as a conservative,” said Democratic strategist Trip Yang to Al Jazeera. “Voters care if you are a disciplined candidate who can speak to their most pressing issue.”

Democrats are desperate to run blunt-talking, blue-collar types in the 2026 midterms, said Carine Hajjar in The Boston Globe. “But do they really need a guy with a Nazi tattoo in their ranks?” That’s the question buzz- ing around Graham Platner’s Senate bid in Maine. A grizzled oysterman and Marine veteran, Platner, 41, burst on the scene in August vowing to defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins, “crush the oligarchy, and fight for working people.” The Bernie Sanders–endorsed Democrat drew big crowds and social media views, and raised hopes he could draw young men and working-class whites back to the party. Then the dream crumbled. Old social media posts surfaced in which Platner used antigay slurs, called himself a “communist,” labeled all police “bastards,” and said rural white Mainers are “actually” racist and stupid. Next, it came out that he had a tattoo of the Totenkopf, the skull-and-crossbones symbol of the Nazi SS, on his chest. Platner, a military history buff, claimed he didn’t know that history, and last week had the tattoo inked over with a Celtic knot. Maybe he’s telling the truth, but “does the Left really want to stand by a guy with so much baggage?”

“I’m willing to look past the ugly Reddit posts and the tattoo,” said Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic. Today he admits to writing a lot of “indefensible” and “dumb shit” online and to feeling “full of rage” after serving four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for the tattoo, he said he got it while drunk on shore leave in Croatia in 2007 because “it looked cool.” Having been raised by a combat veteran, “I know how the psychological aftershocks of war can linger” and think Platner is deserving of our “grace.” A lot of Mainers feel the same way, said Nia-Malika Henderson in Bloomberg. Right now, he’s trailing his biggest Democratic rival, Gov. Janet Mills, in the polls by only five points. Platner’s loyal supporters seem to want their own Trump, a Democrat who’s “the antithesis of the kind of spit-shined, hothouse” candidate favored by the establishment.

Platner’s campaign is shedding staff and could implode in the coming weeks, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic. But that doesn’t mean Democrats should give up on charismatic newcomers. Platner excited voters because he seemed like the kind of candidate Democrats need right now: “an authentic person with a knack for communicating a populist message.” He turned out to be “a disaster,” as will many other novice candidates who excite voters. But sometimes, voters will fall in love with “inexperienced candidates—like, I don’t know, Barack Obama—who really do have what it takes.”

What happened

Democrats won every major election Tuesday, sweeping the races to run Virginia, New Jersey and New York City. Pennsylvania voters also reelected all three Democratic-backed state Supreme Court justices on the ballot, and California voters approved Proposition 50, allowing Democrats to redraw more favorable congressional districts.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) cruised to a double-digit victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race. Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) will be Virginia’s first woman governor after beating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, and Democrats also flipped the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general offices and significantly expanded their majority in the House of Delegates. Virginia’s incoming lieutenant governor, Ghazala Hashmi, became the first Muslim elected statewide anywhere in the country. Zohran Mamdani will be the first Muslim to serve as New York City mayor after defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Who said what

Democrats “routed the Republicans” in a “blue tide” that “washed further than most pollsters had predicted,” said Semafor. From democratic socialist Mandami to centrists like Spanberger and Sherrill, “every victorious Democrat ran on ‘affordability,’ betting correctly” that voters “would be angry” that President Donald Trump has not brought down prices, as promised.

“The Democratic Party is back,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said on social media. “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,” Trump posted, citing pollsters. Democrats still have “plenty of work to do, but the future looks a little bit brighter,” wrote former President Barack Obama.

What next?

The “demoralized” Democratic Party showed it could “still accomplish the most important goal in politics: They can win. And win big,” said The New York Times. But the party “still hasn’t coalesced around a coherent political identity or a clear electoral playbook,” and an “intraparty battle may be looming” next year and beyond. The election was a “barometer of how Americans are responding to Trump’s tumultuous nine months in office,” Reuters said, but the “midterm election is a year away, an eternity in the Trump era.”

Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in the New York City mayoral election may be awkward for senior Democrats who failed fully to endorse him – including New York’s two senators.

The 34-year-old socialist was elected mayor of America’s most populous city with the highest voter turnout in more than 50 years. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a Brooklyn district, only endorsed him late last month. Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate and another New Yorker, refused to say if he’d voted for Mamdani or not.

Mamdani says his victory has shown how to defeat Donald Trump in the next election: with a left-wing populist, anti-establishment ticket. But the Democratic Party also won decisive victories in two other gubernatorial races – with moderate, centrist candidates. Abigail Spanberger easily overturned a Republican majority in Virginia, while Mikie Sherrill defied expectations of a tight race with 13-point win in New Jersey. Now, the party is divided over which lesson to learn.

What did the commentators say?

Moderate Democrats and their media allies will now try to claim Mamdani’s “improbable victory” doesn’t matter, said Alex Shephard, senior editor of The New Republic. They will say a young, inexperienced Muslim democratic socialist can become mayor of New York City but New York City is “not like the rest of the country”. They will say his campaign – although built on “a series of tactile, eminently achievable and, frankly, small-scale promises” – is “all a fantasy”. “Make no mistake: they are afraid of Mamdani.” And they should be: “Mamdani is not a warning shot; he is a sign of things to come.” Democratic voters want “radical, transformative change”.

Democrats showed that their “demoralised party” can still win – “and win big”, said Lisa Lerer, political correspondent at The New York Times. Yet the party “still hasn’t coalesced around a coherent political identity or a clear electoral playbook that can win in swing states and safe states alike”. Mamdani, Sherrill and Spanberger all “benefited from showing independent streaks and a willingness to break with party leaders”.

There was a “common theme” that emerged from this trio of wins, said Ry Rivard and Madison Fernandez on Politico: affordability. For all their “ideological differences”, Mamdani, Sherrill and Spanberger found “a shared language that aims at the heart” of Trump’s populism: “the high cost of everyday life”. In a political landscape “dominated by culture-war battles and Trump’s omnipresence, Democrats found traction by talking about rent, utilities and groceries, instead of ideology”.

“It will be hard to resist” seeing the New York result “as a stunning endorsement of Mamdani’s particular flavour of progressivism”, said Poppy Coburn in The Telegraph. But, actually, his popular Leftism “doesn’t care about winning over the centre, and certainly doesn’t care about the deficit”. Trump has “little reason to fear Mamdani and his ilk”. And each victory like this will only make it harder for the Democrat establishment to resist demands from “its hyper-polarised base to shift left”.

“Sure, a guy like Mamdani can win in New York. But a woman like Kamala Harris can win in California. There’s still everything to play for in 2028.”

What next?

Senator Bernie Sanders heralded Mamdani as “the future of the Democratic Party”. When asked on CNN if he agreed, Hakeem Jeffries said, “No.” It’s clear “the Democrats remain a party teeming with tensions over age, ideology, tactics and tone, and they are still rebuilding their damaged brand,” said Lerer in the NYT. These results suggest “an intra-party battle may be looming” as they get ready for the midterms next year, and “a wide-open presidential primary contest” in 2027.

Are they more competitive as “a centrist party in the mould of Sherrill and Spanberger”? Or are they better positioned with “a populist vision”, like that of Mamdani? Democratic leaders “want to have it both ways”. They think the lesson is “combining winning issues like the high cost of living with a be-everywhere, be-authentic style of campaigning and communicating”.

“There’s mounting evidence that voters want to fire Donald Trump and the people loyal to him, but we still have more to do convince people to hire us,” said veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson. “Voters right now feel like their government is betraying them and it’s costing them. We have to be not just the response to that but the antidote.”

‘The bad Teamsters bargain with UPS’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Teamsters head Sean O’Brien “sold the union’s 2023 contract with United Parcel Service as a big win for workers,” but “two years later it’s looking like the bad bargain of the century,” says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. UPS “doesn’t want to be O’Brien’s next victim.” Workers “do best when their employers do well. That’s an eternal lesson that union bosses ignore when they pit ‘labor’ against managers, and workers suffer the most.”

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‘Quebec’s disastrous forest reform bill was killed, but the threat remains’

Vijay Kolinjivadi and Nicolas Renaud at Al Jazeera

The “right-leaning populist government of Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec finally scrapped a controversial forestry bill,” as “months of organized, broad-based resistance paid off,” say Vijay Kolinjivadi and Nicolas Renaud. Quebec’s government “believes that it is justifiable to bulldoze over environmental regulations, climate action and Indigenous rights to serve the interests of the logging lobby.” Lessons “can be learned from the fight against Bill 97 to ensure that Indigenous voices are not ignored again.”

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‘A new chance for peace in Cyprus’

Joseph Epstein at Newsweek

The “U.N.-patrolled demilitarized zone separating Cyprus from the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is unlike any other buffer zone in the world,” says Joseph Epstein. But “there are signs that a thaw is possible,” as there is a “deep desire of Turkish Cypriots to end the economic and diplomatic isolation that has kept the north in limbo for decades.” It is “not politicians but ordinary Turkish Cypriots who are leading the call for reunification.”

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‘Graham Platner’s controversial past tests Democrats’ tolerance for imperfection’

Carine Hajjar at The Boston Globe

Democrats are “searching for a fighter, too — but do they really need a guy with a Nazi tattoo in their ranks?” says Carine Hajjar. Senate candidate Graham Platner “quite literally motored onto Maine’s political scene with baritone promises to crush the oligarchy.” But “uncurated candidates come at a cost,” and the “price tag has ticked higher and higher as waves of reports concerning Platner’s controversial past Reddit posts and a Nazi tattoo have surfaced.”

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We live in strange times, said Holly Hudson on The Daily Beast. Who’d have thought, for instance, that the day would come when Marjorie Taylor Greene began “sounding... kind of reasonable”?

The Georgia congresswoman has until now been best known as a conservative firebrand and conspiracy loon. She famously suggested that wildfires might have been started by “Jewish space lasers”, and railed against the “Gazpacho police” (she meant “Gestapo”).

Over recent weeks, however, this once-staunch Donald Trump loyalist has started taking the administration to task. She has blamed Republican leaders for the government shutdown; sided with Democrats in calling for an extension of tax credits for health insurance; railed against high inflation; and stated that her party has “no plan”.

‘Dipping a toe in the pool of Trump defiance’

Greene’s independent streak has not gone unnoticed by Trump, who has apparently been calling around and asking: “What’s been going on with Marjorie?” Trump is right to ask, said Melanie Zanona on NBC News, as Greene is “arguably more in tune with the Maga base than any other member of Congress”. Her attacks may, in fact, be partly motivated by pique: sources say she’s cross that the White House talked her out of running for the Senate, and is disappointed not to have been given a cabinet role.

But there’s also political calculation at work, said Rex Huppke in USA Today. Greene is positioning herself for the post-Trump era. She can see that the president’s popularity is sliding and that the economy is not working well for most Americans. She’s a “gifted grifter dipping a toe in the pool of Trump defiance to see if it makes waves she can ride”.

‘Echoing the frustrations she’s hearing’

Greene’s rebellion is a warning to the Republicans, said Matt Wylie in The State. “She’s not going rogue; she’s echoing the frustrations she’s hearing from her own base.” Trump keeps insisting that prices are falling, yet it’s clear his trade tariffs are hitting people in the pocket. Grocery bills are rising; pay cheques are shrinking. Some voters, meanwhile, are unhappy about Trump launching legal assaults on his political enemies and deploying troops in cities.

“Economic pain, institutional mistrust and political exhaustion are converging into something volatile – a storm of disillusionment that no amount of populist rhetoric can overcome.” The GOP needs to start governing more effectively, or “the cracks in the Maga movement will only widen”.

Could Democrats’ “big gamble” actually pay off? asked Zeeshan Aleem in MSNBC.com. For five decades, voters “have typically blamed the party not in the White House” when Congress can’t agree on a spending package and the government shuts down. But this time feels different. A new Washington Post poll shows 47% of voters blame President Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, with only 30% blaming Democrats. That poll was taken two weeks ago as the shutdown began, but Democrats have certain “unusual advantages” in the ongoing battle for public opinion. There is Trump himself, who has governed as such a “wrecking ball” since January that many voters simply assume the shutdown is part of his anti-government crusade. Then there’s the fact that Democrats’ modest demand—that any bill to reopen the government must include an extension of enhanced health insurance subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans—is extremely popular, supported by 78% of voters, including 59% of Republicans. The political dynamic could easily flip, said Meredith Lee Hill in Politico. Some Republicans are “eyeing Oct. 15,” when active-duty military members will miss their first paycheck, as a “key pressure point.” But that prospect, and threats from Trump to cancel back pay for furloughed workers, have for now “only caused Democrats to dig in more.”

What are Democrats thinking? asked Matt Bai in The Washington Post. Extending the subsidies polls well as a stand-alone issue. But it’ll soon be “lost in the noise” of shutdown drama as Trump dials up the pain for Democratic voters. His White House budget director, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought, has already frozen $8 billion in funding for blue state clean-energy projects and some $20 billion for infrastructure projects. And Trump is openly vowing to “gut as many departments and eliminate as many jobs as he can” before the shutdown ends. “Even a Democratic victory in the Obamacare fight would probably be Pyrrhic, coming at the cost of a sacked and pillaged capital.”

This is “the right fight,” said Monica Potts in The New Republic. Some 1.6 million Americans will lose health insurance subsidies completely if they expire. Tens of millions more will see their premiums balloon, pushing overstretched households to the brink. Don’t believe me? Just ask Republican firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who this week tweeted that she supports extending the subsidies because without them “premiums will DOUBLE” for people in her Georgia district. In fact, the average annual premium for subsidized enrollees will more than double, from $888 to $1,904, and hardest hit will be working-class voters the Democrats lost in 2016, who are again shopping for “a party to fight for them.”

But “the times call for sterner measures,” said Chris Truax in The Hill. Four out of five Obamacare enrollees live in red states. So it’d be politically smart for Democrats to let the subsidies expire, force Trump supporters to experience the horror they voted for, and make the Republicans on next year’s midterm ballot “own the results.” Better yet, Democrats should raise the price for reopening the government to include a meaningful rollback of Trump’s autocratic project, said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark: requiring ICE agents to go unmasked, say, or closing the fake “emergency” loopholes Trump uses to consolidate power. Ordinarily, “making voters’ lives better” would be a ransom worth demanding for Democrats. “But this isn’t an ordinary moment.”

New Jersey is a blue state, but Republicans may have a shot at winning the race for governor this year. GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli is keeping the race close against opponent Mikie Sherrill, raising alarms among Democrats nationally.

Sherrill has made a “series of stumbles” in the race against Ciattarelli, said Axios. The fourth-term congresswoman “struggled to answer questions” about her family’s growing wealth in a May interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God, making her ripe for attacks. Polls show the two candidates are running “neck and neck,” which has caused some exasperation among Sherrill’s backers. Democrats will have a tough time nationally “if we are struggling to even win a N.J. governorship while Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the government and Constitution,” said Democratic strategist Irene Lin.

What did the commentators say?

New Jersey gubernatorial races “always get a lot of national attention” because they are held the year after the presidential election, Kristoffer Shields, the director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor, said to Rutgers Today. That gives voters the opportunity to “register their feelings” about a new administration, while also giving political observers a preview of the next year’s midterms. Recent election cycles have shown a “pretty clear move to the right” in New Jersey, Shields said. “The stakes are fairly high for both sides.”

Democrats need to win New Jersey “if November is to be a successful election” for the party, said Stuart Rothenberg at Roll Call. (Virginia is also holding a gubernatorial election, where Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger appears to be comfortably in the lead.) There are precedents for a Republican victory: The Garden State has elected GOP governors like Chris Christie and Christine Todd Whitman over the years, and Sherrill has “not yet turned her race into a slam dunk for Democrats.” The state’s voters seem unhappy with President Donald Trump’s performance so far, but Sherrill’s struggles signify that Democrats are “still finding their way after their 2024 losses.”

Ciattarelli’s loyalty to Trump is a “risky play in a blue state,” said Alexander Puri at MSNBC. One recent poll found the president has favorable ratings from just 41% of the state’s voters, but the GOP gubernatorial candidate “doesn’t seem to have received the memo.” He has instead begged off opportunities to “criticize or distance himself from the president.” Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is “good for all New Jerseyans,” Ciattarelli said at a recent debate. He will soon find out whether staying on “Trump’s good side was truly worth the cost,” said Puri.

What next?

The Sherrill-Ciattarelli race is “already the state’s most expensive ever” and is expected to cost more than $200 million before it is over, said NJ.com. The money is funding a “flood of attack ads” on both sides, the mounting costs a reflection of the close campaign. “There’s definitely a sense that either side can win,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.

Israel confirmed today that the proposed Gaza ceasefire – the first of the 20 points in the agreement – has gone into effect, with the Israel Defense Forces beginning its withdrawal from parts of the strip.

If the peace plan is successful, it would be a “massive blow to Joe Biden’s legacy”, said The Independent. Few Democrats still defend his administration’s “hug Bibi closer” strategy, and recent developments appear to have validated Donald Trump’s “brash, demanding approach” towards Benjamin Netanyahu.

What did the commentators say?

If this agreement holds, it could stand as the “signature achievement” of Trump’s second term, said the BBC. Where Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu was more “tenuous”, Trump’s friendship with Israel’s prime minister and popularity with Israeli voters allowed him to put “pressure” on Netanyahu after the strikes on Iran and Qatar. Trump’s close ties to the Gulf states, business agreements with Qatar and the UAE, and presidential visits to Saudi Arabia have all won favour with leaders in the region.

Though much of the diplomacy has been conducted far outside the US, near-unconditional party support at home played a significant part, said Gerard Baker in The Times. In the last 50 years, no Republican president has “enjoyed such a level of trust” from his administration. With the party becoming something of a “personality cult”, if Trump “wants to move diplomatic mountains, he faces no resistance” from within.

That was an advantage certainly not shared by his Democrat predecessor, said the BBC. While Trump’s “solid Republican base” has allowed him “room to manoeuvre”, “every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support”, due to split opinion on the Gaza conflict within the Democratic Party and voter base.

Trump’s diplomacy skills may even be evolving, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. In addition to his familiar “imperious”, “go-it-alone” personality, the president arguably displayed “more flexibility and cooperation than are typical of him” by involving Middle Eastern partners like Turkey, Egypt and Qatar in diplomatic discussions.

The “boldness” of the president’s recent tactics left little room for “interagency”, Joel Braunold, managing director at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told Lawfare. But Trump’s “just try and get it done” attitude – “there’s something to be said for that”. Of course, Trump is no stranger to an eye-catching announcement, so the “proof will be in the pudding” as to whether his unique brand of diplomacy creates fair and lasting change.

“There are many unresolved details” and a degree of scepticism is in order, said Baker in The Times. The recent past is “littered with too many ceasefires, accords and peace deals” in the Middle East, and it would be misguided “to express any confidence now that this latest one will endure”.

What next?

The history of political turbulence in the region suggests that there is a long road ahead, said The New York Times. Questions over the proposed interim “technocratic” leadership in Gaza overseen by the US, and the extent of Palestinian Authority involvement, have yet to be answered satisfactorily.

Working out peace deals in the region is “a little like cleaning up after volcanic eruptions: There is a certainty it will happen again. It is just hard to know when, or how ferociously.”

‘The fight for the future of women’s basketball’

Louisa Thomas at The New Yorker

WNBA player Napheesa Collier “spoke bravely while pointing out the obvious,” says Louisa Thomas. Collier “recounted a conversation with Cathy Engelbert, the commissioner,” and stated the “way many people in leadership positions in sports — and especially in the NBA, which owns a substantial portion of the WNBA — talk about women’s professional leagues for years, justifying low salaries and poor playing conditions.” As the “league’s profile has grown, though, so has the gap between the players driving that value.”

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‘Blue states should come together to declare an emergency. Here’s how.’

Thomas Geoghegan at The Guardian

Donald Trump is “all about political theater, or circus, and it often seems that even in resisting him, as decent citizens must do, we become part of the circus too,” says Thomas Geoghegan. Why “not put on our own show, our own form of political theater, that leaves Trump out?” We “should create a limited, invitation-only body — an embryonic constitutional convention — that the anti-Trump blue states exclusively set up for themselves, limit to themselves and control.”

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‘The rise of America’s hard left’

Rana Foroohar at the Financial Times

We “all know about the rise of the authoritarian right in America, and the risks that it poses to both the economy and society,” but “what about the hard left?” says Rana Foroohar. This “political tail risk is now being taken more seriously by many in the business community who worry that the center-left is disappearing, just as traditional conservatism has given way to MAGA.” Populism is “clearly what’s driving the move among Democratic incumbents.”

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‘Gen X may be the first to need a universal basic income after late-career job loss’

Annette Nierobisz and Dana Sawchuk at The Hill

Estimates “suggest that half of all white-collar jobs will disappear as artificial intelligence advances. How will older white-collar workers displaced in the AI revolution fare?” say Annette Nierobisz and Dana Sawchuk. A “larger proportion of Gen X are susceptible to hard falls than their predecessors.” It’s “impossible to prepare for a bout of unemployment extended indefinitely by age discrimination in the hiring process.” This “demands a structural solution and a universal basic income might be the answer.”

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The U.S. federal government has shut down for the first time in six years, and while budget fights in Congress aren’t a rare occurrence, many political analysts say this shutdown could look drastically different from those that came before. In particular, President Donald Trump’s pledge to fire thousands of government employees, alongside continued fighting between Democrats and Republicans over Medicaid subsidies, could mean this shutdown has dire consequences.

What did the commentators say?

Federal shutdowns have happened before, including a 35-day closure during Trump’s first term that became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. But this event is “like no federal funding crunch before it,” said CNN. This seems to be “about far more than the classic feud over how the government spends its money, and whether a White House or its Capitol Hill foes will prevail in a political test of wills.” It also comes amid the “backdrop of the most aggressive attempt by a president to impose unfettered power in modern times.”

At the heart of this shutdown battle is a disagreement over funding Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies. Democrats are “focused on these enhanced subsidies from the Affordable Care Act that were enhanced during the pandemic,” said The Wall Street Journal’s flagship podcast, making it a sticking point of the Democrats’ negotiations. These subsidies are set to run out at the end of 2025, which could mean “tens of millions of Americans lose their health insurance starting in January because they can no longer afford to pay sky-high premiums,” former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said on his Substack.

Republicans have said Democrats want to shut down the government in order to provide insurance to undocumented immigrants. But this “claim is highly misleading,” said NBC News. The “Democratic bill would not change existing law barring people who are in the U.S. illegally from getting federal health care coverage.”

There is also the question of government workers themselves. Federal employees are normally furloughed during a shutdown and then go back to work when the shutdown ends. But the Trump administration “has asked agencies to look at places where they could reduce the size of the federal government during a shutdown,” said the Journal. This means they would “essentially fire people instead of just put people on furlough. That’s never happened.”

In a memo released by the Office of Management and Budget, agencies furloughing employees were directed to “consider whether or not you really need those roles and consider shrinking down your agency,” said CNBC. The Trump administration wants to keep only programs that are “in line with the president’s agenda,” even though there have “already been massive reductions in the federal workforce.”

What next?

It seems both sides are at a stalemate, though a “new NPR / PBS News / Marist poll shows that more Americans hold Republicans responsible for the impasse,” said NPR. This shutdown also “throws into question the operating status of sites like national parks and the Smithsonian Institution.” It is unclear how long the impasse may last. History shows that “multiweek shutdowns are relatively rare but have become more common in recent decades,” said NPR. The shutdown will likely extend until at least the weekend, given that the Senate is out of session until Friday.

Don’t expect Democrats to vote for President Trump’s agenda, said Chris Brennan in USA Today. If the Republicans want Democratic support to pass a continuing funding bill and keep the government open, they’ll need to “offer something” in negotiations. The Democratic minority leaders in the House and Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, insist that any bill that extends GOP priorities must also extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire this year and reverse Trump’s cuts to Medicaid. Trump, though, refuses to concede an inch: He posted last week that he wouldn’t even meet with Jeffries and Schumer, saying falsely that they were trying to “continue free healthcare for illegal Aliens” and “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.” Given that Republicans alone don’t have the votes to pass a short-term continuing resolution that would keep funding at current levels, we are headed for a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“If Democrats court a shutdown, they’ll own the results,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The idea that the GOP would repeal the Medicaid cuts passed in July’s “big, beautiful bill” is “fantasy”—and so is the Democrats’ counterproposal, which would tack on almost $1.5 trillion in new spending. The Republicans are offering what Democrats have always demanded in these situations: a clean continuing resolution that introduces nothing new. That’s more than fair. By demanding health-care concessions, Democrats lose either way, said Michael A. Cohen in MSNBC.com. If they force a shutdown, they will be blamed for federal workers’ missed paychecks. If they force a concession on Obamacare, they’ll take “a huge political problem” off the GOP’s plate in the midterms.

Worse for Democrats is that “a shutdown would give the Trump administration more power over federal spending,” said Jacob Bogage and Riley Beggin in The Washington Post. The Office of Management and Budget decides what agencies stay open and which shutter, which means it could halt programs Democratic voters depend on while continuing ICE immigration raids. Even a funding extension, like the one passed in March, enables the White House to divert money that Congress appropriated and use it for its own ends. That allowed Trump to eliminate a suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth and funds for early-childhood education. Schumer is betting voters will be angrier at Trump than at him—but with the shutdown clock ticking, that gamble gets riskier by the day.

Many lawmakers are working to head off a shutdown come next week when the federal government is scheduled to run out of allotted funds. The White House, meanwhile, is taking what some observers see as an extraordinary step to capitalize on a potential disruption of federal services. In a memo shared with multiple agencies on Wednesday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructed agency heads to prepare plans for permanent mass layoffs of certain employees should the government shut down on Oct. 1.

‘Attempt at intimidation’

Agency heads are “directed to use this opportunity to consider reduction-in-force notices” for all employees involved in programs that will run out of funds, do not have alternate funding avenues and are “not consistent with the president’s priorities,” said the OMB. The threat of mass layoffs “escalates the stakes” ahead of next week’s deadline and is a “significant break” from how shutdowns have been handled over the past several decades, said Politico.

The administration’s “extraordinary ultimatum” appears “designed to pressure Democrats,” coming hours after President Donald Trump “refused to negotiate” with party leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) over the budget showdown, said The New York Times. This is an “attempt at intimidation,” Schumer said in a statement Thursday. Shutdown firings will eventually be “overturned in court,” or the administration will “end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

This latest and “perhaps furthest-reaching” effort by the Trump administration to fire huge swaths of the federal government comes months after the White House’s Elon Musk-led DOGE enterprise yielded “mixed” results on that front, said CNN. Hundreds of federal employees who “lost their jobs in Musk’s cost-cutting blitz” were asked to return to work this week, said The Associated Press.

In “another unusual move,” the OMB has “yet to post agencies’ shutdown contingency plans on its website,” said the AP. Ordinarily, those plans direct “which functions and employees are deemed essential during a shutdown and will continue despite the impasse,” said CNN.

By continuing to agitate for a potential shutdown after the administration’s memo, Democrats are “eagerly marching forward into a box canyon,” said the National Review. Stuck between being in the minority and avoiding being tagged by the left flank of his party as a “man unwilling to ‘fight,’” Schumer will “likely have to concede and lose the fight in the not-so-distant future.”

To CR or not to CR?

At its core, the shutdown fight centers largely on whether Democrats will support a GOP-backed “clean” continuing resolution (CR) to essentially fund the government at its current levels through Nov. 21 or force a vote on a shorter stopgap CR that includes “several of their priorities,” predominantly focused on health care, said The Washington Post. While Democratic leadership was loath to risk a government shutdown earlier this year, Schumer now says the situation has changed and Democrats must “fight to improve health care in the wake of cuts implemented under the GOP tax and spending law,” said the Post.

At a moment when Democrats should be focused on the future, the party is yet again engaged in “self-destructive debates about the past,” said Lauren Egan in The Bulwark. “The latest hop in the DeLorean” comes courtesy of Kamala Harris’ new campaign memoir—titled 107 Days, after her short and failed White House run—in which the former vice president writes it was “recklessness” that led her and fellow Democrats to not question President Joe Biden’s decision to seek re-election at age 81. It wasn’t a choice, she said, “that should have been left to an individual’s ego.” But she dismisses claims that Biden was too frail to serve as president and blames tiredness for his June “debate debacle” against Donald Trump, after which Biden dropped out and Harris took over the Democratic ticket. Biden world has “reacted with rage” to the book, said Alex Thompson in Axios. One former White House official fumed that Harris was “simply not good” at being veep or a presidential candidate, and that her talents were limited to sitting for “stilted photo ops.”

Biden’s late exit isn’t the only reason for Harris’ bitterness, said Max Burns in MSNBC. Her memoir “paints a picture of a vice president willing to suffer petty humiliations to maximize Democrats’ chances of beating Trump in 2024.” Team Biden dismissed her proposals to increase engagement with Black communities and didn’t push back on Republicans’ mischaracterization of her role as “border czar,” which led her to be villainized for surging immigration numbers. “Their thinking was zero-sum,” Harris writes. “If she’s shining, he’s dimmed.”

This narrative of “Team Biden sabotage” doesn’t fully explain why she lost to Trump, said Ed Kilgore in New York. It may have been “a handicap as she began her uphill climb to November,” but Harris had done plenty already to damage herself in the public eye. One of Trump’s most effective attack ads—“Harris is for they/them, President Trump is for you”— came from her disastrous 2020 presidential campaign, when she endorsed “free gender-transition surgery for imprisoned criminals who were also illegal immigrants.” And if Harris really was treated as dismally by Biden aides as she claims, perhaps she could have talked about it during the campaign “to distance herself from an unpopular president.” Instead, she couldn’t bring herself to say one negative thing about Biden. Maybe Harris thinks this airing of grievances will help position her to run for the Democratic nomination in 2028, but “it all sounds like sour grapes.” Still, “she has every right to tell her side of the sad story.”

Here we go again: The government is on the verge of a shutdown, and Democratic votes are needed to keep it open. But congressional Democrats might be happy to let a shutdown happen rather than help Republicans.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “voted to keep the government open” back in March and “endured furious blowback from the left,” said CNN. This time, he and other Democrats say President Donald Trump’s actions since then “require a hardened approach.” “The vibes are bad,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). One Democratic demand is to renew Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. That is a “big red line” for many Republicans, said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

Some congressional Democrats think a shutdown might be necessary to send a message that Trump “can’t continue to steamroll Congress,” said The Hill. A shutdown is “one of the very few levers where we can actually push” Trump, said one anonymous senator. But the party isn’t united. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) will vote to keep the government open. A shutdown “is never a good idea,” he said.

What did the commentators say?

Democrats are the “pro-government party,” so shutting down the federal government “goes completely against their brand,” said Jackie Calmes at the Los Angeles Times. But what can Democrats do when the “federal government is wholly run by Republicans” who have already “stripped states, cities, universities and federal programs of funding” that had been approved by Congress? While shutting down government “hurts Americans” who rely on it, the “vulnerable are suffering anyway.” A temporary shutdown is “worth it.”

The idea of forcing a shutdown is “folly” for Democrats, Oren Cass said at the Financial Times. Some Democrats argue that voting to fund the government “would make Democrats complicit in the Trump administration’s conduct.” But the history of shutdowns is that the “side initiating the shutdown lost the fight every time.” Democrats’ poll ratings are already low. Instead of forcing a shutdown, they should “acknowledge their errors and move forward with a fresh agenda.“

Democrats in Congress should “do nothing,” said Chris Brennan at USA Today. Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate. If the GOP wants “total control in approving how our government is funded,” then Democrats should “let them feel the total consequences as well if the funding runs out.” Democrats are not really allowed to steer the process anyway, so they should stick to the sidelines. “That’s the only power they have, at least for now.“

What next?

The GOP-controlled House on Friday morning passed a stopgap bill to keep government open until Thanksgiving, but the Senate “looks likely to reject it,” said NBC News. Democrats this week unveiled their own proposal, which would extend the Obamacare subsidies and reverse Medicaid cuts made under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” said The Washington Post. Republican leaders said that will not work. Democrats are “trying to take a hostage” to take actions that “can’t be done on a short-term funding resolution,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

With just over a year to go until the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats are looking for new ways to win over voters at the ballot box. One of their strategies is to push a faith-based agenda that’s often more associated with conservatives. This isn’t the first time the Democrats have used religion to their advantage (former President Barack Obama made large gains with religious voters in 2008). But as elections creep ever closer, Democrats are hoping an appeal to religion will help make the contest a referendum against the conservative movement.

How are the Democrats using religion?

The party is testing “whether church-going, Bible-quoting Democrats can connect with voters — and provide an early gauge of whether messages rooted in spirituality will appeal to the party’s base,” said CNN. This is especially noteworthy given the continuing demographic skews among the parties; Democrats are “increasingly secular, while growing shares of those who attend church regularly identify themselves as Republicans.”

These trends “come in part as a reaction to Republicans using religious messages to advance conservative positions on issues like gay rights and abortion," said CNN, but also “reveal deep divides within the Democratic Party over the role of religion in government.” Only 38% of Christians, including just 24% of Evangelicals, identify as Democrats, according to a February 2025 Pew Research Center poll (though the figures are higher among Jews, 66%, and Muslims, 53%).

The push to reverse these slumping trends and bring in more religious voters continues. While former President Joe Biden often touted his Catholic faith, the Democratic pivot toward religion is "signaling that he is no longer the exception to the rule," said The New York Times. Democrats now “see discussion of faith as a way to introduce themselves, explain their values and find common ground.”

Who are some Democratic candidates doing this?

Two notable names include Iowa politician Rob Sand and Texas state Rep. James Talarico, though Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a pastor, is another high-profile figure. Both Sand and Talarico have tried to use their own faith to generate buzz about their campaigns.

Sand has been the Iowa state auditor since 2019 and is the “only Democrat elected to statewide office in Iowa,” said The Wall Street Journal. He is a candidate in Iowa’s 2026 gubernatorial election and has “mentioned his Lutheran faith” on “numerous occasions.” Despite his religious background, Sand “backs several positions traditionally supported by Democrats, including abortion rights.”

Iowa Republicans have cautioned their party that Sand’s candidacy should be taken seriously. “Churchgoer, gun-toter, state auditor, taxpayers’ watchdog. Sounds a little bit like us, right?” Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Christian conservative in Iowa, said of Sand earlier this year, calling him a “very real opponent.”

A few states away is Talarico, who has served in the Texas House since 2018. He is a candidate in Texas’ 2026 Senate race and represents a “young, charismatic foe of Christian nationalism, who is himself studying to be a minister,” said Rolling Stone. Talarico is “far from an atheist — so when he speaks out against power-hungry Christians, he does so from his own religious convictions.”

“What you’re seeing is a perversion of Christianity,” Talarico told Rolling Stone. “You can call it Christian fascism or Christian nationalism. Essentially, it’s the worship of power.” Republican extremism is “gonna go down swinging. I just hope it doesn’t hurt too many people on its way down.”

'Why must we all suffer? Bring back the benches.'

Mark Lasswell at The Washington Post

The "humble bench, fast disappearing from public places, once was an emblem of civic comity," says Mark Lasswell. "Discouraging the homeless, who already are plenty discouraged by life, is everywhere." Those "who advocate for the homeless call these and other such measures 'hostile architecture,' and they're right." When it "comes to stripping public places of benches, chairs and anything else that might let people take a load off, the problem being addressed is a self-inflicted one."

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'Yes, let's make America healthy again. That means supporting vaccines.'

Juan Williams at The Hill

We "can see a direct line between Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissing the proven success of vaccines and the fading consensus that the government should protect the public's health," says Juan Williams. His "baseless questioning of proven vaccines has opened the door to kooky miracle cures." Kennedy is "leading a war on trust in public health as a government responsibility." Undermining "trust in honest doctors and scientists is the highway to fast death."

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'Old, wealthy Democrats are sabotaging their own party'

Jeet Heer at The Nation

There is a "special world of wealthy Democratic donors, who enjoy outsize power even though they frequently make decisions that are terrible for both their party and their country," says Jeet Heer. The "tendency toward gerontocracy among donors has a distinct ideological cast as well." This is a "group that has responded to Trumpism by adopting a creed of ancien régime restoration that envisions the best possible future as a return to the glory days of bipartisan comity."

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'Australia will soon have its own "center for disease control." Let's not repeat the chaos of the US.'

Allen Cheng at The Conversation

Australia is a "step closer to having its own national agency to inform and co-ordinate public health responses," but "there's much we don't know about how the agency will run," says Allen Cheng. Australians "need to ensure safeguards are in place against political interference in public health, which we're seeing play out in the United States." Australia's "CDC will need to have a close relationship with government," but it "needs to be independent and transparent."

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President Trump's demand to hold a new census to exclude undocumented immigrants is "almost certainly unconstitutional," said Ed Kilgore in New York. He announced the idea last week, saying, "People who are in our country illegally will NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS." But he didn't clarify if he's looking to immediately conduct a mid-decade count without undocumented immigrants or to just exclude them from the next scheduled census in 2030. The official population count, held every 10 years, determines how congressional seats are apportioned. Given how Republicans are scrambling to redraw district maps to gain House seats in Texas, it's likely Trump wants a new count before the 2026 midterms. Yet it takes years to organize and conduct a nationwide census, and the Constitution poses another obstacle: It plainly states the census counts "the whole number of persons in each State," regardless of immigration status. "He's claiming powers he just doesn't possess," but "he wouldn't be Trump if he didn't keep trying."

He could also encounter unexpected opposition from Republicans, said William Kristol in The Bulwark. Large populations of undocumented immigrants aren't limited to blue states, so Republicans could lose seats, too. Texas has the country's second-largest undocumented population and could lose two representatives. Florida has a sizable undocumented population, as do swing states Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia. "Imagine how mad Republicans would be" if they redraw maps and "end up with barely anything to show for it." Since excluding noncitizens isn't legally possible, said Rich Lowry in National Review, Trump should focus on what he can do to limit their impact on congressional representation: reduce their numbers. Thanks to deportations and self-deportations, there's already "been a large exodus" of the undocumented this year, giving us "net negative migration for the first time in a half century." The next census, in 2030, will "fully capture the changes he's effecting."

But "let's not miss the underlying point," said Steve Benen in MSNBC.com. Republicans are in danger of losing the House in the midterms, and are "desperate to maintain power at all costs." That's why Trump demanded Texas redraw its congressional map now, and why he's calling for an unconstitutional "Trumpified census." He and his party are looking for every possible way "to rig the political process so Republicans can't lose, even if voters want them to."

'Bipartisan solutions for Afghan allies spark hope'

Jennie Murray at The Hill

After a "long period of uncertainty for many Afghan allies of the U.S., it is encouraging to see a glimmer of hope," says Jennie Murray. Lawmakers "introduced a new bill that would offer legal pathways for Afghans who risked their lives supporting U.S. forces," and this is a "hopeful spark for both Afghan allies living in the U.S. and the American community members who now call these individuals neighbors." They "fought with us and for their own country's future."

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'Democrats can win in 2028. But we need to oust corporate candidates first.'

Alexandra Rojas at The Guardian

A "robust, active, and exciting Democratic primary process in districts across the country is a necessary prerequisite to Democrats winning in 2026, let alone 2028," says Alexandra Rojas. Voters "need a new generation of leaders with fresh faces and bold ideas, unbought by corporate super PACs and billionaire donors, to give them a new path." That "requires working class, progressive primary challenges to the overwhelming number of corporate Democratic incumbents who have rightfully been dubbed as do-nothing electeds."

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'Why is everyone so rude?'

Abby McCloskey at The Dallas Morning News

There "used to be more consideration of others and impulse control," says Abby McCloskey. We "live in a time when there's never been more accommodation of difference; we've never been more aware of others' plights and stories." But "yet instead of extending ourselves toward others out of empathy, we're acting as though we are alone and have little responsibility for others." The "root of conscientiousness is conscious: to be aware of and sensitive to one's surroundings."

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'Why Republicans are terrified of nonexistent crime'

Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect

Among the "favorite pastimes of Republican men, two stand out: first, boasting about what strong, courageous, hypermasculine operators they are; and second, publicly melting down about how pants-pissingly terrified they are of American cities," says Ryan Cooper. This "seems to be a core emotion of modern conservatism: wallowing in terror of largely imaginary dangers." American "cities, especially in blue states, are safer than they have been in decades," but are "full of everything that conservatives hate."

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