Category: Politics

South Carolina Republicans might be watching history repeat itself.

A special election Senate primary on Tuesday, triggered by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death, has all the makings of their rollercoaster governor’s primary back in June: A front-runner endorsed by President Donald Trump but facing a steep uphill battle to consolidate the field behind her. And the looming threat of a runoff election that could lead to a late surge from another Republican.

Darline Graham is running for a full term to replace her late brother, leading in some public polls over GOP Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman, former Gov. Mark Sanford and businessman Mark Lynch.

The crowded field makes it very unlikely she or anyone else will clinch the majority needed to avoid a bitter runoff. And, aside from deploying his standard playbook of a few Truth Social posts supporting Graham and a last-minute tele-rally scheduled for Monday, Trump has made no public indication of what else he is planning to do to help.

For one particular South Carolina Republican, the situation is all too familiar: Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette had Trump’s backing in the GOP governor’s primary — and then lost to Alan Wilson in the runoff after he rose in the polls and secured a rare double endorsement from the president.

Asked if she wished Trump would have done more to boost her, Evette told POLITICO: “Obviously, yes. I do wish that, but you know, it didn’t happen that way.” She said she has not yet decided who to endorse in the Senate primary and is keeping a close eye on how it plays out.

“Run it back,” said one national GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak openly about how the South Carolina Senate primary may turn into a redux of the governor’s race. “The long and short of it, [Graham’s] got a pretty low ceiling.”

The snap Senate election tees up another test of Trump’s influence over the Republican Party. It will reveal whether the president’s word alone is enough to carry his preferred candidate to the nomination, and the lengths to which he is willing to go to boost his picks — especially ones who find themselves with an uncertain path to victory.

This will be Graham’s first ever contest at the ballot box in a state known for its bruising GOP political battles. Nearly half a dozen local Republican officials and strategists alike believe Graham is in a strong position to win the first round of voting. But whoever secures the second place spot will determine just how much more support she may need from Trump to overcome a one-on-one challenge.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Republicans differed on whether Norman or Fry would pose the bigger challenge to Graham’s path to victory in a runoff scenario. Norman boasts a longtime base of conservative support in the state, while Fry, who was elected to Congress in 2022, is seen as an up-and-coming star who has caught Trump’s interest.

“If it’s Darline and Russell, it definitely has some flavors of the governor’s race,” said Tyson Grinstead, an RNC committee member and chair of the Richland County GOP, who is staying neutral in the Senate race. Both candidates have good relationships with the president — and Trump has already proven he’s willing to double endorse in a runoff.

However, Grinstead added, there are some key differences.

The main flaw in Evette’s strategy that Republicans in South Carolina have pointed to was her decision to run too intensely on her ties to the president in lieu of a more issues-first message.

“I think most of the criticism came because I got his endorsement, and everybody was fighting for his endorsement. That’s how I looked at it,” Evette said in an interview, deflecting the criticism. “In states like this that have these runoffs, where very few people come out, I think if you’re not tied into the establishment, I think it hurts you in some form of fashion.”

With the president’s endorsement already secured, Graham is making a clear effort to differentiate herself not only from her field of contenders, but from her brother as well.

In an interview with Fox News announcing her run, Graham made a point to emphasize her intention to focus on domestic issues in contrast to the late senator’s foreign policy-hued legacy. And she brought the same focus to her first debate stage appearance last week.

“If anybody understands the struggles of South Carolinians, it’s me,” Graham said on stage last week, talking about her own cost of living struggles — even as she vowed to support Trump’s pet projects while in office, including the SAVE America Act.

“Of course the campaign’s advertising highlights the Trump endorsement. We’re proud of it, and there’s no question it’s still the gold standard in Republican politics,” said a person familiar with Graham’s approach, granted anonymity to discuss internal campaign strategy.

“But Darline knows an endorsement opens a door, it doesn’t walk through it for you,” this person added. “She’s out there every day earning this on her own, because that’s what voters deserve — a candidate who shows up and makes her own case, not one who assumes the race is already won.”

One of Graham’s key advantages in staving off a late upset lies in her inherited slate of seasoned operatives and statewide campaign infrastructure — a hallmark of Lindsey Graham’s decades of success in the state.

“Lindsey’s team has been the best team in South Carolina,” said Grinstead, who worked for the late senator’s campaigns in past cycles. “They’re organized, they have a grassroots presence, they have field staff.”

Still, Graham is likely to face a competitive runoff regardless of which candidate squeaks into second place. Fry and Norman are seen as the two most likely contenders based on limited public polling available in the race so far. In a glimpse of how fluid and unpredictable the primary has become, a straw poll conducted by the South Carolina Republican Party showed Graham in third place, trailing both Norman and Fry.

The two representatives offer competing flavors for Republicans to choose from.

Fry is seen in both Washington and Columbia as a rising star in the party. He also has a fan in Trump who, in the muddied political waters immediately following Lindsey Graham’s death, said in an interview with Newsmax that the House Republican is “outstanding” and a “very talented person.”

But questions remain about the legal process of what happens to his congressional seat should he win his party’s nomination for Senate and go on to win in the general election. The state party has signaled they would act quickly to address a vacancy to protect House Republicans’ extremely narrow majority in Congress.

Norman, for his part, already gave up his House seat to run for governor earlier this year. He is a longtime fixture of the state’s most conservative factions, who has at times been a thorn in Trump’s side, like when he endorsed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for president in 2024.

But he’s seen as the standard bearer for the powerful Freedom Caucus’ ultraconservative politics in the state, and his gubernatorial bid has left him with a statewide operation that he can reactivate in his run for Senate.

Graham, Fry, and Norman all declined to comment.

Both of Graham’s likely top opponents have honed most of their fire on each other — one of the clearest signs that the first round of the primary is shaping up to be a battle for second place. Still, Graham’s allies have lobbed their own attacks against Fry.

Security in Strength, a PAC that once supported Lindsey Graham’s 2024 reelection, is up on TV with an ad that shows an AI-depiction of Fry’s likeness transposed onto a slice of meat in a frying pan, dumped out by Trump with the words “REJECTED” splashed across the screen.

Fry has recently started taking aim at Graham, launching an ad claiming that she “ballooned the size” and doubled the spending of a government agency — but did not specify which. Graham has worked for the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department and has led the Commission for the Blind since 2019.

“If Russell Fry wants to attack Senator Darline for helping people with disabilities find jobs and live independently, that’s a bold fight to pick,” Abby Zilch, a Graham spokesperson, said in response in a post on social media.

​Politics

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee has a month to turn around primary challenger Helena Foulkes’ 20-point lead or become the first sitting U.S. governor to lose a primary in eight years.

The race represents another crest in the world’s post-pandemic anti-incumbent wave, which has transcended ideological lines as voters express broad frustration with high costs of living and governments they don’t feel are working for them. It’s a throughline from insurgent progressive victories to Kamala Harris’ 2024 loss to President Donald Trump’s growing unpopularity.

And it’s all down to a bridge.

Signs outside Rhode Island’s partially closed Washington Bridge tell drivers: “Thank you for your patience.”

But voters who’ve lived through the resulting traffic crisis since emergency safety concerns emerged in 2023 keep telling Foulkes the messages make them feel the opposite. Despite some improvement, they’re fed up with commuting and economic troubles stemming from the bridge’s slowdown. One older woman told Foulkes she wanted to take out her BB gun and shoot the signs.

The contest is a rematch of the 2022 primary, when McKee (who’d been elevated to governor when Gina Raimondo became Commerce secretary) narrowly edged out Foulkes in a multi-candidate race. The primary doesn’t fall neatly along the ideological lines that have riven Democrats elsewhere. Foulkes and McKee, both baby boomers, have positioned themselves as relatively mainstream, center-left Dems.

“I’m running against people’s belief that the status quo is maybe just as good as we’re ever going to be,” Foulkes told Playbook. She’s proposed funding 20,000 new housing units with a millionaires tax. “It’s so important that people feel a sense of momentum and energy … because I think oftentimes government doesn’t feel urgent to people, and their lives are really hurting.”

Rhode Island is small enough — an hour’s drive from one corner to the other — that a single bridge symbolizes the trend. (The Washington Bridge is a key conduit between Providence and East Providence.) Almost everybody says the bridge is the No. 1 issue in the race and voters’ perception of McKee’s tenure. He and Foulkes have squabbled over the pace of rebuilding, the bidding process and the state Department of Transportation leadership. Residents are also struggling with some of the country’s highest electric rates and worst housing affordability metrics.

The state’s anti-establishment/outsider energy isn’t limited to this contest. In the GOP gubernatorial primary, the polling leader is Elaine Pelino — a former actress, Howard Lutnick assistant and publisher of Tigress Magazine (“For the Fierce, One of a Kind Woman”) — who’s gathered steam with anti-socialism Facebook posts. For lieutenant governor, incumbent Democrat Sabina Matos faces strong challenges from Newport City Councilor Xay Khamsyvoravong and others. And Providence Mayor Brett Smiley is trying to fend off state Rep. David Morales on his left.

But McKee is mounting a vigorous defense of his time in office, saying he’s delivered for Rhode Islanders — despite Trump’s obstacles — on jobs, SNAP, wind energy, education, hospitals, housing and energy. The governor argues he’s prioritized safety on the bridge after previous leaders kicked the can down the road. One recent poll by McKee allies found a closer race, with Foulkes ahead by just 6 points.

“My record is going to really be the important factor,” McKee said in an interview. “My opponent’s record’s been in the corporate boardroom, really putting profits over people.”

That’s the heart of McKee’s message, which banks on another crucial Democratic 2026 narrative carrying the day: a working people’s populism taking on the elite business class. McKee has long had a base of union support. In Foulkes, he has an opponent who’s no democratic socialist. She was a longtime CVS executive and comes from a storied political lineage (her grandfather and uncle, Thomas and Chris Dodd, were both senators).

“It’s kind of a running bit here that her campaign is, in a very real way, being run from the deck of the Dunes Club in Narragansett,” said McKee campaign manager Drew Shannon, referring to the exclusive, members-only beach club.

And McKee has gone negative on the airwaves, accusing Foulkes of cutting people’s health care and turning a blind eye to opioid addiction during her time at CVS. “She’s a denier: someone who denies the progress we’re making,” McKee told Playbook. “Just like she denies the role she played in fueling an opioid crisis.” Both candidates got fiery in a radio debate this week. As of July 31, Foulkes had five times McKee’s cash on hand.

McKee has been rolling out a string of notable endorsements, many from labor, including teachers, firefighters, building trades and Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island PAC. If he can pull off a comeback, it’ll likely be on the strength of union support.

But his positioning as a labor champion from the working-class Blackstone Valley — the birthplace of the U.S.’ Industrial Revolution — has been partially undercut by high-profile defections in his base. The Rhode Island SEIU State Council backed Foulkes. The state Democratic Party and the state AFL-CIO voted not to endorse in the race, both of which were seen as big blows to McKee.

“The labor movement is going to be in both camps,” AFL-CIO President Patrick Crowley said.

And a number of Democratic city committees have sprung for Foulkes. Cumberland Mayor Jeff Cutter, who serves in the role McKee once held, is among those now supporting her. “There’s been some stances taken that I don’t think represent the same person who was a mentor of mine,” Cutter said of McKee, calling his endorsement a difficult personal choice.

“It’s one of those times,” Cutter added, “where the advantage of incumbency might not be an advantage at this point because there’s just so much kind of frustration.”

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​Politics

Michigan Democrats’ scramble to unify after a brutal primary continued Friday with a preplanned rally that brought together the statewide ticket.

It also brought out Pete Buttigieg, a former and potentially future presidential candidate, whose presence helped underscore the stakes not just in November, but for 2028.

Holding the Michigan Senate seat is key to Democrats’ hopes of winning back the upper chamber. It is also a major battleground state that has now voted for President Donald Trump in two of the last three presidential elections, even as it sends Democrats like Elissa Slotkin to the Senate. Michigan is now poised to become an early presidential nominating state, giving it outsized influence on the 2028 contest.

Buttigieg laid out, in explicit terms, the broader stakes of a fractured Democratic coalition heading into the general election: “The stakes are high, and people from around the country, people from around the world, are watching the state of Michigan right now to see if we have the capability to put together that coalition to win.”

“We’re going to win because we know what it means to focus on what’s at stake, to lock arms as allies after a spirited primary, to pull together in common cause,” said Buttigieg, who stayed neutral in the state’s Senate primary, at the Michigan Democratic Party’s general election kickoff rally.

Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday defeated Rep. Haley Stevens after a bruising primary that exposed ideological and demographic divisions within the party. He now faces Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the general election, and he has to figure out how to pull moderate and establishment Democrats back into the fold to hold the seat.

Republicans, seeing an opening with Black and Jewish voters who broke more for Stevens, are already trying to peel away parts of the Democratic coalition. They view Michigan as one of their best pickup opportunities this cycle.

Buttigieg, who represents the party’s more moderate flank, used his remarks Friday to explicitly appeal to Democrats across the spectrum — and even some Republicans.

“Wherever you sit, in this big tent of ours, and it is a big tent, but whatever corner of that tent you think of as home, there is a set of things, and I mean big, big things, where we agree with each other, we agree with most Michiganders, and Washington and Lansing Republicans disagree with us,” he said. “That’s what’s at stake right now, and it’s not all about left, right, and center, Democrat and Republican.”

Buttigieg’s remarks — and the early unification around El-Sayed in one of the nation’s most important battlegrounds — underscores the delicate balancing act party leaders have to contend with. After a string of progressive victories through the spring, establishment Democrats in particular are trying to rally behind their new nominees without necessarily embracing every part of the politics that carried them across the finish line.

That dance showed up subtly throughout the speeches on Friday night.

Buttigieg at one point framed El-Sayed’s position as wanting “to expand affordable health care and keep more money in your pocket,” whereas Rogers “voted against the Affordable Care Act.” Buttigieg notably did not use the phrase “Medicare for All” to address one of El-Sayed’s signature progressive positions.

El-Sayed, for his part, also made an explicit effort to turn the page.

“In the spirit of unity, in the spirit of the work, in the spirit of coming together, I want to thank both of my colleagues who ran, Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, for an incredible race,” he said. “Their incredible public service in the state of Michigan, and I cannot wait to see what both of them will do next.”

But he signaled that the progressive policy positions that powered his campaign would remain central to his general election stump. He reiterated his support for Medicare for All and railed against “the system of super PACs” and the millions of outside money flooding into politics.

And he sharply criticized Rogers, who, along with his fellow Republicans, have dramatically increased their attacks against El-Sayed since he won the primary, offering an early glimpse of what is likely to be a combative and divisive general election.

“They don’t know who we fight for,” El-Sayed said. “We fight for the families barely able to put their groceries in the cart and check out, we fight for the mom who’s worried about the child care she needs to be able to work a job that barely pays enough, we fight for the folks who are afraid about what happens if they get sick. We fight for each other, and we don’t back down.”

​Politics

Tennessee GOP Rep. Andy Ogles was ousted by a Republican challenger on Thursday, a blow to President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson who tried to boost his campaign in the final days.

Former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher won the GOP primary for the 5th District after outraising Ogles, receiving a late endorsement from GOP Gov. Bill Lee and seeing a flood of outside money on his behalf from a renewable energy super PAC.

Ultimately, that spending, coupled with a newly redrawn district that forced Ogles to reach new voters, helped end his reelection bid. Ogles has also faced a number of controversies since he was first elected in 2022.

He deleted a homophobic social media post that was denounced by members of his own party in June, and he drew severe backlash for another post in which he said “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” In 2024, the FBI searched Ogles’ phone during an investigation into campaign finance records, which came after a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint into his use of campaign funds. And in 2023, he faced scrutiny for false claims about his resume.

Ogles’ loss makes him the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week, after a Michigan House candidate who had the president’s backing fell to a challenger who had already dropped out.

Hatcher will face the Democratic mayor of Columbia, Tennessee, Chaz Molder, in November. Molder has posted strong fundraising hauls, while Hatcher will basically be starting from scratch.

But Republicans redrew the seat to favor Trump by 23 points after the Supreme Court severely limited the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, leaving Hatcher as the front-runner.

​Politics

HIDALGO, Texas — Bobby Pulido is learning that the bright lights of politics can be even harsher than music superstardom.

For the past several months, the Latin Grammy-winning singer and local megacelebrity has been the subject of a steady stream of national headlines scrutinizing his former professional relationship with a one-time bandmate who was imprisoned on child sex molestation charges. He’s also faced criticism for past social media posts that included racial, sexist and homophobic slurs and comments.

During a recent interview with POLITICO — after a weeknight meet-and-greet with voters in the same stadium where he performed his final concert in November 2025 — Pulido struck a defensive tone about the scandals that have plagued his campaign.

“I apologize right now,” Pulido said, referring to the social media posts. “I’ll tell you right now, that way you’ll never ask me again. I apologize for everything that I’ve ever joked about that offended anybody. But I can’t continue to revisit every single one.”

Pulido also insisted he did nothing wrong in his working relationship with Frankie Caballero, maintaining he did not know about his former accordionist’s child molestation charges. He expects opponents to “keep dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping” new social media posts.

“I’ve been an open book for 30 years,” he said. “I was on Twitter way before I thought about running for office. They’re gonna keep going to old tweets, and there’s a lot of tweets in there that I’m embarrassed of. There’s jokes that I’ve told that I apologize for, and I’ve owned up to them. I’m like, man, that makes me cringe, and I’ve publicly apologized.”

Pulido is one of House Democrats’ prized battleground recruits and a key part of their plan to flip control of the lower chamber. The first-time candidate is widely known in Texas’ 15th District for his singing career, and he hopes to capitalize on voters’ anti-incumbency angst in his bid against GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in a newly redrawn district that President Donald Trump won by 18 points in 2024.

Recent polling shows the race within the margin of error or Pulido leading, thanks in large part to his near-universal name ID. But while voters have shown a strong interest in political outsiders, those outsiders are also untested — and new revelations can swamp news cycles and potentially their chances.

The New York Post first reported in April on Pulido’s past relationship to Caballero, a registered sex offender who was imprisoned for indecent contact with an eight-year-old girl. Pulido told POLITICO he first learned that Caballero was incarcerated on sex charges from the Post report, and Pulido’s campaign says the singer’s management company cut ties with Caballero after learning about a domestic abuse charge in 2021.

Pulido said he’d asked Caballero why he was in prison. “Transferring illegal aliens. That’s what he told me,” he told POLITICO. “And I knew he had a lot of substance abuse issues, and he violated a lot of his paroles. Those were the things that he told me.” (Pulido’s campaign told the Texas Tribune in July that Pulido only knew Caballero struggled with addiction.)

In June, Axios reported Caballero performed with Pulido at a middle school benefit concert in 2018, where children were present, after being released from prison. When asked if he regretted having Caballero play there, Pulido said he did — knowing what he knows now.

“Without me knowing, it’s hard for me to say that,” he said. “Me, that I know now, yes. I wish I wouldn’t have taken him there.”

Caballero could not be reached for comment.

Pulido’s past social media posts have also come back to haunt the singer-turned-politician. In Twitter posts between 2013 and 2018, Pulido used homophobic and sexist Spanish-language slurs which translate to “f-g,” “f—-t” and “p—y.” In several other posts, he used the word “prieto,” a term referring to dark-skinned individuals many view as pejorative. The posts were first reported by NBC News and reviewed by POLITICO. In another 2013 Spanish-language post reviewed by POLITICO, Pulido joked that Mexican actor Mauricio Islas “isn’t a f-g, respect him. His boyfriend is.”

Islas, whose partner is a woman, did not respond to a request for comment.

Pulido told POLITICO some of the remarks were made in jest toward personal friends. “That’s how we joke. I would never tell a stranger that,” he said.

He defended his use of the racial term as a cultural misunderstanding. “In our culture, we call each other that. It’s like Black people calling each other the n-word,” he said. “Would somebody that called another Black person the n-word be accused of racism? But they want to come and translate what I said to this guy, which is how we say it and we’re joking, they wanted to make it seem like I’m telling some complete stranger that. That’s not what it is.”

“I’m not making excuses,” Pulido added. “Would you have to apologize to your friend that you joke like that with, that doesn’t have a problem with anything you say? I don’t feel like I should have to apologize to them because they’re my friends.”

This isn’t the first time he’s flashed irritation when asked about his past posts, saying they distract from issues like affordability and immigration that voters care about. Pulido let loose on the New York Post when the paper reached out for comment about some other controversial social media posts. “We’ve been getting the same recycled tabloid nonsense since last October,” he said in a July video posted to his social media channels.

“And for whatever reporter that wants to keep asking,” he said in Spanish, “que no mamen, Kool-Aids. Now go translate that.” The colloquial phrase translates roughly to “don’t be jerks, assholes” or “don’t be stupid, assholes.”

De La Cruz’s campaign hopes to make hay out of the issues. In a statement, James Shook, the representative’s campaign manager, said Pulido is a “product of the corrupt compadre system that looks out for itself and everybody else is expected to look away.”

In press releases, De La Cruz’s campaign has pointed out apparent inconsistencies in Pulido’s statements. They note that Pulido told The Monitor he fired Caballero in 1996, but Caballero appears on two of Pulido’s albums through 1999. In a 2019 podcast, Pulido suggested he got Caballero out of jail; he told Bloomberg this year that was “hyperbolic” and he “misspoke.”

“Bobby Pulido walked a man convicted of molesting an eight-year-old girl onto a middle school event in this community, and hid his sex offender status from parents,” Shook said. “This is someone he toured with for years and is on tape bragging he personally bailed him out of jail. The only question left is why he thought he would get away with it.”

But there are signs that voters have become increasingly desensitized to scandal. A new POLITICO Poll found a significant share of voters — both Republican and Democrat — say they would stick with their preferred candidate even if they were caught accepting gifts from lobbyists, exploiting tax loopholes or making antisemitic posts. Democrats drew a harsher line when it came to accusations of sexual violence and sexual assault. Voters were not polled on past use of homophobic or gender slurs on social media, or on relationships with sex offenders.

Some of Pulido’s supporters who know his family largely shrug off the headlines.

Esmeralda Knapp, a hairstylist in McAllen, said she will vote for Pulido solely because his uncle, a former county judge, helped secure Knapp’s brother’s release from prison many years ago. Bob Villarreal, a retired teacher in Edinburg, reminisced about the time Pulido’s father, a musician himself, substitute-taught his sixth-grade orchestra class. Maria Dominguez, who runs a wellness club in McAllen, said Pulido is “a good person” because she knows his family: “His family are working people, good people and raised in the valley.”

Villarreal brushed off Pulido’s relationship with Caballero. “It wasn’t Bobby,” he said. “I guess it’s important for some people, but for me, I mean, it’s somebody else.”

“It’s guilt by association,” said Patricia Villarreal, his wife.

​Politics

Dasha Burns presses Mike Johnson on the economy, Iran and Trump’s agenda

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​Politics

President Donald Trump’s most vocal opponents on the right were sowing the seeds for a future third-party political organization during a weekend get-together aimed at undercutting the Republican establishment.

The meeting at Tucker Carlson’s compound in Maine with Rep. Thomas Massie, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others — captured in a photo posted by Greene on Saturday — served as a launch pad for a possible independent presidential campaign focused on unwinding U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.

“We said no more foreign wars and we meant it and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise. But he’s betrayed us all,” Greene wrote in the post. “The movement has begun.”

Joe Kent, the former Trump national security official who resigned earlier this year and attended the weekend confab with Carlson, said the group congregated to strategize on how to best organize their shared opposition to the war in Iran.

“There’s a lot more nuts-and-bolts work that needs to be done there,” Kent said in an interview on “The Young Turks,” the progressive talk show. “Running as a third-party candidate is challenging. Not impossible, but it is very challenging. But that’s kind of the consensus that we came to, that the current system just simply doesn’t work, and we have to find something new to save our country.”

Carlson, Greene and Massie all backed Trump ahead of the 2024 election. But each one broke with Trump over the course of his second term as the Trump administration continued to coordinate military operations with Israel in the Middle East. Greene and Massie were also loudly critical of Trump’s opposition to releasing federal investigative documents relating to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, further drawing Trump’s ire.

It’s unclear who would lead the newborn movement. Kent said every attendee at the Maine meeting urged Carlson to run for president in 2028 with their group’s backing but noted that Carlson said he wouldn’t run.

“Hopefully he wakes up one day and Tucker says he’s going to run,” Kent said.

Carlson and Massie did not respond to requests for comment. Greene declined to comment.

The challenges facing third-party and independent presidential candidates are enormous. They must navigate different signature requirements and deadlines in each state just to get on the ballot. Past independent campaigns have been unable to compete financially with the two major parties.

The most recent third-party presidential campaign — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent bid in 2024 — ended months before Election Day when Kennedy endorsed Trump. At the time he dropped out, Kennedy was polling in single digits and fighting lawsuits seeking to block him from the ballot in multiple states.

Kent said the policy platform for the group’s hypothetical third-party campaign in 2028 would ignore most domestic matters and further emphasize their staunch anti-interventionism.

“I think it is having a very, very simple platform, and it’s acknowledging upfront, like, we are going to disagree on a lot of domestic policy and a lot of social issues,” Kent said. “At the end of the day, the president can talk a lot about all those things, but he really doesn’t have a lot of power.”

“We do agree that we don’t want Israel dictating our foreign policy,” he added. “We don’t want any more foreign wars.”

Carlson didn’t signal his involvement in any broader political project or back a third-party candidate for 2028 during his show Wednesday. Instead, he delivered an hour-long monologue laying out his worldview and aspirations for the country.

His vision covered familiar territory — including encouraging Americans to have more children, ending immigration and promoting healthy foods. In addition to denouncing Trump, he called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a “deranged, bloodthirsty monkey,” for his conduct during the Iran War.

Lisa Kashinsky, Alec Hernandez and Sam Benson contributed to this story. 

​Politics

Abdul El-Sayed has just three months to convince a fractured Democratic Party to unite behind him after a nasty primary.

Even before his narrow win over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens became official Wednesday, El-Sayed had begun the difficult process of trying to patch things up with a moderate wing of the party he’d spent months flaying as corporatist stooges as Republicans launched their first wave of attacks of the general election. He says he looks forward to “building relationships” with Jewish voters. And some top Democrats in Michigan and Washington alike are largely filing behind him in a show of unity ahead of November’s high-stakes election.

“To all of our supporters here tonight, watching on TV, tomorrow we begin to mend fences,” El-Sayed told a crowd of supporters early Wednesday before the race was called, asking them to show “magnanimity in victory.”

“We need to move forward and start bringing this party together,” El-Sayed reiterated on MS NOW’s Morning Joe hours later.

And, in a speech formalizing his victory after it was called at 10 a.m. Eastern, he said: “Whatever differences that we might have had in the primary, they pale in comparison to what unifies us.”

El-Sayed has little time to force a reconciliation before he faces off against Mike Rogers, a Donald Trump-endorsed former representative with the backing of Washington’s GOP Senate apparatus. Michigan is one of the nation’s top battlegrounds, a state Trump has won twice but where Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin narrowly defeated Rogers in 2024.

Early voting begins in five weeks.

Already prominent Michigan Democrats like Slotkin and Rep. Debbie Dingell are working to consolidate support behind El-Sayed, showing efforts from both the moderate and progressive flanks after a bitter primary that put tensions over Israel and campaign finance in the spotlight.

“We do have to unite,” Dingell said in an interview. “Abdul’s got to figure out how he’s going to bring people that were part of Haley’s coalition and have them know that he cares about the values that they have, which I know he does, but he’s got to talk to them. This coalition has got to be a very broad coalition.”

Michigan Democrats plan to hold their so-called post-primary “unity breakfast” Thursday morning in Southfield, where they will rally behind party nominees. The contest was separated by less than a percentage point when the AP called the race Wednesday morning. Stevens immediately conceded and called for unity. And state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped her U.S. Senate bid a month before the primary, had already endorsed El-Sayed, saying she wanted to enter November “as a unified party” after “a brutal primary.”

“We must elect Democrats up and down the ballot,” Stevens said in a statement Wednesday, promising her support to El-Sayed after calling her primary with him “a thorough and rigorous campaign that brought out the full span of views within the Democratic Party.”

The primary was animated by charges of sexism, racism and religious bigotry. Splits over Israel played prominently in the race: El-Sayed attacked Stevens incessantly for relying on outside spending from groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent a record $32 million on her behalf. In the race’s final days, Stevens and her allies accused El-Sayed of antisemitism and sexism, and El-Sayed’s allies accused Stevens of Islamophobia.

Outgoing Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who had endorsed Stevens, said he spoke with El-Sayed Wednesday morning and congratulated him. He said he will “work hard to make sure” Democrats coalesce behind El-Sayed.

“The party has to all come together right now,” he told POLITICO. “We don’t have a lot of time, but everybody has to come together and understand that as Democrats, whatever differences we have between us as Democrats are minor compared to the differences between our Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate.”

Republicans are already plastering the airwaves with their preferred attack: Painting El-Sayed as “radical” and “dangerous” while emphasizing the full name of the American-born son of Egyptian immigrants.

“Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America,” a new National Republican Senatorial Committee ad says.

“Abdul El-Sayed: Dangerously radical,” says a new Senate Leadership Fund ad.

In a statement Wednesday morning, Rogers called El-Sayed an “extremist” who “campaigns with people who refuse to condemn terrorism” — likely a reference to comments made by his ally, far-left streamer Hasan Piker, which Piker has since said he regretted. “I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice,” said Rogers, a former FBI special agent. “Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.”

Cullen Schwarz, a longtime Democratic strategist in Michigan, said Democrats need to portray Rogers as the extreme one if they’re going to emerge victorious in the must-win Senate race.

“As Democrats move forward, I hope we remember that in politics, the real battle is over moving the Overton window,” he said. “The Republicans are going to try to paint progressives across the country as extreme. It’s extreme to support Donald Trump.”

If that is the frame, Schwarz said, he doesn’t think Democrats will have any issues reunifying. “Democrats will immediately remember the fight we’re facing in the fall,” he said. “There’s been no force more unifying for Democrats than Donald Trump,”

El-Sayed could have the most work to do in rural, working-class areas and among Black voters. He won just 34 percent of the vote in Detroit, according to unofficial returns. And Stevens won a majority of votes across counties where less than 30 percent of adults have a college degree, according to a POLITICO analysis.

Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said Democrats — from Michigan to Washington — need to line up behind El-Sayed.

“Frankly, the Democratic establishment needs to very quickly consolidate around him — all of them,” said Duss, executive vice president at Center for International Policy. “If they believe what they say about needing to take Michigan for Democrats in the Senate, they can show us by getting all in behind El-Sayed right now.”

El-Sayed’s emergence from the contentious primary — which saw record levels of outside spending in one of the nation’s key battlegrounds — will require some Washington Democrats who previously kept him at arm’s length to now embrace him. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). said he preferred Stevens in the primary, but he released a statement Wednesday saying he and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand “look forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November.”

And the narrow result is forcing progressives who had been expecting a dominant, double-digit victory to recalibrate their expectations as their attention shifts to the general.

“Tough result for Democrats,” said Adrian Hemond, founder of a Michigan-based bipartisan advocacy and outreach firm. “The promised populist wave was a dud… If you think the primary was nasty, just wait until next week. General election voters are less college educated and less ideological, so they have to find a way to sell ideology to normal people.”

Jessica Piper, Adam Wren, Ali Bianco and Mia McCarthy contributed reporting.

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