Category: Politics

Democratic attorneys general are bracing for President Donald Trump to interfere in the midterm elections — and war-gaming how to stop him.

The party’s top prosecutors have been strategizing for months about how to counter a series of increasingly extreme scenarios they fear could play out this fall. They have huddled in hotel conference rooms and over Zoom meetings to run tabletop exercises anticipating the president’s moves and choreographing responses.

They’re preparing for the administration to potentially confiscate ballots and voting machines, strip resources from the postal service to disrupt the delivery of mail ballots, and send military members and immigration agents to polling locations to intimidate voters. They’re readying motions for temporary restraining orders to preserve election materials and remove armed forces from voting sites.

And, as the president attempts to assert federal control over elections, seize voter data and relitigate false claims of fraud from 2020, they’re monitoring Trump and his allies’ every word about elections for clues about what his administration could do next.

“[Trump] wants to continue to have his party prevail, seemingly by whatever means necessary,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “So we have to be ready for that, sad and tragic as it is.”

The Democratic attorneys general, some of whom battled Trump’s election-subversion tactics in the courts in 2020, have already challenged the president’s efforts to overhaul election administration and access sensitive voter data ahead of a midterm contest that could turn him into a lame duck.

Nineteen of them banded together to sue the administration last spring over Trump’s sweeping executive order targeting voting rules, most of which has since been blocked by courts. When the Department of Justice dispatched election monitors to polling locations in New Jersey and California last November, Bonta deployed his own observers in his state in response.

But the president’s more recent moves have prosecutors ratcheting up their preparations for November, five Democratic attorneys general said in interviews.

Earlier this month, Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize” voting and suggested the federal government should intervene in election operations in swing-states’ predominantly blue cities like Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia — places that have been central to his election conspiracy theories for years. House Republicans passed one set of voting restrictions and are teeing up another, though the measures are unlikely to clear the Senate. And Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem raised alarms among Democrats when she said her department is working to ensure “that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.”

Trump and his allies’ rhetoric is the type of “red-alarm fire that people need to take very seriously,” said Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, who leads the Democratic Attorneys General Association’s election protection working group.

“He will try anything,” Brown said, so “we have to just sort of think creatively about: If you were the president and you were trying to invalidate an election or undermine an election, what are the oddball, ludicrous, unconstitutional theories that you might advance?”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson fired back in a statement accusing Democrats of “plotting to undermine commonsense election integrity efforts supported by a vast majority of Americans” and arguing existing law gives the Department of Justice “full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls.”

“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” Jackson said. “The President has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to ensure the safety and security of our elections.”

Democratic attorneys general have panned the SAVE Act as an attack on the right to vote and urged Congress not to pass it and other measures Trump is pushing.

They also fear the Trump administration could aim to intimidate legal voters by sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling locations.

ICE chief Todd Lyons said in a congressional hearing earlier this month that there’s “no reason” for ICE officials to be deployed to polling facilities. But MAGA influencer Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist, is encouraging the president to take that step to prevent noncitizens from voting, despite its rare occurrence. He’s also urging Trump to send in troops, further stoking Democrats’ concerns.

When asked about Bannon’s comments during a briefing earlier this month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said while she “can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November” she hadn’t “heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations,” calling the question “disingenuous.”

Democrats aren’t reassured.

“If the president said, ‘Look, I want my ICE people to protect American elections … go to all these polling places and stand out in front with guns,’ I think they would do it,” said Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota, where an immigration enforcement surge earlier this year resulted in two deaths. “And I think we all need to be prepared to deal with that problem.”

Several Democratic attorneys general said they’re particularly alarmed after the FBI seized voting records in Fulton County, Georgia, based on a referral from Kurt Olsen, an attorney who worked with Trump to undermine the 2020 election results. They’re now bracing for similar seizures in other places Trump has previously targeted over debunked claims of voter fraud.

Those concerns are heightened in battleground states with contests that could decide control of Congress.

“We recognize that what happened in Fulton County could happen in Detroit. Not because there’s any merit to claims that anything wrong happened in Detroit, but because we know that those claims will be made again,” said Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel of swing-state Michigan.

“The president and his administration know and understand that Democrats don’t win statewide in Michigan without counting the Detroit vote,” she added. “So of course Trump wants to undermine in people’s minds the integrity of Detroit elections, even though that’s not borne fruit whenever that has been investigated.”

Democrats in states that rely heavily on mail-in ballots are also girding for an assault on the voting system that Trump is trying to eliminate, but that GOP operatives and even some Republicans in Congress support as a way to keep voters engaged in non-presidential years.

They are worried about Trump weaponizing the postal service, either by again blocking funding for the agency or installing allies to slow operations. And they cautioned that his push to discount ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward could disenfranchise voters in states with grace periods. The Supreme Court is due to consider a case on ballot deadlines next month.

Democratic attorneys general, meanwhile, will argue in a lower court next week in a multistate lawsuit seeking to permanently block portions of Trump’s executive order — which includes cutting off mail ballots and requiring documentary proof of citizenship for the national voter registration form — from taking effect.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is co-leading the lawsuit alongside Bonta, urged his counterparts to “stay nimble.”

Trump “likes to sow chaos because he thinks it’s going to throw people off their game,” Ford said. “But he has met his match when it comes to the Nevada attorney general’s office; he’s met his match when it comes to the Democratic attorneys general.”

Elena Schneider contributed to this report.

​Politics

Nicki Minaj spent the past year transforming herself from a polarizing rap superstar into a high-profile conservative provocateur, lobbing viral attacks at Democratic leaders, boosting MAGA talking points and earning public praise from President Donald Trump and his allies.

On social media, Minaj’s pugnacious persona and sharp-edged posts — including repeated broadsides against California Gov. Gavin Newsom — have made her a darling of the Trump administration and the conservative movement, drawing millions of views and steady amplification from far-right influencers.

But quietly, humming in the background of her varied social media blitzes, a sophisticated army of bots was unconditionally praising and amplifying Minaj’s content, according to a new report shared exclusively with POLITICO.

The report, compiled by the disinformation detection company Cyabra, identifies a coordinated network of bots — more than 18,000 of them — that drove algorithms to spread Minaj’s posts on X.

The analysis, which looked at social media activity from Nov. 11 to Dec. 28, provides a window into how the rapper was able to capture millions of views online and position herself as a celebrity the White House found value in partnering with. Last month, Minaj joined the president at the Trump Accounts Summit — where Trump invited her on stage, showered her with praise and recorded a chummy TikTok video with her afterward.

“We don’t really see a lot of high volume, high impact orchestration of bad and fake actors within that intersection of the geopolitically driven and music culture,” said Dan Brahmy, the CEO and founder of Cyabra. “It is scarce in our field to see the combination of the bad and the fake online world with the entertainment world.”

The report found inauthentic accounts repeatedly amplified Minaj’s posts with praise that used “highly similar language,” particularly in response to posts where authentic accounts were criticizing Minaj.

“Supportive comments generated by fake profiles were predominantly brief, repetitive, and low in semantic complexity, consisting largely of praising keywords and positive hashtags rather than original or substantive engagement,” the report found.

Other inauthentic activity surrounding Minaj included “longer, more detailed comments designed to appear organic.”

“Nicki you are brave for living your truth, people might not always agree with what’s being played out, but as an artist and watching your growth as a person is inspiring,” read one comment from a purported Minaj fan, @LAX76283656, that was deemed fake by Cyabra.

“This pattern suggests a deliberate attempt to integrate into genuine conversations, increasing the credibility and visibility of the amplified content,” the report read.

Cyabra identified one day, Dec. 26, when fake profiles made up 56 percent of all comments on political posts made by Minaj.

Bot networks have become a familiar feature of modern politics since revelations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, when coordinated inauthentic accounts were used to inflame divisions and manipulate online discourse. Such campaigns are now routinely detected around wars, elections and geopolitical flashpoints — but far less often around celebrities or the music industry.

That backdrop helps explain why Cyabra’s findings seem so peculiar. Rather than a short-lived spike tied to a single event or appearance, the company found sustained and coordinated amplification of Minaj’s posts across a range of political and cultural topics over time.

When Minaj posted about her support for Trump, her concern over the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and Newsom’s perceived alignment with the transgender community, the bots were there to back her up, Cyabra’s report shows. They also amplified her posts related to the music industry.

Representatives for Minaj did not respond to requests for comment.

Alex Bruesewitz, a media and political adviser to Trump who considers Minaj a “very close friend,” told POLITICO he is confident there are no bots involved with the rapper’s social media presence.

“Nicki has never used bot activity to promote herself on social media, because she doesn’t need to,” Bruesewitz said. “She has one of the largest fan bases of any musician that’s alive today.”

The Cyabra report was commissioned by a person who was granted anonymity because they fear public retaliation.

Cyabra is about 85 percent confident the more than 18,000 profiles identified are fake. But if the company were to narrow that scope to profiles that exhibit even stronger signs of inauthenticity, the confidence level could easily rise into the 90s, Brahmy said.

“We always have to make sure that we play at a confidence level that’s strong enough for people to rely on it, and doesn’t really change the narrative,” he said.

And when accounts boosting Minaj posted content that researchers identified as “toxic,” the algorithm drove her posts even further. Companies like Cyabra determine toxicity by assessing not just the “positive” or “negative” words used in a post, but the apparent intent behind them, Brahmy said. Personal attacks, slurs, threats or comments that seem designed to deter a reasonable person from engaging in conversation are typically considered toxic.

“When the conversation is limited to toxic content, a substantially stronger amplification effect emerges,” the report found. “These accounts predominantly amplify content produced by Nicki Minaj and Turning Point USA, indicating a notable overlap between the two within this discourse. Several of the accounts involved had previously been identified as exhibiting fake campaign-like behavior in the context of Minaj’s online activity within and relating to the music industry.”

Turning Point USA didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The analysis also shows how foreign and domestic political narratives can be manipulated by bot networks without broad public awareness — and how influential figures in the hip-hop world are making inroads into the conservative political conversation in America.

Minaj’s online activity was not only amplified by inauthentic accounts — but also a string of authentic accounts, including those of popular conservative influencers Dom Lucre and Matt Wallace, Cyabra found. The way those accounts parroted Minaj’s talking points suggest strategic coordination behind the scenes, Brahmy said.

“Real human beings are behaving the exact same way, utilizing the exact same behavioral patterns, as you would expect from a well coordinated campaign,” Brahmy said. “They amplify each other. They are riding the same, similar wave of narrative.”

Lucre responded with a statement saying, “This is one of the most absurd conspiracy theories I have ever seen in my entire life brother.”

He then uploaded videos to his X and YouTube accounts reacting to POLITICO’s questions about whether he was coordinating his posts about Minaj with others or being paid for posts related to the rapper.

“Nicki Minaj is now pulling so many liberals to the right that they now have to push out a theory that these aren’t real organic people, and that she’s now manipulating the system with bots,” Lucre said. “If Nicki Minaj was manipulating systems with bots on Instagram, TikTok, X, do you not think there would be a conclusive data that they would have to present this instead of asking influencers to say yes?”

Wallace did not respond to a request for comment.

Minaj’s foray into politics comes after Trump made inroads with Black and Hispanic voters in the 2024 election. He and his allies have been eager to propel a political realignment around a multiracial, working-class, right-populist coalition, but polls show that that 2024 coalition has frayed badly over the last year.

Minaj has moved toward embracing the MAGA movement since July of last year. Her rightward shift was cemented in December during her appearance with Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest convention. In late 2025, before Trump embraced her at last month’s summit, her political views also drew praise from the likes of Vice President JD Vance and Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz.

On social media, her barrage of GOP-friendly posts garner millions of views, including those taking aim at Newsom.

“Career politician at the brink of his moment realigns to become nothing more than a Nicki Minaj ANTI. OOF,” Minaj wrote in December, with a photo depicting Newsom behind bars in a jail cell. “So now he’s the guy running on ‘wanting to see trans kids’ AND willing to lower himself to becoming just another FEMALE RAPPER to get obliterated by NICKI MINAJ.”

“Let’s wait…I think Gavvy’s still transitioning,” she said in another post on the same day, which generated over 1 million views.

A spokesperson for Newsom — who is named multiple times in the report and was a frequent target of Minaj during Cyabra’s analysis period — sent a statement ridiculing Minaj when asked for comment on the report’s findings.

“Like most MAGA mouthpieces, we are not surprised Nicki Minaj needs bots to stay relevant,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said.

Cyabra’s report identifies 18,784 fake profiles that were at the ready to boost Minaj’s content.

Those accounts represented 33 percent of the total profiles evaluated by Cyabra — a ratio of inauthentic activity similar to those seen during wars and presidential elections, Brahmy said. Inauthentic accounts typically represent between 7 and 10 percent of organic social media discourse, the company said.

Cyabra works with corporations to identify online bot activity and misinformation campaigns, with the goal of helping them protect their reputation and understand malicious actors online. It uses software to analyze social media activity — and provides its services to PR firms, legal practices, multinational corporations and governments.

Cyabra gleaned the bot activity by examining the accounts’ temporal synchronization, their linguistic and stylistic uniformity and the similar demographics shared by the fake identities. The company developed a machine learning algorithm to identify fake accounts.

Jen Golbeck, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland who studies artificial intelligence and social media, told POLITICO the purpose of a “botnet” can go beyond manipulating the narrative in a single comment section. The bots’ interactions signal to social media algorithms that a post draws high-engagement, which drives the algorithm to spread the content further.

“You can really expand your reach beyond your follower base if you get high levels of interaction, and these interaction bots do that,” said Golbeck, who also writes the MAGAReport substack.

Joel Penney, a professor at Montclair State University who studies popular culture and politics, said Trump’s adoption of Minaj into his political project is likely part of a larger strategy to reach younger, more diverse audiences.

“They’ve made a lot of efforts to include celebrities who are supportive, including hip-hop figures; Nicki Minaj is probably the biggest name to kind of become a pretty public advocate,” Penney said. “They don’t have the power to wave a wand and make all their followers or fans of their music support their political advocacy. But it matters. It contributes to this kind of war for public opinion that we see play out on social media.”

​Politics

The Trump administration on Sunday halted disaster aid to states for long-term rebuilding projects in order to focus on emergency operations as the partial government shutdown enters its second week.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency “is scaling back to bare-minimum, life-saving operations only,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “All non-emergency recovery work is paused.”

The funding freeze for projects stemming from past disasters adds a new source of uncertainty for states as they navigate the government’s shifting system for catastrophe response after President Donald Trump vowed to reduce aid for extreme weather.

It’s also a sign that political acrimony over Trump’s immigration crackdown has affected FEMA, which is housed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Department of Homeland Security. Congressional Democrats have blocked a DHS spending bill over ICE’s aggressive tactics.

It’s the 11th time since 2003 that FEMA has suspended funding for long-term disaster-recovery projects, such as rebuilding public facilities, based on budget constraints.

The latest restriction was unusual because the agency had $7.1 billion available in its disaster fund in late January. Historically, FEMA has waited until the disaster fund drops to about $3 billion before it restricts spending.

FEMA officials told Congress last week that the fund had $9.6 billion, according to a senior congressional aide who was granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. The fund’s balance increased in February because FEMA recovered aid that had been approved but not spent, the aide said.

On Sunday, Noem said DHS “must take emergency measures to preserve limited funds and personnel.” The announcement came days after FEMA employee travel was restricted by DHS.

Noem blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which she said forced her to halt the FEMA funding. Noem also suspended two DHS airport programs over the weekend that allowed some travelers to skip long lines at screening checkpoints and at customs entry stations. “These actions reflect the reality of operating without appropriations,” she said.

Noem, whose department includes the Transportation Security Administration, said she wanted to “refocus Department personnel on the majority of travelers.”

The TSA contradicted Noem hours after her announcement and said its PreCheck program at passenger screening checkpoints “remains operational with no change for the traveling public.”

That led some Democrats to criticize the administration for politicizing homeland security programs.

“These nitwits are at it again,” Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement, adding that the airport programs “REDUCE airport lines and ease the burden on DHS.”

Noem’s decision on FEMA funding will not affect operations at 44 active disaster sites, including those in a dozen Southern states that are recovering from a massive winter storm in late January. Nearly 2,800 disaster specialists were working across the country on Sunday, and another 4,400 were available to be deployed, according to a FEMA report.

But the funding restrictions could delay thousands of long-term disaster rebuilding projects. FEMA pays at least 75 percent of the cost of eligible projects. Many states and localities delay or halt work when FEMA stops its payments.

“States and communities will be forced to wait for long-term response work to continue,” Gregg Phillips, FEMA’s associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery, told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Feb. 11.

The FEMA disaster fund “has sufficient balances to continue emergency response activities for the foreseeable future,” Phillips said in written testimony submitted to panel. But if a disaster occurred, the fund “would be seriously strained.”

The funding restriction also threatens to further delay Trump’s decisions on granting 14 requests for disaster aid by governors and tribal leaders since Nov. 26.

​Politics

Democrats are frothing at the mouth to center President Donald Trump’s tariff chaos in their affordability messaging as they charge into the midterms.

The party was already planning to slam Republicans over the economy on the campaign trail, riding the playbook that helped propel New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to victories last year. Then, on Friday, the Supreme Court in a remarkable rebuke slapped down Trump’s tariffs — declaring illegal his favorite lever to bend the global economy to his will.

But for Democratic strategists and party officials who spoke with POLITICO, it’s not just the high court’s ruling that could open a new avenue — it’s also Trump’s doubling down, moving to levy 15 percent tariffs worldwide under a different authority. “Now we have a new data point that Trump is not going to relent,” said a person familiar with Democrats’ strategies, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Democratic operatives see it as a massive windfall.

“It’s such a gift,” the person familiar said. “The gift of it is how politically inept it is.”

Doug Herman, a Democratic strategist based in California, said Trump’s renewed tariff saber-rattling provides “tailor-made” messaging on affordability for Democrats. “Every American has borne the cost of these Trump tariffs,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing that everybody needs to take advantage of in their campaigns.”

The crop of potential Democratic 2028 presidential candidates leapt into action immediately. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker released an “invoice” demanding that the White House pay more than $8.6 billion in “past due” tariff revenue, which he calculated out to $1,700 per family in his state. “The President owes you an apology — and a refund,” Pete Buttigieg said on X. California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters that Trump “should return that money immediately.”

“They imposed a sales tax on the American people,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville told POLITICO. “What did you get? Nothing.”

That messaging — branding the tariffs as illegal taxes that Trump must repatriate to voters (which, he said Friday, he did not intend to do) — is expected to become a core component of Democrats’ strategy as they fight to retake majorities in Congress.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if tariffs made it in 50 percent of our paid advertising,” said one Democratic strategist working on House campaigns. Another who works on Senate campaigns said they’re preparing to rev up their ads on affordability as well.

“We have a very clear line that we can draw from [voters] struggling to make ends meet, and things that Trump is doing intentionally,” said Matt Bennett, an executive with Third Way, a center-left think tank. “It is a uniquely easy story for Democrats to tell.”

It’s also not lost on the party that the states whose economies have been hit hardest by the tariffs are home to some of the most contentious Senate races that could make or break the GOP’s majority. “We’ve not only lost our markets and gotten lower prices selling corn and soybeans, particularly soybeans, but we have also, at the same time right now, we have the misfortune of having very high inputs, a lot of uncertainty,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart told POLITICO. “We’re talking about real hardship where people are going to be really negatively affected financially.”

Trump, of course, is not on the ballot in November, but multiple Democratic operatives told POLITICO they’re planning to skewer any Republican who has defended his tariffs. “It’s this very, very easy to understand action that the president took, and that congressional Republicans backed,” the Democratic strategist working on Senate races said. So the line for Dem candidates will be cut and dried: “This is where my opponent is not fighting for you,” they said.

The RNC is fully prepared to defend against any Democratic attacks. “The Supreme Court’s decision does not change the reality: President Trump’s trade agenda is working, and Republicans are united in strengthening the economy for American families,” RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in a statement. “His tariffs have helped lower inflation, raise wages, and drive historic investment into U.S. manufacturing and energy. As we head into the midterms, Republicans are focused on building on these gains and putting workers first — while Democrats oppose the policies bringing jobs back home.”

The White House, too, is brushing off the idea that Democrats have been handed a messaging victory.

“President Trump has powerfully used tariffs to renegotiate broken trade deals, lower drug prices, and secure trillions in manufacturing investments for American workers — all things Democrats have promised to do for decades,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “It’s not surprising Democrats care more about having a phony talking point than these tangible victories for the American people, because talking is all Democrats have ever been able to do.”

But the economic picture over the last year has soured, with key indicators released Friday showing slowed growth and rising inflation. Recent polls find that costs and the economy remain a central concern going into November. And though Trump is visiting battleground states to pitch his economic message, he has thus far struggled to acknowledge voters’ concerns. In Georgia on Thursday, the day before the Supreme Court’s ruling came down, Trump claimed he had “won affordability” and told voters his tariffs were “the greatest thing that’s happened in this country.”

On Tuesday, Trump will stand before Congress for his State of the Union address — one of the largest platforms that the presidential bully pulpit provides. Trump said last week he would focus on the economy in those remarks.

Democrats have a tsunami of counterprogramming planned — including anti-SOTU rallies. Multiple Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, will bring as their guests some small business owners who’ve been affected by Trump’s tariffs, guaranteeing the issue will be front and center, regardless of the substance of the president’s remarks

DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) previewed what this messaging will sound like on the campaign trail. “House Republicans rubber stamped President Trump’s tariffs and are responsible for the painful affordability crisis they have unleashed on American families,” DelBene said in a statement. “Voters will not soon forget Republicans are the reason everything is more expensive.”

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​Politics

BRUNSWICK, Maine — The fireplace crackled as Democratic Gov. Janet Mills laid out her vision for beating Susan Collins to a room of supporters in late January. Then came the questions about her primary opponent, Graham Platner.

Platner, one attendee noted, was very successful on social media. A second pointed to his support among young people and asked Mills whether she would support him if he became the party’s nominee.

“I am a Democrat,” Mills answered, before pivoting to how she sought as governor to make the state more affordable for young Mainers.

Mills’ Democratic primary opponent isn’t her favorite subject. She would rather talk about how she expanded Medicaid, bolstered protections for reproductive rights, and, most recently, challenged President Donald Trump over the surge of immigration enforcement in the state — issues that conveniently allow the governor to draw contrast with Collins, the five-term Republican who Democrats must unseat in order to take back control of the Senate.

But Platner, a political newcomer, has made himself all but unavoidable in conversations about the Maine Senate race. The 41-year-old oyster farmer and combat veteran is unlike any other recent popular candidate the state has seen: He is brash. He is progressive. He has drawn crowds of hundreds of people, national attention and millions in campaign dollars.

Platner’s meteoric rise reflects a growing frustration with the Democratic establishment and voters’ interest in a new generation of leaders. He is campaigning not just against Collins but against a “billionaire class,” running a campaign in the style of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who endorsed him.

His battle with Mills comes at a moment when the stakes for Democrats could hardly be higher. Though the Maine Democratic Party doesn’t take positions in primaries, some establishment figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have backed the moderate governor, who they believe is their best shot at defeating Collins to win back the Senate in 2026.

The challenge for Platner is that he is running on a vision of disruptive progressivism and generational change in Maine, the oldest state in the nation and one with a long track record electing senators perceived as moderates within their parties. Mills would largely fit that image; Platner would blow it up entirely. But he is betting that voters now want what he is offering — and his early support makes it hard to ignore the possibility.

“If you look at everyone from Bill Cohen to Angus King to George Mitchell to Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, there’s a strong, moderate streak there when it hits November,” said Adam Cote, a Maine lawyer and veteran who ran for governor in 2018, coming in second to Mills in the Democratic primary. “In the primary, I don’t know.”

While public polling in the race has been relatively scarce, an internal poll released by Platner’s campaign last month had him up by double digits over Mills. He has 283,000 followers on Instagram compared to 61,000 for Mills and 25,000 for Collins. His campaign boasts of a 15,000-person strong volunteer network. Through the end of December, he raised $7.8 million to $2.7 million for Mills, enough to begin running TV ads more than four months in advance of the June primary.

“My wife makes this joke. I’ve been just saying the same bullshit for years, ranting on about structural inequality, ranting on about, like, American history and how we need to reconnect with things. Nobody cared about me because I was a random dude in Sullivan, Maine,” Platner said in an interview. “I’m now running for United States Senate, and I get to have this conversation at a national level.”

Both in style and substance, Platner is unlike any candidate who has risen to the highest levels of Maine politics in recent decades. Even before he faced a litany of controversies in the fall — including a series of offensive old Reddit posts for which he apologized and a tattoo of a Nazi symbol that he had covered up — the Sullivan oysterman was building an operation different from any Maine Democrat.

Platner does not like the label of progressive, but where he differs with Mills on policy, his positions are largely to her left. He has backed progressive priorities like Medicare for All, described Israel’s military actions in Gaza as a genocide, and favors abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Asked whether progressives can win in Maine, Platner pointed to polling showing Sanders’ popularity despite his finishing narrowly behind Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential primary.

Although more progressive state lawmakers have been elected from southern Maine over the past few election cycles, further-left candidates finished far behind the more moderate ones in statewide primaries for governor in 2018 and Senate in 2020.

“There’s a reason why [Rep. Chellie] Pingree never ran for governor,” said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine. “She recognizes it would be very difficult for someone that’s as far to the left as she is to win statewide in Maine. And when we look at the Democrats who do win statewide, they look like Janet Mills.”

Some of Platner’s appeal may come less from his specific progressive stances than from his ability to capture the energy of Democratic voters upset about the state of the country — and at their own party for not doing enough to stand up to it. Trump’s second term led even people who were not previously politically active to show up for protests, with many aligned with Platner’s style of economic populism, said Andy O’Brien, a Maine writer and activist supporting Platner.

“The Trump administration has just been so extreme that I think it’s really radicalized average, ‘normie’ voters,” O’Brien said.

In an interview, Platner recalled going to a local Democratic party meeting in early 2025 and coming away frustrated that attendees were talking about bylaws, not Trump. In his view, there was pent up grassroots energy to fight the administration — shown, for example, by large No Kings protests in the state — but few organized outlets to turn it into action.

His campaign proved one outlet for that energy. Following a surge in ICE activity in Maine in January, Platner led a protest at Collins’ offices in Portland and Bangor, calling on the senator to cut funding to the agency. Dozens of supporters showed up in single-degree temperatures.

“I’m a supporter of Graham Platner because we need a U.S. senator to represent Maine who will be honest with us, who will be truthful with us, and will work for us,” said Laura Neal, a Bar Harbor resident who attended the protest with a sign reading “My Cat Hates ICE.”

Like many Platner backers, Neal doesn’t dislike Mills, but thinks it is time to move on. “I think Governor Mills has done a great job, and it’s time for new energy,” she said.

In much of the national conversation about the Maine Senate race, Mills has been the less talked about candidate. It’s an odd position for a well-vetted two-term governor.

Her diagnosis for why Maine Democrats have not been able to knock off Collins is straightforward: Past nominees have been “untested.” The GOP senator has never had to face a Democrat who has won statewide before. If Collins has won in part because of her deep history in the state, Mills matches her.

“Each of us probably knows everybody in Maine, one way or other,” Mills said in an interview.

Mills started as district attorney in rural, more conservative western Maine before being elected to the state legislature, then served as attorney general for much of Republican Paul LePage’s tenure as governor, frequently clashing with him. In 2018, she became the first gubernatorial candidate in Maine in 20 years to win the general election with at least 50 percent of the vote, as well as the state’s first female governor. Four years later, when LePage attempted a comeback, she beat him by 13 percentage points.

Governing with a Democratic trifecta, Mills expanded Medicaid and enacted a string of other priorities, including free community college, universal school meals and expanded abortion access following the Dobbs decision.

Since Trump’s return to office, Mills has faced off with him several times. In a White House confrontation last year, the president threatened to withhold funding from Maine over the state’s continued allowance of transgender participation in youth sports, Mills fired back: “See you in court.” The Trump administration paused certain agriculture department funding to Maine; the state sued and the money was restored.

The episode provided a theme that underlies the governor’s Senate campaign: Collins has not stood up to the president, but Mills will. Her latest TV ad describes her as “the one who took on Donald Trump and won.”

“Susan Collins is formidable,” said Trish Riley, a retired health policy expert who hosted Mills in her Brunswick home last month. “And the only person who can beat a formidable candidate is another formidable candidate, and that’s Janet.”

Mills’ tenure as governor has not been free from conflict with other Democrats. She at times disagreed with progressives in the legislature, issuing more than 50 vetoes, with the most prominent conflicts around labor and tribal sovereignty. That created openings for Platner to hit her record from the left, and his prominent endorsers have included several labor unions.

The bigger challenge for her in the primary may be the support from national Democrats like Schumer. Sara Gideon’s 2020 loss to Collins, despite strong national Democratic support which helped her far outspend the Republican, led to a sense in the state that the national Democratic actors did not use money wisely and did not understand Maine. For some, that distrust has only compounded since Trump returned to office.

“There’s a reaction among a lot of Democrats to what they see as the weakness of the establishment leaders in Washington,” said Amy Fried, a retired political science professor from the University of Maine and longtime Collins critic. “The fact that Chuck Schumer is the one who recruited Mills — maybe she would have run anyway, but he’s definitely associated with her. And then you have a lot of people who are on the Left who are really unhappy with what Democratic leadership has done when it comes to pushing back on Trump.”

Mills maintains that she made no promises to Schumer, and the decision to run was hers. She bristles at the idea that she would be considered part of the political establishment.

“I got elected to the legislature, not because somebody said, ‘You should be anointed to his job.’ I worked for it, I ran for it, and I won,” she said in an interview. “When I ran for district attorney, I defeated three guys for the primary, and then another guy for the general. Nobody ever gave it to me on a silver platter. Again, when I ran for governor: Seven-way primary. And I won. I’m used to that. Bring it on.”

Republicans have been gleeful at the prospect of a grueling primary.

“Maine Democrats are in a race of extreme vs more extreme — the only question is which of their candidates will run farther to the left to claim victory in this messy primary,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Kristen Cianci said in a statement.

Whoever prevails in June will have to take on the electorally resilient Collins. If Democrats fail to knock off the GOP senator, there will be recriminations from whichever side loses the primary that their candidate would have been able to defeat her.

Most supporters of Platner and Mills say they would back the eventual Democratic nominee regardless, with defeating Collins the most important priority. But a nasty primary could still risk alienating some voters, when every vote will count in November.

“The differences are really pretty big between the two candidates, and I think it’s probably going to get strongly oppositional towards the end,” said Cote, the former gubernatorial candidate. “And how the victor is going to unite the party afterwards is going to be a huge challenge.”

​Politics

Data centers are quickly becoming the next big political issue. And neither party has figured out how to run on them.

Major political figures on both sides have struggled to figure out their positions, and in-depth results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Americans don’t know much about data centers, they don’t really know how to feel about them and they’re not yet sure where the political battle lines lie.

But they do know they matter. A bipartisan majority of Americans said they expect data centers to become a campaign issue in their area eventually, the poll found, with nearly half saying it would become one within the next five years.

“If you had asked me about data centers five months ago, I would have said: ‘What’s a data center?’” Republican Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said in an interview. “Now it’s everywhere. So that’s a short amount of time to fully formulate what you think about it.”

The survey reveals the early contours of an evolving political battle — and the opportunity and risk for politicians hoping to seize on the nascent power of an issue that touches on AI and tech, infrastructure and development, environmental resources, jobs and energy costs.

Republicans appear to have an early edge on the issue, though public opinion is so largely unformed that it’s unclear how that may change.

Pluralities — but not majorities — of voters in both parties said they support the construction of data centers, with Americans who say they plan to vote for the GOP in November about 8 points more likely than Democratic voters, according to the survey conducted by independent London-based firm Public First.

Republicans’ appetite for data centers may be driven in part by President Donald Trump, who has been bullish on artificial intelligence and data center expansion and who has been combative against both blue and red states aiming to restrict that growth. He wrote on social media last month that “Data Centers are key” to ensuring that the U.S. dominates on AI.

His position is most clearly reflected among his strongest supporters. Asked at the start of the poll for their position, before additional information had been provided, a 55 percent majority of voters who both backed Trump in 2024 and self-identified as “MAGA Republicans” said they support a new data center being built in their local area.

Support was markedly lower among Trump voters who did not consider themselves MAGA Republicans, at 38 percent, and Kamala Harris voters, at 36 percent.

Democrats expressed worry about the water supply and electricity bills — concerns that have already emerged in recent elections.

With public opinion on data centers still fluid, candidates are beginning to experiment with whether — and how — to embrace data centers as a campaign issue.

Democrats saw early success in highlighting backlash to data centers in the off-year elections, when Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia won their gubernatorial elections by wide margins with pledges to better regulate data centers and their energy consumption. In Georgia, Democrats beat two Republican incumbent state regulators in part by supporting guardrails around data center growth.

The issue has only spiraled since. It has fueled intraparty rifts, with progressives splitting over whether to temporarily ban new warehouse construction and Republicans who want more guardrails for artificial intelligence diverging from a president who’s trying to cut red tape.

It has also created unusual crossover: Governors in both parties are racing to regulate the booming industry, where regulation has often lagged growth. Conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rolled out a “bill of rights” to protect consumers and residents last year, and moderate Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania proposed new safeguards for ratepayers and resources earlier this month.

The POLITICO Poll found that voters’ top concerns about data centers center around household costs. Asked about the drawbacks to building data centers in the U.S., 29 percent of Americans said it would mean higher electricity bills, 24 percent said an increased risk of blackouts and 23 percent said the projects would cost the taxpayer money.

Data centers are now rocketing to the forefront of Democrats’ messy Senate primary in Michigan. The race in a perennial battleground with some 70 data centers will serve as a key test of their potency in swing states heading into 2028.

Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, in an interview, said voters’ perspectives are “very quickly evolving” and that “it’s unsurprising” that Democratic voters are more skeptical of them — which gives the party an “opportunity to lead” on the issue.

He has emerged as the most vocal critic of data centers in the three-way race, outlining “terms of engagement” last month that would prevent tech companies from passing energy costs on to ratepayers and protect water resources and jobs.

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is straddling the line between moderate and progressive, has taken a more measured tone. In public appearances and in statements, McMorrow has said she opposes any project that “raises residential [electricity] rates, hurts our water, does not use union labor and doesn’t actually create revenue for the state” but also that “done right, data centers are a transformational opportunity.”

And centrist Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens said “AI and data infrastructure require a clear, responsible policy framework to ensure these technologies are developed safely and securely,” in a statement. She said AI policy should boost productivity and user experience, while protecting taxpayers, strengthening the workforce, and safeguarding “good-paying union jobs.”

Democratic candidates who find themselves out of step with their voters on data centers could pay a real electoral price, The POLITICO Poll found.

Just 7 percent of Democrats said they would be less likely to support a Democratic candidate who opposes a data center — but 20 percent said they would be less likely to back one who supports it.

Divisions over data centers are emerging within the GOP as well, with some Republicans breaking from Trump — a sign of the issue’s rapidly evolving political terrain.

DeSantis, for instance, has become a vocal data center critic, while lawmakers from states experiencing a rise of data centers are walking a more delicate line, supportive of AI development, but insistent that the states should be the ones regulating data center construction. Most Republicans, however, remain aligned with Trump, bullish on AI development and seeing it as crucial to competing with China.

Party operatives say data centers could quickly climb up voters’ list of concerns as more of them are proposed and built, but that they’re not yet a dominant electoral issue.

Americans agree.

Right now, the construction of data centers ranked last when survey respondents were asked to rank up to three of the top issues facing the U.S. at the moment. But nearly a third of respondents — 30 percent — living within a mile of data centers say the issue will play a role in the November elections, a significantly higher share than the 17 percent who say the same among Americans overall.

“The only people that are particularly exercised are the ones that are navigating [data centers] in their communities,” said Michigan-based GOP strategist Jason Roe. “I don’t think it’s yet broadly an issue that people have wrapped their heads around enough to have an opinion.”

Still, most voters expect the issue to rise, though they’re split on when that will happen. Just one in four Americans said they “don’t think data centers will ever play a role in elections in my area.”

“This is a political bomb waiting to go off,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of the clean-energy group Evergreen Action. “You’ve seen data centers go from a third-tier issue to a top-tier issue in politics in the span of a year. … And there are some people who are going to have success riding that wave politically.”

​Politics

Republicans quietly breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Friday — but that feeling may prove fleeting.

The court’s decision to upend Trump’s global tariffs comes as affordability concerns and the cost of living continue to galvanize voters ahead of the midterms. Many free trade-friendly Republicans spent the past year worrying that the tariffs would drive prices higher, destabilize the economy and hurt their hopes of hanging onto control of Congress this November.

“It’s very possible that the Supreme Court just threw Trump’s economy a life preserver, and the president is refusing it and demanding an anchor. These tariffs economically have not played well into the affordability narrative,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department official. “It just has not been helpful — full stop.”

Trump’s hard line on tariffs has proven particularly difficult for some GOP candidates to navigate in battleground states where manufacturing and agricultural industries have been hit the hardest by the trade measures. Several of Trump’s allies in farm country and Republicans encouraged him to pump the brakes Friday and reassess his path forward.

But the president’s announcement of a 10 percent global tariff immediately after the ruling had them back on their guard.

“We have very powerful alternatives,” Trump said in a press conference Friday afternoon, announcing he will sign the new tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 – and rejecting the possibility of legislating a new measure through Congress. “I don’t need to,” he said. “It’s already been approved.”

Only minutes earlier, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had suggested in a post on X thatCongress would work with the administration to find “the best path forward.”

Polling shows that Trump’s tariffs are broadly unpopular. A 45 percent plurality of Americans said in a November POLITICO Poll that higher tariffs are damaging the U.S. economy — in both the short and long term. That view falls along partisan lines, with Democrats far more likely to say the levies are damaging the U.S. economy.

Still, roughly a quarter of Trump’s own 2024 voters agree. Among Republicans who do not identify as “MAGA” — a much more malleable group of voters — opposition to the levies rose. Thirty-two percent of non-MAGA Republicans said the higher tariffs are damaging the economy in both the short and the long term, compared with just 21 percent of self-identifying MAGA Republicans.

Despite Americans’ overall disapproval of the White House’s tariff agenda, Trump remains bullish on his approach.

“Without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now,” he said in a Thursday speech before a crowd gathered at a factory in northwest Georgia. “I’ve won affordability,” he added.

But the uncertainty around what comes next on tariffs has some Republicans questioning why the administration didn’t go through Congress from the start, instead choosing a legally riskier route that has left at least a temporary vacuum at the heart of their economic agenda in an election year.

“Why must we fuck ourselves?” rhetorically asked one GOP official, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak openly about their concerns with the White House’s economic agenda. “He should’ve gotten congressional approval. Now it’s destabilized the economy.”

Before the ruling, while Congressional Republicans had occasionally grumbled about the policy, they had largely fallen in line when actually required to vote on it. Now, the Supreme Court’s decision could put more pressure on them to break with the president.

“You have so much overlap between people who support the president, and people who are hurt worst by the tariffs themselves,” said one longtime GOP strategist in Iowa. “That’s why the criticism has always been somewhat muted.”

Democratic candidates are quickly taking advantage of that. DCCC spokesperson Courtney Rice said the decision “makes crystal clear the need for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority over trade policy.”

Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for Senate in Michigan, said “the damage has already been done” by the tariffs. And Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), running for Senate, released a statement saying his opponents “are running to push Donald Trump’s agenda,” whereas he will work to “rectify the damage that Trump’s tariffs have caused our state.”

Even historically protectionist-leaning Democrats took shots at Trump. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in the ruling’s wake that his opponent, Sen. John Husted (R-Ohio), was “once again doubling down on his support for reckless tariffs that are raising costs and sending Ohio farmers into bankruptcy.” (Husted, for his part, said in a statement that he respects the court’s decision.)

“Not only do voters hate these tariffs because they’ve raised costs, but now the Supreme Court has said they’re illegal,” said Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson. “Every Republican in 2026 has a Scarlett ‘T’ on their chest.”

Some Republicans had already publicly questioned the president’s authority to unilaterally impose blanket duties on trading partners without seeking approval from Congress. For them, the ruling proved a win on constitutional grounds.

“I feel vindicated as I’ve been saying this for the last 12 months,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on X, one of the few House Republicans who has repeatedly opposed Trump’s tariffs. “In the future, Congress should defend its own authorities and not rely on the Supreme Court.”

Six House Republicans voted alongside Democrats last week to condemn Trump’s tariffs on Canada, sending the measure to the Senate, which has already seen significant GOP defection in other votes on the duty measures. Senior House Democrats have vowed to bring up at least three more similar resolutions that will force GOP members to choose between their adherence to free trade principles and their MAGA base.

“There are a lot of members of Congress excited to see that the tariffs are temporarily not in effect. It has been a pinch at home and it’s been hard to message around,” added one Republican strategist involved with House races. “It gives them some breathing room. It gives them a little bit more leeway in that affordability message.”

In agriculture-heavy states, the tariffs have been felt acutely in recent months. The Trump administration approved a $12 billion bailout for farmers in December and Hill Republicans are considering a second tranche, though that has yet to pass.

American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall — a frequent ally of Trump’s — released a statement Friday afternoon urging Trump to pump the brakes.

“With supply costs already at or near record highs, we strongly encourage the president to avoid using any other available authorities to impose tariffs on agricultural inputs that would further increase costs,” Duvall said. “America’s farmers and ranchers need stability to ensure families across America can put food on their tables.”

It’s a long time until November’s midterms. But in battleground races where tariffs pinched the most, the recent memory of trade adventurism and the ongoing dissatisfaction with the current state of the economy could prove fatal for Republicans, said Wisconsin-based GOP strategist Craig Peterson.

“In this last year with all the tariffs and increased costs, it’s going to take a little while for folks to forget about that,” Peterson said, noting Election Day is less than nine months away. “That’s not real long, unfortunately, for the Republicans.”

Erin Doherty, Elena Schneider, Lisa Kashinsky and Adam Wren contributed reporting.

​Politics

Werder Bremen, a top German soccer team, is canceling its planned trip to Minnesota this summer, after violence and political chaos engulfed Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s major immigration enforcement push in January.

“Playing in a city where there’s unrest and people have been shot, that does not fit with our values here at Werder Bremen,” Christoph Pieper, the club’s head of communications, said in a statement. “Furthermore, it was unclear for us which players could be able to enter the United States due to the stricter entry requirements.”

The administration sent roughly 3,000 federal immigration agents to Minneapolis beginning in December, in a deportation effort dubbed Operation Metro Surge. Agents killed two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in separate incidents last month as demonstrations spread throughout the city.

And while White House border czar Tom Homan announced the White House was ending its surge in Minnesota last week, Werder Bremen’s cancellation is far from the only economic fallout of the surge. Minneapolis city leaders announced last Friday that the operation had resulted in a more than $200 million financial impact.

Werder Bremen, one of the founding members of the Bundesliga and a winner of four German championships, has a reputation as one of the most progressive clubs in Europe. The club left X for Bluesky in 2024 due to “hate speech, hatred towards minorities, right-wing extremist posts and conspiracy theories” that had “been allowed to spread on X at an incredible pace,” it said in a statement at the time.

“We as a club, we have clear values,“ Pieper said Friday. “Our club stands for an open, pluralistic and united society. We are committed to ensuring that all people — regardless of their origin, skin colour, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or disability — are naturally included and have a firm place in our community.”

The global soccer community has largely been kind to President Donald Trump since his return to the White House last year. The U.S. — alongside Canada and Mexico — is playing host to the quadrennial FIFA World Cup this summer. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has worked to court Trump’s favor, presenting him with a new FIFA Peace Prize in December and pledging millions for the White House’s Board of Peace initiative this week.

Werder Bremen is in the midst of a difficult season in the Bundesliga, languishing in 16th place in the league table with just four wins in the first 22 games of this year’s campaign. But just last year, the team finished in the league’s top 10 — with a 51-point effort keyed by 10 goals from Danish striker Jens Stage.

​Politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.​Politics

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and CNN’s Clarissa Ward on the state of the war | The Conversation

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