Category: Politics

In the crowded Democratic field running to replace Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, there’s a surprising frontrunner for a battleground state: a democratic-socialist line cook who has called to abolish the police.

Francesca Hong, a 37-year-old restaurant owner and single mother who became the state’s first Asian-American assembly member in 2021, has surged to the lead in several early polls after launching a long-shot bid on a deeply progressive platform.

Hong is part of an array of lefty candidates with working-class credentials running in competitive states and districts up and down the ballot in this year’s midterm elections — a crop emboldened by the popularity of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a turn toward economic populism amid widespread cost-of-living concerns.

Abdul El-Sayed is running from the left of Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow in the competitive Michigan Senate primary. Zach Wahls, who is backed by Elizabeth Warren, is locked in a tight contest against the Chuck Schumer-supported Josh Turek for Iowa’s Senate nomination. In Colorado’s 8th District, where Dems see a flip opportunity, Manny Rutinel is running against the more moderate Shannon Bird. And last month, Graham Platner got a boost when Schumer-endorsed Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race to oust GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

Establishment Democrats worry that these figures — whose platforms play well among primary voters but could bite them in a general election — might spoil the midterms at a time when the party has the wind at its back, desperate to claw its way out of the wilderness and still weary of the “woke” allegations that Republicans effectively wielded against Kamala Harris. “If Democrats hope to beat Republican incumbents in red and purple districts, then they cannot run candidates who are far outside the mainstream of their district,” the center-left think tank Third Way wrote in a memo published last month.

Hong says the party establishment just lacks imagination.

“I think they’re underestimating voters,” Hong said in an interview. “I think that has always been a problem for the Democratic Party — that we are not listening to how they are feeling.”

Her platform includes free child care, a $20 minimum wage and a full moratorium on data center construction. She is an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and helped lead Wisconsin’s “uninstructed” pressure campaign on the Biden administration’s posture toward Gaza. She’s faced backlash for past calls to “abolish” the police. And she has suggested as governor she would call the state National Guard to arrest federal ICE agents.

But Hong doesn’t think her far-left politics would pose a risk in a general election. “The liability is having someone who is the establishment and wants to maintain the status quo,” she said.

There’s still months to go before the Aug. 11 primary to decide who will face off against Tom Tiffany, the presumed GOP nominee endorsed by President Donald Trump. Still, Hong is leading early polls among nine Democratic candidates — making her an unusual frontrunner to lead a state Trump narrowly won in 2024.

Wisconsin has a deep history of socialism, including three socialist mayors of Milwaukee between 1910 and 1960. The state boasts one of the Senate’s most conservative members, Sen. Ron Johnson, but also one of its most progressive, Sen. Tammy Baldwin. And progressive Democrats in Wisconsin are quick to point out that Sanders, the country’s democratic-socialist standard-bearer, won 71 out of Wisconsin’s 72 counties in 2016.

Hong isn’t just running on a different platform than her competitors — she is also running “the most non-traditional race,” said Gordon Hintz, who served in the Wisconsin state assembly with Hong when he was Democratic minority leader. While other candidates have been more reserved so far, Hong spent — and surged — early on to boost her name recognition. Hong’s campaign says it has about 3,000 active volunteers and has already organized 250 events across the state, with an additional 230 planned for the coming months.

“She has shown up, she’s the only candidate currently who has built any infrastructure down in Rock County,” said Jim White, who leads Rock County Democrats. “She’s the only person who has active canvassers, has people showing up at events, at meetings, she’s the only one who seems to have increasing infrastructure to do outreach to voters, and that’s been something that I think we’ve all really noticed.”

But it’s still an uphill battle for Hong — especially in the fundraising fight. Mandela Barnes, the former lieutenant governor and failed Senate nominee is polling in second place and has raised more than $2 million. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has brought in more than $850,000. Hong has raised about $635,000, according to Wisconsin campaign finance records.

Hong said she is focusing on turning one-time donors into recurring donors and has leaned on nontraditional fundraising tactics, like streaming. She has appeared with the progressive Twitch streamer Mike from PA and with Mercury Stardust, a TikToker with more than 2.6 million followers who describes herself as “The Trans Handy Ma’am.” Next month, Hong is planning to stream a DJ set and a cooking demo on Twitch, according to her campaign.

Both White and Hintz noted they still have not decided who they’ll vote for in the primary. But they both guessed part of Hong’s appeal to voters — particularly those who are young and politically disengaged — was because she is “fun.” Hong is, for example, known to host fundraisers at karaoke bars.

Her go-to song? “I Will Survive.”

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​Politics

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A FEW YEARS MAKE: When state Sen. Jabari Brisport ran for City Council in 2017, he promised that, if elected, he would forgo most of his government salary.

In social media posts, candidate questionnaires and even on his own campaign website, Brisport argued it isn’t reasonable for Council members to pull $148,000 annually when working class New Yorkers survive off far less. So he pledged in a Citizens Union questionnaire that he would cut his wage down to $47,000 — the median income in Brooklyn — and distribute the surplus to his staff so they’re “paid adequately.”

“I’m the only candidate not only talking the talk about income inequality and calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, but also walking the walk and pledging to slash my own salary to the median income of Brooklyn,” the democratic socialist said in an April 7, 2017 interview with Gothamist. “It’s a socialist plank.”

But Brisport — who’s facing a primary challenge this year — quietly walked off that plank once he actually got elected to public office.

After losing his 2017 Council race, Brisport switched gears and successfully ran for state Senate in 2020 — and he has never given up part of his legislative salary since taking office in January 2021, according to a Playbook review of payroll records.

In fact, Brisport even voted to increase pay for himself and other lawmakers in 2023, bumping the salary floor from $110,000 to $142,000, records show.

The 2023 raises made legislators in Albany the highest paid state lawmakers in the nation. Yet despite his 2017 campaign commitment, Brisport has drawn his full salary every year since being elected. As of fall 2025, he had in total raked in more than $607,000 in government salary — in addition to about $100,000 in taxpayer-funded travel stipends, records show.

When asked why he never stuck to his 2017 promises, Brisport suggested Thursday he had a change of heart upon launching his state Senate campaign in 2019.

“When I ran for state Senate I decided to focus on fighting for higher wages for working class people and making New York more affordable for everyone,” Brisport told Playbook.

Brisport, who represents a swath of Brooklyn that includes Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill, faces a challenge in the June 23 Democratic primary from community activist Marlon Rice, who’s running on a more moderate platform than the incumbent.

Brisport is a close friend, political ally and former roommate of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani has yet to offer an endorsement for Brisport. But a person close to the mayor recently told Playbook he plans to roll out a slate of state-level endorsements in the coming weeks. — Chris Sommerfeldt 

From the Capitol

BUDGET REFORM’S LONG ODDS: This year’s budget was the tenth-tardiest in state history, leaving legislators disgruntled with the governor’s lopsided power over the process.

“Members are really tired,” said Assemblymember Anna Kelles, who’s sponsoring one of several proposed constitutional amendments seeking to reduce the governor’s powers. “It’s not just that people are angry. It’s been year after year, and it’s affected our ability to do our job.”

Still, as has been the case after contentious budget processes in years past, the odds remain long that lawmakers’ displeasure will turn into drastic changes anytime soon.

“Do I support a change in the budgetary powers? Yes, personally I do,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said last month. “But you pass a constitutional amendment. Now this is the tough part: Now you’re in a campaign, the governor versus the Legislature. Who’s paying for that?”

If an amendment doesn’t receive first approval by next week, it’ll be too late to enact one that applies to any budget before the spending plan for the 2031 fiscal year.

Lawmakers could pass statutory changes later this year or in January, though. They’ve discussed treating the governor like they’re treated when budgets run late through withholding her paycheck until talks are done. But that would serve as a mostly symbolic move, at least under a governor with a seven-figure household income and a mansion subsidized by taxpayers. There are also technical changes backed by budget wonks such as moving the due date to July, but those wouldn’t necessarily address the power imbalance.

“My expectation is there are going to be at least informal conversations after we’re done with session, ahead of the budget process next year, about how this process can work more fairly,” state Sen. James Skoufis said. “But it’s one of those things that, after so many years of banging this drum, I’ll believe it when I see it.” — Bill Mahoney

‘THANK YOU, GOV’: Gov. Kathy Hochul didn’t give the immigration advocates everything they wanted, but they’re not raking her over the coals for it.

“I’ll say it 100 times: New York is not a sanctuary for criminals, and we will cooperate when crimes are being committed,” Hochul said today while hailing new measures in the state budget that push back against ICE’s aggressive enforcement tactics.

The new policies include a ban on ICE agents wearing masks, a measure to block them from entering sensitive locations like schools and churches without a judicial warrant and an end to official agreements between localities and federal law enforcement, which have allowed counties to lend their jails to ICE.

But the final budget deal does nothing to prohibit law enforcement from informally tipping off ICE when someone undocumented commits a crime, something that’s explicitly prohibited in the New York for All act that advocates have pushed for.

Still, groups like Make the Road New York and the New York Immigration Coalition are joining in on Hochul’s party.

“We commend the Governor and Legislature for passing this package, and for creating new meaningful protections for immigrant New Yorkers,” said New York Immigration Coalition President and CEO Murad Awawdeh.

“This is really meaningful to us,” Make the Road New York’s co-executive director Natalia Aristizabal said during the event. — Jason Beeferman

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

WHY WFP DIDN’T ENDORSE: Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s record on Israel cost him an endorsement from the Working Families Party, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The people, granted anonymity to discuss internal party decisions, told Playbook that Espaillat’s refusal to support the Block the Bombs Act was a major problem for the party, which ultimately decided not to weigh in as he faces a challenge from democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier in NY-13. The legislation would prohibit the sale of military equipment to Israel until the country guarantees compliance with international law.

Mamdani endorsed Chevalier on Thursday night, a move that has injected energy in a race that was previously viewed as an uphill climb for the democratic socialist. She has been fiercely critical of Israel and its war in Gaza since the start of the race, and has criticized the hundreds of thousands of dollars the incumbent Congress member has accepted from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee over the years.

“I think Espaillat missed the moment,” one of the people told Playbook. “There was a moment — there still is a moment — to evolve, and he didn’t. And now he has a real race.”

The second person said the Working Families Party did appreciate how Espaillat, the first formerly undocumented person elected to Congress, has led the charge on immigration from the House, but his inability to support the weapons sale bill caused concern among its members.

Meanwhile, Hochul took the opportunity today to praise Espaillat after Mamdani’s endorsement.

“I’m not commenting on why other people do what they do,” Hochul said. “I don’t think anyone has done a better job than Adriano Espaillat, and that’s important to know. This is not intended to set up a collision course of who’s endorsing who. I support long-standing allies … and the people that I believe in. — Jason Beeferman

PAC IT UP: An independent expenditure committee backed by a prominent Albany-based lobbying firm is ready to spend big in a handful of legislative races.

New York Forward, the group backed by the firm Brown & Weinraub, is expected to spend “several hundred thousand dollars” in several races. That includes backing the state Senate bid of Assemblymember Grace Lee, who’s running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Brian Kavanagh.

The group is also providing get-out-the-vote support for state Sen. Joe Addabbo and Assemblymembers Catalina Cruz, Andrew Hevesi and Jordan Wright.

“New York Forward was created to support candidates who do the hard, constructive work of governing,” said Evan Rantzaklis, who is leading the effort for Brown & Weinraub. “That means backing leaders who deliver for their districts, build coalitions, and take their responsibilities seriously. These first expenditures reflect exactly that mission.” — Nick Reisman

THE DEBATE DEBATE: One of the city’s more under-the-radar primaries seems like it won’t be getting a debate.

The New York City chapter of the League of Women Voters said it’s canceling a planned face-off between Democratic Rep. Grace Meng and former diplomat Chuck Park, who’s running to the incumbent’s left. Kai Rosenthal, the chapter’s co-president, cited “many conflicts and short timing” for the cancellation.

Park is blaming Meng.

“Over the course of a month, we accepted all of Rep. Meng’s requests for new dates, a new venue, and a shorter time, but she was still unwilling to make it work,” he said in a statement. “If she’s ready to face the public, she can name a date and time, and I’ll be there.”

A spokesperson for Meng’s campaign pushed back, saying she “worked in good faith to make a debate happen.” In an email this morning responding to the cancellation, Meng campaign manager Harry Brussel wrote that the campaign is “truly sorry to hear that the debate won’t be possible” and asked to be kept apprised “if circumstances change.”

“It’s disappointing it didn’t come together,” Meng’s spokesperson continued in a statement to Playbook. “But this has been a long campaign and voters know full well what their choices are. They know Grace works hard and delivers and that Chuck complains about process.” — Madison Fernandez

IN OTHER NEWS

— RED LINE: A contentious NY-21 Republican primary between Robert Smullen and Anthony Constantino was on full display Thursday, where sharp debate exchanges ended with a snubbed handshake. (Times Union)

— PRIME EXAMPLE: Court filings by Attorney General Letitia James and the Teamsters union in Amazon’s challenge to a New York labor law defended state action, citing yearslong delays and dysfunction by the federal labor board. (amNY)

— ACT NOW, REVIEW LATER?: New York City’s child welfare agency is facing a class-action lawsuit from families alleging it removes children without prior court approvals. (The New Yorker)   

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

​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

Democrats want to move on from 2024. The Bidens won’t let them.

Former first lady Jill Biden put a glaring spotlight back on the debate that ended her husband’s political career while promoting her new memoir. Former President Joe Biden is drawing attention again to his audio interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur as he sues the Justice Department to prevent their release. And his scandal-ridden son Hunter Biden, whose past Republicans repeatedly weaponized on the campaign trail, is making headlines again — this time for appearing on a podcast with flame-throwing conspiracy theorist Candace Owens.

Jill Biden’s stunning admission this week that she thought her embattled husband was having a stroke on the debate stage in June 2024 stood in stark contrast to her positive spin and staunch defense in the moment. And it ripped open barely healed wounds from Democrats’ disastrous effort to hold the White House, setting off a fresh round of backward-looking fingerpointing less than a week after the party’s botched autopsy of the 2024 presidential election.

Leading Democrats say it’s an unnecessary distraction as they push to keep their party focused on a critical midterm — and what voters truly care about.

“We don’t need to be distracted by what the DNC says about the autopsy. I don’t need to be distracted about anyone’s book,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, told reporters on the sidelines of a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington on Thursday. “What I need to do is to focus on making a difference in the lives of people. And that’s what I think they’re getting really frustrated about, is all this nonsense. I don’t think the average Democratic voter, honestly, particularly in New Mexico, gives a damn about that book or the debate anymore.”

Lujan Grisham, who sat on the national advisory board for the 2024 Biden-Harris campaign, stressed that she didn’t mean “any disrespect” to Jill Biden and later said she is a “big Joe Biden fan.”

Still, Jill Biden’s confession that she was “frightened” by her husband’s debate performance landed with a thud among former Biden White House and campaign staffers who were told in the moment to treat the then-president’s halting and haphazard debate performance as little more than a blip.

Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to Joe Biden in the White House who left before the 2024 reelection bid, cautioned that the timing and context of the former first lady’s memoir risks dealing Democrats a setback at a time when they’re on an electoral hot streak.

“I think that they need to sell books, and I think that Dr. Biden wants her story out there,” she said on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire,” hosted by POLITICO’s Dasha Burns.

“It is not welcome from Democrats,” Hays said. “We have a lot of momentum in our favor … and when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in ‘24, it’s never gonna be a good place for Democrats. I think it’s a tough place to be.”

Hays wasn’t the only former Biden official who expressed frustration.

“My reaction was basically: ‘Welcome to the club.’ Every person across America and in your administration wondered the same thing, and instead of acknowledging that, we were told for days to ignore it — that it was just a bad night, just an anomaly,” said another former Biden White House staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Still, several prominent Democratic strategists, former party leaders and past Biden-Harris officials downplayed the significance of this latest bout of 2024 relitigating, dismissing it as little more than white noise that wouldn’t have much effect on the party’s prospects in 2026 or 2028.

“Let everyone finish venting about ‘24 now and get it out of their systems,” former Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), who narrowly lost her reelection that year as Trump carried her state, said in a text message to POLITICO, adding that “voters won’t remember any of this in 2028.”

But, she added, “I am a bit unhappy about the DNC’s delayed release of the autopsy of 2024. We don’t need those reminders in writing and we certainly don’t need to give the Republicans any more oppo to remind voters of everything we did wrong in 2024.”

A spokesperson for the Bidens declined to comment. A former Biden White House and campaign staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a text message that the party writ large has moved on.

“While it feels painful and traumatic for those who had to deal with this at the time, the public is focused on the current president and related concerns: high gas prices, immigration concerns, [Jeffrey] Epstein,” the person said.

The renewed firestorm around the two-year-old debate comes as other moves by the Biden clan force Democrats to again confront his decline in real time.

Joe Biden is suing the Trump administration in an effort to block the release of recorded interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the Justice Department during a now-shuttered probe of whether he had mishandled classified information. But his effort to stop the tapes and transcripts from going public is dredging up another painful encounter that derailed his second term hopes.

Hur chose not to charge the president in that investigation because he believed jurors would likely see Biden as an“elderly man with a poor memory,” a moment that set off a political firestorm. The audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden, released last year, backed that up.

As Biden tries to keep those tapes under wraps, his son made recent moves to draw more attention to himself and his family.

Hunter Biden has triggered a raft of headlines in recent days after he taped a podcast with Owens, the conspiratorial conservative influencer who has repeatedly attacked the Biden family and the former president’s mental capacity. In the interview, Owens promised not to disparage Joe Biden and even commended Hunter Biden for defending his father. But the widespread media coverage still generated backlash within the party.

Some Democrats are simply ready to sweep the Bidens into the dustbin of history so their party can move forward.

“Nobody wants to relitigate the worst debate performance since the Greek Republic. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about Hunter Biden? Why is Hunter Biden talking about Hunter Biden?” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama’s campaigns but was not involved in Joe Biden’s or Kamala Harris’ bids.

“Your time has passed, move on. … The Republicans and all their super PACs are going to outspend us three-to-one, four-to-one — that’s what we need to be focused on,” he added.

But the Bidens — and Harris — show no signs of slinking back into the shadows. Harris, who released a book last year criticizing the president with whom she served, has signaled she could mount a third presidential bid in 2028. Joe Biden, for his part, has begun endorsing his former administration officials who are running in midterm contests; one of his picks, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, won her gubernatorial primary last week in the key swing state of Georgia. Jill Biden is embarking on a book tour to promote her work.

And other Democrats say they’re less frustrated at the Biden family itself than they are with their party’s most vocal factions, which descend into a circular firing squad with each drip of new information about 2024.

“I would rather not have to talk about it. But they both have the right to do what they’re doing,” Maria Cardona, a prominent Democratic strategist who backed Biden’s reelection bid, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the DNC meeting. “But we also are in control with how we react to it. So let them do their thing. They are no longer in control of the party. We don’t have to rehash every single word that comes out of it.”

​Politics

MACKINAC ISLAND, Michigan — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday that she won’t run for president in 2028 — then backtracked on the statement later.

Whitmer’s initial declaration appeared to remove a marquee name from Democratic primary contention.

“I think there will be a robust group of people running for president,” she told a Detroit television station. “I will not be one of them in 2028, I can tell you that.”

The two-term governor, long seen as a potential contender for the Oval Office, appeared at first to be one of the first major candidates to remove themselves from what’s expected to be a crowded field of candidates looking to succeed President Donald Trump.

Whitmer, speaking from the state’s annual policy conference in Mackinac Island, is barred from seeking another term as governor due to term limits.

She said she was looking forward to taking “a little bit of a break” and had spoken with Democrats Gina Raimondo and Pete Buttigieg, as well as Paul Ryan, the former Republican House speaker, for guidance on transitioning out of the political arena.

A few hours later, she walked it back.

During a panel discussion, she said she needed to “correct the record” on her earlier remarks.

“I never thought I would run for governor, so I guess I should know better,” she said.

Then she added: “Never say never.”

Whitmer said during the panel that she hadn’t intended to make headlines about her political career. “At this juncture, I’ve got nothing to announce.”

Whitmer’s initial statement that she would not run — ahead of the midterms, where her successor will be elected in the battleground state — did come unusually early in the political season. She has hinted before that she may not run for the presidency.

“One of the many reasons she would be a great president is because she is very focused,” said a person familiar with Whitmer’s thinking, granted anonymity to candidly discuss her calculus, referencing her 2014 comments that she would not run for governor. “Sometimes she does change her mind.”

Whitmer’s second term in office has been marked by a productive relationship with the White House, which some Democrats speculate could hurt her future political ambitions. She bristled when the president praised her during an Oval Office visit last April, and covered her face with blue folders as the press snapped photos.

But Whitmer has maintained that it has been beneficial for her state.

Trump announced a new F-15 fighter mission for suburban Detroit’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base several weeks later, a maneuver Whitmer’s office said could generate $850 million for Michigan.

“All the grief — this shows you why you put the people first,” she told POLITICO. “They see it, and it pays off.”

Adam Wren reported from Mackinac Island, Michigan.

​Politics