Category: Politics

Minnesota Democrats are figuring out the delicate art of Trump diplomacy this week.

First, President Donald Trump had a “very good call” with Gov. Tim Walz, an inflection point after days of heated GOP attacks on the former vice presidential candidate. Then, Trump declared he’d had another “very good” conversation, this time with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Both sides had been looking to deescalate, and Trump seemed to be turning a corner on the two Democratic “sanctimonious political fools” he had initially blamed after the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Then the mayor accidentally broke the detente.

After meeting with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, Frey reiterated on social media that “Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws,” which a person close to Frey said was simply intended as “clarifying what our stance was.” But Trump quickly shot back, declaring Frey’s “statement is a very serious violation of the Law” and warning the mayor that “he is PLAYING WITH FIRE.”

Trump’s response “surprised” the mayor, according to the person close to him, who was granted anonymity to speak about a sensitive issue. This person said city officials saw Trump’s response “as a threat.” Nonetheless, Frey, in recent appearances on CNN and at the National Mayor’s Conference in Washington on Thursday said “the Operation Metro Surge needs to end” while eschewing the kind of combative rhetoric that he had used over the weekend. Homan told reporters on Thursday morning that he’d asked for immigration agencies to work on a “drawdown plan.” After a tense day or two, the fragile peace appeared to be holding.

The episode illustrates just how delicate the ongoing talks to deescalate the crisis in Minnesota are with a president known for his capricious and erratic negotiating style. As Democrats across the country see a rare political opening on immigration, Minnesota Democrats are first and foremost trying to end the immigration crackdown in their own state. Despite their public confidence, they’re privately on tenterhooks over whether Trump will take the exit ramp.

“This back and forth [between Trump and Frey] is unhelpful,” said one Minnesota Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. “Strategically, I wouldn’t have phrased it that way. It’s not a huge mistake, but it’s not helpful.”

It’s a lesson foreign leaders are deeply familiar with already: Diplomatic breakthroughs with Trump can come fast, and fall apart just as quickly. European officials have regularly had to scramble to respond to the president’s controversial statements on the war in Ukraine or the ownership of Greenland with highly deferential overtures in both public and private. They’ve had mixed success.

Throughout Trump’s second term, Democrats have struggled to find their footing in negotiations with the president. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer drew fury from his own party for voting for a GOP-drafted continuing resolution in March. In October, Democrats forced what would become the longest government shutdown in US history over health care funding, but they emerged from it without any tangible deliverables. But in Minnesota, Democrats appear to hold the political upper hand, as Trump’s polling numbers, particularly his handling of immigration, plummeted in recent weeks — and he signals eagerness to cut a face-saving deal.

“Everyone needs to give something here to move on from this,” one Minnesota union chief said — adding that it can be difficult to do. A Democratic operative in the state expressed hope that Frey’s post was merely “a bump on the exit ramp.”

But not all Minnesota Democrats agree that playing ball is the way forward. “Being nice isn’t somehow going to stop Donald Trump when anything can set him off,” said Ron Harris, a Democratic National Committee member from Minnesota. Frey’s post, he said, simply “emphasized what the law is.”

A spokesperson for Frey said in a statement that “the mayor has been communicating both publicly and privately, including to the president and Tom Homan, that Minneapolis would be happy to partner on criminal investigations, and that’s what we’re focusing our limited law enforcement resources on.”

It’s unclear when the Trump administration will end its operation in Minnesota, though the president appears motivated to do so. The Trump administration has already pulled back in other states. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins said that ICE has “ended its enhanced activities” in Maine after politicians on both sides of the aisle urged the agency to stop.

For Democrats studying Trump diplomacy, Walz and Frey may offer a template in some of their tonal differences. Interviews with nearly a dozen Minnesota Democrats said the pair were largely aligned in substance, and the rhetorical daylight, highlighted by the social media scuffle with Trump, reflects their differing constituencies and styles — and political realities.

Last November, Frey held off a stiff challenge from the left from state Sen. Omar Fateh, a Democratic Socialist, to win reelection. But the progressive wing of the party retook the majority on city council, too. “He’s facing a lot of internal pressure” from the city council to “continue calling out the craziness,” said a Democratic strategist who, like others, was granted anonymity to candidly discuss a sensitive issue.

“Frey’s constituency is different” than Walz, the strategist said, “and in general, I think he’s been more combative … They’re also just different people with different negotiating styles.”

The 44-year-old mayor is also seen as a potential statewide candidate, layering in its own political calculations. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s gubernatorial run — and departure from the Senate — could likely open up another statewide office after 2026.

Walz, for his part, is unshackled from an immediate political future. The two-term governor dropped his reelection bid earlier this month, after a welfare fraud scandal in the state threatened to engulf his campaign. Walz acknowledged the scandal affected his decision and Republicans were eager to tie him to it, but he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Abou Amara, a Minneapolis civil rights attorney, said Frey’s aggressive rhetoric toward the beginning of the federal government’s intervention was “necessary,” but now “everyone understands there has to be a ratcheting down.”

“The mayor is obviously closer to the people, he understands the visceral pain and the trauma that the people are experiencing,” Amara said. “The governor is operating on a level of having a bit more authority here on how the state interacts with the federal government. … Governor Walz is in a position to deliver on things with the federal government in a way that the mayor is not.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report. 

​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

Sen. Tillis: ‘Get the amateurs out of the Oval Office’ | The Conversation

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​Politics

Democrats, election experts and even some members of the Trump administration expressed alarm and bewilderment about why Tulsi Gabbard was on the scene as the FBI raided a Georgia election office that has been at the center of Donald Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was photographed late Wednesday outside the Fulton County elections office near Atlanta, Georgia, as the FBI executed a search warrant to seize ballots and other records related to the 2020 election.

As DNI, Gabbard has no domestic law enforcement authority and is not typically involved in criminal investigations, a reality that alarmed many Democrats on Capitol Hill — and even puzzled some Trump officials.

“My constituents in Georgia and I think much of the American public are quite reasonably alarmed in asking questions after the director of national intelligence was spotted bizarrely and personally lurking in an FBI evidence truck in Fulton County, Georgia, yesterday,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said during an unrelated Senate hearing Thursday morning.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Gabbard was investigating the 2020 election, and has regularly briefed Trump and other administration officials about her search. “President Trump and his entire team are committed to ensuring a U.S. election can never, ever be rigged again. Director Gabbard is playing a key lead role in this important effort,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told The Journal.

Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, confirmed the DNI was on the scene in Atlanta. She did not immediately respond to follow-up inquiries about her reported probe of the 2020 vote.

Despite concerns raised by Democrats, Gabbard appears to be taking on a more expansive public role in American elections. On Thursday, White House aide Jared Borg told a group of election officials that Gabbard — alongside Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi — is set to address the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State on Friday.

Trump has long fixated on unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in Georgia in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden. He has continued to falsely suggest that the election was stolen since returning to the White House, including in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle defended Gabbard in an emailed statement. “Director Gabbard has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases and election infrastructure,” he wrote. “She has and will continue to take action on President Trump’s directive to secure our elections and work with our interagency partners to do so.”

Trump spent much of the morning amplifying claims that the Georgia vote was rigged on Truth Social, and even called attention to Gabbard’s role in Wednesday’s raid.

Gabbard’s role remains confusing to some in the administration. Two current Justice Department officials and one Trump administration official said they were also puzzled by Gabbard’s presence in Fulton County. “It remains a mystery to me why she would need to be there,” said the administration official, who, like others interviewed, was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Sen. Mark Warner, (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, argued on X Wednesday that there “are only two explanations” for Gabbard’s presence in the raid.

“Either Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus — in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns — or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,” he wrote.

Warner and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) wrote to Gabbard Thursday to request briefings for both panels about the legal basis, scope, and justification of her participation in the raid.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who before entering Congress was California’s chief election official, told a panel at NASS on Thursday that Gabbard’s presence at the raid should be a reminder about “the urgency of the situation.”

“I guess they’re still searching for 11,000 more votes,” he quipped, referencing a call Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after losing the 2020 election. “But it should be a reminder — or a wake up — that this can happen at any point once again between now and this coming November.”

Gabbard’s appearance at the raid led some Democrats to believe she wanted to be there to claim credit for it publicly.

“When the head of a department participates in something, it’s about PR, not about process and the law,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) told POLITICO. “If they have evidence, they want evidence and they have a valid warrant, and you let the professionals go in and do that.”

While Gabbard has veered in and out of the good graces of Trump during her tenure as DNI, she appeared to hit a high point last summer when she alleged that senior U.S. intelligence officials under then-President Barack Obama were guilty of treason because they had fabricated intelligence about Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump said last week that individuals who played a role in that year’s vote will soon be prosecuted.

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told reporters on Thursday that Gabbard’s Georgia appearance only sparks more concerns that the raid “is an attempt to fuel false claims and disinformation.”

“There is no reason for the director of national intelligence to be in any kind of voting site,” he said. “She has neither the authority nor the competence to assess anything in that voting site. And so it’s incredibly troubling to see something like that.”

Mo Ivory, a Fulton County commissioner, said Thursday that federal officials took 700 boxes of ballots and “ancillary” materials from the 2020 election. The county’s attorney, she said, is “working with a group of local and national lawyers” to formulate a legal response.

The first DOJ official said the ballots are now being stored at an FBI facility in Winchester, Virginia.

Spokespeople for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did not respond to requests for comment. In 2020, Raffensperger famously rebuffed Trump’s pressure campaign to “find” enough votes to flip the state’s election for him.

The two DOJ officials said the FBI received a heads up that Gabbard would be on site for the raid. They said her participation did not bother FBI Director Kash Patel or other bureau officials.

Democrats, however, worry more broadly that the raid could have a chilling effect on future elections.

“The facts are clear, Trump lost, and he has to accept that and move on with his life,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in an interview. “And everyone in his administration should do the same, instead of terrorizing election officials and interfering with our work to simply just prepare for the midterm elections.”

Erin Doherty and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

​Politics

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday declined to say whether he would support Sen. John Fetterman if he runs for reelection in 2028, the latest twist in a fraught relationship between Pennnsylvania’s two most prominent Democrats.

“John will decide if he’s going to run for reelection. I appreciate his service,” Shapiro said before quickly pivoting, when asked whether Fetterman is “someone that you admire and would support for reelection” at a Christian Science Monitor press event in Washington.

Asked point-blank whether he liked Fetterman, Shapiro replied: “Of course. And we all work together to do good things for the people of Pennsylvania.”

Fetterman has not yet said whether he will seek reelection in 2028. But progressives are already plotting a primary challenge to him over his centrist congressional voting record that’s seen him cross party lines to support some of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, give full-throated support for Israel and repeatedly buck Democrats during shutdown fights.

The relationship between the top Pennsylvania Democrats and stylistic opposites has long been strained, though Fetterman has been much more public about his disdain for Shapiro than the other direction.

Fetterman, in his 2025 memoir, criticized Shapiro for acting out of “political ambition” and wrote that he was caught on a hot mic calling Shapiro a “fucking asshole” during a Zoom meeting while serving together on the state’s pardon board. Fetterman wrote he wished Shapiro the best — but claimed the two “no longer speak.”

Shapiro refuted that Thursday, saying “yes” the two are on speaking terms, adding that they were in a meeting together with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy “a few weeks ago … working on an important issue in Pennsylvania.”

Shapiro makes just two mentions of Fetterman in his own memoir, “Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service,” which was released this week — both just passing mentions of the two being at the same political events. He notes the two spoke backstage at an Erie Democratic dinner days before Fetterman’s stroke.

A representative for Fetterman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

​Politics

State election officials were among the most visible defenders of American democracy after the 2020 election — standing up to President Donald Trump, rejecting false claims and, whether they wanted to or not, becoming national symbols of institutional resistance to his attempts to overturn his election loss.

But as some run for governor in 2026, they are eager to talk about anything but 2020.

More than five years after Trump’s attempt to cling to power ignited a political rallying cry on the left and a loyalty test on the right, these Republican and Democratic candidates are betting — and, in some cases, hoping — that voters have moved on.

A pair of Republican secretaries of state who rejected Trump’s false 2020 election claims and then survived MAGA-fueled 2022 primaries are running for governor. Unsurprisingly, neither is keen to relitigate the issue that linger over their hopes this year.

“2020 is very far behind us as secretaries of state,” Kansas Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab said. “We remember it, but we’re moving on, and I think the American public is too.”

But Trump isn’t ready to move on, complicating these candidates’ hopes of putting 2020 in the rearview mirror. Speaking before an audience of global leaders and business officials in Davos last week, Trump repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” and promised that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”

Two Democratic secretaries of state are also running for the governor’s mansion. And while defending democracy and their defiance to Trump on election issues forms a defining part of their political biographies, both candidates lead with pocketbook issues rather than making protecting the vote the centerpiece.

“This election is about Michigan, and this election is about who is best positioned to lower costs for the people in our state,” Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told POLITICO.

In many ways, the shift reflects the reality of running for the governor’s mansion. The job description is much broader from the office of the secretary of state — and voters want to hear about what politicians will do for them now.

But it also underscores the political evolution of one of the most animating aspects of Trump’s first term.

For Democrats, democracy was a potent force in 2022, when candidates leaned heavily into running against election deniers. And many Democrats say it’s still effective.

“They use the issue as an illustration of character,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “It really communicates integrity, nonpartisanship, commitment to democracy and freedom, standing up for people, and courage.”

As Democratic candidates’ use of democracy messaging has evolved, strategists say the meaning of “democracy” itself has also shifted since 2020. Then, it was largely about election integrity and the transfer of power. Now, it’s increasingly tied to broader concerns about executive authority, with Democrats arguing they’ll be the ones who can stand up to a president they see as authoritarian.

“This is the moment where you need a governor who won’t bend the knee,” said Benson, who has been outspoken against the Trump administration following back-to-back killings of protestors in Minnesota by federal agents.

Jocelyn Benson

Benson was on the front lines of defending her state’s election results after 2020, facing threats and swatting attacks. That period is a part of her messaging: Her campaign launch video showed news footage of her home being surrounded by protesters, and she remains outspoken against false claims related to the 2020 election.

She has also cast that moment as proof of leadership — and a willingness to stand up to Trump. “We fought back to protect democracy itself and we showed that as state officials, that’s how we have to respond to bullies who try to rip away our rights no matter how powerful they may be,” she said.

But on the campaign trail, Benson has often focused more on bread-and-butter economic issues. Affordability, housing, health care, childcare and energy costs are listed as her top issues on her campaign website.

“What every resident, every citizen, every voter in this election knows is how important it is to have a governor who will fight for them and who will fight for them in a way that that effectively lowers their cost of living while also protecting the safety of themselves, their families and their communities,” Benson told POLITICO.

Brad Raffensperger

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was one of the most prominent Republicans to reject Trump after the president urged him to “find” more votes in his state. The incident propelled him into the national spotlight — and drew fury from the president and his MAGA base, leading to death threats. He warded off a Trump-endorsed primary challenge in 2022, in part by taking his case to conservative media. Now, he’s seeking the governor’s mansion in the state that is in many ways the epicenter of Trump’s bid to hold on to power in 2020.

Raffensperger does not directly talk about the 2020 incident in his launch video or on his campaign website. Instead, he frames his record as evidence that he is willing to make the “tough decisions.” His launch video focuses on creating jobs in Georgia, lowering property taxes and banning transgender women from women sports, among other issues — issues that are key to voters but not central to his current day job.

But Georgia’s 2020 election keeps getting pushed back into the spotlight.

On Wednesday, the FBI executed a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office outside Atlanta, seizing all ballots from the 2020 election there.

“He’s trying to talk about other issues, [but] 2020 keeps coming up,” said Buzz Brockway, a former Republican state legislator who lost to Raffensperger in a 2018 primary.

Brockway said many Republicans have moved on from 2020 — but that there remains a “loud, noisy contingent who are continuing that battle” that Raffensperger will have to contend with, even if most voters’ main focus lies elsewhere.

Raffensperger has largely sidestepped questions about the 2020 election — in a November interview with the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, he said that it showed that he does the “right thing, no matter what.”

“Other people haven’t been put to that test, but we were at the end of the day,” he said.

Raffensperger’s campaign declined to comment for this story.

Still, Raffensperger’ opponents in the GOP primary, particularly Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, are eager to keep 2020 alive in the race. Jones, who was a fake elector in the state, has tried to cast his actions during that period as unflinching loyalty to the president.

“I don’t know that it brings Jones any new voters,” Brockway said, but it may be an effort to “energize his base.”

Scott Schwab

In ruby-red Kansas, Schwab defied some of the loudest voices in his party when he repeatedly rejected false claims about the 2020 election in his role as secretary of state. He has been clear that he does not see that chapter as central to his gubernatorial bid as he runs in a crowded GOP primary.

“Everybody’s concerned about taxes, especially with cost of living,” Schwab, a past chair of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said in an interview. “Property taxes are a real red-hot button in Kansas.”

His campaign launch video only briefly mentions election issues, and almost as an afterthought. “As secretary of state, I streamlined business services and cut bureaucratic red tape,” he said. “I secured our elections, too.”

There remains a segment of the GOP for whom election issues remain salient, said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University in Kansas. But for the broader electorate — those most likely to turn out in midterm elections — these issues are still “pretty low down the list.”

In 2022, Schwab, Raffensperger and Benson all prevailed in their reelections, despite facing Trump-backed challengers or outright election deniers.

“I would say that most people really believe that we’ve moved on,” Schwab said.

Shenna Bellows

Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows became Maine secretary of state in January 2021 after being chosen by the state legislature, just as Trump was in the middle of his push to overturn his election loss. In 2023, she ruled that Trump should be barred from the ballot for his conduct during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, a decision later overturned by the Supreme Court.

In the blue-leaning state, and facing a crowded primary, Bellows has been more eager to talk about the issue than some of her fellow chief election officials.

“Leadership is about doing what is right, even when it is hard,” she said in her launch video, which highlighted the threats and harassment she faced as a result of her decision.

In her bid for governor, she has emphasized that anger over Trump’s actions exists in tandem with persistent anxiety about the economy. Like Benson, she has been vocal in criticizing the killings in Minnesota.

“The economy is the number one issue for most Mainers, there’s a lot of economic concern right now, especially in the wake of the tariffs and increasing job losses that we’re about to see,” she told POLITICO.

“That being said, I also think it’s really important to tell the truth,” she said. “What the Trump decision and my work as secretary and defending democracy tells people about me is that I will do the right thing even when it’s hard.”

​Politics

For years, Republicans have had some reliable terra firma: If they were talking about immigration and border security, they were winning.

Even amid the backlash from Donald Trump’s 2016 pledge to ban all Muslim immigrants to his 2024 amplification of baseless claims that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets—immigration remained a durable, winning issue for the GOP.

Now the ground is shifting under them.

A torrent of viral images from Minnesota and beyond as Trump’s immigration agents stepped up their shambolic interior campaign of enforcement in recent months — and the killing of two people in Minneapolis in two separate incidents this past month — have led to a loud public backlash, soured voters on the GOP’s approach and eroded President Donald Trump’s standing on the issue ahead of the looming midterms.

The broad sweep of public polling shows Trump fumbling what has historically been his party’s strongest issue, which even Democrats concede paved his path back to the White House. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found this week Trump hit a second-term trough on the issue, with a majority of Americans — 58 percent — saying his crackdown has gone too far. Only 39 percent approve of his handling of immigration, down two points from earlier this month, and an 11-point erosion from last February. What’s more, a poll from the Democratic-aligned Searchlight Institute this week found that 58 percent of likely midterm voters want ICE to be reined in.

“The image that has been created is not a good thing,” said Jose Arango, the Republican chair of Hudson County, New Jersey, a heavily Democratic area with a large Hispanic population that shifted rightward in 2024. “We’re losing in the public relations campaign.”

Even before Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis, Trump’s own voters were fretting over his agenda. A plurality of Americans said the president’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive — including 1 in 5 voters who backed Trump in 2024, according to the latest POLITICO Poll. More than 1 in 3 Trump voters said that while they support his immigration agenda, they disapprove of the way he is implementing it.

And another new round of polling on Thursday could give Democrats more ammo as voters move away from Trump’s immigration agenda. The Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC’s latest polling, shared exclusively with POLITICO and being sent to lawmakers, donors and campaigns Thursday, shows not only a growing number of likely voters who disapprove of ICE, but also a majority in favor of Democrats’ strategy of demands for reform even if it means a partial government shutdown, with 54 percent also saying they would blame the GOP and Trump for the shutdown and not accepting ICE reforms. These numbers are especially telling as the biggest shifts occur “among moderates, non-MAGA Republicans, and key swing voters,” the polling memo said.

As former President Joe Biden and his administration officials left themselves electorally exposed on the issue, then-candidate Donald Trump exploited those vulnerabilities with vows to seal the southern border and enact the largest deportation campaign in American history. But his enforcement actions have focused less on the border, which polls show most voters approve of, and more on the nation’s interior, drawing the ire of Trump-curious commentators like the comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan and raising alarm among Republicans.

“The president can feel, generally, that his policies at the border have been largely supported by a majority of Americans. But what he’s doing inside the border seems to be not working,” said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, a Republican who runs one of the most conservative large cities in the nation but backed Kamala Harris in 2024.

One longtime Republican strategist who worked on presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2024, granted anonymity to candidly assess Republicans’ standing, expressed consternation over ICE’s deployment to a place like Minnesota, far from the southern border.

“When I think of immigrants broadly, I don’t think of Minnesota,” the strategist said. “People want to see, like, okay, ‘I voted for taking criminal illegal immigrants and getting them out of the country. I want to see criminal illegal immigrants taken out of the country. I want to see more miles of wall being built.’ I feel like we talked about the wall weekly in Trump 1. I don’t remember the last time we talked about the wall in Trump 2.”

All of which raises an uncomfortable question for Republicans: Is the party in danger of ceding one of its best issues back to Democrats?

“Immigration used to be a winning issue for Democrats back when we made clear we took enforcement seriously,” said Adam Jentleson, the former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who commissioned the Searchlight polling shared with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as he shuttled toward another potential shutdown over the issue. “It can be a winning issue for us again if we are smart about how we handle this.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a rising Democratic star who won his seat in 2024 at the same time Trump carried his state, campaigned in key Latino areas for his party in New Jersey, Virginia and Miami’s mayoral elections last year, and who has launched his own border security and immigration platform, told POLITICO his party has to build trust with swing voters.

“We have to be the party that talks about professional, legal enforcement of our immigration laws with an understanding that criminals need to be deported and the border needs to be secure, and that we have to move to a sane compromise when it comes to immigration reform,” Gallego said.

It wasn’t so long ago that was the reality: As recently as 2013, under then-President Barack Obama, the majority of Americans said the Democratic Party better represents their feelings on immigration than Republicans did.

What does the GOP risk ahead of the midterms if it doesn’t find a better message?

“I think you’ll see the numbers continue to suffer,” the longtime GOP strategist said.

Gallego, who has called for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to be fired, said that gives Democrats an opportunity.

“If I was the Republicans right now, I would be very worried about what the future looks like in terms of elections, and Stephen Miller may have basically created a political tsunami among voters, both Latino voters as well as just kind of moderate voters,” Gallego said. “That’s going to come back and haunt them, going into the 2026 election.”

Alec Hernández, Lisa Kashinsky and Ali Bianco contributed to this report.

​Politics

A number of Republican mayors are condemning the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, as they call on the president to pull back from Minneapolis and worry their cities might be next.

“It’s roiling the country,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told POLITICO. “We’re all sort of feeling the angst of our residents and the fear that our city will be next and that chaos is going to inevitably creep across the entire country.”

Fresno, California, Mayor Jerry Dyer said in an interview that “too much damage has been done” with the crackdown and “the trust in communities has been lost.”

And Burnsville, Minnesota, Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, warned that the agency’s current tactics meant “our cities are no longer safe.”

The remarks from the trio of moderate-leaning GOP mayors who have broken with Trump in the past came at the annual gathering of the nonpartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors, held blocks from the White House. Holt chairs the conference.

The Republican leaders’ calls for Trump to deescalate after the fatal shootings of two Minnesotans by federal agents show the GOP’s deepening fissures over the administration’s aggressive immigration agenda, even as the mayors and Republicans broadly offered support for the president’s overall goal. And their alarm comes as ICE ramps up operations in other states, including Arizona and Maine.

The escalating immigration enforcement crackdown hung over the annual gathering, dominating conversations among leaders who are scrambling to prepare their cities for ICE sweeps and allay anxious and outraged residents.

Dyer on Wednesday said federal agents need to receive more training in deescalation tactics — a practice that the Fresno mayor, who served in law enforcement for 40 years, including 18 as the city’s police chief, said is integral for local police departments. He also said federal agencies should only work in communities where they have the cooperation of local leaders.

“I don’t believe that agencies should be deployed into cities against the will of local government and without the cooperation of local law enforcement,” Dyer said. “That’s a recipe for disaster, and I believe that’s somewhat of what we’re seeing today.”

And he urged other Republicans to speak out against federal immigration agents’ recent tactics.

“The Republican Party in general cannot rubber-stamp everything a party does or this administration does,” Dyer said. “Too many people today are turning a blind eye when they should be speaking out in opposition.”

It wasn’t just big-city GOP mayors who were concerned with the administration’s response: Kautz’s town of 64,000 people is in Minneapolis’ south suburbs.

Kautz, who said she now carries her passport in public, called for ICE to use judicial warrants, arguing that while violent criminals need to be off the street, it needs to be done “through proper channels, the rule of law, due process [and rooted] rooting in the Constitution.” In Minnesota, “that is not our experience.”

A new POLITICO poll found that more than 1 in 3 Trump voters said that while they support the goals of his immigration agenda, they disapprove of the way he is implementing it.

Holt, who runs one of the most conservative large cities in the U.S. but backed Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024, warned that Trump’s interior enforcement was a failure.

“The president can feel, generally, that his policies at the border have been largely supported by a majority of Americans,” Holt said. “But what he’s doing inside the border seems to be not working.”

​Politics

Democrats could face a gloomy Electoral College atmosphere next decade, according to new population estimates released Tuesday that show red-leaning states like Texas and Florida making major gains and California as a big loser.

By combining the census bureau’s new state population estimates for 2025 with previous years’ data, experts quickly projected the number of House seats — and Electoral College votes — states will gain or lose after the 2030 Census in the process known as reapportionment. And while those projections differ slightly, they all had bad news for Democrats: GOP-leaning states will gain electoral power and Democratic-leaning states will lose it if the trends continue.

While Joe Biden would still have won in 2020 under the estimates, two projected maps show Democrats would no longer be able to win the Electoral College by relying solely on the Rust Belt battleground states.

One of the estimates from Jonathan Cervas, a redistricting and apportionment expert at Carnegie Mellon University, shows seat changes across the map, with Florida and Texas gaining four seats each, while California, New York and Illinois collectively lose eight.

Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah and Idaho would all pick up one more seat, while Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island lose one seat.

Another map from the GOP-aligned American Redistricting Project shows less seats shifting overall, with Texas gaining four seats, Florida gaining two, and Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah and Idaho gaining one. Under that estimate, California loses four seats, and New York, Illinois, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all lose one seat.

In both models, the shifts — which are significant in both projections given the already razor-thin margins in the House — stand to alter the battlefield for the 2032 presidential campaign and the fight for the House down-ballot.

While the changes are “not going to lock in” GOP wins, the map is certainly shifting in their favor, said Adam Kincaid, president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

“The Rust Belt states and Sun Belt states will continue to be the battleground,” he said. “The difference is that Republicans will be able to win the White House without a single Rust Belt state, whereas Democrats would have to sweep the Rust Belt and win in the Sun Belt.”

The new maps are mostly in line with earlier estimates from Democrats, who at the time presented changes to Florida and Texas specifically as the “result of population growth specifically in diverse, metropolitan, Democratic-leaning urban centers.”

That is leaving the party with some tempered optimism about their fate in the Electoral College and the battle for House control.

“As these folks are moving, they’re bringing their politics with them,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “And so I think it’s not necessarily safe to assume that those population shifts don’t or aren’t able to impact statewide results.”

But not everyone in the party saw good news between the lines. Plus, Democrats have long hoped population shifts in red states like Texas and Florida would lead to gains for the party, but so far that wish has not materialized.

David Hogg, the former DNC vice chair who has embarked on a mission to primary members of his party that he believes are not doing enough to stand up to President Donald Trump, said the estimates prove that the party must invest further in the South.

“If we don’t start building infrastructure in the South … we can kiss goodbye any chance of winning the white house in the 2030s,” Hogg said on X.

The shifts also amplify fears from Democrats that Republicans will try and gerrymander urban areas and lessen those voters’ impact in House races, something Jenkins said is designed to “dilute the voices of these communities.”

“We’re going to find in states like Texas is that as those communities grow, it’s going to become harder and harder for [Republicans] to gerrymander their way out of the fact that those people live there, and they’re real people,” she said.

Jenkins said it’s important to understand the projections “in the context of this effort to gerrymander the country into oblivion,” pointing to the White House-initiated mid-cycle redistricting effort that swept the country last year.

But both parties acknowledge there’s still plenty of time for populations to shift even more before the numbers are locked in during the 2030 Census.

Ahead of the 2020 Census, reapportionment projections were dire for Democratic-controlled states. But the shifts ended up being less dramatic than anticipated — in part due to an undercount of Black, Hispanic and Native American people, the Census Bureau acknowledged, that was partially triggered by the extraordinarily difficult task of counting every American during a pandemic.

“It’s basically halftime,” Kincaid said. “We’ve got 5 years to go. A lot can change.”

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The group behind the nationwide “No Kings” protests are planning their fourth demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term — and are anticipating even greater turnout than their earlier rallies.

Ezra Levin, a rally organizer and the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, said in an interview that the planned third “No Kings” protest on March 28 is in response to a “secret police force terrorizing American communities.”

“It is unfortunately not a surprise to us that this lawless police force is committing crimes all across the country and that people are standing up to it,” said Levin. “Our goal is safeguarding American democracy, protecting our communities and the people who are under threat by this regime.”

Nationwide protests have become a staple of both of President Donald Trump’s terms. Indivisible estimated 3 million protesters turned out for its “Hands Off” rally in April 2025, while 5 million showed up in June as part of the first “No Kings” protest and 7 million for the second “No Kings” demonstration in October.

Organizers said they are aiming for nearly 9 million people to turn out in March.

Levin said that Indivisible had been planning the upcoming protest since before Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer in Minnesota earlier this month, calling what is unfolding in the Midwestern state is “tragic and horrific.” A second person, Alex Pretti, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday not far from where Good died.

Still, Levin said, it is “inspiring and gives me hope that while this regime and many political leaders even outside this regime are cowards or fascist sympathizers, people on the ground aren’t putting up with it.”

Trump and his GOP allies have not been fans of the demonstrations. Ahead of the October marches — which took place amid the government shutdown — Speaker Mike Johnson called them “hate America” rallies, and Trump’s “war room” account posted a mocking picture of the president wearing a crown.

Levin said the organizers are taking safety precautions, including holding de-escalation training sessions. On Monday, the group held a session on non-violent documentation techniques for the public. And at the last “No Kings” protest, Levin said Indivisible trained thousands of volunteer marshals, emphasizing non-violent principles.

The tactics have a proven track record, Levin argued, with major cities reporting zero arrests during the last “No Kings” demonstration.

Still, Levin said, he can’t guarantee there aren’t risks to participating.

“Based on how the regime is behaving, the fact of the matter is, everybody should worry about it,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that there isn’t a risk involved to show up and exercise your constitutional rights. It’s a terrible thing to have to say in 2026 in America, but it’s the truth.”

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