Category: Politics

Americans are largely tolerant of scandals among politicians. But nobody is more willing to stick by an embattled candidate than a MAGA voter.

The POLITICO Poll finds President Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters are the most loyal of any group of voters — with majorities saying they would stick by GOP candidates confronted with an array of scandals, from a DUI conviction or accepting lobbyist gifts to more serious accusations including domestic violence, sexual assault and antisemitic social media posts.

Two-thirds of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say they would continue supporting a GOP candidate accused of sexual assault — 13 percentage points higher than the share of Trump 2024 voters writ large, which include those who do not identify as MAGA. By comparison, 40 percent of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 would continue backing a Democratic candidate accused of sexual assault.

Seventy-two percent of MAGA Trump voters say they would stick with a GOP candidate accused of domestic violence, more than 10 percentage points higher than the overall share of Trump 2024 voters who would back a GOP candidate (61 percent). Thirty-nine percent of Harris voters say they’d stick with a Democrat accused of domestic violence.

Scandal in American politics is not new, but the poll results help underscore how Trump has helped reshape partisan loyalty. Across every hypothetical scandal tested, MAGA Trump voters were more loyal than the rest of the electorate.

The president has displayed a remarkable ability to withstand controversy himself, from the Access Hollywood tape to his four criminal indictments, and a willingness to back other MAGA-aligned candidates, boosting them to victory even if they have past controversies. Three of four of Trump’s criminal cases were thrown out or dropped once he returned to the White House, while the fourth, his conviction in the Manhattan hush money case, is under appeal.

That’s true in some of the most pivotal races of the 2026 midterm cycle, which has been defined by scandal on both sides of the aisle: Democrats stood by Graham Platner in Maine’s Senate race throughout a series of scandals until abandoning him following a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. The GOP has rallied behind embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Republican voters in Arizona also recently selected former Arizona sheriff Mark Lamb as their nominee in a House race amid allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse of power. Lamb has denied the allegations.

In both cases, Trump was a decisive factor propelling them across the finish line.

“Scandal doesn’t mean what it did 15 years ago. The rules have changed, and Republican voters know it,” said longtime Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “Republicans, particularly MAGA voters, have learned that Queensberry rules don’t win in modern politics. Today it’s a full-contact fight, more UFC than civics class, and anything goes.”

Americans on both sides are willing to tolerate scandals — up to a point.

The POLITICO Poll, conducted by independent U.K.-based polling firm Public First, tested a dozen hypothetical scandals and found near-majorities of voters across the political spectrum would stand by candidates with DUI convictions or accused of using tax loopholes, concealing a terminal illness or exaggerating their military service.

None of the hypothetical scandals caused MAGA voters to abandon a GOP candidate, with majorities across every scenario tested saying they would stick with the candidate, including through accusations of domestic violence or sexual assault. Trump’s 2024 voting coalition as a whole was also generally more likely to continue voting for the GOP candidate, even after a scandal, with the exception of when a candidate made antisemitic comments.

Harris 2024 voters, however, drew a line. Facing some scandals, such as a Democratic candidate accepting gifts from lobbyists or accused of domestic violence or sexual assault, more Harris voters would either stay home or vote Republican than stick with their party’s nominee.

That dynamic has played out on the campaign trail. In Maine, Platner weathered months of controversy, including over past Reddit posts and a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol, and only dropped out of the race after POLITICO’s report that a woman said he forced her to have sex with him, an allegation he denies.

“In hindsight, knowing what we know now, the Reddit posts alone probably should have been enough …. The tattoo should have been enough. The initial New York Times story on troubling behavior should have been enough,” former top Platner adviser Morris Katz recently told the New York Times.

The survey also found that principled opposition to scandal shifts when voters face practical realities.

To test those considerations, the survey presented respondents with candidates from different parties — and found a significant partisan gap. Democrats were slightly more willing to say that Republicans should drop out than Democratic candidates should, to the tune of about a five-point difference. But across nearly all scenarios, Republican voters were significantly more likely to say the Democrat should drop out over the same scandal than the Republican should.

For example, 71 percent of Republicans said a Democratic candidate accused of sexual assault should drop out of the race. Asked the same question about a Republican candidate, that fell to 52 percent.

“For most voters, scandal is one ingredient among many in a partisan calculation, it is no longer a standalone verdict,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who has researched political scandal.

​Politics

The Democratic Party’s fight over Israel is returning to where it began. Jewish Democrats are warning the results could push them out of the party entirely.

In Michigan, where grassroots anger over the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza gave rise to the “uncommitted” movement in 2024, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s main super PAC, United Democracy Project, has spent a record $30 million — more than double its next-highest spend ever, according to AdImpact data — to keep progressive and staunch Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed from defeating pro-Israel Rep. Haley Stevens in the state’s hotly contested Democratic Senate primary.

And in Missouri, AIPAC is spending $2 million to block Israel-critical Cori Bush’s comeback bid. This comes after the group uncorked $9 million last cycle to unseat her.

“There’s a high level of discomfort in the Jewish community,” said Sam Lauter, founding member of Democratic Majority for Israel, which has endorsed Stevens and Bush’s opponent, Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.), but hasn’t spent money on advertising.

If El-Sayed and Bush score victories, he said, “it does mean that my community is going to have to reassess how we’re approaching this battle, reassess our role in the party itself.”

Tuesday’s primaries represent a fork-in-the-road moment for pro-Israel Democrats. Groups like AIPAC and DMFI have waded into Democratic primaries this cycle with mixed results. Progressives have scored wins in New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Illinois in part by capitalizing on voters’ negative attitudes toward Israel, in some cases toppling longtime incumbents who were more Israel-friendly, while also falling short in some races.

Michigan and Missouri mark one of progressives’ last opportunities to cement a foothold in the party ahead of November. If Stevens and Bell lose on Tuesday, some Jewish Democrats worry their defeats could represent a tipping point for the Democratic Party, completely reshuffling the political landscape ahead of a general-election fight in which both chambers of Congress hang in the balance — and rendering many pro-Israel Democrats politically orphaned.

“It makes it very uncomfortable for elected Jewish Democrats like myself to wonder, when every other thing is about, you know, Israel and Jews, what’s my place in this party?” said Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit, founder of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus. “Can I see myself in this party? Can I continue to feel comfortable being elected on the Democratic Party line?”

Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for United Democracy Project, insisted pro-Israel Democrats “are here to stay.”

“We are not going to let pro-Israel voices in the Democratic Party be silenced,” he said. “We are going to make sure that pro-Israel voices are heard in the primary process, this year and in the future.”

The race for Michigan Senate and Missouri’s 1st District quickly turned into referendums on the party’s once unwavering support for the longtime U.S. ally and AIPAC’s highly controversial interventions in Democratic primaries. Bush’s campaign has accused Bell of “abandoning” Missourians and “jetting off to Israel with AIPAC,” while El-Sayed has attacked Stevens for aligning herself“with AIPAC and Republicans to continue to fund a war machine.”

Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner said the campaign has sought to unify Michigan residents “from all walks of life — across ages, races and faiths — around getting money out of politics, money back in pockets, and Medicare for All.”

Both races are a callback to earlier fights over Israel that have divided the Democratic Party and that accelerated in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Nearly 60 percent of Democrats believe the party is too supportive of Israel, an AP-NORC survey from June found, an increase from 45 percent of Democrats who felt similarly in January 2024.

Bell’s primary win over Bush in 2024 was one of AIPAC’s biggest wins last cycle. Israel-critical Democrats in Michigan, meanwhile, hammered Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris for not prioritizing Gaza in their campaigns.

“That felt like people were upset with the war in Gaza,” Andy Schor, mayor of Lansing, Michigan, and one of the highest-ranking Jewish elected officials in the state. “Now it feels like these candidates are anti-Israel.”

Richner countered that El-Sayed “has continuously emphasized the importance of differentiating between criticisms of the Israeli government and Judaism and the Jewish people.”

“He understands that the fights against antisemitism and islamophobia are intertwined, and as Michigan’s next U.S. Senator, will work to stamp both out,” she said in a statement.

The Michigan race also marks a unique litmus test for pro-Israel Democrats in a purple state that is poised to have an outsized role in selecting the party’s next presidential nominee and, eventually, the next occupant of the White House. The Democratic National Committee put forward a proposal earlier this month to make Michigan one of six early contests in 2028.

Dennis Bernard, the Jewish Federation of North America’s national chair of government relations, said an El-Sayed victory would be the most compelling evidence yet that “there is a strong anti-Israel, antisemitic streak within the Democratic Party, and it’s growing, and it’s growing outside of just hard blue states.” Bernard, who has historically supported politicians on both sides of the aisle, is backing Stevens in Tuesday’s primary.

Still, Michigan’s Senate race has divided the Jewish community. Some leading Jewish activists are backing El-Sayed — including progressive former Rep. Andy Levin, who lost a primary to Stevens in 2022 that was a proxy war between rival pro-Israel groups J Street and AIPAC.

“I think that Abdul El-Sayed feels that he has an opportunity and a responsibility to be a leader in the United States of the movement for Palestinian rights, and so he modulates his politics around this very carefully,” Levin said.

Arbit, the Michigan state representative, said he’s resigned to Israel’s diminishing relevance in the party ahead of the next presidential primary, regardless of how Tuesday’s primaries play out.

“I find it very hard to imagine that we’re going to have a candidate who is quote-unquote pro-Israel. I don’t know how that works,” he said of the 2028 presidential primary. “I just think the party grassroots is so poisoned against the state of Israel.”

Shia Kapos contributed reporting.

​Politics

‘I’ve never lost:’ Rahm Emanuel makes his case for the White House

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​Politics

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing backlash from within his own party after using controversial rhetoric to describe the stakes of his victory in a recent donor meeting.

“If I win … well y’all came at me so now I get to come at you, and you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that,” he said, according to audio of a Zoom meeting obtained by POLITICO. “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different,” El-Sayed added later, referencing how he could help propel the progressive moment.

On Monday, several Democrats were quick to slam his comments.

“Violent, vulgar threats have no place in a democratic electoral contest,” said Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.). “With political violence on the rise, we need to be doing everything we can to lower the temperature — not raise it. It’s the American people who suffer most when we degrade the political process this way.”

Some took El-Sayed’s remarks as an attack on the party. Shannon Watts, founder of gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, said on X that El-Sayed “doesn’t mean Republicans.”

Another gun control activist, Fred Guttenberg, wrote: “That is what Abdul El-Sayed and his DSA movement think of Democrats and the party.” Guttenberg — whose daughter was killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting — urged Michiganders to support El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, and “show AES the loss he deserves.”

An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson referred POLITICO back to an earlier statement that the candidate was “speaking metaphorically” about his intention to support a primary against Fetterman, a Pennsylvania senator. Fetterman and El-Sayed have clashed over support for Israel.

The senator, who possesses a towering stature, has been mocked for his physical appearance by political rivals, and the “ogre” moniker partly stems from an attack by Kari Lake, a failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate and ally of President Donald Trump.

“I pick being Senator Shrek over being the Pontiac Platner any day,” Fetterman said in a statement, referencing former Senate Maine Democratic nominee Graham Platner, who ended his campaign following a sexual assault allegation against him.

El-Sayed’s leaked comments and the reaction to them amount to another flashpoint in a tense primary that is dividing the progressive and moderate wings of the party, and at times has been defined by accusations of racism and sexism.

A few Democrats assumed the candidate’s comments were a reference to Stevens, though El-Sayed had not explicitly mentioned his opponent in the portion of the call POLITICO reviewed.

“Calling your female opponent an ogre you want to put on a pike is not beating the rap that this race has some serious sexism,” Neera Tanden, a centrist Democrat and president of the Center for American Progress, posted on X. Melissa Byrne, a former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called the remark an “unforced error” that is “really bad and beneath the progressive project.” She later deleted the post.

“Abdul continues with personal insults and making this race about his personal political ambitions and the other 49 states,” said Arik Wolk, spokesperson for the Stevens campaign. “Haley is focused on getting things done for Michigan, and only Michigan.”

Republicans, too, jumped on the comment, with some leaning into stereotypes of El-Sayed’s religion as a Muslim. “Michigan Islamist discusses beheading his opponents,” said Steve Guest, a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz, on X. 

This is not the first time El-Sayed has used — and defended — aggressive political rhetoric. “When they go low, we don’t go high,” the progressive said while speaking at a campaign rally earlier this year, riffing on a famous line from former first lady Michelle Obama. “We take them to the mud and choke them out.”

He and Stevens will face off in their final Democratic Senate debate Monday night, and the results of the Aug. 4 primary could have major consequences for the party as it grapples with its ideological tack ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

​Politics

BANGOR, Maine — Republicans had months to research and rebuke Graham Platner. They now have exactly 100 days to sink his replacement.

Troy Jackson is like Platner but worse. He’s a socialist who’s flip-flopped on policy, a career politician who keeps losing, an insider who is also unknown. His nomination was illegitimate, he has anger issues, and he lacks “rizz.”

That’s just a sampling of the messaging the GOP plans to use to trounce Jackson, the former Maine Senate president who lost this year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary only to glide this weekend into the party’s nomination to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November.

“Mainers already rejected Troy Jackson once this year after his failed campaign for governor. Now Democrats are asking voters to believe the politician they didn’t want leading Augusta belongs in the United States Senate,” the NRSC, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, wrote in a “messaging guidance” document about Jackson, viewed by Playbook. “Jackson is a radical, ill-tempered career politician whose failed record and socialist agenda make him unfit to represent Maine.”

The stakes are high. Collins is the only Republican senator running for re-election this cycle in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024, and Democrats’ hopes of retaking the chamber track straight through Maine — a reality the NRSC admitted is possible in its new donor memo, shared first with Playbook, acknowledging that “Jackson is fully capable of winning this seat if we become complacent.”

Republicans’ first plan of attack is to link Jackson to Platner, with whom he campaigned and shares much of his populist platform. As soon as Jackson’s nomination became official yesterday, the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s super PAC, announced that it was launching asix-figure ad blitz that begins by depicting the two Democrats hugging on stage.

“Jackson is like Graham Platner but worse,” the ad says, citing reporting from WaPo, CNN and other outlets about Jackson’s alleged sharp temper and heated interactions with colleagues.

The NRSC yesterday posted a video on X depicting Platner literally transforming into Jackson — with the caption “No tattoo, same crazy,” a reference to Platner’s tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol. “Troy Jackson is all the baggage without the ‘rizz,” James Blair, who leads President Donald Trump’s outside political operation, said on X.

Jackson campaigned alongside Platner and stood by him through several scandals — until POLITICO reported earlier this month that a woman who dated Platner said he had sexually assaulted her, a claim Platner denies. In response, Jackson publicly disavowed Platner and said he had “lied to me.”

Jackson told reporters yesterday he has not spoken to Platner since then. Asked to respond to SLF’s ad, Jackson said “anyone that I may have argued with, that I might have went too far or got too passionate, I apologize to.”

The GOP’s second push is to brand Jackson as a “political insider” — a bid to undermine his populist bonafides at a time when voters from neither party trust establishment politicians. “We must act immediately to define him before national Democrats frame him as a populist outsider,” the NRSC memo said.

“Chuck Schumer forcefully removed Graham Platner from the ballot against the will of Maine voters, only to replace him with a deranged and scandal-plagued political insider,” SLF Communications Director Chris Gustafson said in a statement to POLITICO.

Part of that strategy is to not only label Jackson as a longserving member of the establishment (Collins, for what it’s worth, has held her seat for nearly three decades), but as a political insider who has failed when seeking higher office. As state Senate president, Jackson was the second-highest ranking official in Maine — but he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 2014 and for governor earlier this year, a fresh wound Republicans are eager to pick at.

Compounding that insider image is the way Maine Democrats selected Jackson: While more than 200,000 Mainers voted for Platner in the primary, just 566 Democratic delegates actively chose Jackson at yesterday’s nominating convention — a fact Republicans hope to spin into a narrative that Jackson was coronated by party insiders. “Not one single vote was cast for Troy Jackson” in the Senate race, RNC Chair Joe Gruters said on X.

“Just one month ago, Troy came in third in the Democratic primary for Governor. Now he will run for Senate as the third choice of his party insiders,” Collins campaign spokesperson Shawn Roderick said in a statement to Playbook. He added, “in a process concocted by the Maine Democratic Party establishment, a 24-year Augusta insider was appointed to run for the Senate by fewer than three-tenths of one percent of its primary voters.”

Jackson, for his part, appears committed to maintaining his image as a populist who, as has become his campaign motto, comes neither from the left nor the right, but “from the bottom.” He’s more eager to bring up being a fifth-generation logger than his decades of experience in state politics — and at any mention of his relationship to Platner, he’s quick to pivot to his role as part of a broader pro-worker movement. And his campaign is staying laser-focused on attacking Collins.

“Only Susan Collins could spend nearly 30 years in Washington voting with Donald Trump 96 percent of the time and taking millions from corporate special interests, then call a fifth-generation logger from Allagash a ‘party insider,’” Jackson campaign adviser BJ McCollister said in a statement to Playbook. “Mainers know who Troy Jackson is—and they know exactly who Susan Collins works for.”

Asked yesterday to respond to the GOP messaging shortly after clinching the official nomination, Jackson told reporters that he attributes Republicans’ attacks to “Senator Collins trying to make sure that she can win re-election on a really bad record.”

“I’ve been in the legislature for 20 years,” he added. “I do believe I’ve been vetted. I’ve been tested. People know exactly what I’m fighting for. They know that I’ve had their back, and they know they can trust me.”

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

​Politics

McALLEN, Texas — Just miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Ken Paxton is trying to inherit President Donald Trump’s historic gains with Hispanic voters.

The Texas GOP Senate nominee, speaking to hundreds of supporters last week at his first campaign rally in this region that’s almost entirely Latino, revealed how Republicans believe that’s possible: by touting Trump’s closure of the border and hitting Democrats over the head with the culture war — while ignoring the drag his mass deportations have had on the region.

The GOP faithful, clad in signature MAGA red and a few scattered Trump 2028 hats, gathered at a beer hall outdoors in 100-degree heat to greet the Republican Senate nominee and other candidates. Attendees ate up the Republicans’ constant jabs at Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico. Eric Flores, the challenger to Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, called Talarico a “gay vegan” and “low T.” Paxton belittled Talarico, a seminarian student and critic of Christian nationalism, for referring to himself as a “Christian who hates Christianity.”

It’s an approach key to Paxton’s strategy, as Republican Senate nominee, to slice into Talarico’s widening polling lead with Hispanic voters, who could prove decisive for who wins the competitive Senate seat and a litany of other races that will determine which party takes power in Washington come November.

“Once this community knows what [Talarico’s] views are on transitioning boys into girls, and girls into boys, and boys and girls sports, they’re not going to support it,” Paxton told reporters after the rally, in response to a question of how he intends to keep Hispanic voters in the fold after they swung toward Trump in 2024.

This has worked before for the Texas GOP. Sen. Ted Cruz blitzed the airways in the 2024 Senate race with attack ads against former Rep. Colin Allred about transgender youth participation in sports. Republicans branded Wendy Davis “abortion Barbie” following her successful protest against an anti-abortion law in the state legislature.

But outside the carefully choreographed event is a community getting pummelled by the president’s increasingly unpopular immigration agenda — a reality that’s given Democrats a strong opening with Latinos as they attempt to end a decades-long losing streak in statewide races. Interviews with local lawmakers, business leaders and voters on both sides of the aisle reveal that Democratic candidates like Talarico and gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa have so far been successful at appealing to Hispanic voters feeling the economic strain under Trump.

Talarico, who appeared in McAllen for an event 16 hours after Paxton’s, kept his pitch focused on the cost of living, handing out hot plates of food and calling for a reversal in health care cuts under the GOP budget bill enacted last year.

“He’s pretty steady and focused on the issues that matter to families,” said Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, whose district spans Corpus Christi to McAllen.

“Democrats get sidetracked on all these cultural issues, and they need to stay focused on what I call the bread butter issues, issues that impact families directly, the kitchen table issues,” he said. “Democrats need to stay away from biting the hook that’s being put out by Paxton.”

A community being squeezed

The Rio Grande Valley is buckling under the weight of Trump’s policies, and the economic strain is visible in McAllen.

Deportations have dried up workforces in critical industries like construction that drive the local economy, leaving cement slabs half-poured. A traffic chokehold at the border has slowed business in retail and restaurants as Mexicans have been deterred from hopping over to the U.S. for the day.

The entire border is being squeezed. Laredo, located more than 150 miles from McAllen, is one of the nation’s top trade hubs, and its leaders are warning that Trump’s tariffs and his threat to eliminate the USMCA trade agreement stands to devastate international commerce that flows through the city.

“When the U.S. doesn’t provide economic opportunity for the people at the border, it will create this situation,” said Laredo Mayor Victor D. Treviño, a Democrat, in an interview.

The Paxton campaign dismissed concerns of Democrats’ gains with Latinos, especially in the Rio Grande Valley — and once again emphasized the culture war, which Republicans say resonates with socially conservative Latinos.

“Look, Hispanic families aren’t voting for a woke vegan who says God is nonbinary and wants to Latinx our children,” said Alex Alarcon, director of Hispanic outreach for the Paxton campaign, in a statement. “We’re proud of our culture and our faith, and Ken Paxton has spent his career fighting for us: a secure border to protect our families, a cost of living we can actually afford, and the freedom to live by our values.”

Still, the tide seems to be turning toward Democrats.

A dozen residents along the border said in interviews that they are satisfied illegal border crossings have dropped to record lows, a realization of one of Trump’s top campaign promises and one of the reasons he won over Hispanic voters in the region. But they also believe the crackdown has gone too far. More than 60 percent of Hispanics said Trump’s mass deportations campaign — including his widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — has been too aggressive, according to a July POLITICO Poll.

In McAllen last week, the community was still aghast over a nun who was recently arrested by ICE while walking to church. She was later released after GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz and Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar intervened, but interviews with residents revealed they still live in fear: Even U.S. citizens are checking their pockets for ID before venturing out, and they try to steer clear of the border if possible.

Across Texas, one in five Hispanic business owners said they’ve had an employee deported in the past year and 70 percent have been impacted by Trump’s tariffs, according to a June survey commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared first with POLITICO. Talarico holds a seven-point lead over Paxton among those surveyed — even though a plurality of them self-identified as Republican.

A national Republican close to the race, granted anonymity to speak freely, countered that Paxton stands to benefit from some of the most competitive House races taking place in South Texas — where Republican Tano Tijerina and Flores are trying to oust Reps. Henry Cuellar and Gonzalez, respectively, and Rep. Monica De La Cruz is fending off a challenge from Tejano music star Bobby Pulido. GOP campaigns have stood up multiple field centers in those districts drawn to favor Republicans under a new Congressional map, a ground game that is expected to boost Paxton at the top of the ticket, the person said.

They added that internal message testing shows some of the attacks on Talarico, specifically those regarding his past comments on gender, “is unlike anything we’ve ever seen with Hispanic men, just in terms of the amount that it moves them.”

Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group based in South Texas, said Trump’s closure of the border has affirmed Hispanic’s support for him, and Democrats aren’t offering viable pro-growth economic plans.

“Democrats have failed to give Latino voters something to vote for, and that they’ve only focused solely on something you know for us to vote against. And that’s not good enough,” he said. “[Latinos] want less tax burden, less regulatory burden, more energy production.”

Talarico’s pitch to Hispanics

Talarico was also in McAllen, just one day after Paxon’s rally, to host a fundraising benefit — the final stop on a 750-mile bus tour hitting small towns along the border to deliver a message about lowering costs and creating jobs. In an attempt to cast himself as a tough-on-immigration Democrat, Talarico unveiled a border security plan that includes hiring more Border Patrol agents, a major employer in South Texas, and adding immigration judges to reduce the asylum backlog.

It’s part of his attempt to widen his current edge over Paxton with Hispanics, with a New York Times poll in June showing Talarico is winning the demographic by a 61 percent to 29 percent margin — a significant shift after Trump won 55 percent of Hispanic voters in Texas in 2024.

“You could drive a truck through the margin of error on the Times’ subsample,” Alarcon, Paxton’s Hispanic outreach director, said. “The fact is nobody is winning Hispanic voters by default this cycle. We’ll be in Spanish-language media from the Valley to Dallas, talking about groceries, gas, health care and a secure border.”

Still, Talarico’s lead has given Democratic party leaders hope amid their national tug-of-war with Republicans over Hispanic voters: If Talarico can hold onto Texas’ large Latino population by these margins through November, that would prove gradual gains over the past decade for Republicans were a temporary blip ahead of the 2028 presidential race.

Under the midday sweltering sun in McAllen, Talarico handed out hot plates of food to a line of people who had donated to a local woman struggling to pay for cancer treatment. The Democratic Senate nominee, while speaking to reporters later, dismissed Paxton’s attempts to appeal to Hispanic voters by making personal attacks against him.

Republicans are attempting to divide people, Talarico said, “so we don’t notice that they’re picking our pockets, that they’re closing our public schools, that they’re gutting our health care, that they’re raising taxes on working people while they cut taxes for billionaires. It’s the oldest strategy in the world.”

Talarico’s campaign is leaning hard into its outreach to the Hispanic community, including efforts like running a Spanish-language ad during the World Cup talking about his background as a teacher, plans to defend Medicaid and social security, and push to raise taxes on billionaires. He also ran an ad during the Mexico vs. Panama soccer match and launched a Spanish-language social media channel.

Local Democratic party officials have begun targeted organizing efforts to turn out Hispanic voters throughout the Rio Grande Valley. But the challenge, they say, is convincing Hispanics running away from Republicans to instead run toward Democrats and not stay home in November.

Democrats are heartened by an uptick in primary turnout in the region, which in March saw more than double the number of primary voters than in 2024. Trump carried all four counties in the RGV that year, the first time in history a Republican has won them at the presidential level, but Democrats won at every level down ballot.

“We’re hoping to carry that momentum,” said Hidalgo County Democratic chair Richard Gonzales, referring to the high primary turnout. “Republicans beat us because they made it seem like they could solve the problems. They got in and then they just created more problems.”

​Politics

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens in her state’s contentious Democratic Senate primary on Friday, wading into one of the highest-profile ideological battles within the Democratic Party.

“As governor, I have one strategy: Get things done. And that strategy informs everything that I do, and that’s why I’m endorsing Haley Stevens for the U.S. Senate,” Whitmer said in a video posted to Stevens’ account.

Stevens is hosting a meet-and-greet alongside the governor and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) in Detroit Friday afternoon.

Stevens and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed are the two major Democratic candidates competing in the Aug. 4 primary to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters.

El-Sayed’s candidacy has galvanized progressives, while Stevens has backing from more mainstream Democrats and the tacit support of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“I am absolutely thrilled to have Gov @GretchenWhitmer’s endorsement for U.S. Senate,” Stevens said in a post on social media. “She is a champion for our state, she understands the stakes of this race and why it’s so important we elect the strongest Dem in this primary, and she gets stuff done for Michigan. Let’s go win!”

The race has gained national attention as Democrats aim to keep the seat blue and Republicans vie to flip the seat.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will face GOP candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, in November.

Stevens and El-Sayed represent the party’s ideological split, with Stevens representing the more moderate lane of the party and El-Sayed the progressive wing. That’s also evident in who endorsed them. Stevens received an additional endorsement from outgoing Sen. Gary Peters and El-Sayed has been endorsed by more progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

In Warren’s endorsement video, she praised El-Sayed’s vow to not take corporate money while taking a jab at Stevens, who has benefitted from a slew of outside donations — including nearly $30 million from the AIPAC-aligned United Democracy Project.

​Politics