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
The Department of Homeland Security in September 2025 said that 2 million undocumented immigrants had been forced out of the United States since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.
Through its use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law from 1798, the Trump administration has bypassed immigration courts and the right to due process to more easily detain and deport immigrants.
The Trump administration has, in part, reached these numbers by arresting immigrants in courthouses and at their workplaces. It has also conducted raids in schools, hospitals and places of worship.
And the Supreme Court in September, in its Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo decision, lifted a federal court order that barred agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement from racially profiling suspected undocumented immigrants. For now, ICE agents can use race, ethnicity, language and occupation as grounds for stopping and questioning people.
This form of targeting has disproportionately affected Latino communities, which represent 9 in 10 ICE arrests, according to a UCLA study published in October.
Targeting immigrants is a centuries-old American practice. In particular, Asian Americans have drawn parallels between the attacks on Latinos today and the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Notably, the passage of the War Brides Act, passed just three months after the end of WWII, in December 1945, broke with the nation’s centuries-long practice of exclusionary immigration policy. The act allowed American servicemen to bring their non-American spouses and children to the United States. The measure seemed to inaugurate a new era of inclusive immigration policy.
As a feminist studies scholar and author, I know the War Brides Act forever altered the nation’s racial demographics, increasing both Asian migration to the U.S. and the birth of biracial children.
On the 80th anniversary of the War Brides Act, I’ve also noticed an alarming contradiction: Although America may be more multiracial than ever before, the U.S. immigration system remains as exclusive as it has ever been.
The racial profiling of Latino people by ICE agents today is not unlike what took place during World War II in the U.S.
Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the forced removal of anyone deemed to be a national security threat. Anyone, that is, who was Japanese. From 1942 to 1945, the U.S. government incarcerated approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.
To determine who was a national security threat, the government used overt racial profiling. Similar to today, when the U.S. government often misidentifies Latino Americans as noncitizens, a majority of the Japanese people incarcerated in WWII were U.S. citizens.
Amid the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants, it’s worth recalling the exclusionary origins of U.S. immigration policy.
The first restrictive immigration law in the U.S., the Page Act of 1875, barred Chinese women from entering the country. The assumption the law was based on was that all Chinese women were immoral and worked in the sex trade.
The Page Act laid the groundwork for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned all Chinese immigration into the U.S. for 10 years. This was the first federal law to ban an entire ethnic group, launching an era of legalized and targeted exclusion.
With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the U.S. created its first border control service, which enforced new immigration restrictions. It also implemented a quota system, which banned or limited the number of immigrants from specific regions, including Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe.
The act stemmed from nativism – the policy that protects the interests of native-born residents against those of immigrants – and a desire to preserve American homogeneity.
The 1945 War Brides Act largely diverged from these previous measures, helping to dismantle the Asian exclusion made commonplace in the 19th and early 20th centuries. From 1945 until 1948, when the War Brides Act expired, more than 300,000 people entered the country as nonquota immigrants, people from countries not subject to federal immigration restrictions.
Decades later, in 1965, the U.S. formally abolished the quota system. America opened its doors to those who President Lyndon B. Johnson deemed most able to contribute to the nation’s growth, particularly skilled professionals.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated racial exclusion. As a result, the U.S. population diversified. Immigrants deepened the multiracialism initiated by the War Brides Act.
This trend increased later in the 1960s when the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, overturned anti-miscegenation laws, which criminalized marriage between people of different races. The justices ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment.
Multiracialism further increased after the Vietnam War. Subsequent legislation such as the 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act facilitated the entry of biracial children born in Vietnam and fathered by a U.S. citizen.
By the 1960s, however, exclusion was taking on a different shape.
After 1965, immigration policy initiated a preference system that prioritized skilled workers and relatives of U.S. citizens. Quotas related to race and national origin were abolished. Nonetheless, preferences for families and professionals excluded people from Latin America.
For the first time, immigration from the Western Hemisphere was limited. This directly affected migrant workers in the farming and agricultural industries, many of whom were Latino.
Recalling the War Brides Act allows Americans to better comprehend the fiction that undergirds the U.S. immigration system: that immigration policy’s preference for certain immigrants is enough to justify the discriminatory policies which deem some families more valuable than others.
Anna Storti has received funding from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the McNair Scholars Program.
Politics + Society – The Conversation
Minneapolis is once again the focus of debates about violence involving law enforcement after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, in her car.
The incident quickly prompted dueling narratives. Trump administration officials defended the shooting as justified, while local officials condemned it.
The shooting will also likely prompt renewed scrutiny of training and policy of officers and the question of them shooting at moving vehicles. There has been a recent trend in law enforcement toward policies that prohibit such shootings. It is a policy shift that has shown promise in saving lives.
Decades ago, the New York City Police Department prohibited its officers from shooting at moving vehicles. That led to a drop in police killings without putting officers in greater danger.
Debates over deadly force are often contentious, but as I note in my research on police ethics and policy, for the most part there is consensus on one point: Policing should reflect a commitment to valuing human life and prioritizing its protection. Many use-of-force policies adopted by police departments endorse that principle.
Yet, as in Minneapolis, controversial law enforcement killings continue to occur. Not all agencies have implemented prohibitions on shooting at vehicles. Even in agencies that have, some policies are weak or ambiguous.
In addition, explicit prohibitions on shooting at vehicles are largely absent from the law, which means that officers responsible for fatal shootings of drivers that appear to violate departmental policies still often escape criminal penalties.
In the case of ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, its policy on shooting at moving vehicles – unlike that of many police agencies – lacks a clear instruction for officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles where feasible. It’s an omission at odds with generally recognized best practices in policing.
ICE’s current use-of-force policy prohibits its officers from “discharging firearms at the operator of a moving vehicle” unless it is necessary to stop a grave threat. The policy is explicit that deadly force should not be used “solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.”
That point is relevant for evaluating the fatal shooting in Minneapolis. Videos show one officer trying to open the door of the vehicle that Good was driving, while another officer appears to be in front of the vehicle as she tried to pull away.
Shooting to prevent the driver simply from getting away would have been in violation of agency policy and obviously inconsistent with prioritizing the protection of life.
ICE’s policy lacks clear instruction, however, for its officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles where feasible. In contrast, the Department of Justice’s use-of-force policy makes it explicit that officers should not shoot at a vehicle if they can protect themselves by “moving out of the path of the vehicle.”
Notably, President Joe Biden issued an executive order in 2022 requiring federal law enforcement agencies – like ICE – to adopt use-of-force policies “that are equivalent to, or exceed, the requirements” of the Department of Justice’s policy.
Despite that order, the provision to step out of the way of moving cars never made it into the use-of-force policy that applies to ICE.
Prioritizing the protection of life doesn’t rule out deadly force. Sometimes such force is necessary to protect lives from a grave threat, such as an active shooter. But it does rule out using deadly force when less harmful tactics can stop a threat. In such cases, deadly force is unnecessary – a key consideration in law and ethics that can render force unjustified.
That’s the concern involved with police shooting at moving vehicles. It often is not necessary because officers have a less harmful option to avoid a moving vehicle’s threat: stepping out of the way.
This guidance has the safety of both suspects and police in mind. Obviously, police not shooting lowers the risk of harm to the suspect. But it also lowers the risk to the officer in the vast majority of cases because of the laws of physics. If you shoot the driver of a car barreling toward you, that rarely brings a car to an immediate stop, and the vehicle often continues on its path.
Many police departments have incorporated these insights into their policies. A recent analysis of police department policies in the 100 largest U.S. cities found that close to three-quarters of them have prohibitions against shooting at moving vehicles.
The shooting in Minneapolis serves as a stark reminder of the stubborn gap that often persists between law and policy on the one hand and best law enforcement practices for protecting life on the other. When steps are taken to close that gap, however, they can have a meaningful impact.
Some of the most compelling examples involve local, state and federal measures that reinforce one another. Consider the “fleeing felon rule,” which used to allow police to shoot a fleeing felony suspect to prevent their escape even when the suspect posed no danger to others.
That rule was at odds with the doctrine of prioritizing the protection of life, leading some departments to revise their use-of-force policies and some states to ban the rule. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for police to shoot a fleeing suspect who was not a danger.
Banning that questionable tactic notably led to a reduction in killings by police.
This history suggests that clear bans in law and policy on questionable tactics have the potential to save lives, while also strengthening the means for holding officers accountable.
Ben Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Politics + Society – The Conversation
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
NEW YORK — Just as Democrats are finding their footing by focusing on affordability, their differences on Israel are threatening to tear them apart.
Spurred by polling that shows support for the Jewish state slipping among voters nationally, congressional challengers are lining up across the country to take on stalwart Israel supporters in an attempt to energize left-leaning voters. But the deluge of Democratic primaries being waged in some part over this issue also threatens to exhaust resources, muddy the party’s messaging and bloody candidates ahead of the general election.
Pro-Israel Democrats believe supporters should mobilize with urgency to confront this crop of challengers.
“The main, centrist Democratic Party as a whole is doing a terrible job managing this whole process,” said Mark Botnick, a former advisor to ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed more than $10 million to efforts opposing Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign. “That’s not to say the Israeli government has made it easy for them. It’s fine for someone to be against their policies, but it’s very different to be against the existence of the Jewish state, which in my eyes is antisemitism. The party has done an abysmal job of getting up and saying that.”
Next year’s midterms are pivotal: Democrats locked out of power in Washington need only net three House seats and four in the Senate — a tougher task — in order to seize control over either chamber.
Pro-Israel incumbents are facing challenges in New Jersey and New York, while primary battles in Michigan and Illinois are also being prepped by pro-Palestinian candidates. The coming contests have put Democrats on edge. As they try to win back power in the closely divided House, they are desperate to avoid messy primary races.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mobilizing too — months before the first vote is cast — to identify potential incumbents who need shoring up as the primary fields take shape.
“Our 6 million grassroots members understand the stakes in the upcoming midterms, and that is why they are deeply motivated and engaged to help elect pro-Israel candidates and defeat detractors,” said AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann.
The Democratic Majority For Israel’s political action committee got an early jump on the cycle as well — so far endorsing 26 Democratic House incumbents across the country, an initial slate that includes lawmakers in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The group’s board chair, Brian Romick, called it a “critical moment for the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Primary bids fueled by opposition to Israel are complicating Democrats’ path to victory next year, despite signs of increasingly favorable political terrain following wins in Georgia, Virginia and New Jersey. The efforts underscore the yawning chasm facing Democrats over Israel more than two years since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and a devastating war in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians. Jewish Democrats are alarmed by what they consider open antisemitism among far-left candidates encouraged by Mamdani’s success in the New York City mayoral race.
AIPAC-backed Rep. Rob Menendez in New Jersey appears likely to draw a challenge from Mussab Ali, a former local school board president with a strong social media following. Ali, like Mamdani, began criticizing Israel within weeks of the Oct. 7 attacks — early compared to most people with hopes of running for office.
Michigan’s open Democratic Senate primary offers another microcosm of the party’s evolving dynamics on the issue. The three-way brawl pits a sitting representative backed by the pro-Israel lobby against a former booster of the “uncommitted” movement to pressure a Gaza ceasefire and a progressive state lawmaker who’s shifted away from Israel.
The Middle East crisis is also reshaping the contours of at least two House Democratic primaries in Illinois — home to large Jewish, Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. Statewide the tensions are apparent as well in the U.S. Senate contest to replace retiring Democrat Dick Durbin.
And in New York City, home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, left-leaning challengers backed by the Democratic Socialists of America are eager to unseat Israel-supporting incumbent Reps. Dan Goldman, Grace Meng, Ritchie Torres and Adriano Espaillat.
That includes a Mamdani-endorsed challenge to Goldman by former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — a primary that promises to be a marquee intraparty fight over the issue.
If successful, candidates willing to criticize Israel stand to remake a Democratic Party that has historically backed the Jewish state since its 1948 founding — a path some party officials acknowledge already may be too difficult to alter after the war isolated the country. The challenges by Israel critics, too, highlight growing Muslim populations and commensurate political strength in pockets around the country.
Foreign affairs has divided Democrats before. Opposition to the war in Iraq helped Barack Obama stand out as a state senator in Illinois, while higher-profile pro-war Democrats — like Hillary Clinton — saw their electoral fortunes sink when support for the war became a disqualifying issue among Democrats.
Israel — and increasing hostility from the left toward it — has conjured deep-seated emotions among Democrats watching the situation unfold with disbelief. Taken together, there’s a pervasive worry among Jewish political leaders that shifting political winds in the United States will have long-term consequences for Israel — and Jews — in the decades to come.
“The whole democratic socialist movement has become very anti-Israel, which I don’t understand at all,” said David Weprin, a Queens state lawmaker. “I grew up with Israel being a very progressive country, a democratic country, one that tolerates everyone. It’s definitely something that I find disturbing.”
Democrats’ divisions over Gaza are perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in Michigan, where disparate views of Israel continue to roil state politics and where Democrats are grappling with how to re-engage Arab American voters who shifted toward Trump last year.
In Michigan’s marquee Democratic Senate primary, DMFI PAC endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s viewed as the establishment pick and who represents a substantial Jewish population. Stevens described herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat” in accepting DMFI’s support. She also said she’d fight in the Senate to “support Israel’s security [and] ensure the ceasefire holds in Gaza.” AIPAC’s PAC, which has funneled millions toward Stevens in the past, has yet to issue an endorsement this cycle but features her prominently on its website.
Her opponents have taken far more critical stances toward Israel.
Abdul El-Sayed, a past gubernatorial hopeful who backed the “uncommitted” movement during the 2024 presidential primary but later endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, has described Gaza as a Rorschach test for Democrats’ values. He has repeatedly criticized Israel’s military actions and the U.S. dollars funding them — and has used those stances to draw contrasts with rivals.
El-Sayed was the first in the race to call the conflict in Gaza a genocide, a stance state Sen. Mallory McMorrow later adopted. McMorrow also joined El-Sayed in rejecting support from AIPAC. And both said they would have voted in favor of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders blocking weapons sales to Israel — legislation Stevens said she would have voted against.
McMorrow, whose husband is Jewish and whose daughter was the target of death threats after the Oct. 7 attacks, has shifted on Israel in a way that reflects the broader transformation occurring within the Democratic Party. She initially declined to call the war a genocide, but changed her stance in October after a September United Nations report claiming Israel had committed one.
El-Sayed has indirectly criticized McMorrow for being a late adopter of his positions as the two progressives compete for the same slice of voters, including younger voters for whom Gaza remains an animating issue.
The primary will also provide an early test of whether Michigan Democrats have been able to reengage Muslim voters, like those in Dearborn who have historically backed Democrats but who split their tickets last year between Trump and Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
“The politics around Israel-Palestine have changed dramatically over the last few years,” said a Democratic strategist who’s worked on Michigan races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Senate primary’s dynamics. “For 2026 and beyond, it’s less about candidates reacting and more about what they believe on the issue as a matter of core values. Just claiming to support a two-state solution isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
Tensions over Israel are also simmering in a pair of Illinois House races and the U.S. Senate contest.
The House seats are currently held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is retiring, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Durbin.
State Sen. Laura Fine, one of the top candidates vying for Schakowsky’s seat, has been the beneficiary of a supportive AIPAC email — even though the organization has yet to endorse or donate to her campaign directly. Other high-profile candidates among the 17 in the Democratic primary include the left-leaning suburban Mayor Daniel Biss and social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh. Biss is Jewish, and Abughazaleh is Palestinian-American.
The district spans Chicago and Evanston — home to Northwestern University — and includes suburban communities with significant Jewish, Muslim and Arab populations.
In the district now held by Krishnamoorthi, candidates Junaid Ahmed and Yasmeen Bankole have both made Gaza a campaign priority and are running against former Rep. Melissa Bean, who hasn’t been endorsed by AIPAC but is viewed as a more moderate candidate.
In New Jersey, Menendez is attempting to strike a balance in a district that has significant Arab and Jewish voters. While he supports Israel, he has also called for a two-state solution and has chastised colleagues for Islamophobia, including “vile rhetoric” directed at Mamdani.
“My record of delivering for all of our residents and standing up to the Trump Administration speaks for itself. The same is true for my approach to the Middle East, from advocating for the release of the hostages, to surging humanitarian aid to Gaza, to working towards a lasting and durable peace for the region,” he said in a text message. “I look forward to having that conversation and will forcefully push back on any attempt to misrepresent my record.”
As support for Israel has weakened, Menendez’s likely challenger Ali believes pro-Israel politics can be disqualifying for incumbent Democrats.
“Eventually, politicians who think that they can hide behind talking points will be outed,” Ali said. “You’re seeing that right now with a bunch of people challenging AIPAC’s influence.”
Mamdani’s meteoric rise has fueled far-left challenges to incumbent Democrats across the Big Apple. Several Democrats have expressed interest in running against pro-Israel Democrat Dan Goldman. In the Bronx, former Democratic Committee Vice Chair Michael Blake has predicated his campaign on running against Torres’ stridently pro-Israel views.
The dynamic facing the party is a reversal from the 2024 cycle, when moderate Democrats backed by millions of dollars in support from AIPAC ran to oust anti-Israel lawmakers. The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent more than $11 million on races across the country during the 2024 election as well, with 80 percent of its endorsed candidates winning their races.
In New York City’s suburbs, Rep. George Latimer successfully defeated incumbent Democrat Jamaal Bowman after a bitterly fought race featuring plenty of rhetoric about Israel.
Latimer, who was among the incumbents recently endorsed by DMFI, said in an interview he expects another left-flank primary challenge next year, driven in part by opposition to Israel. Prominent Jewish leaders in New York, though, are skeptical the posture makes much sense when most voters are focused on pocketbook concerns — an issue effectively leveraged by Mamdani.
“Everybody in America wants to be Zohran Mamdani, but there’s only one Zohran Mamdani,” said David Greenfield, a former city councilmember and head of The Met Council, a Jewish charity. “The reason he won is not because of Israel, he won because of affordability.”
Politics
NEW YORK — Just as Democrats are finding their footing by focusing on affordability, their differences on Israel are threatening to tear them apart.
Spurred by polling that shows support for the Jewish state slipping among voters nationally, congressional challengers are lining up across the country to take on stalwart Israel supporters in an attempt to energize left-leaning voters. But the deluge of Democratic primaries being waged in some part over this issue also threatens to exhaust resources, muddy the party’s messaging and bloody candidates ahead of the general election.
Pro-Israel Democrats believe supporters should mobilize with urgency to confront this crop of challengers.
“The main, centrist Democratic Party as a whole is doing a terrible job managing this whole process,” said Mark Botnick, a former advisor to ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed more than $10 million to efforts opposing Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign. “That’s not to say the Israeli government has made it easy for them. It’s fine for someone to be against their policies, but it’s very different to be against the existence of the Jewish state, which in my eyes is antisemitism. The party has done an abysmal job of getting up and saying that.”
Next year’s midterms are pivotal: Democrats locked out of power in Washington need only net three House seats and four in the Senate — a tougher task — in order to seize control over either chamber.
Pro-Israel incumbents are facing challenges in New Jersey and New York, while primary battles in Michigan and Illinois are also being prepped by pro-Palestinian candidates. The coming contests have put Democrats on edge. As they try to win back power in the closely divided House, they are desperate to avoid messy primary races.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mobilizing too — months before the first vote is cast — to identify potential incumbents who need shoring up as the primary fields take shape.
“Our 6 million grassroots members understand the stakes in the upcoming midterms, and that is why they are deeply motivated and engaged to help elect pro-Israel candidates and defeat detractors,” said AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann.
The Democratic Majority For Israel’s political action committee got an early jump on the cycle as well — so far endorsing 26 Democratic House incumbents across the country, an initial slate that includes lawmakers in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The group’s board chair, Brian Romick, called it a “critical moment for the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Primary bids fueled by opposition to Israel are complicating Democrats’ path to victory next year, despite signs of increasingly favorable political terrain following wins in Georgia, Virginia and New Jersey. The efforts underscore the yawning chasm facing Democrats over Israel more than two years since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and a devastating war in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians. Jewish Democrats are alarmed by what they consider open antisemitism among far-left candidates encouraged by Mamdani’s success in the New York City mayoral race.
AIPAC-backed Rep. Rob Menendez in New Jersey appears likely to draw a challenge from Mussab Ali, a former local school board president with a strong social media following. Ali, like Mamdani, began criticizing Israel within weeks of the Oct. 7 attacks — early compared to most people with hopes of running for office.
Michigan’s open Democratic Senate primary offers another microcosm of the party’s evolving dynamics on the issue. The three-way brawl pits a sitting representative backed by the pro-Israel lobby against a former booster of the “uncommitted” movement to pressure a Gaza ceasefire and a progressive state lawmaker who’s shifted away from Israel.
The Middle East crisis is also reshaping the contours of at least two House Democratic primaries in Illinois — home to large Jewish, Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. Statewide the tensions are apparent as well in the U.S. Senate contest to replace retiring Democrat Dick Durbin.
And in New York City, home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, left-leaning challengers backed by the Democratic Socialists of America are eager to unseat Israel-supporting incumbent Reps. Dan Goldman, Grace Meng, Ritchie Torres and Adriano Espaillat.
That includes a Mamdani-endorsed challenge to Goldman by former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — a primary that promises to be a marquee intraparty fight over the issue.
If successful, candidates willing to criticize Israel stand to remake a Democratic Party that has historically backed the Jewish state since its 1948 founding — a path some party officials acknowledge already may be too difficult to alter after the war isolated the country. The challenges by Israel critics, too, highlight growing Muslim populations and commensurate political strength in pockets around the country.
Foreign affairs has divided Democrats before. Opposition to the war in Iraq helped Barack Obama stand out as a state senator in Illinois, while higher-profile pro-war Democrats — like Hillary Clinton — saw their electoral fortunes sink when support for the war became a disqualifying issue among Democrats.
Israel — and increasing hostility from the left toward it — has conjured deep-seated emotions among Democrats watching the situation unfold with disbelief. Taken together, there’s a pervasive worry among Jewish political leaders that shifting political winds in the United States will have long-term consequences for Israel — and Jews — in the decades to come.
“The whole democratic socialist movement has become very anti-Israel, which I don’t understand at all,” said David Weprin, a Queens state lawmaker. “I grew up with Israel being a very progressive country, a democratic country, one that tolerates everyone. It’s definitely something that I find disturbing.”
Democrats’ divisions over Gaza are perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in Michigan, where disparate views of Israel continue to roil state politics and where Democrats are grappling with how to re-engage Arab American voters who shifted toward Trump last year.
In Michigan’s marquee Democratic Senate primary, DMFI PAC endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s viewed as the establishment pick and who represents a substantial Jewish population. Stevens described herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat” in accepting DMFI’s support. She also said she’d fight in the Senate to “support Israel’s security [and] ensure the ceasefire holds in Gaza.” AIPAC’s PAC, which has funneled millions toward Stevens in the past, has yet to issue an endorsement this cycle but features her prominently on its website.
Her opponents have taken far more critical stances toward Israel.
Abdul El-Sayed, a past gubernatorial hopeful who backed the “uncommitted” movement during the 2024 presidential primary but later endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, has described Gaza as a Rorschach test for Democrats’ values. He has repeatedly criticized Israel’s military actions and the U.S. dollars funding them — and has used those stances to draw contrasts with rivals.
El-Sayed was the first in the race to call the conflict in Gaza a genocide, a stance state Sen. Mallory McMorrow later adopted. McMorrow also joined El-Sayed in rejecting support from AIPAC. And both said they would have voted in favor of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders blocking weapons sales to Israel — legislation Stevens said she would have voted against.
McMorrow, whose husband is Jewish and whose daughter was the target of death threats after the Oct. 7 attacks, has shifted on Israel in a way that reflects the broader transformation occurring within the Democratic Party. She initially declined to call the war a genocide, but changed her stance in October after a September United Nations report claiming Israel had committed one.
El-Sayed has indirectly criticized McMorrow for being a late adopter of his positions as the two progressives compete for the same slice of voters, including younger voters for whom Gaza remains an animating issue.
The primary will also provide an early test of whether Michigan Democrats have been able to reengage Muslim voters, like those in Dearborn who have historically backed Democrats but who split their tickets last year between Trump and Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
“The politics around Israel-Palestine have changed dramatically over the last few years,” said a Democratic strategist who’s worked on Michigan races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Senate primary’s dynamics. “For 2026 and beyond, it’s less about candidates reacting and more about what they believe on the issue as a matter of core values. Just claiming to support a two-state solution isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
Tensions over Israel are also simmering in a pair of Illinois House races and the U.S. Senate contest.
The House seats are currently held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is retiring, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Durbin.
State Sen. Laura Fine, one of the top candidates vying for Schakowsky’s seat, has been the beneficiary of a supportive AIPAC email — even though the organization has yet to endorse or donate to her campaign directly. Other high-profile candidates among the 17 in the Democratic primary include the left-leaning suburban Mayor Daniel Biss and social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh. Biss is Jewish, and Abughazaleh is Palestinian-American.
The district spans Chicago and Evanston — home to Northwestern University — and includes suburban communities with significant Jewish, Muslim and Arab populations.
In the district now held by Krishnamoorthi, candidates Junaid Ahmed and Yasmeen Bankole have both made Gaza a campaign priority and are running against former Rep. Melissa Bean, who hasn’t been endorsed by AIPAC but is viewed as a more moderate candidate.
In New Jersey, Menendez is attempting to strike a balance in a district that has significant Arab and Jewish voters. While he supports Israel, he has also called for a two-state solution and has chastised colleagues for Islamophobia, including “vile rhetoric” directed at Mamdani.
“My record of delivering for all of our residents and standing up to the Trump Administration speaks for itself. The same is true for my approach to the Middle East, from advocating for the release of the hostages, to surging humanitarian aid to Gaza, to working towards a lasting and durable peace for the region,” he said in a text message. “I look forward to having that conversation and will forcefully push back on any attempt to misrepresent my record.”
As support for Israel has weakened, Menendez’s likely challenger Ali believes pro-Israel politics can be disqualifying for incumbent Democrats.
“Eventually, politicians who think that they can hide behind talking points will be outed,” Ali said. “You’re seeing that right now with a bunch of people challenging AIPAC’s influence.”
Mamdani’s meteoric rise has fueled far-left challenges to incumbent Democrats across the Big Apple. Several Democrats have expressed interest in running against pro-Israel Democrat Dan Goldman. In the Bronx, former Democratic Committee Vice Chair Michael Blake has predicated his campaign on running against Torres’ stridently pro-Israel views.
The dynamic facing the party is a reversal from the 2024 cycle, when moderate Democrats backed by millions of dollars in support from AIPAC ran to oust anti-Israel lawmakers. The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent more than $11 million on races across the country during the 2024 election as well, with 80 percent of its endorsed candidates winning their races.
In New York City’s suburbs, Rep. George Latimer successfully defeated incumbent Democrat Jamaal Bowman after a bitterly fought race featuring plenty of rhetoric about Israel.
Latimer, who was among the incumbents recently endorsed by DMFI, said in an interview he expects another left-flank primary challenge next year, driven in part by opposition to Israel. Prominent Jewish leaders in New York, though, are skeptical the posture makes much sense when most voters are focused on pocketbook concerns — an issue effectively leveraged by Mamdani.
“Everybody in America wants to be Zohran Mamdani, but there’s only one Zohran Mamdani,” said David Greenfield, a former city councilmember and head of The Met Council, a Jewish charity. “The reason he won is not because of Israel, he won because of affordability.”
Politics
Republicans want a big Supreme Court redistricting win. They’re losing hope it will help them in the 2026 midterms.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais could weaken the Voting Rights Act and open the door to redrawing congressional maps, particularly across the South. Court watchers expect at least a partial win for conservatives that could let the GOP draw more seats for themselves by erasing Black- and Hispanic-majority districts.
But while that decision could theoretically come as soon as when the court returns on Friday, many experts think the case is more likely to be resolved with the flurry of decisions the court typically releases in late June.
The window of opportunity for new maps going into place before this November’s elections is rapidly closing, as states would need ample time to change deadlines, shift election calendars, vet signatures and print and distribute ballots. And the longer it takes for the Supreme Court to issue a ruling, the harder it will be for state-level Republicans to throw their maps out and draw new ones before this fall’s elections.
“It can get very complicated and very sticky, and that is not fast work,” said Tammy Patrick, the chief programs officer for The Election Center, a nonpartisan consulting firm that works with state and local election officials. “That is time-consuming, very methodical and detail-oriented work that needs to have sufficient time.”
Some state-level Republicans have already given up hope. In Louisiana, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, some state officials believe it’s already too late and that the state will have to use its current map in its 2026 elections regardless of the Court’s decision, as the candidate qualifying period opens next month. Louisiana Republicans pushed back its 2026 primary election dates from April to May during a special session late last year, in hopes the Court would rule by the end of 2025 and give them time to install a new map. But the shift still wouldn’t be late enough for a late-term SCOTUS ruling.
Some national Republicans, however, say there’s plenty of time to take on a redraw before November, arguing the Legislature can move the deadlines in order to redraw before elections are underway.
At the center of the Supreme Court case is Section 2 of the VRA, a provision that broadly outlaws discrimination in elections on the basis of race and has led to the creation of majority-minority districts, where Black, Latino or Asian voters make up a majority of the population.
Republicans have long argued such districts violate the Constitution and benefit Democrats. Democrats warn that the elimination of seats drawn to satisfy Section 2 could decimate minority representation in Congress and allow lawmakers to redraw lines in such a way to eliminate as many as 19 Democrat-held, majority-minority districts, many in the South.
Democrats in Blue states could also take advantage of a Section 2 change and redraw, but the party’s options are more limited, both because of geographic limitations and pressure from civil rights and minority groups.
But even as many legal experts expect the court to rule in a way that weakens the VRA, the case’s prominence has led many watchers to predict an end of term ruling in June. At that point, many states across the country will have already held primary contests and there will be no room to undertake redistricting.
“If it’s in any way a big deal, we’re not going to get that decision before June,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola Law School who worked in the Biden White House as an adviser on democracy and voting rights. “It’s really hard for me to see a decision that does anything significant that wouldn’t occasion a major dissent, and it’s really hard for me to see that dissent not taking a fairly long time in the back-and-forth.”
Many southern states where Republicans stand the most to gain have early primaries — seven of the 11 states that belonged to the Confederacy have primaries scheduled before or on May 19 — making the timing even tougher for the GOP.
That doesn’t mean that lawmakers are done gerrymandering before the 2026 election.
At least three southern states — Florida, Kentucky and Virginia — are eyeing redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms, and lawmakers seem emboldened to attempt it with or without a Supreme Court ruling. In Florida, state House Republicans hope to tackle the issue during the legislative session that started this month, while Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special session in late April, in an effort to wait as “long as feasible” for a Supreme Court decision. And in Kentucky, some Republican lawmakers are weighing a redraw, even though the map would likely be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
In Virginia, the Democratic-controlled legislature is considering a move independent of a Supreme Court decision that will put redistricting before voters akin to the move in California last year.
But other southern states reliant on a weakened VRA to redraw, like South Carolina and Alabama, may be out of luck. Republicans in the Palmetto State — including Rep. Ralph Norman, who is running for governor — are pushing the legislature to draw out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn. But the state’s candidate filing deadline looms in late March.
Pushing back the filing deadline further in hopes for a Supreme Court decision would scramble the primary calendar and put elections officials in a bind.
“Anytime a state decides to redistrict, it creates a domino effect of administrative issues that need to be addressed,” said David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Election officials and voters are able to manage that when it’s once every 10 years. When it becomes once every two years, it might get very, very difficult for that to be managed.”
Utah got a taste of the challenge of shuffling deadlines late last year after a district judge installed a new congressional map in November. The state’s top election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, immediately announced her office would move forward with the new map, even as Republican lawmakers fumed and vowed to fight it. “There will likely be an emergency appeal,” she noted on X, “but the process of finalizing new boundary details will take weeks of meticulous work on the part of state and county officials.”
The state’s Republican-controlled legislature went forward with an appeal — which is unrelated to the VRA — after it pushed back the candidate filing deadline by two months for congressional hopefuls during a special session last month, offering itself a window for potential judicial action. Should the legislature — which meets for its scheduled session this month — again adjust the electoral calendar, it would send elections officials statewide into a scramble.
“The questions we would be asking are, you know, how much time do we have to program our ballot? What are the new dates? What would we communicate with voters?” said Nikila Venugopal, the Salt Lake County chief deputy clerk. “We haven’t heard any plans to do so at this point, and we’re moving forward with the assumption that the elections will be held as planned.”
Politics
As the bell struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2026, time ran out on Obamacare subsidies for over 24 million Americans. These subsidies, propped up through various legislative packages over the years, lowered the health insurance costs for Americans on the Obamacare exchange.
Following the expiration of these subsidies, health insurance premiums are skyrocketing for around 90% of Americans who use health insurance from the exchange. For many Americans, the new year means a choice between paying exorbitant costs or taking the risk of no health insurance at all.
But unlike other policy challenges that Congress may face in 2026, the expiration of health insurance subsidies was not unexpected.
The extension of health care subsidies was the pivotal disagreement that ultimately led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history in the fall of 2025. Democratic members, in support of extending the subsidies, faced off against the majority party in Congress: Republicans who wanted a short-term legislative fix that did not fund subsidies.
Republicans ultimately won the shutdown battle. And while Democrats attempted a last-gasp vote in December to reform and extend health care subsidies, the health care debate was yet again punted into the next year.
Congress has reconvened, and Democratic members – joined by four Republican members – used the best possible procedural tool at the minority party’s disposal, the discharge petition, to force congressional leaders to allow votes on an extension of Obamacare subsidies during its first week back in session. But overcoming congressional leadership is an immense challenge: Even if the House is successful, Senate Republican leadership has made clear that there is no future for the legislation in that chamber.
The challenge of passing meaningful solutions to rising health care costs is not unique to this year or to this Congress. It has been a decades-long argument among lawmakers that shows no sign of being resolved.
Why is it so hard for Congress to lower the cost of health care for the people who sent them to Washington?
Like many policy problems, partisanship is partly to blame. But the sprawling complexities of the American health care system pose a particular challenge to members of Congress. As my own research finds, the outsized power and resources of congressional leaders means that for Congress’ most intricate issues, rank-and-file members do not have the time, resources or, frankly, the interest to dedicate to meaningful problem-solving.
Americans face some of the highest health care costs in the world. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have long campaigned on addressing exorbitant costs and equitable access.
Progressive politicians proposed the idea of national health insurance as early as the 1900s, but efforts were limited to women and children, and any policy successes were moderate and temporary.
Following the Great Depression and the advent of Social Security in the 1940s, Congress had warmed to the idea of the federal government providing social services. But attempts at widespread health care coverage failed to gain traction.
During the 1950s, as Americans began to expect more services from their tax dollars, formal coalitions formed in support of, and in opposition to, government-supported health care. Workers and unions, bolstered by Congress and the Supreme Court, used the power of collective bargaining to push for employee benefits such as health insurance. Doctors and medical providers, enjoying their current – and profitable – position, coordinated campaigns against national health insurance proposals.
The tension held until 1956, when the government dipped its toe into federally funded health care, enacting the first “Medicare” government-funded program for dependents of the armed forces.
In the private sector, employee demands and employer tax incentives led to a convoluted web of employer-based insurance programs. But for many Americans, particularly the retired and elderly and those with low-paying jobs, there remained few, if any, insurance options available.
In the 1960s, under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s vision for a “Great Society,” and with a bipartisan vote in Congress, the federal government took the greatest step forward in providing federal health assistance for Americans: Medicare and Medicaid. The programs helped with the cost of health care via federal health insurance for those who were elderly and low-income, and they ushered in a new era of federal health policy.
This was a watershed moment for policymakers. With health care coverage now under the umbrella of the federal government, domestic policymaking responsibility expanded to match. For lawmakers, this meant not only new debates but also new federal agencies, new congressional committees, new lobbying firms and new interest group coalitions.
In the decades that followed, Congress’ responsibility for health care policy continued to expand: Coverage amounts and eligibility requirements were tweaked, programs were expanded to include prescription drugs and vaccines, health savings accounts were introduced, and more.
Yet still, the web of private and federal health insurance programs left millions of Americans uninsured. It wasn’t until 2010, under President Barack Obama, that the Democratic-controlled House and Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as “Obamacare,” to close that gap. But as evident from the 2025 government shutdown, this solution was far from perfect – and quite expensive.
Why, despite centuries of attention, does health care coverage remain one of – if not the most – perplexing and challenging domestic issues that Congress faces?
Part of this is a uniquely American problem: Like many services, the American health care system is based on economic incentives, and the foundational ideal of American liberalism means the government is inclined to let capitalism thrive.
As a former congressional staffer and now a scholar of Congress, I know that nowhere is the tension of societal support and personal freedom more apparent than the debate over health care access.
But the issue is also immensely complex, and today’s Congress does not have the resources to meet the challenge, particularly in the face of a sprawling executive branch.
Over time, as policies were adopted by the federal government, the scope of potential solutions expanded. To put it another way, as more cooks enter the policymaking kitchen, consensus became more difficult. The history of American health care is populated by private industries, powerful interest groups, federal officials and concerned citizens.
And the web of federal funding and private insurance companies across 50 states has resulted in a policy landscape that is easier to tweak, rather than whole-scale reform.
This is further stymied by the limited resources and expertise of the modern Congress. My research has shown that rank-and-file members are increasingly reliant on party leaders to take the lead on policymaking and problem-solving. Negotiating across coalitions and parties is unpleasant, and communicating policy changes on such a complex issue is difficult.
The result? Tepid policy tweaks made for partisan messaging.
And as ideological divisions on government support and personal autonomy become crystallized by the two parties in Congress, partisan policy solutions diverge even further. Collaboration becomes harder every year.
The continuing resolution passed late in 2025 funded the government only until Jan. 30, 2026, which means Congress is facing a Groundhog Day rather than a clean slate for the new year. With millions of Americans facing exploding health care costs, the question becomes who will Congress follow: party leadership or concerned constituents?
SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Politics + Society – The Conversation
Perhaps no one outside of Venezuela or Cuba should care more about the U.S. capture of nominal President Nicolás Maduro than the Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei and his regime are in trouble, and it’s not clear how they would survive should the Trump administration decide to support the millions who want a new government system without Khamenei and his ilk.
Iran has no state allies that would be willing to intervene militarily on its behalf. Further, its once-powerful network of partner and proxy militias – Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other members of the Axis of Resistance – has been rendered incapable or reluctant to get involved. And Iran’s economy is in shambles in the midst of an ongoing water crisis with no relief in sight.
Further, the Iranian people have again taken to the streets to air their grievances against harsh economic conditions as well as government corruption, mismanagement and hypocrisy, echoing similar conditions to Venezuela in recent years.
Lastly, President Donald Trump has returned his attention to Iran. On Jan. 2, Trump warned Khamenei that if his forces violently suppress protesters, Iran would be “hit very hard” by the U.S.
Trump’s warning and show of solidarity will likely embolden protesters, which will almost certainly cause Iran’s internal security to crack down harder, as has happened in the past. Such U.S. intervention could lead to the overthrowing of the ayatollah, intended or not. Furthermore, Maduro’s fate demonstrates that the Trump administration is willing to use military force for that purpose if deemed necessary.
As an analyst of Middle East affairs focusing on Iran, I believe that these conditions place Khamenei’s regime under greater threat today than perhaps any other time in its 46-year history.
If Khamenei hopes to survive politically or mortally, I believe he has three options.
First, he could capitulate to U.S. demands to halt Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Second, Iran could sprint toward a nuclear bomb. Lastly, he could flee.
In hopes of restoring deterrence, Khamenei could also continue rebuilding his country’s military capabilities, which were significantly degraded during the June 2025 12-day war in which Israel and the U.S. aimed to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability.
Israel is eager to stifle Iran’s reconstitution plans, protests are spreading and growing more intense, and Trump – through hostile rhetoric and offensive military action – has put Khamenei on notice.
Khameini’s problems aren’t his alone. The revolutionary theocratic system of government that he leads is in danger of falling. And his military and internal security apparatus may not have the time or ability to address its growing and interrelated internal and external threats simultaneously.
There are two fundamental factors analysts like me consider when assessing enemy threats: offensive capability to inflict damage and hostile intentions to use these capabilities to harm enemies.
Determining offensive capability involves evaluating the quality of a country or organization’s complete arsenal – air, ground, maritime, cyber and space capabilities – and how trained, disciplined, integrated and lethal their forces might be. Determining intentions involves evaluating if, when and under what conditions offensive capabilities will be used to achieve their goals.
If states hope to survive when they come under such pressure, their defense strategy should account for differences between their own military capability and the enemy’s, especially if enemies intend to attack. Or states need to convince enemies to be less hostile, if possible.
Maduro’s mistake was his inability to defend against a far superior U.S. military capability while believing that U.S. leaders would not remove him from office. Maduro gambled and lost.
Iran’s supreme leader faces a similar conundrum: First, there is no foreseeable path that allows Tehran to produce or acquire the military capabilities necessary to deter Israel or defeat the United States, unless Iran develops a nuclear weapon.
And decades of mutual hostility, the memory of Iran’s once-clandestine nuclear weaponization program and recent Iranian lawmaker calls to develop nuclear bombs minimizes the prospect that U.S. leaders view Khamenei’s intentions as anything but hostile.
But as the clear weaker party, it is in Tehran’s interest to change Trump’s mind about Tehran’s hostile intent. The way to do that would be by abandoning nuclear enrichment.
In terms of threat analysis, the regime’s oft-repeated chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” perhaps have sent an easily misinterpreted message: that Iran’s hostile leaders intend to destroy the U.S. and Israel. But they simply lack the capability, for now.
President Theodore Roosevelt famously said “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Today, he might say that Khamenei is unwise for speaking with such vitriol considering the size of Iran’s stick. The United States and Israel possess military capabilities far superior to Iran’s – as demonstrated by the 12-day war – but they did not then share the same intent. Though both Israel and the U.S. operations shared the objective of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capability, Israel’s objectives were more broad and included targeting senior Iranian leaders and destabilizing the regime.
To Khamenei’s momentary personal and institutional fortune, Trump immediately called for a ceasefire following U.S. B-2 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, delineating the United States’ narrower objectives that at the time did not include regime change in Iran.
But that was before U.S. forces removed Maduro from Caracas and before the outbreak of protests in Iran, both of which coincide with Israel’s signaling preparations for Round 2 against Iran.
During Trump’s Dec. 29 press conference at Mar-a-Lago with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he warned that the U.S. could “knock the hell” out of Iran if the country reconstitutes its nuclear facilities.
This is separate from the ominuous warning that the U.S. could intervene on behalf of Iranian protesters; it would almost certainly differ in scale.
Nevertheless, a potential U.S. intervention could embolden protesters and further undermine and destabilize the Islamic Republic regime. Khamenei has predictably scoffed at and dismissed Trump’s warning.
I believe this is a serious mistake.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Jan. 3, 2025, that Khameini should not “play games” as Maduro did. Khamenei, Rubio said, should take Trump’s warnings seriously. I agree.
If Iran refrains from violent crackdowns on protesters, there is a chance that anti-government protestors overthrow the government. But the supreme leader’s chances of surviving a popular uprising are probably greater than surviving an unbridled U.S. or Israeli military intent on ushering in a new – post-Islamic Republic – Iran.
Otherwise, Khamenei has to address superior U.S. and Israeli military capability, quickly. But Iran is broke, and even if sanctions were not continuously strangling Iran economically, the country could probably never purchase its way to military parity with the U.S. or Israel.
Alternatively, Iran could determine that it must move quickly to develop a nuclear weapon to mitigate U.S. and Israeli military capabilities and deter future aggression. However, it is extremely unlikely Iran could do this without U.S. and Israeli intelligence discovering the project, which would immediately trigger an overwhelming military campaign that would likely expedite regime change in Iran.
And like Maduro, the supreme leader is utterly alone. None of Maduro’s closest partners – China, Russia, Cuba and even Iran – were willing to fight in his defense, despite weeks of forewarning and U.S. military buildup near Venezuela.
Under these circumstances, it may be impossible for Khamenei to address overwhelming U.S. and Israeli military capabilities. He could, however, reduce the threat by doing what is necessary to ensure the United States’ objectives for Iran remain narrow and focused on the nuclear program, which may also keep Israel at bay.
However, Khamenei would have to demonstrate unprecedented restraint from cracking down violently on protesters and a willingness to give up nuclear enrichment. Due to historical animosity and distrust toward the U.S., both are unlikely, increasing, I believe, the probability of a forthcoming Iran without Khamenei.
Dr. Aaron Pilkington is a U.S. Air Force Senior Analyst of Middle East affairs and a Fellow at the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the Department of the Air Force, or any other organizational affiliation.
Politics + Society – The Conversation
Republicans want a big Supreme Court redistricting win. They’re losing hope it will help them in the 2026 midterms.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais could weaken the Voting Rights Act and open the door to redrawing congressional maps, particularly across the South. Court watchers expect at least a partial win for conservatives that could let the GOP draw more seats for themselves by erasing Black- and Hispanic-majority districts.
But while that decision could theoretically come as soon as when the court returns on Friday, many experts think the case is more likely to be resolved with the flurry of decisions the court typically releases in late June.
The window of opportunity for new maps going into place before this November’s elections is rapidly closing, as states would need ample time to change deadlines, shift election calendars, vet signatures and print and distribute ballots. And the longer it takes for the Supreme Court to issue a ruling, the harder it will be for state-level Republicans to throw their maps out and draw new ones before this fall’s elections.
“It can get very complicated and very sticky, and that is not fast work,” said Tammy Patrick, the chief programs officer for The Election Center, a nonpartisan consulting firm that works with state and local election officials. “That is time-consuming, very methodical and detail-oriented work that needs to have sufficient time.”
Some state-level Republicans have already given up hope. Louisiana, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, will use its current map in its 2026 elections regardless of the Court’s decision, as the candidate qualifying period opens next month. Louisiana Republicans pushed back its 2026 primary election dates from April to May during a special session late last year, in hopes the Court would rule by the end of 2025 and give them time to install a new map. But the shift still wouldn’t be late enough for a late-term SCOTUS ruling.
At the center of the Supreme Court case is Section 2 of the VRA, a provision that broadly outlaws discrimination in elections on the basis of race and has led to the creation of majority-minority districts, where Black, Latino or Asian voters make up a majority of the population.
Republicans have long argued such districts violate the Constitution and benefit Democrats. Democrats warn that the elimination of seats drawn to satisfy Section 2 could decimate minority representation in Congress and allow lawmakers to redraw lines in such a way to eliminate as many as 19 Democrat-held, majority-minority districts, many in the South.
Democrats in Blue states could also take advantage of a Section 2 change and redraw, but the party’s options are more limited, both because of geographic limitations and pressure from civil rights and minority groups.
But even as many legal experts expect the court to rule in a way that weakens the VRA, the case’s prominence has led many watchers to predict an end of term ruling in June. At that point, many states across the country will have already held primary contests and there will be no room to undertake redistricting.
“If it’s in any way a big deal, we’re not going to get that decision before June,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola Law School who worked in the Biden White House as an adviser on democracy and voting rights. “It’s really hard for me to see a decision that does anything significant that wouldn’t occasion a major dissent, and it’s really hard for me to see that dissent not taking a fairly long time in the back-and-forth.”
Many southern states where Republicans stand the most to gain have early primaries — seven of the 11 states that belonged to the Confederacy have primaries scheduled before or on May 19 — making the timing even tougher for the GOP.
That doesn’t mean that lawmakers are done gerrymandering before the 2026 election.
At least three southern states — Florida, Kentucky and Virginia — are eyeing redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms, and lawmakers seem emboldened to attempt it with or without a Supreme Court ruling. In Florida, state House Republicans hope to tackle the issue during the legislative session that started this month, while Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special session in late April, in an effort to wait as “long as feasible” for a Supreme Court decision. And in Kentucky, some Republican lawmakers are weighing a redraw, even though the map would likely be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
In Virginia, the Democratic-controlled legislature is considering a move independent of a Supreme Court decision that will put redistricting before voters akin to the move in California last year.
But other southern states reliant on a weakened VRA to redraw, like South Carolina and Alabama, may be out of luck. Republicans in the Palmetto State — including Rep. Ralph Norman, who is running for governor — are pushing the legislature to draw out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn. But the state’s candidate filing deadline looms in late March.
Pushing back the filing deadline further in hopes for a Supreme Court decision would scramble the primary calendar and put elections officials in a bind.
“Anytime a state decides to redistrict, it creates a domino effect of administrative issues that need to be addressed,” said David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Election officials and voters are able to manage that when it’s once every 10 years. When it becomes once every two years, it might get very, very difficult for that to be managed.”
Utah got a taste of the challenge of shuffling deadlines late last year after a district judge installed a new congressional map in November. The state’s top election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, immediately announced her office would move forward with the new map, even as Republican lawmakers fumed and vowed to fight it. “There will likely be an emergency appeal,” she noted on X, “but the process of finalizing new boundary details will take weeks of meticulous work on the part of state and county officials.”
The state’s Republican-controlled legislature went forward with an appeal — which is unrelated to the VRA — after it pushed back the candidate filing deadline by two months for congressional hopefuls during a special session last month, offering itself a window for potential judicial action. Should the legislature — which meets for its scheduled session this month — again adjust the electoral calendar, it would send elections officials statewide into a scramble.
“The questions we would be asking are, you know, how much time do we have to program our ballot? What are the new dates? What would we communicate with voters?” said Nikila Venugopal, the Salt Lake County chief deputy clerk. “We haven’t heard any plans to do so at this point, and we’re moving forward with the assumption that the elections will be held as planned.”
Politics
