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
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Politics
In a blow to national Democrats redistricting push, top Democrats in Maryland’s Legislature said Thursday redrawing the state’s congressional maps will not be on the agenda during a special legislative session set to begin next week.
Maryland Sen. President Bill Ferguson and House of Delegates Speaker Pro Tem Dana Stein instead said state lawmakers will focus on other state matters.
The announcement from Maryland state Democrats comes as President Donald Trump and Republicans are pushing for GOP-led states to redraw their maps to make them more favorable to the party ahead of the midterms. Ferguson and Stein issued their statement before Indiana Republicans rejected an effort Thursday afternoon to redraw maps in the Hoosier state.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a likely 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful, on Tuesday signed an executive order calling for a special session on Dec. 16, for the lower chamber to elect a new leader following the surprise resignation of Adrienne Jones from the post.
“The General Assembly may also consider other business to be resolved prior to the beginning of the 2026 legislative session,” he wrote, appearing to leave open the possibility the Maryland House could move forward on redistricting.
Both Moore and Jones support Maryland lawmakers redrawing the state’s federal congressional maps to gain an additional congressional seat in a push to counteract Trump’s effort.
Moore, along with other national Democrats including Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, have for months pressured Ferguson to allow a vote on a measure that could deliver Democrats all eight of the state’s congressional seats. Ferguson, who has cited the possibility of the party losing congressional seats should new maps be challenged in court, has emerged as one of the biggest impediments to the pro-redistricting faction of his party.
Those close to Moore, however, suggest the push for redistricting is not dead.
On Friday, the Maryland governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission will hold its final public hearing with residents to solicit recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly on whether to move forward with redistricting.
The commission members are expected to meet next week to discuss the potential contours of a new map based on public testimony and written statements, according to a legislative aide granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations of the commission.
“The [commission] will continue its work and make a recommendation to the governor and state legislature on the need for new maps,” a second aide confirmed to POLITICO, also granted anonymity to speak freely about next steps in the state’s redistricting effort.
Moore and his allies could ultimately press the Maryland General Assembly to revisit redistricting when it returns for regular session in January, which would allow more time for negotiations with Ferguson.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) the Judiciary Committee ranking member, inserted himself in the state’s redistricting fight last month after he penned a letter urging Maryland state lawmakers to continue fighting on the issue and to ostensibly buck Ferguson.
Raskin directly addressed Ferguson’s reluctance to move on redistricting in a podcast with The New Republic released Thursday.
“One of the reasons he invoked for it was that he said he had spoken to the Republican president of the Indiana Senate, who said he was going to stay out,” Raskin said. “Well, if he doesn’t stay out, that is going to redouble everybody’s determination to change Bill Ferguson’s mind.”
Politics
Indiana Republicans withstood immense pressure from President Donald Trump, ignoring anonymous threats on their lives as they defeated his plan to redraw the state’s congressional map and dealt him one of his most significant political setbacks since his return to the White House.
The GOP-controlled state Senate on Thursday voted down 31 to 19 the map that would have gerrymandered two more safe red seats, imperiling the party’s chances at holding control of Congress next November.
The failed vote is the culmination of a brass-knuckled, four-month pressure campaign from the White House on recalcitrant Indiana Republicans that included private meetings and public shaming from Trump, multiple visits to the Hoosier State from Vice President JD Vance, whip calls from Speaker Mike Johnson and veiled threats of withheld federal funds. The hesitant local lawmakers held out in spite of pipe bomb threats, unsolicited pizza deliveries to their personal addresses and swattings of their homes.
“The forces that define (the) vitriolic political affairs in places outside of Indiana have been gradually and now very blatantly infiltrat(ing) the political affairs in Indiana,” Indiana state Sen. Greg Goode, a Republican, said in his floor speech before voting against the measure. “Misinformation. Cruel social media posts over the top pressure from within the state house and outside, threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence. Friends, we’re better than this.”
Speaking Thursday night from the Oval Office, Trump lambasted Bray, who oversaw the defeat of the remapping push.
“Bray, whatever his name is,” Trump said, threatening to “certainly support anybody that wants to go against him,” and reasoning that he had “done a tremendous disservice.”
“It’s funny ‘cause I won Indiana all three times by a landslide, and I wasn’t working on it very hard,” Trump said, despite his team’s well documented involvement in the matter.
Top MAGA allies sounded far more concerned.
“We have a huge problem,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who simulcasted The War Room show live from a suburban Indianapolis hotel to boost support for redistricting. “People have to realize that we only have a couple opportunities. We’ve got a net five to 10 seats. If we don’t get a net 10 pickup in the redistricting wars, it’s going to be enormously hard, if not impossible, to hold the House.”
Democrats need only net three House seats next year in order to seize control of Congress’ lower chamber, and their party already neutralized a five-seat advantage Texas Republicans gave themselves by similarly redrawing California’s congressional lines.
Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager and adviser to Fair Maps Indiana, a dark money group that blitzed the state with ads in recent weeks, threatened retribution to Senate Republicans who voted against the bill.
“You have a state full of MAGA Republicans run by Republican MAGA haters,” LaCivita said in a pre-vote interview, mentioning Bray, former Gov. Mitch Daniels and Vice President Mike Pence. “If you don’t defend a political movement from those that stand in the way — then it’s not a movement at all — a handful of politicians in Indiana will now know what standing in the way really means.”
Indiana officials whispered for weeks about fears that rejecting redistricting could result in a loss of federal funding—a fear that Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, made explicit in an X post Thursday. “President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state,” it read. “Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”
Two senior White House officials told POLITICO that Trump’s team had not spoken with Heritage Action, and that Trump had not made such threats.
Following the vote, Bray sought told reporters the state was not in danger. “I’ve had lots of conversations with folks in Washington, D.C.,” he said, when asked about those threats. “Indiana will continue to function.”
The failed vote saves the seats of two sitting members, Democratic Reps. André Carson and Frank Mrvan, whose districts in deep blue Indianapolis and purplish Northwest Indiana had been carved up to become heavily Republican under the proposed map.
Informed by reporters about Indiana Senate Republicans rejecting Trump’s redistricting push, Speaker Mike Johnson said that’s “disappointing to me, adding, “but I’m very, very bullish on the midterms.”
Johnson reversed his stance on getting involved in redistricting by whipping votes with calls to Indiana lawmakers in recent days.
“I’ve got to deal with whatever matters are finally presented in each state, and we’re going to win. We’ve got a better record to run on.” Johnson predicted earlier this week the map would pass.
The monthlong debate about whether to redraw maps exposed deep fissures within the party between the MAGA base and the more traditionalist, pre-Trumpian wings of the party. It also gained more attention nationally in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk, who threatened primaries for Hoosier Republican elected officials who opposed it in the final weeks of his life.
Turning Point Action, the organization founded by Kirk, has promised to work with other Trump-aligned super PACs to spend tens of millions of dollars to primary the resistant Republicans who voted no. But the group could only turn out a couple hundred protestors recently ahead of this week’s vote.
Several states closely watched Indiana for signs of where the redistricting arms race would turn next, but none more so than neighboring Illinois. The state’s Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, praised Indiana lawmakers with a statement Thursday that read, “Our neighbors in Indiana have stood up to Trump’s threats and political pressure, instead choosing to do what’s right for their constituents and our democracy. Illinois will remain vigilant against his map rigging — our efforts to respond and stop his campaign are being heard.”
Maryland members of Congress, speaking before Indiana’s vote, said their state was likely to press on regardless of Indiana’s outcome. State Senate President Bill Ferguson has opposed redistricting, but other state officials have vowed to push the issue, and the state’s congressional delegation has largely been supportive too.
“I’m for us doing redistricting,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “No matter what.”
“That’s really up to the legislature and the governor, but I think that we cannot have one hand tied behind our back, and so all options are open in this,” said Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Md.), who represents the swingiest Democratic controlled-district in the state.
Despite its Democratic governing trifecta, Illinois faces logistical barriers to redistricting and some resistance from the state’s delegation, including hesitation to break up minority communities in order to make red districts bluer.
“We’re watching to see what Indiana does. But you know, at best, being one district that would shift, I think a lot of people are wondering, is it worth doing all of that given the chaos,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.).
Lawmakers in Maryland, in particular Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, were closely following developments in Indiana. Both Ferguson and Bray have been under pressure from top officials in their respective parties on redrawing their maps.
Ferguson has stymied Democrats efforts in the state and nationally, bucking Gov. Wes Moore, a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, who has been leading the charge for new maps in the state. Moore this week announced a special session for Dec. 16, though Ferguson on Thursday issued a statement reiterating that redistricting would not be taken up when state lawmakers convene in Annapolis next week.
On Friday, the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission that Moore established last month, will hold its final public hearing with residents to solicit recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly on whether to move forward with redistricting. Commission members are expected to meet next week to discuss the potential contours of a new map based on public testimony and written statements, according to a legislative aide granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations of the commission.
The GOP now turns to Florida, where Republicans stand to make significant gains that are complicated by tension between Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Republican leaders, as well some of the nation’s strictest anti-gerrymandeering standards.
DeSantis and the state Senate president want to delay action until later next year to await the outcome of a Louisiana gerrymandering case that’s before the U.S. Supreme Court. But House Speaker Daniel Perez is adamant that the Legislature take action during its upcoming session that starts in January.
Perez told POLITICO this week that he was “not being pushed by outside forces” to consider redistricting and that he had not talked to the White House directly or indirectly. Instead he said Florida should act because of a state Supreme Court ruling last summer that upheld the state’s current congressional map.
“We don’t have a map, we haven’t started to draw a map, but it doesn’t mean we can’t start to have the conversation,” Perez said.
Some Republicans contend Florida could flip three to five seats to the GOP with a new map, but Democrats contend any map put forward now would violate the state’s constitutional ban on drawing new districts for partisan gain.
Across the country, six states have new maps for the midterms. The biggest gains for both parties — five blue leaning seats in California and five red leaning seats Texas — are likely to cancel each other out.
In Ohio, a bipartisan commission agreed to a map that could net the GOP two new House seats, and North Carolina and Missouri drew one red leaning seat each. And in Utah, a court ruling has given Democrats a solid blue seat in Salt Lake City. There are still ongoing legal challenges in a handful of those states.
Taken together, Republicans are currently ahead by five seats. As the playing field continues to change, it remains unclear exactly which party will come out ahead before the midterms. Both parties expect the redraws to ultimately favor the GOP, but Democrats have so far avoided a worst-case scenario and expect to only be behind by a handful of seats.
The Indiana vote, though, marks a significant defeat for the White House political operation.
Trump and political adviser James Blair were whipping senators through the week.
The debate over whether to redistrict showed cleavages between MAGA and a more traditional GOP that could be exposed again in 2028, when Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
“The sort of old school, deeply entrenched political forces in Indiana are Never Trumpers led by Mitch Daniels,” said a Republican familiar with the president’s thinking and granted anonymity to be candid about the vote. “It’s been kind of a brewing situation there.”
Daniels, who Trump derided on Truth Social as a “Failed Senate Candidate,” said the vote was an act of “principled courageous leadership.” Daniels, who was never a Senate candidate, decided not to run, but told POLITICO he “would have won.” He came out as an early opponent of redistricting, calling it “wrong.”
He said the vote demonstrated “a strong conviction in our state, and in our state, character, commitment to fair play and rejection of being bullied.”
Irie Sentner, Meredith Lee Hill, Nicholas Wu, Brakkton Booker, Shia Kapos and Gary Fineout contributed reporting.
Politics
Democrat Nida Allam is launching a primary challenge against Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.), she announced Thursday, joining a growing list of candidates vying to unseat House Democrats with a slate of progressive endorsements already in tow.
The Durham County commissioner is the latest progressive to launch an insurgent campaign against a Democratic incumbent, reinforcing what she describes as renewed energy in fighting against “Trump’s authoritarianism.” Her entrance into the race comes with a slew of progressive support — including from Justice Democrats, David Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — an early inundation of endorsements that quickly adds salience to the 31-year-old commissioner’s bid for office.
“I’m not here to stay quiet while Washington fails us,” Allam said in her campaign announcement Thursday. “I’m here to fight for the people who built this district.”
In launching her bid, Allam panned Foushee, 69, as a “silent” voice in Congress, asserting that constituents are looking for action that reaches beyond “strongly worded letters and Tweets.”
In a statement Thursday, Foushee — who’s served two terms in Congress — said her commitment to her district “remains unchanged” in the face of the emerging primary challenge, pointing to her past wins in advancing progressive legislation in Congress.
“Without listening to my constituents, I would not be able to properly reflect our community’s needs in Congress, like fighting back against Trump’s billionaire tax breaks, helping to uncover Elon Musk’s illegal interference in government contracts, and voting against the National Defense Authorization Act,” she wrote in the statement.
Other progressive organizations like the Working Families Party and the Sunrise Movement have already thrown support behind Allam, who they say has the resolve needed to buck the Trump administration — and veteran Democrats — in representing the working class in Congress.
Allam’s entrance into the race for North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District — a blue, Durham-based district — marks the second candidate in just a matter of days to announce plans to oust a sitting Democrat from Congress, with backing from major progressive players.
On Wednesday, Brooklyn progressive Brad Lander announced he’d challenge Rep. Dan Goldman for his seat in a district that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani carried. His bid — which zeroed in on ramping up resistance against the Trump administration — quickly accrued support from the Democratic base’s left flank, including from the Working Families Party, Mamdani and Sanders.
Politics
In federal courtrooms across America, a pattern has emerged in cases in which immigrants are being rounded up and jailed without a hearing. That’s a departure from fundamental constitutional protections in the U.S. that provide the right to a hearing before indefinite imprisonment.
In response, federal judges are systematically rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to drastically expand who can be locked up without a hearing while awaiting deportation proceedings.
The Trump White House policy has been challenged in at least 362 cases in federal district courts, according to a recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Challengers have prevailed in 350 of those cases – decided by over 160 different judges sitting in about 50 different courts across the United States.
Behind those numbers are thousands of people whose freedom hangs in the balance while courts decide whether their imprisonment is lawful.
Trump administration officials claim they are targeting only “the worst of the worst” in immigration enforcement. Yet nearly three-quarters of people detained had no criminal history at all. Of those with criminal histories, many involved only minor offenses such as traffic violations.
The immigrants are in civil immigration proceedings to determine whether they can remain in the United States. Yet under the administration’s new policy, many are being held in jail-like facilities indefinitely, including “state-run prisons located in remote areas, soft-sided tent structures, military bases, and even in prisons in other countries,” according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute think tank.
As a law professor who studies due process in immigration proceedings, I view the overwhelming judicial consensus against this policy as the federal courts performing their essential constitutional function: checking executive overreach. The courts are enforcing fundamental due process protections.
Whether this consensus will prevail, however, depends on appeals courts and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.
The current controversy centers on a policy shift the Department of Homeland Security implemented in July 2025.
In an internal memo, DHS reinterpreted decades-old immigration law to classify virtually all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as “applicants for admission” who are subject to mandatory detention under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
For 30 years, this provision applied primarily to people apprehended at the border shortly after entering the country. The new interpretation extends it to anyone present in the U.S. illegally. That includes people who entered years or decades ago, have established families and businesses and are pursuing legal pathways to remain in the U.S.
The practical effect of the change is that people who were previously entitled to request release on bond while their deportation cases proceeded are now subject to automatic, indefinite detention without court review of whether their imprisonment is justified.
Within months of the July policy announcement, more than 700 emergency habeas petitions – legal challenges to unlawful imprisonment – reached federal courts nationwide.
In Michigan alone, U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou – a Trump appointee – received more than 100 individual cases from detainees challenging their imprisonment. Then, 97 additional detainees filed a joint lawsuit. Cases arose across the country as immigrants who were arrested at workplaces, courthouses or during routine check-ins with immigration officers asked federal courts to order their release or grant them bond hearings.
The Trump administration has fought these cases on multiple fronts. It has argued that the detention policy is lawful and that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review it at all. The government has invoked provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that it claims strip courts of jurisdiction over certain immigration decisions.
But federal judges have largely rejected these jurisdictional arguments. They have found that courts retain the power to review whether detentions comply with the Constitution and federal law.
As one district court judge explained, accepting the government’s position would mean the executive branch could detain noncitizens indefinitely without ever having to justify that detention to a court. It’s a result that would raise “serious constitutional concerns” about suspending habeas corpus, the fundamental right to challenge unlawful imprisonment.
Judge Kaplan similarly concluded that the “current administration’s unilateral decision that all noncitizens … are to be mandatorily detained affords to such individuals no process, let alone due process. It is unconstitutional.”
The policy’s ripple effects extend beyond the courts.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a record 66,000 people in November 2025 – more than any previous administration had ever held at one time. The American Immigration Council, which advocates for immigration rights, documented 23 deaths in ICE detention during fiscal year 2025. The previous four years combined saw 24 such deaths.
The piecemeal nature of hundreds of individual court rulings creates its own problems. Each emergency petition requires rushed briefing and a hearing. That strains the courts and detained immigrants’ ability to secure representation. Outcomes can vary based on which judge hears a case, creating geographic disparities in who remains detained and who is released.
That’s why the November decision in Maldonado Bautista v. Santacruz is potentially transformative. U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes certified a nationwide class of noncitizens subject to the policy and separately ruled that the government’s interpretation of the law was wrong – detainees are entitled to bond hearings. Combined with the nationwide class certification, this ruling could require the Trump administration to provide bond hearings to thousands of people currently in mandatory detention.
But implementation has been uneven. Immigration judges – who are Justice Department employees, not independent federal judges – have responded inconsistently to Judge Sykes’ order.
In a recent immigration court decision in Memphis, Tenn., a judge denied a bond hearing request. The judge stated that further guidance from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a Department of Justice office, was required before complying with Sykes’ order.
Attorneys representing the class say they’ve seen similar resistance from some immigration judges, while others have begun granting bond hearings. They plan to return to federal court in January 2026 to present evidence of this confusion and seek further relief.
The near-unanimous rejection by federal judges – insulated from political pressure by lifetime appointments – demonstrates why the Constitution grants judges life tenure. Federal courts remain the final check when executive action threatens fundamental due process rights.
Cassandra Burke Robertson 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
In 2026, the biggest battles over abortion will not be at the polls.
There will be a few contested measures on state ballots. Next year, Nevada’s government will ask residents to approve constitutional protection for abortion rights for the second time, as required by state law. The same measure passed in 2024 with just over 64% of the vote.
Virginians will likely see a similar ballot initiative. In November 2025, voters there cemented a majority for Democrats in the state legislature, and the House of Delegates is expected to put forth an abortion rights ballot measure to voters in 2026.
Anti-abortion proponents in Missouri want to undo an amendment protecting abortion rights that voters passed in 2024. They’re advancing a new measure that could strip residents of the reproductive rights that are now constitutionally enshrined.
However, the most consequential questions about abortion in 2026 could be answered at the federal level, by the Trump administration or in the courts. As a scholar of reproductive health law, I’m watching how federal judges and agencies respond to conservative efforts to restrict or end people’s access to mailed abortion medication.
Over 25 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone – one of two drugs commonly paired together to end a pregnancy. Since that time, medication abortion has been closely regulated by the FDA and is under attack.
In 2022, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a coalition of anti-abortion physicians, sued the FDA for approving mifepristone in 2000 and for each time the agency eased a restriction on mifepristone thereafter, in 2016 and 2021. The complaint argued that the FDA failed to consider evidence establishing the harm caused by medication abortion – claims roundly rejected by decades of rigorous, peer-reviewed research.
The Supreme Court in 2024 ruled that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine lacked standing to sue because FDA regulation of medication abortion caused no actual injury to the doctors it represented, who do not prescribe mifepristone or perform abortions.
Yet the case lives on in lower federal courts. There is ongoing litigation, and politicians are taking up the fight over mailed medication abortion.
Kansas, Missouri and Idaho intervened in the Alliance lawsuit in 2023, seeking to establish standing, and Louisiana sued the FDA in a separate case challenging the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone.
The pending actions focus on the FDA’s decision in 2021 to lift the requirement that patients pick up mifepristone in person, which has permitted patients to receive medication abortion by mail. These states claim this development is dangerous and threatens their right to enforce their abortion bans.
In October 2025, a federal court in Hawaii came to a different conclusion. The court concluded that because mifepristone is very safe, the FDA must reconsider whether the drug necessitates any restrictions at all.
The dispute over medication abortion is playing out in Washington, D.C., too.
In 2025, 51 Republican senators and 22 Republican attorneys general asked the FDA to reinstate the 2021 in-person restriction and upend the transit of abortion pills.
In response to Republicans’ push to restrict or withdraw the availanlity of mifepristone, 47 Democratic senators and 20 attorneys general issued letters supporting mifepristone’s safety. The letters questioned a pledge by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his FDA chief to commence a “review” of the drug. The Democratic senators’ letter pressed the agency to remove all remaining restrictions on mifepristone.
In early December, Bloomberg reported that the FDA had quietly postponed its planned mifepristone “review” until after the 2026 midterm elections.
Decades of research demonstrates that medication abortion is safe and effective. When commenced before 10 weeks’ gestation, the two-drug method is effective about 98% of the time. Complications, such as infection or hemorrhage, are rare; they occur in perhaps a fraction of a percent of all medication abortions.
Yet courts and legislators cannot agree on basic facts, in part due to widespread disinformation about abortion care, and anti-abortion forces have waged a concerted national campaign to stop mailed abortion pills.
Today, no part of the medication abortion process needs to be done in person: The patient, provider and pharmacy can all interact virtually.
Mailed medication abortion is popular nationwide, particularly in states with abortion bans. Because of mailed medication abortion, the average number of abortions nationwide has actually increased since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing abortion protections under the U.S. Constitution.
Providers in so-called “shield” states are a key reason for this. Eight U.S. states have laws that shield providers from civil, criminal and professional consequences for delivering reproductive health care to out-of-state patients.
In these shield states, doctors may prescribe abortion medication no matter where the patient lives, so long as that care is delivered by a provider licensed and located in the shield state, complying with the shield state’s laws.
These laws are the subject of legal conflicts between anti-abortion states and shield states.
Late in 2024, Texas sued a doctor in New York, a shield state, for violating Texas abortion and licensure laws. In early 2025, Louisiana indicted the same New York physician.
Texas won its case in a Texas court and then asked New York to enforce the judgment of more than $100,000 in fines and fees. A New York court has refused to do so, citing its shield law. New York also rejected Louisiana’s request to extradite the doctor to stand trial for the same reason.
On Dec. 4, 2025, Texas officially enacted the first bill in the country that explicitly targets shield laws. Passed in September 2025, HB 7 allows private citizens to file lawsuits against a person or entity for attempting or intending to mail abortion pills into the state.
Having written about shield laws extensively, I believe these interstate conflicts will land, sooner or later, before the Supreme Court. Right now, state and federal courts are deciding the issues.
If judges determine that shield laws are unconstitutional or that the FDA acted illegally, courts could substantially alter people’s ability to gain access to medication abortion.
So could the FDA. If it reimposes an unnecessary restriction on mifepristone, meaning the drug would no longer be widely available through telehealth, that decision would curb how 1 in 4 women in the U.S. receive abortion care today.
But opinion polls indicate that the majority of Americans do not think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, and they vote accordingly.
In November 2025, Democrats won significant elections, for example, in New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Abortion was absent from ballots in these states this year, but these races still held significance for abortion rights.
The election of a pro-choice governor and legislature in Virginia, for example, all but guarantees that abortion will continue to be legal in the last Southern state to protect broader abortion rights. Likewise, Pennsylvanians opted to keep the state supreme court’s liberal majority, which struck down the state prohibition on Medicaid payment for abortion.
In 2024, two years after the fall of Roe v. Wade, 14 states put forth ballot initiatives to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right. Eleven passed.
With little political support to pass a nationwide abortion ban, making it illegal to mail abortion pills is the most immediate way to obstruct reproductive health care in states with abortion bans.
The question for abortion in 2026, then, is: Will courts or federal forces do what democratic processes cannot?
This story was published in collaboration with Rewire News Group, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering reproductive and sexual health.
Rachel Rebouché 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
The POLITICO Poll conducted by Public First from Dec. 5 – Dec. 9.
Politics
No matter what the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is doing in crowded primaries, one thing is certain: It’s angering other Democrats.
The organization did little to stop the brewing primary in Texas, a potentially expensive feud for a prized but elusive seat punctuated by Jasmine Crockett’s entrance and Colin Allred’s departure this week. And in Iowa, Democrats involved in another crowded primary said the committee is warning consultants to not work with the non-DSCC preferred candidate.
The campaign arm’s divergent strategies in Texas and Iowa illustrate its ongoing challenges with controlling the party’s messy primaries — triggering backlash from some Democrats who are furious over its light touch in Texas and heavy-handedness elsewhere. Nearly a dozen Democratic strategists, many of whom were granted anonymity to give candid assessments, described the committee’s unenviable, yet weakened, position, as Democratic base voters remain frustrated with the party’s national leadership.
“They have a ton of tools they could’ve used and they didn’t use them” in Texas, said one person who has been involved in the Texas Senate race. “They don’t have the political power they once had … but it’s evident how weak they are institutionally.”
Democrats need to net four seats to retake the Senate next fall, and intraparty feuds — like those unfolding in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and Texas — could hinder that goal.
In Maine, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is closely aligned with the DSCC, heavily recruited Gov. Janet Mills over oysterman Graham Platner, who has racked up a strong small-dollar following despite various controversies. In Michigan, Rep. Haley Stevens was invited to meet donors at a DSCC event in Napa this fall; her two primary opponents were not.
“When the DSCC intervenes, that’s the wrong person putting their thumb on the scale,” said Mary Jo Riesberg, Iowa’s Lee County Democrats chair, who hasn’t yet endorsed in the primary. “It really rubs Iowans the wrong way. We’ve had it happen here before … but it’s Iowans’ business.”
The DSCC has a long history of meddling in primaries on behalf of its preferred candidate — a strategy deployed by both parties and affiliated campaign committees. But wading into primaries has become more complicated in recent years, as the organization no longer exclusively controls access to the cash necessary to build out statewide campaigns. Instead, candidates “can build their own profile” and deliver it “to a national audience, which means dollars and attention, so you don’t have to go through the DSCC anymore,” said a second person involved in the Texas Senate race.
“It’s the rise of grassroots dollars,” the person said, “so the DSCC is weaker.”
Challenges to Democrats’ midterm strategy are also coming from inside its own caucus.
Nine senators, coordinating primarily through a texting chain and calling themselves “Fight Club,” are focused on the primaries for open seats in Minnesota, Michigan and Maine — often backing those who are not seen as Washington’s preferred candidates, according to two people directly familiar with the group’s thinking. The New York Times first reported on the group’s efforts.
“Wading into any primary is challenging in this environment [because] both party’s primary voters live in an anti-establishment world,” said Morgan Jackson, a top adviser to former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who cleared his own primary field after he jumped into the Senate race in July. “I think what you’ve seen from the DSCC, from the [Democratic Governors Association], is a desire to put forward nominees who can win the general election, and that’s where they’re always grounded.”
But what kind of Democrat is best poised to win a general election — especially in battleground or red-leaning territory — is still very much up for debate inside the party, leading to more heartburn over how the DSCC should operate. It’s also part of what’s fueling the rush of candidates joining primaries for Senate and House races across the country. And after sweeping victories in November, when Senate Democrats are casting their eye deep into the Senate map, there’s even more interest in running for office.
So far, the DSCC has not endorsed in any of these states. In a statement, DSCC spokeswoman Maeve Coyle said: “The DSCC has one goal: to win a Democratic Senate majority. We’ve created a path to do that this cycle by recruiting formidable candidates and expanding the map, building strong general election infrastructure, and disqualifying Republican opponents — those are the strategies that led Senate Democrats to overperform in the last four election cycles, and it’s how we will flip the majority in 2026.”
In addition to North Carolina, Senate Democrats managed to avoid a messy battle in Ohio, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown — like Cooper — is running virtually unopposed for his respective nomination. Both states are key to the party’s comeback plan.
It’s also not the first time the DSCC deployed these tactics. In 2019, Senate candidates in Colorado and Maine complained that the DSCC prevented consultants and vendors from working with them after being warned that they’d be blacklisted by the committee, which had backed opposing candidates. In 2016, it spent $1 million to boost Katie McGinty in her Pennsylvania Senate primary over then-Mayor of Braddock John Fetterman. McGinty won her primary, but lost to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.).
Now it’s warning consultants against working with Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls and Nathan Sage, the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, two people involved with the Iowa race said. The DSCC hasn’t weighed in on the race formally, but several Iowa Democrats said state Rep. Josh Turek, a Paralympian and two-time gold medalist, is the committee’s preferred candidate.
“There is a very strong frustration among the Democratic base with party and establishment leadership that you didn’t see in 2018 or 2020 at this level,” said a Democratic strategist working with Wahls’ campaign in Iowa. “There is a resistance to the Democratic establishment, not just the establishment now.”
Other Democrats, however, defended the committee’s moves. “These sound like complaints from people who have hurt feelings they didn’t get contracts and not people who actually care about winning races,” said a Democratic strategist working on multiple senate races.
Heading into 2026, the DSCC faces more primaries than usual. In Texas, Crockett, a Democratic firebrand who frequently clashes with Trump, will face off against state Rep. James Talarico, who has built a national profile by lacing his criticisms of Trump with Bible verses and appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Democrats expect the fight to be expensive, as Crockett and Talarico, both known to go viral online, are prolific fundraisers.
Crockett’s entrance into the race — including a launch video featuring Trump calling her a “low IQ person” — prompted eyerolls among moderate Democrats. Trump has won Texas by double digits three times and Crockett “has cultivated a reputation as a hyper-partisan figure,” said Simon Bazelon, an adviser to the center-left Welcome PAC organization.” Bazelon added she’ll have “a very tough hill to climb while trying to win statewide.”
Of her critics, Crockett said this week, “I just want to be clear for all the haters in the back. Listen up real loud. We gonna get this thing done.”
The “Fight Club” senators — and the candidates they’re endorsing so far — tend to be more progressive, but they put a premium on backing “real fighters who are throwing out the old playbook,” one of the two people familiar with their thinking said. It’s a style over status quo argument that’s led Democratic elected officials to more openly criticize their caucus’ leadership.
In Minnesota, seven of those eight senators, including Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), endorsed Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan over Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) in the open seat to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith. The primary in a blue-leaning state has pretty much flown under the radar in recent months, but it’s on track to become expensive and contentious.
“[The senators] all really liked [Flanagan], they want her to be the nominee and they were pissed that the DSCC was putting its hand on the scale,” said one person familiar with the situation.
Craig, for her part, has also picked up backing from several senators, including Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). And she’s raised $2.2 million for her campaign, according to October Federal Elections Commission filings — more than double the nearly $1 million Flanagan raised.
“I don’t know who the DSCC prefers, but there is definitely a clear difference in this race,” Craig said in a statement. “I’ve won tough elections against Republicans, show up and do my job every day, and voted twice to impeach Donald Trump. There’s another Democrat in the race who has never had to run a competitive race by herself on a ballot and regularly skips the work she’s supposed to be doing now back home in Minnesota — and now wants a promotion.”
Adam Wren contributed reporting.
Politics
House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted Indiana Senate Republicans would “do the right thing” Thursday when they convene to render a final decision on a state House-passed map that President Donald Trump demanded to give their party two pickup opportunities in Congress.
It would be an improvement over their 7-2 seat advantage in the state’s current congressional map, and is being decided as part of a national redistricting arms race that Trump kicked off to influence next year’s midterms.
Johnson also acknowledged for the first time making individual phone calls to Indiana senators in recent days. The strategy, first reported by POLITICO, came on the heels of his larger post-Thanksgiving call with state House Republicans.
“Well, because they’re in the final stages of that process,” Johnson told POLITICO Wednesday night, explaining why he made the calls. “And I was told that there was some Indiana state senators who would like to talk to me and ask questions about the national perspective on it. And I shared that with them and told them I was encouraging them. I want everybody to make the decision that, you know, comports with their conscience, that they feel good about.”
The calls have represented a marked increase in Johnson’s involvement in the redistricting wars, which early on he sidestepped by saying states should decide whether to redraw the lines. But now he is racing to keep up with his counterpart, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has been closely involved in the process to redistrict states across the map.
It’s also a marked difference from the White House, which has threatened and intimidated reluctant Republicans ahead of Indiana’s nail-biter vote.
The vote Thursday in the Republican-controlled Senate is expected by both sides to be a close one, and it remains unclear how many of the chamber’s 40 GOP senators have shifted since they stalemated at 19-19 last month on a determination that was a proxy for the gerrymandering fight. The map needs 26 votes to pass, and assuming all 10 Democrats oppose it, Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, long a proponent of mid-decade redistricting, can break a 25-25 tie.
“I had some great conversations there,” Johnson said of the calls. “They have some, some great patriots serving the people in the state of Indiana. And I enjoyed that. I met and talked with a lot of the House members when they were in their phase of that. So I believe they’ll do the right thing.”
In November, Johnson also addressed a growing list of elected Indiana Republicans who have faced swattings — false reports of danger that bring an aggressive law enforcement response designed to intimidate the target — and pipe bomb threats.
“I don’t think you can put the blame on the president for any of that,” Johnson said of Trump, who has publicly blasted the state’s GOP holdouts and not made efforts to tamp down the threats.
State senators have described Johnson as taking a lighter touch with Hoosier Republicans.
Politics
