Category: Politics

Top state Republicans in Georgia have quietly opened the door for the Republican National Committee to support Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s hotly contested primary for governor.

The RNC normally maintains strict neutrality in party primaries to let voters — not party leaders — choose its nominee. Any move to intervene in Georgia, however, could dramatically reshape a crowded race for an open governor’s seat in a premiere battleground state. It could give Jones, President Donald Trump’s handpicked choice, a boost in a field that includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a target of Trump’s ire ever since he refused to echo the president’s falsehoods about the 2020 election in his state.

Georgia’s three RNC members signed letters late last year and early this year waiving the party rule that bars the RNC from intervening in contested primaries, according to three people familiar with the agreement. That move allows the national party to provide financial or operating support to Jones and coordinate with him ahead of the May primary.

It’s unclear whether the RNC will move to support Jones in the crowded primary now that it’s been cleared to do so. But it was the RNC that first reached out to the Georgia party leaders about waiving the rule, according to a person familiar with the process — a sign the national party has at least considered getting off the sidelines. The RNC did not provide a comment.

Josh McKoon, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, said he signed the letter waiving the RNC’s neutrality rule because Jones has Trump’s endorsement.

“It was a no-brainer for me to sign the letter,” McKoon told POLITICO.

“From my perspective, I was going to remove any barriers to working with the RNC from a candidate that the president has clearly signaled as the candidate he wants to be the next governor,” he said.

Jones has long been a vocal supporter of Trump. He endorsed him for president in 2015, and as a state senator, was among the 16 Republicans who attempted to serve as electors in 2020 and falsely certify Trump’s loss in Georgia as a win. Jones received Trump’s official endorsement in August, and released a video with Jones last week calling him a “friend” who’s “going to make a great, great governor.”

Limited early public polling shows Jones leading the field, and he maintains a sizable war chest, but the race remains fluid, and a prolonged and expensive primary could complicate Republicans’ general election prospects. RNC support could help Jones fend off rivals and potentially avoid a prolonged primary fight, especially if he can avoid a run-off.

Last week, health care business owner Rick Jackson injected new uncertainty into the race by launching a surprise gubernatorial bid, pledging to spend $50 million of his own money to support his campaign. He has presented himself as a Trump-aligned political outsider, a message that could cut into Jones’ base.

A Cygnal poll released Monday, after Jackson’s surprise campaign launch, found Jones leading with 22 percent support among likely primary voters. Jackson followed at 16 percent, with Raffensperger at 10 percent and Attorney General Chris Carr at 7 percent.

To avoid a June run-off, a candidate must secure an outright majority of the vote in the May 19 primary — a high bar in an increasingly crowded field.

“I can see a path to victory for all four of them right now.” said Jason Shepherd, a former Cobb County GOP chair who is backing Carr. “But Burt Jones’ path to victory just got a lot harder” with Jackson’s entrance.

Under RNC rules, the national party is barred from backing candidates in primaries unless the filing deadline has passed and a candidate is running unopposed. That requirement, known as Rule 11, can be waived if all three of a state’s RNC members sign off. Such Rule 11 agreements have been used sparingly in recent cycles.

State party leaders in North Carolina have green-lit early support for former RNC chair Michael Whatley, another Trump-backed candidate running for the state’s open Senate seat.

Both Georgia and North Carolina are top priorities for the Republican Party in November. In Georgia, Republicans are looking to retain control of the governor’s mansion in a state that Trump flipped in 2024. The steps taken in both states raise questions about whether the RNC could face pressure to take similar moves in other states’ primaries where Trump decides to take sides, such as in Louisiana, where he endorsed Rep. Julia Letlowin her primary challenge against Sen. Bill Cassidy.

“We all look very carefully at when [Trump] decides to weigh in a race, because he doesn’t always do that,” McKoon said. “I certainly didn’t want to be serving as an obstacle to the RNC being able to coordinate with his campaign and provide support.”

Alec Hernández contributed to this report.

​Politics

President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement furiously denounced Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show, denigrating the Puerto Rican superstar and claiming he does not truly represent America.

Trump, who previously called Bad Bunny a “terrible choice” to head up the NFL’s largest annual broadcast, chimed in with complaints about the show’s first-ever mostly-Spanish performance: “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” he wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post, calling it “one of the worst, EVER!”

At Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, Bad Bunny delivered a 13-minute homage to his homeland, weaving through a sugarcane field studded with bodegas and a traditional casita. His show was lauded by fans as a vibrant celebration of Puerto Rican heritage — but Trump and MAGA faithfuls weren’t so convinced.

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican-born singer better known as Bad Bunny, made his Super Bowl debut in 2020 alongside Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. But since the NFL announced him as the Super Bowl headliner in September, he became a focal point for conservative ire — thanks, in part, to his high-profile political activism.

An outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration crackdown, he declared “ICE out” onstage at last week’s Grammy Awards — where his album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” made history as the first all-Spanish record to snag the show’s coveted album of the year trophy — and left viewers wondering what message he might have for the millions of football fans tuning into his set.

But Bad Bunny did not directly call out any of the president’s policies or supporters during his Super Bowl show. The only English he spoke during Sunday’s show was him saying, “God bless America,” as he was marching off the field with a procession of Latin and South American flags — led by the U.S.’s flag. He then spiked a football that read: “together, we are America.”

His show also referenced the island’s long-struggling power grid.

In the hours after the performance, MAGA allies took issue with the show’s mostly-Spanish discography and Puerto Rican inspiration.

“Was a single word of English spoken during the Super Bowl Halftime Show?” Nick Adams, Trump’s pick to become ambassador to Malaysia, wrote on X. “Someone needs to tell Bad Bunny he’s in America. This is an abomination.”

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer railed against his set in a series of X posts, urging border czar Tom Homan to deploy an immigration raid on site.

“There’s nothing American about any of this,” she wrote. “This isn’t White enough for me. Cant even watch a Super Bowl anymore because immigrants have literally ruined everything.”

Meanwhile, MAGA-friendly influencer Jake Paul urged his X followers to “turn off this halftime,” decrying Bad Bunny as a “fake American citizen performing who publicly hates America.” Paul, who was recently seen with Vice President JD Vance at the Olympics in Milan, received swift blowback online, including from Paul’s own brother, Logan.

Many, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), pointed out that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens — and that Paul himself has been living there since 2021.

Other figures within the president’s orbit echoed their disapproval. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino reacted to Bad Bunny’s performance in a podcast episode on Rumble titled “Kid Rock > Sad Bunny,” telling viewers the show “sucked.” Meanwhile, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, wrote on X that she and her family “aren’t watching him.”

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) called the show “disgusting” and said it violated broadcast standards, writing on X that he plans to send a letter to FCC Chair Brendan Carr demanding a review.

“Had he said these lyrics — and all of the other disgusting and pornographic filth in English on live TV, the broadcast would have been pulled down and the fines would have been enormous,” Fine wrote. “Lock them up.”

Conservatives did rally behind alternative programming. Turning Point USA, the conservative organizing group founded by Charlie Kirk, aired a rival halftime show headlined by longtime Trump ally Kid Rock, drawing support from Republican officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who praised the event.

​Politics

National Republicans are throwing money and bodies at a down-ballot initiative to try to wrest back a congressional seat in Utah. Their efforts could blow up in their face.

With a looming February 15 deadline, Republicans have seen only half the number of verified signatures they need to move things forward. And the effort, which has the backing of President Donald Trump and support from multiple MAGA groups, has devolved into chaos.

Local county clerks are flagging hundreds of potentially fraudulent submissions. People have reportedly been repeatedly misled into signing the petition by signature-gatherers, with some telling local news outlets that they were told it was an anti-ICE petition. Those signature-gatherers have reported being assaulted by hecklers and their signature packets stolen or destroyed.

In the Beehive State, where politics are often seen by outsiders as cartoonishly friendly, this effort has turned so tumultuous that Republican Gov. Spencer Cox — who earned national attention for his pleas for civility after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated in the state — called on Utahns to “resolve [their] disagreements peacefully.”

While the GOP groups insist they’ll have the numbers needed, they’re still far short — which would represent a major failure in a ruby-red state.

The effort aims to overturn a new judge-ordered congressional map that hands Democrats one safe blue seat by attempting to repeal an anti-gerrymandering law that would allow the Republican-controlled legislature to reinstall a more favorable map ahead of the 2028 elections. It has garnered support from Trump and his allies, who had already spent $4.3 million on the effort as of November — and have only ramped up since.

The signature-gathering initiative represents an early test of Republicans’ ground-game efforts in a midterm year where they face strong headwinds in the polls.

Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr, have signaled support to the Utah initiative, with Trump recently encouraging his Truth Social followers to support the “very important effort” to ”KEEP UTAH RED.”

Turning Point Action — the 501(c)(4) founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was killed in the state last summer — is “all in” on the effort, its COO said, and is canvassing the state with a half-dozen events over the next week. A fleet of about 700 paid workers, many of them from out of state, have been hired to gather signatures, bankrolled by Securing American Greatness Inc., a 501(c)(4) previously run by former Trump White House official Taylor Budowich. MAGA celebrity Scott Presler parachuted in last month for a series of events. And Trump Jr. cut an 11th-hour ad begging Utah outdoorsmen to protect “their pioneer heritage” by signing the petition at the state’s largest hunting expo in Salt Lake City next week. (Trump-loving country singer Ted Nugent, who will attend the expo, will autograph merch for signers.)

But so far, those efforts don’t appear to be paying off. As of Friday, the initiative had garnered just over 76,000 verified signatures, about half of the more than 140,000 required statewide for a measure to be added to this November’s ballot. A daily analysis conducted by independent journalist Bryan Schott shows the initiative on track to fall well short of the required signature thresholds: eight percent of all active registered voters statewide, and eight percent in at least 26 of the 29 Utah state Senate districts.

“The only thing that will matter is on the very last day, do we have enough signatures, and I strongly believe that we will,” said Brad Bonham, a Republican National Committeeman and initiative sponsor.

The initiative’s Republican backers claim the lagging signature count is part of their strategy. Bonham said the initiative’s sponsors have “many, many thousands of signatures” they are independently verifying and have not yet submitted. Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson said “many tens of thousands” more have been submitted to county clerks and are undergoing verification.

“We feel very, very good about the strategy that we are executing on and the momentum that we’re building,” Axson said.

Dropping a large tranche of signatures close to the February 15 deadline could backfire, said Elizabeth Rasmussen, the executive director of Better Boundaries, the anti-gerrymandering group opposing the repeal, as signers still have a 45-day window after their signature is verified to remove it.

Rasmussen said her group mailed nearly 8,000 letters last week to petition signers encouraging them to remove their names, and will continue to do so in coming weeks. Her groups’ previous efforts have led to over 500 signatures removed, Rasmussen said.

And she’s not so sure that Trump’s involvement will help the GOP in a heavily conservative state whose voters nonetheless have long been skeptical of the president.

“Trump’s approval rating in Utah is at an all-time low,” Rasmussen said. “We’re not seeing that as a value add, if anything.”

The ongoing saga in Utah is an odd addendum to the nationwide redistricting push. In 2018, Utah voters passed Proposition 4, a ballot measure that created an independent redistricting commission to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Earlier this year, District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled that the GOP-controlled state legislature failed to comply with Prop 4 when it drew four safe Republican districts in the 2022 map. The GOP submitted another map with four safe seats last fall, but the judge selected a different map, which includes a blue seat in Salt Lake County, in November.

The GOP-controlled state legislature is appealing Gibson’s decision to the state Supreme Court, and two sitting U.S. House members joined a federal lawsuit pushing for the current, Republican-friendly map to be used in 2026. The state GOP’s signature-gathering push would repeal Prop 4 and allow the legislature to redraw a map ahead of the 2028 cycle.

If they meet the requisite signature threshold, the initiative will go on the ballot this November, where voters will decide.

In Utah County, the state’s second-most-populous county, the clerk’s office has flagged hundreds of signatures for possible fraud. Some appear to be forged signatures, and when the clerk’s office called the signers, they denied ever signing the petition; others appear to be made-up names and addresses.

“I think it’s just the signature gatherers that are doing this are just trying to find an easy way to make money,” Aaron Davidson, the Utah County Clerk, told POLITICO.

The Salt Lake and Davis county clerks — the first- and third-most populous counties in the state — said they have not seen any significant irregularities. “The number of alleged fraudulent voters that Utah County has found, that is startling,” said Lannie Chapman, the Salt Lake County clerk. “We all take this very seriously.”

Axson, the GOP state chair, said some of the signature-gatherers under review were flagged by his team before submission, and several paid signature-gatherers who are under review for fraud have been fired. “I don’t want a single fraudulent signature counted,” Axson said.

“Are there going to be a couple of bad actors, or bad examples, or places where the process has fallen short, or whatnot? Of course there are,” added Axson. “But what’s not being talked about in all of these stories is the fact that out of 3,000 people engaged in this effort, you only have a small handful of bad actors.”

But as the signature push enters its home stretch, tensions have only accelerated.

“Violence is not the answer to any of this. I don’t understand anybody that would do that,” added Bonham, the initiative sponsor. “It brings me back to Charlie Kirk losing his life here in our own backyard. It’s like, what on earth is going on here?”

​Politics

Across the Atlantic, heads are rolling over the Jeffrey Epstein revelations.

In Norway, one prominent diplomat has already been suspended and a police investigation has been opened into a former prime minister. In the U.K., the former ambassador to the U.S. has been fired; on Tuesday, he resigned from the House of Lords. Police are reviewing reports he shared market-sensitive information with Epstein.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, was stripped of his royal titles and residence. A charity founded by his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, will shut down indefinitely following the release of emails where she called Epstein a “legend” and “the brother I have always wished for.”

But as Europe’s political class moves to clean up its mess and address its shame concerning ties with the convicted sex offender, it’s inadvertently highlighting something else — the comparative lack of accountability in the U.S.

No prominent politicians have taken a fall. Consequences have been limited. Wagons have been circled around the most prominent political figures whose names have surfaced in the legal document dumps.

In the U.K., former ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson — who has said he was wrong to believe Epstein following his conviction and to continue his association with him afterwards — has emerged as a millstone around British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s neck. While Starmer never actually met Epstein, some are calling for his resignation over his appointment of Mandelson. The prime minister publicly apologized Thursday to Epstein’s victims.

“I am sorry,” Starmer said. “Sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him and sorry that even now you’re forced to watch this story unfold in public once again.”

It’s a different story in the U.S. Donald Trump’s Republican Party has largely averted its eyes or rallied to the president’s defense despite his documented ties to Epstein and the unverified additional allegations against the president that appeared last week.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that he took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. The president also has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling out years ago.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick remains unscathed in his Cabinet post. Lutnick said on a podcast last year that he was so disgusted by his neighbor Epstein in 2005 that he vowed to never be in the same room with him again. But when the Justice Department released more than three million pages of materials related to the late American financier last Friday, emails surfaced suggesting a closer relationship and that Lutnick had actually seen Epstein some years later on a trip to Epstein’s Caribbean island. A spokesperson said the Commerce secretary “had limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.” So far, there are no signs it affected his standing in the Trump Cabinet.

Likewise, Goldman Sachs and its CEO David Solomon have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the company’s general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler as she’s faced brutal headlines for months for her associations with Epstein, which include gifts of a $9,400 Hermes bag and a spa treatment at the Four Seasons Hotel in D.C. Solomon told the Wall Street Journal several weeks ago that Ruemmler, a former White House counsel to Barack Obama, “is widely respected and admired at the firm.”

Ruemmler has said she regrets “ever knowing him, and I have enormous sympathy for the victims of Epstein’s crimes.”

Even Dr. Peter Attia, the author and influential longevity researcher who is a contributor to CBS News, remains on the job despite his appearance in numerous emails with Epstein, where they discussed female genitalia and how Epstein’s life was “so outrageous.” In an email that he posted on X, Attia apologized and said he was not involved in any criminal activity, his interactions with Epstein had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone and that he was never on his plane or island, and never present at any sex parties.

Some see the relatively limited fallout — in a public arena where infidelity or even smoking marijuana were once enough to sink a career — as a reflection of the diminished standards of the Trump era, when the president’s own indiscretions and extreme polarization has led to a greater tolerance of the scent of scandal. They point to the Cabinet nominations of former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, both of whom would have been unthinkable in the past given allegations about their involvement in sex crimes that both men have denied.

“Some of that has to do with the general chaos on this side of the pond where it’s a never ending stream of scandal emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Trump has set a tone of defiance on refusal to accept and feel any shame,” said Norm Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic who is now a top Trump critic and the founder of Democracy Defenders Action, a bipartisan group that tracks what it calls “autocratic” behavior by the administration. “Those who should feel shame are hunkering down instead.”

It’s true that several American figures linked to Epstein have been forced to step away from public life. They include former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has said he is “deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” and Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp, who resigned as the law firm’s chair on Wednesday saying it’s in the best interest of the firm. David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, stepped down this week from his position at a Manhattan art school and said in a statement that he felt ashamed for falling for Epstein’s lies. But for many of the best-known elites who were in contact with the late convicted sex offender — including former Trump aide Steve Bannon and billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk — the only consequence has been the reputational hit.

“What matters is not release of some subset of the Epstein files, but rather the prosecution of those who committed heinous crimes with Epstein,” Musk wrote on X. “When there is at least one arrest, some justice will have been done. If not, this is all performative. Nothing but a distraction.”

Bannon has said little publicly about their relationship, but he did previously call for an independent investigation into the files.

Bannon, a frequent visitor to Epstein’s New York house, was planning a documentary to help revive Epstein’s image and even was texting documentary scheduling questions with Epstein the day he was arrested in 2019. Even so, there are few outward signs that the scandal has touched him: Bannon still does his “War Room” show on Rumble and his political musings are widely covered in the press.

It’s an approach in keeping with Trump’s own never-concede-an-inch style.

“We as Americans need to be looking at ourselves in the mirror. Why are we not having that same reaction [as Europe]?” said Rufus Gifford, a former Obama-appointed ambassador to Denmark. “Without a doubt how Trump has acted has filtered down to broader society. But I think the question that we have to ask is whether or not this existed before Trump, and Trump is just a symptom of that larger problem.”

​Politics

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee uncorked $2 million to try to sink a mainstream Democrat in a multi-candidate special House election primary in New Jersey — and it’s infuriating mainstream Democrats and some of the pro-Israel lobby’s supporters.

“It’s pissing people off,” said Steve Schale, a longtime Democratic strategist and former Obama campaign adviser, who described it as “maddening.”

The organization spent heavily through its super PAC, Unite Democracy Project, to attack former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a pro-Israel moderate who would not support unconditional aid to Israel. In doing so, it provided an opening to Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer backed by Bernie Sanders who has said Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

Malinowski, who has not conceded the race, now trails Mejia by around 500 votes, with some outstanding votes left to be counted for the affluent, suburban seat.

AIPAC’s interventions in the New Jersey special election for Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House seat was the first test of the group’s muscle ahead of the 2026 primary season, when they are expected to spend millions on Democratic primaries across the country. AIPAC’s super PAC is expected to weigh in on House primaries, starting in Illinois’ March primaries. Democratic candidates and strategists are also bracing for them to potentially wade into contentious Senate primaries in Michigan and Minnesota.

And their first foray of 2026 backfired spectacularly.

Matt Bennett, the co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way, called their efforts “one of the greatest own-goals in American political history,” and warned that “It hurt everybody in the moderate movement” as they head into a competitive primary season.

Even steadfast allies are frustrated. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), a longtime AIPAC supporter, said its moves in the New Jersey primary, held Thursday, “raised eyebrows this morning.”

“There’s a chance that it’s not going to be a New Dem that’s in that seat,” Schneider said, referring to the New Democrat Coalition, the centrist caucus he leads in the House. “As we do the analysis, a lot of factors play into that, but certainly any group spending against a candidate that would’ve been a New Dem and instead electing a far-left candidate … Come on, guys, this is not what we were hoping for here.”

Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), another AIPAC supporter who led House Democrats’ campaign efforts in 2012 and 2014, said he “wasn’t privy to AIPAC’s strategy and I certainly wouldn’t have advised it,” but “they are not the first group to make a bet that didn’t pan out on election day.”

Malinowski said AIPAC’s attacks on him sent a clear message to “other mainstream Democrats.”

“They are now demanding 100 percent fealty,” Malinowski said. “On some level, they may have preferred to elect an anti-Israel progressive versus a mainstream Democrat, who departs from their hard line in a small way.”

A spokesperson for UDP said in a statement shared with POLITICO: “The outcome in NJ-11 was an anticipated possibility, and our focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress.” The spokesperson added that UDP will “be closely monitoring dozens of primary races, including the June NJ-11 primary,” which will be held ahead of the November 2026 general election, “to help ensure pro-Israel candidates are elected to Congress.”

Progressives, meanwhile, took a victory lap. Justice Democrats communications director Usamah Andrabi said AIPAC’s spending in primaries “is becoming a kiss of death” because “of the work our movement has done to expose them.” Mejia told reporters on Friday that she’s “glad that New Jersey 11 voters got to see the terrible tactics so that we could reject it in the future” and denounced AIPAC’s heavy spending.

Sanders, who rallied for his former adviser Mejia on the eve of the election, said Democrats are starting to realize that “not only is [AIPAC’s] policy bad, but it’s going to hurt me politically,'” and predicted candidates will start throwing the AIPAC spending back at them.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of candidates saying, ‘I’m being attacked by AIPAC. You should vote for me for that reason alone,'” Sanders said. “They’re going to turn it around because AIPAC is increasingly unpopular.”

Much of UDP’s playbook in the New Jersey primary has been deployed by them before — attacking candidates on issues unrelated to Israel. The group hit Malinowski in TV ads for a 2019 vote he took, along with most House Democrats at the time, that, in part, provided funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE funding is a particularly hot-button issue, after President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota led to two fatal shootings of protesters by federal agents.

There are signs that AIPAC is already getting involved in Illinois. Two super PACs, Elect Chicago Women Now and Affordable Chicago Now, are now supporting three Democrats in House races with six-figure TV ad buys — which some of their primary opponents have publicly accused the groups of shell groups.

The super PACs were formed last month, so they have not yet been required to disclose any information yet with the Federal Elections Commission. UDP’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on these super PACs.

“We’re bracing [for AIPAC’s spending], yes, and it is alarming in a cycle where five seats are open, which almost never happens in Illinois,” said a Democratic strategist working on Illinois races, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “AIPAC is actively trying to buy three or possibly four seats.”

The winner of Thursday’s special primary election in New Jersey will face Joe Hathaway, a Republican councilmember from Randolph, N.J., on April 16, to fill the remainder of Sherrill’s term. Then, Democrats will hold another primary on June 2.

Though some centrist Democrats fretted that Mejia’s potential victory could hurt their chances to hold on to the seat, pollster Patrick Murray said a Republican victory is highly unlikely, both in the special general election in April or in November.

“It’s just so anti-Trump now,” he said. “We saw in the 2025 general election that there was more motivation among Democrats than Republicans. And that mood still holds.”

Of the upcoming primary season, where dark money from an array of outside groups is expected to saturate Democratic primaries, Malinowski called it “a significant challenge to the Democratic Party that needs to be addressed.”

“My election was the beta test,” he said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the month in which Illinois holds its primaries.
Madison Fernandez and Matt Friedman contributed reporting. 

​Politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.​Politics

María Corina Machado and Brian Tyler Cohen | The Conversation

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​Politics

President Donald Trump won’t be representing the U.S. at the opening ceremony of the Italian Olympic Games in Milan’s famous San Siro Stadium. But his shadow will surely loom over the two-week-long sporting spectacle, which kicks off Friday.

The president’s repeated jabs at longtime partners, his inconsistent tariff policy and repeated plays for Greenland have shown just how much he’s shifted the traditional world order. The resulting international “rupture,” as described by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Davos last month, has turned beating the Americans in Italy from a crowning sporting achievement to an even greater moral imperative for the president’s rivals.

“This is life and death,” said Charlie Angus, a former member of Parliament in Canada with the New Democratic Party and prominent Trump critic. “If it’s the semifinals and we’re playing against the United States, it’s no longer a game. And that’s profound.”

The Trump administration has big plans for these Olympics, according to a State Department memo viewed by POLITICO. It hopes to “promote the United States as a global leader in international sports” and build momentum for what the White House sees as a “Decade of Sport in America,” which will see the country host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in 2028 and the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in 2034, as well as the FIFA World Cup this summer.

But a combative administration may well complicate matters.

He’s sending Vice President JD Vance, a longtime critic of Europe’s leaders, to lead the presidential delegation in Milan. Then there’s ICE. News that American federal immigration agents would be on the ground providing security during the games sparked widespread fury throughout the country.

Trump has also clashed with many of the countries vying to top the leaderboards in Milan. Since returning to the White House in January, he’s antagonized Norway, which took home the most medals in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, over a perceived Nobel Peace Prize snub and clashed repeatedly with Canada, which finished fourth.

“We’re looking at the world in a very different light,” Angus said. “And we’re looking at a next-door neighbor who makes increasingly unhinged threats towards us. So to go to international games and pretend that we’re all one happy family, well, that’s gone.”

Trump has also sparred with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, (the 13th-place finisher in Beijing) and threatened a military incursion in pushing Denmark (a Scandinavian country which curiously hasn’t medaled in the Winter Olympics since 1998) to cede Greenland.

All while seeming to placate Russia, whose athletes competed under a neutral flag in 2022 due to doping sanctions and secured the second-most medals in the Beijing games, which ended just days before President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

The Olympics have long collided with geopolitics, from Russia’s ban in response to its war in Ukraine to South Africa’s 32-year-long exclusion as punishment for apartheid. And Beijing’s time in the limelight was marred by a U.S. diplomatic boycott over China’s treatment of its Uyghur population.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump’s political agenda of putting America First is paying off.

“Fairer trade deals are leveling the playing field for our farmers and workers, NATO allies are taking greater responsibility for their own defense, and drugs and criminals are no longer entering our country,” she said. “Instead of taking bizarre vendettas against American athletes, foreign leaders should follow the President’s lead by ending unfettered migration, halting Green New Scam policies, and promoting peace through strength.”

When reached for comment, the State Department deferred to the White House about the political ramifications of the games. A State Department spokesperson also highlighted the role that its Diplomatic Security Service would serve as the security lead for Americans throughout Olympic and Paralympic competition.

Hockey, arguably one of the winter Olympic Games’ highest-profile sports, has already been roiled by Trump’s global agenda. Just look at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, which pitted the U.S. and Canada against each other in preliminary play and then again in the final.

Canadian fans booed the American national anthem mercilessly when the two sides faced off in Montreal. Trump called the U.S. locker room on the morning of the final and showered the Great North with incessant 51st state gibes, and then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded boisterously when Canada won the championship in overtime.

“You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” he wrote.

The American men’s team will play Denmark in Milan — fittingly — on Valentine’s Day, and could see the Canadians at the medal rounds.

“I’m sure they’ll concentrate on the events they compete in rather than get involved in politics,” Anders Vistisen, a member of the European Parliament from Denmark, said of his compatriots in a statement. “Maybe Trump’s antics will give them even more motivation? Who knows?”

Elsewhere in Italy, Americans Sean Doherty, Maxime Germain, Campbell Wright, and Paul Schommer will match up against 2022 champion Quentin Fillon Maillet from France in biathlon throughout the games. And Canadian short track speedskater and medal favorite William Dandjinou will look to hold off multiple Americans at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

“With the current American president, no one knows what he will do or say tomorrow,” said legendary goaltender Dominik Hasek, a gold medalist with Czechia in the 1998 Nagano Games and a one-time rumored presidential candidate in his home nation. “If he doesn’t make negative comments about athletes from other countries in the coming weeks, everything will be fine. But that could change very quickly after one of his frequent hateful attacks.”

Hasek, a frequent critic of Putin’s war in Ukraine, said Trump “has antagonized most of the people of the democratic world with his attitudes and actions.”

That doesn’t exactly scream “Faster, Higher, Stronger — Together,” the Olympic motto revamped by the IOC in 2021.

“It was personal,” Angus, the former Canadian lawmaker, said of the tense Canada-U.S. showdown in the 4 Nations Face-Off last year. “This was deeply personal. We were at the moment of people brawling in the stands, and that was because of Donald Trump and the constant insults. He turned that game into war.”

But now at the Olympics, the U.S. is just one of more than 90 nations competing. And Trump’s international critics say they’re determined to not let their anger with Trump ruin the games — if just not to give him the satisfaction.

“People are done with Donald Trump’s flagrant attempts to goad us and poke at us and insult us,” Angus said. “It’s like water off our back. We’re a much tougher people than we were last year.”

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.

​Politics

Virginia’s state Supreme Court will decide whether state Democrats’ gerrymander push can proceed after an appeals court on Wednesday pushed the case to the high court.

The state Circuit Court of Appeals, in a motion, stated that the case is of “such imperative public importance as to justify the deviation from normal appellate practice and to require prompt decision in the Supreme Court.”

The move comes after a court in Tazewell County last week blocked Virginia Democrats from going forward with gerrymandering, ruling that the Democrat-led Legislature had wrongly approved a constitutional amendment that would allow for mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts ahead of the midterms this fall.

The move is a potential bright spot for Democrats, who had been stymied by the lower court ruling blocking the party’s attempt to gain upwards of four seats in the midterms through redistricting. Currently, Democrats hold six seats in the state while Republicans control five.

The Republican-backed group Virginians for Fair Maps, one of the main organizations against redistricting in the state, declined to comment.

Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-affiliated group launched last month to urge voters to approve the measure, declined to comment on the record.

Last October, Democratic lawmakers began the process of redrawing maps in the state, an effort that only gained traction after voters elected Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in the November election and the GOP lost 13 seats in the House of Delegates.

Virginia Democrats had been so confident prior to the Tazewell County court ruling that party leaders vowed to unveil new maps it wanted Virginia voters to approve by the end of last month, with promises of unveiling a map that goes as far as 10-1 in favor of their party.

Virginia is seen as the top prize in Democrats’ redistricting push, especially if Republican-led Florida redraws its maps under Gov. Ron DeSantis. More GOP-led states could also move to draw more red-leaning states if the Supreme Court rules to strike down portions of the Voting Rights Act.

​Politics