Category: Politics

When most people think about immigration enforcement, they picture border crossings and airport checkpoints. But the new front line may be your social media feed.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has published a request for information for private-sector contractors to launch a round-the-clock social media monitoring program. The request states that private contractors will be paid to comb through “Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, Myspace, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, WhatsApp, YouTube, etc.,” turning public posts into enforcement leads that feed directly into ICE’s databases.

The request for information reads like something out of a cyber thriller: dozens of analysts working in shifts, strict deadlines measured in minutes, a tiered system of prioritizing high-risk individuals, and the latest software keeping constant watch.

I am a researcher who studies the intersection of data governance, digital technologies and the U.S. federal government. I believe that the ICE request for information also signals a concerning if logical next step in a longer trend, one that moves the U.S. border from the physical world into the digital.

A new structure of surveillance

ICE already searches social media using a service called SocialNet that monitors most major online platforms. The agency has also contracted with Zignal Labs for its AI-powered social media monitoring system.

The Customs and Border Protection agency also searches social media posts on the devices of some travelers at ports of entry, and the U.S. State Department reviews social media posts when foreigners seek visas to enter the United States.

What would change isn’t only the scale of monitoring but its structure. Instead of government agents gathering evidence case by case, ICE is building a public-private surveillance loop that transforms everyday online activity into potential evidence.

Private contractors would be tasked with scraping publicly available data to collecting messages, including posts and other media and data. The contractors would be able to correlate those findings with data in commercial datasets from brokers such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR along with government-owned databases. Analysts would be required to produce dossiers for ICE field offices within tight deadlines – sometimes just 30 minutes for a high-priority case.

Those files don’t exist in isolation. They feed directly into Palantir Technologies’ Investigative Case Management system, the digital backbone of modern immigration enforcement. There, this social media data would join a growing web of license plate scans, utility records, property data and biometrics, creating what is effectively a searchable portrait of a person’s life.

Who gets caught in the net?

Officially, ICE says its data collection would focus on people who are already linked to ongoing cases or potential threats. In practice, the net is far wider.

The danger here is that when one person is flagged, their friends, relatives, fellow organizers or any of their acquaintances can also become subjects of scrutiny. Previous contracts for facial recognition tools and location tracking have shown how easily these systems expand beyond their original scope. What starts as enforcement can turn into surveillance of entire communities.

What ICE says and what history shows

ICE frames the project as modernization: a way to identify a target’s location by identifying aliases and detecting patterns that traditional methods might miss. Planning documents say contractors cannot create fake profiles and must store all analysis on ICE servers.

But history suggests these kinds of guardrails often fail. Investigations have revealed how informal data-sharing between local police and federal agents allowed ICE to access systems it wasn’t authorized to use. The agency has repeatedly purchased massive datasets from brokers to sidestep warrant requirements. And despite a White House freeze on spyware procurement, ICE quietly revived a contract with Paragon’s Graphite tool, software reportedly capable of infiltrating encrypted apps such as WhatsApp and Signal.

Meanwhile, ICE’s vendor ecosystem keeps expanding: Clearview AI for face matching, ShadowDragon’s SocialNet for mapping networks, Babel Street’s location history service Locate X, and LexisNexis for looking up people. ICE is also purchasing tools from surveillance firm PenLink that combine location data with social media data. Together, these platforms make continuous, automated monitoring not only possible but routine.

Lessons from abroad

The United States isn’t alone in government monitoring of social media. In the United Kingdom, a new police unit tasked with scanning online discussions about immigration and civil unrest has drawn criticism for blurring the line between public safety and political policing.

Across the globe, spyware scandals have shown how lawful access tools that were initially justified for counterterrorism were later used against journalists and activists. Once these systems exist, mission creep, also known as function creep, becomes the rule rather than the exception.

The social cost of being watched

Around-the-clock surveillance doesn’t just gather information – it also changes behavior.

Research found that visits to Wikipedia articles on terrorism dropped sharply immediately after revelations about the National Security Agency’s global surveillance in June 2013.

For immigrants and activists, the stakes are higher. A post about a protest or a joke can be reinterpreted as “intelligence.” Knowing that federal contractors may be watching in real time encourages self-censorship and discourages civic participation. In this environment, the digital self, an identity composed of biometric markers, algorithmic classifications, risk scores and digital traces, becomes a risk that follows you across platforms and databases.

What’s new and why it matters now

What is genuinely new is the privatization of interpretation. ICE isn’t just collecting more data, it is outsourcing judgment to private contractors. Private analysts, aided by artificial intelligence, are likely to decide what online behavior signals danger and what doesn’t. That decision-making happens rapidly and across large numbers of people, for the most part beyond public oversight.

At the same time, the consolidation of data means social media content can now sit beside location and biometric information inside Palantir’s hub. Enforcement increasingly happens through data correlations, raising questions about due process.

ICE’s request for information is likely to evolve into a full procurement contract within months, and recent litigation from the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center against the Department of Homeland Security suggests that the oversight is likely to lag far behind the technology. ICE’s plan to maintain permanent watch floors, open indoor spaces equipped with video and computer monitors, that are staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year signals that this likely isn’t a temporary experiment and instead is a new operational norm.

What accountability looks like

Transparency starts with public disclosure of the algorithms and scoring systems ICE uses. Advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union argue that law enforcement agencies should meet the same warrant standards online that they do in physical spaces. The Brennan Center for Justice and the ACLU argue that there should be independent oversight of surveillance systems for accuracy and bias. And several U.S. senators have introduced legislation to limit bulk purchases from data brokers.

Without checks like these, I believe that the boundary between border control and everyday life is likely to keep dissolving. As the digital border expands, it risks ensnaring anyone whose online presence becomes legible to the system.

Nicole M. Bennett is affiliated with the Center for Refugee Studies at Indiana University.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Sen. Ted Cruz blasted fellow Republicans for failing to criticize Tucker Carlson, saying the conservative pundit has “spread a poison that is profoundly dangerous.”

“My colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened because he has one hell of a big megaphone,” Cruz (R-Texas) said Friday during a speech at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington.

Carlson upended the conservative movement after he hosted avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his podcast last week. The incident — and the subsequent backlash — overshadowed last weekend’s Republican Jewish Coalition annual summit and sparked internal turmoil at The Heritage Foundation, leading to the resignation of multiple staff members.

Cruz, a self-described “Christian Zionist,” was among the earliest and most forceful critics of Carlson and Fuentes’ podcast episode. At the RJC last week, he said he has “seen more antisemitism on the right” in the past six months “than I have in my entire life.”

“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are [a] coward and you are complicit in that evil,” Cruz said.

But Cruz was more forceful Friday in criticizing fellow conservatives for not forcefully condemning Carlson.

“Fuentes and Tucker and the rest of that ilk have a right to say what they are saying,” Cruz said at the Federalist Society convention. “Every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.”

“It’s easy right now to denounce Fuentes,” Cruz added. “Are you willing to say Tucker’s name?”

When asked for comment, Carlson replied: “Poor Ted.”

Cruz, who sparred with Carlson in a feisty podcast episode in June, clarified that his complaint was not that Carlson platformed Fuentes, but that he didn’t push back on any of his antisemitic or bigoted claims. Among other things, Fuentes on the podcast claimed the “big challenge” to unifying America was “organized Jewry.”

“The last I checked, Tucker actually knows how to cross-examine,” Cruz said.

​Politics

Routine congressional oversight hearings usually don’t make headlines. Historically, these often low-key events have been the sorts of things you catch only on C-SPAN – procedural, polite and largely ignored outside the Beltway.

But their tone has shifted dramatically during the second Trump administration.

When Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 7, 2025, what took place was a contentious, highly partisan, made-for-TV-and-social-media confrontation.

The hearing occurred on the heels of the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, which many legal experts view as an example of a president targeting his political enemies. Bondi came ready to fight. She refused to answer many questions from Democrats, instead launching personal attacks against these members of the U.S. Senate.

When Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, asked about the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago, Bondi retorted, “I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump.” The clip went viral, as Bondi likely intended.

From our perspective as political scientists who study the U.S. Congress, congressional oversight has played an important role in American democracy. Here’s a brief history.

Inquisitory powers

In simple terms, oversight is the ability of Congress to ensure that the laws it passes are faithfully executed. This generally means asking questions, demanding information, convening hearings and holding the executive branch accountable for its actions.

Oversight isn’t specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, which lists the powers of Congress, includes the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper,” without identifying an oversight role. Once laws are enacted, Article 2, Section 3, states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

However, the framers viewed congressional oversight as a key component of legislative authority. They wanted presidents to take Congress seriously and structured the Constitution to ensure that the executive would be accountable to the legislature. As James Madison urged in Federalist 51, the separate branches of government should have the power to keep each other from becoming too powerful. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” Madison wrote.

The framers drew from the examples of the British Parliament and Colonial legislatures. In 1621, Sir Francis Bacon was charged with corruption and impeached as Lord High Chancellor after an investigation by a committee of the British Parliament. And in 1768, the Massachusetts Assembly conducted an investigation of Gov. Francis Bernard that led to a formal request to the King of England for his removal.

At the Federal Convention in 1787 that produced the Constitution, Delegate George Mason noted that members of Congress possessed “inquisitory powers” and “must meet frequently to inspect the Conduct of public officials.” Even though this idea was never written down, it was a habit of self-government that early Congresses put into practice.

Early oversight hearings

Congressional oversight began almost as soon as the first Congress met. In 1790, Robert Morris, the superintendent of finances during the Continental Congress and a financier of the American Revolution, asked Congress to investigate his handling of the country’s finances and was exonerated of any wrongdoing.

During this period, congressional investigations were often referred to select committees – bodies created to perform special functions. These panels had the power to issue subpoenas and hold individuals in contempt. Since there was no official record of debates and proceedings, the public relied on newspaper accounts to learn about what had happened.

In March 1792, congressional oversight exposed businessman William Duer, who signed contracts with the War Department but failed to furnish the needed military supplies. This shortfall contributed to a stunning U.S. military defeat against a confederation of Native American tribes in the Northwest Territory.

Congress eventually removed the quartermaster general from his role for mismanaging the contracts. Duer was simultaneously involved in perhaps the first American economic bubble, which burst at the same time as Congress’ hearings. He ended up in a debtor’s prison, where he died in 1799.

Throughout the 19th century, Congress continued to quietly exercise this power. The work was often invisible to the public, but the issues were important. Hearings from December 1861 to May 1865 on the conduct of the U.S. Civil War produced a detailed record of the war, exposed military wrongdoing and condemned slavery. In 1871, the Senate created a select committee to investigate Ku Klux Klan violence during Reconstruction.

Investigating corruption and criminal acts

Congress started to use its oversight power more aggressively in the 1920s with the Senate Committee on Public Land and Surveys’ high-profile investigations into the Teapot Dome scandal.

Hearings revealed that Interior Secretary Albert Bacon Fall had secretly leased federal oil reserves in Wyoming to two private corporations and had received personal loans and gifts from the companies in return.

The investigation found clear evidence of corruption. Fall was indicted and became the first U.S. Cabinet member to be convicted of a felony.

The U.S. Supreme Court helped to shape the legal foundation of congressional oversight. In McGrain v. Daugherty, decided in 1927, the court held that congressional committees could issue subpoenas, force witnesses to testify and hold them in contempt if they fail to appear. Two years later, in Sinclair v. United States, the court ruled that witnesses who lied to Congress could be charged with perjury.

These cases granted the judicial branch’s sanction to what had long been an implied legislative power, cementing the constitutionality of congressional oversight.

Oversight highs and lows

The modern era of congressional oversight has produced some very important reforms – and some truly regrettable spectacles.

The most important example of bipartisan congressional oversight came in response to reporting by The Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The two journalists wrote about the 1972 burgling of Democratic National Committee offices in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate Hotel and subsequent cover-up efforts by the Nixon administration.

On Feb. 7, 1973, the U.S. Senate voted 77-0 to establish a Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, which brought together Democrats and Republicans to investigate what came to be known as the “Watergate scandal.” The committee’s work spurred action in Congress to impeach President Richard Nixon, leading to Nixon’s resignation in 1974 and to the enactment of legal reforms to provide an institutional check on presidential power.

Another high point for congressional oversight came after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Seeking to learn how the deadliest terrorist strike on American soil had occurred, Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss, who chaired the Senate and House Intelligence committees, formed a joint committee to investigate intelligence failures before and after the attacks.

This inquiry produced several important recommendations that were ultimately adopted, including the creation of a director of national intelligence and a Department of Homeland Security, as well as better information sharing among law enforcement agencies.

Congress’ oversight can extend beyond the executive branch when the actions of private actors raise questions about existing laws or spur the need for new ones. As examples, investigations into medical device safety and Enron’s 2001 collapse examined malfeasance in the private sphere that existing regulations failed to prevent.

However, the power to expose corruption can also be used as a tool to score partisan points and generate outrage, rather than holding the executive branch accountable for actual malfeasance. Notably, in the 1950s, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy turned oversight into inquisition and used the power of media to amplify his accusations of communist influence within the federal government.

Democracy needs oversight

Congressional oversight has strengthened the democratic system at many points. But hearings like Bondi’s recent session before the Senate Judiciary Committee aren’t the first, and likely won’t be the last, to substitute sound bites for substance.

As we see it, the problem with allowing oversight to become political theater is that it distracts Congress from quieter and more meaningful oversight work. Slow, procedural work isn’t likely to go viral, but it helps keep government accountable. The task of a deliberate legislative body is to reconcile those very different impulses.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Barack Obama famously chided Donald Trump in April 2011 during the annual White House correspondents’ dinner. The reality show star had repeatedly and falsely claimed that Obama had not been born in the United States and was therefore ineligible to be president.

Trump’s demands that Obama release his birth certificate had, in part, made Trump a front-runner among Republican hopefuls for their party’s nomination in the following year’s presidential election.

Obama referred to Trump’s presidential ambitions by joking that, if elected, Trump would bring some changes to the White House.

Obama then called attention to a satirical photo the guests could see of a remodeled White House with the words “Trump” and “The White House” in large purple letters followed by the words “hotel,” “casino” and “golf course.”

Obama’s ridicule of Trump that evening has been credited with inspiring Trump to run for president in 2016.

My book, “The Art of the Political Putdown,” includes Obama’s chiding of Trump at the correspondents’ dinner to demonstrate how politicians use humor to establish superiority over a rival.

Obama’s ridicule humiliated Trump, who temporarily dropped the birther conspiracy before reviving it. But Trump may have gotten the last laugh by using the humiliation of that night, as some think, as motivation in his run for the president in 2016.

There is a further twist to Obama joking about Trump’s renovations to the White House if Trump became president. Trump has fulfilled Obama’s prediction, kind of.

The Trump administration has razed the East Wing, which sits adjacent to the White House, and will replace it with a 90,000-square-foot, gold-encrusted ballroom that appears to reflect the ostentatious tastes of the president.

The US$300 million ballroom will be twice the size of the White House.

It’s expected to be big enough to accommodate nearly a thousand people. Design renderings suggest that the ballroom will resemble the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

“I don’t have any plan to call it after myself,” Trump said recently. “That was fake news. Probably going to call it the presidential ballroom or something like that. We haven’t really thought about a name yet.”

But senior administration officials told ABC News that they were already referring to the structure as “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom.”

The renovation will have neither a hotel, casino nor golf course, as Obama mentioned in his light-hearted speech at the 2011 correspondents’ dinner.

Obama pokes fun at Trump

In the months before the 2011 correspondents’ dinner, Trump had repeatedly claimed that Obama had not been born in Hawaii but had instead been born outside the United States, perhaps in his father’s home country of Kenya.

The baseless conspiracy theory became such a distraction that Obama released his long-form birth certificate in April 2011.

Three days later, Obama delivered his speech at the correspondents’ dinner with Trump in the audience, where he said that Trump, having put the birther conspiracy behind him, could move to other conspiracy theories like claims the moon landing was staged, aliens landed in Roswell, New Mexico, or the unsolved murders of rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.

“Did we fake the moon landing?” Obama said. “What really happened at Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

Obama then poked fun at Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice,” and referred to how Trump, who owned hotels, casinos and golf courses, might renovate the White House.

When Obama was finished, Seth Meyers, the host of the dinner, made additional jokes at Trump’s expense.

“Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican – which is surprising, since I just assumed that he was running as a joke,” Meyers said.

Trump gets the last laugh

The New Yorker magazine writer Adam Gopnik remembered watching Trump as the jokes kept coming at his expense.

“Trump’s humiliation was as absolute, and as visible, as any I have ever seen: his head set in place, like a man on a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him,” Gopnik wrote. “There was not a trace of feigning good humor about him.”

Roger Stone, one of Trump’s top advisers, said Trump decided to run for president after he felt he had been publicly humiliated.

“I think that is the night he resolves to run for president,” Stone said in an interview with the PBS program “Frontline.” “I think that he is kind of motivated by it. ‘Maybe I’ll just run. Maybe I’ll show them all.‘”

Trump, if Stone and other political observers are correct, sought the presidency to avenge that humiliation.

“I thought, ‘Oh, Barack Obama is starting something that I don’t know if he’ll be able to finish,’” said Omarosa Manigault, a former “Apprentice” contestant who became Trump’s director of African American outreach during his first term.

“Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump,” she said. “It is everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed, whoever challenged him – it is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”

The notoriously thin-skinned Trump did not attend the White House correspondents’ dinner during his first presidency. He also did not attend the dinner during the first year of his second presidency.

Although Trump has never publicly acknowledged the importance of that event in 2011, a number of people have noted how pivotal it was, demonstrating how the putdown can be a powerful weapon in politics – even, perhaps, extending to tearing down the White House’s East Wing.

Chris Lamb 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

SAN JUAN — Zohran Mamdani wants to be a new kind of leader for New York. But in his second day as mayor-elect, he embraced an old political tradition: partying in Puerto Rico.

New York’s Democrats — from state lawmakers to City Hall aides to union power brokers — decamp to San Juan every November for a long weekend of panels and receptions, schmoozing and dealmaking. With more than 4,000 attendees, the Somos conference doubles as the New York political world’s unofficial family reunion, and this year the family member with the newest and unlikeliest win was its biggest draw.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist, whose stunning victory upended the political order those insiders helped build, arrived at the Caribe Hilton hotel early Thursday evening to address a teeming crowd of hundreds that had been waiting for him on the oceanfront.

While Mamdani’s audience was different than the crowds he faced during his campaign rallies — a sea of Democratic power players, many of whom view politics as an industry above all else — his message wavered little.

“It is time for working people to be able to afford to live in the city that they call home,” Mamdani told the crowd. “When I look at these leaders, I see partners who are willing to do two things all at once, fight an authoritarian administration and deliver on an affordability crisis. No longer can we just do one. Now we must do both. “

There are many receptions to choose from at Somos, and Mamdani made a statement with his pick: an outdoor gathering co-hosted by District Council 37 — the city’s public employees union, which supported him in the election over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — and state Attorney General Letitia James, who also embraced the upstart’s candidacy.

“Courage, my friends, is contagious,” James said on stage. “And what we have in the next mayor of the city of New York, Zohran Mamdani, we’ve got a leader with this bold leadership, this bold vision, who will bring us all together, and we must recognize and support him and protect him each and every day.”

For Mamdani, the trip wasn’t just a celebration — it was a debut before the establishment he once ran against. Somos is where New York’s Democratic hierarchy gathers each year to gossip, broker deals and take the temperature of power. And now the mayor-elect was suddenly at the center of it all.

His presence posed a new question for both sides: Would Mamdani try to build bridges with the Democratic old guard — or keep his distance from the machine he’s long criticized? And would the party’s power brokers, wary but impressed, open the door to a mayor who preaches redistribution and quotes Eugene Debs?

For now, Mamdani is signaling coexistence rather than confrontation. He plans private meetings through the weekend but is steering clear of the bar circuit that defines much of Somos’ after-hours politicking — a cautious entrance for a figure still deciding how close to get to the city’s old power structure.

Still, Mamdani has been the talk of the conference since it kicked off Wednesday, and his arrival was eagerly awaited. “When’s my boyfriend getting in?” Rep. Nydia Velázquez joked Thursday morning in the hotel lobby.

When Mamdani attended the Somos conference for the first time in 2024, he didn’t get much attention — he was a newly announced mayoral candidate polling near zero percent. One year later, he was the belle of the ball, having to sneak in the side door because the lobby would have been too busy, and later escape droves of admirers who rushed under the barricades after his speech for a selfie.

Velázquez and James were among those who joined him for a brief press availability in a hotel conference room before he stepped out to the reception.

Mamdani said he was “looking forward to having a conversation with President Trump” — after the president said on Fox News “it would be more appropriate” for the mayor-elect to reach out to him, rather than the other way around.

He didn’t have a specific time planned, Mamdani said, but when they do talk, “it will be a conversation that will be geared towards serving New Yorkers across the five boroughs, New Yorkers who are currently being priced out of the most expensive city in the United States of America.”

Trump has threatened to pull federal funds from the city and send in troops if Mamdani won.

Mamdani also responded to House Speaker Mike Johnson calling him a “Marxist.” 

“If I were Speaker Johnson, I would also not focus on the disastrous results of what the Republican administration has delivered for Americans across this country,” he said. “It is time for us to show that politics can be more than the cruelty and the punishment we so often see coming out of Washington, D.C.”

And when asked about Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s plans to launch her campaign for governor Friday, Mamdani said she “typifies the exact kind of politics that has created so much despair across the city, across the state and across the country.”

But his focus wasn’t only on GOP leaders. Asked how bullish he is on his plan to get state government to raise taxes on New Yorkers making over $1 million to fund his proposals like free, universal child care, Mamdani reiterated that “the most important thing is to fund the agenda.” And if state Gov. Kathy Hochul remains opposed to raising taxes but has other means to raise revenue, “I’m open to them, because what I care most about is that we actually deliver on these things.”

Hochul herself spoke at the receptions before Mamdani and celebrated his victory as an exclamation mark to a set of wins Democrats delivered throughout the state on Tuesday.

But the governor — who initially kept Mamdani at arms length before putting out a carefully-worded endorsement — seemed keenly aware of their political differences.

“Our fight is not with each other,” the governor said. “It is with Republicans in Washington who are destroying our way of life, our democracy.”

Eleven days prior, she had appeared at a campaign rally with Mamdani for the first time, where his fans shouted down the more moderate governor’s speech with chants of “Tax the Rich!”

Even at the posh Somos gathering, the governor was subjected to those same calls, shouted from the crowd when she took the stage.

“I hear you, but I’m the type of person, the more you push me, the more I’m not going to do what you want,” she said. “So little lesson to all of our friends out there.”

Mamdani will stay in San Juan through Saturday morning. But he already got a taste of an island delicacy before coming to the hotel.

“I’m proud to report,” he said, “that in the few hours I’ve been here, I’ve already had some mofongo, and it was great.”

​Politics

Helping propel Abigail Spanberger’s dominant win in the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday are dissatisfied rural voters who have supported Donald Trump.

Spanberger’s victory was largely driven by massive turnout in northern and eastern Virginia’s urban areas. But she picked up support across the state’s deep-red central and western counties, where Trump’s tariffs have hit the manufacturing and agricultural industries especially hard. Even as her GOP opponent won most of those places, Spanberger posed the best performance by a statewide Democratic candidate in several cycles, according to a POLITICO analysis of voting data in the localities classified as “rural” by the federal government.

Rural voters are dissatisfied with economic conditions, including Trump’s erratic tariff threats that have impacted farmers throughout the country. The result was a rude awakening for some rural-state Republicans, who have long relied on large margins in these deep-red areas.

“Last night, honestly, was an awakening for a lot of folks,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) Wednesday. “If you don’t pick up on what really happened last night, the margin of victory … then I think you’re living in a cave.”

Spanberger outperformed Kamala Harris’ margin in 48 of Virginia’s 52 rural localities. And according to exit polling, she won 46 percent of rural voters — an 8-point deficit to Republican rival Winsome Earle-Sears, and a 19-point swing from 2021 Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s 27-point disadvantage.

And she accomplished that after emphasizing Trump’s tariffs on the campaign trail.

“When those tariffs are squeezing Virginia farmers and producers, that is a huge impact on our economy,” Spanberger said in laying out her economic plan. Throughout the campaign, she derided the tariffs as a “massive tax hike on Virginians” and pledged to lead trade missions to open export markets for the state’s $82 billion agricultural sector and $50 billion manufacturing sector.

Now national Democrats, feeling bullish after Tuesday’s big wins, are praising Spanberger’s performance in rural areas as a blueprint for the party in the upcoming midterms, when netting three seats will hand them control of the House.

“Last night’s results show Democrats can win back rural voters with a relentless focus on affordability,” said Eli Cousin, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Wednesday. “The results are also a massive warning sign for House Republicans … who have made life harder for rural Americans by rubber stamping cost-spiking tariffs and voting to put rural hospitals and health clinics at risk of closure.”

Spanberger, the first woman elected governor in Virginia’s history, deviated from party orthodoxy by spending significant time campaigning in the deep-red rural pockets of the state, even as recently as last week. Her messaging there focused almost exclusively on the economic issues ailing rural America during the first nine months of the Trump administration, including the seismic impact of tariffs and the fallout on rural health care from Medicaid cuts.

“People are so tired about the chaos right now from the federal government,” said Roberta Thacker-Oliver, the rural caucus chair for Virginia Democrats. “She sent a message about the everyday things, about lowering costs for people.”

Democrats see Spanbergers’ strategy as a template for the 2026 midterms. As Republicans eye redrawing more favorable House districts across the country, an aggressive push Democrats are starting to challenge, the minority party’s chances at retaking control of Congress will increasingly rely on its ability to compete in rural districts.

Chris Sloan, political director for the Democratic Governors Association, attributed Spanberger’s win to “a relentless focus on the economy and affordability.”

“These are issues that resonated with voters everywhere,” he added, “and we took advantage of that.”

Rachel Shin contributed reporting.

​Politics

Democrats still don’t have a leader to guide them out of the wilderness.

Seismic victories in a series of off-cycle elections on Tuesday showed the power of an energized liberal base all across the country — and teased at the potential for the Democratic Party to storm back to power. But those wins did not immediately crown a singular leader who can harness that energy.

There are still dozens of competitors for the throne.

The POLITICO Poll, conducted by Public First in the closing weeks of the election, found a complete lack of consensus among 2024 Kamala Harris voters on an open-ended question: Who do you consider to be the leader of the Democratic Party?

The top response was “I don’t know,” or some similar variation. It made up over one-fifth (21 percent) of responses. “Nobody” garnered an additional 11 percent.

Harris, the former vice president, was the highest person on the list and the only one in double-digits. But she was still named as the party leader by only 16 percent of the people who voted for her last year — a relatively small number given she is the party’s most recent presidential nominee, has made headlines with her book promotion and is considered a potential 2028 contender.

The rest of the top choices spanned an array of party stalwarts, including congressional leaders and former presidents. Few of them are widely considered to be among the 2028 contenders except Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was named by just 6 percent of Harris 2024 voters as the current party leader.

“This is where we are, guys,” said Lauren Harper Pope, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of WelcomePAC, which supports center-left candidates.

The party is divided “factionally and ideologically,” she said: “I couldn’t tell you who the leader of the Democratic Party is, either, and I work in Democratic politics.”

On Tuesday, a divided party that has spent a year licking its wounds in the wake of stunning losses in 2024 found new hope: Democrats romped in a series of statewide and downballot elections in blue and purple states, giving the party a much-needed boost a year after Trump returned to the White House and Republicans seized a governing trifecta in Washington.

In the marquee governors’ races, two moderates — Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill — cruised to convincing wins. In California, Newsom’s redistricting gambit paid off. Other lower-profile races across Georgia, Pennsylvania and Virginia showed convincing shifts for Democrats. And in New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani dominated the mayoral election, sending flashing red lights for Republicans in Washington.

“It felt like we’re getting our footing back, in terms of politics,” said Lanae Erickson, vice president at the centrist-leaning Democratic think tank Third Way.

But those wins alone do not necessarily signal the rise of a new leader, she said: “That has not yet translated to people seeing clearly who they think is pointing the direction of the party.”

The difference could not be more stark between the two major parties: Among Republicans, everyone knows who is in charge.

Among last year’s Trump voters, 81 percent said he’s the party’s current leader. Only 6 percent said they don’t know who the leader is, and 2 percent said “nobody.”

The next top names after Trump were Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Vice President JD Vance, who garnered 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

An obvious explanation between the two major parties, of course, is that Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

“This is pretty standard for a party that is out of power,” said Jared Leopold, a strategist who previously worked for the Democratic Governors Association. Republicans had no clear leader before Trump emerged in 2016 and Democrats had none until Barack Obama emerged in 2008, Leopold noted.

“The party should be in a, ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ mold right now,” Leopold added. “Democrats were successful [Tuesday] as a big tent party running on affordability and against Donald Trump. That’s a two-piece equation that will be successful for us as we move toward 2028.”

​Politics

Democratic officials, strategists and activists are gathering in Washington on Friday for the first “Crooked Con,” hosted by the podcast juggernaut “Pod Save America,” which they are billing as the Conservative Political Action Committee, CPAC, “for the left.”

The lineup features several potential 2028 candidates, including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and California Rep. Ro Khanna. Influencers Brian Tyler Cohen and Hasan Piker are getting top billing alongside Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Sarah McBride of Delaware.

“We wanted to create a place where we could have these conversations about what’s happening on our side and the changes that we need to make,” said Shaniqua McClendon, vice president of political strategy at Vote Save America. “The right has been much better at doing that.”

The event is timed with the group’s launch of its campaign program ahead of the 2026 midterms. In details shared first with POLITICO, Vote Save America, the nonprofit affiliated with Pod Save America and Crooked Media, announced it will be seeding more than a half-dozen on-the-ground, grassroots organizations with $250,000. So far, the group said it has raised $1.5 million for the 2026 midterms.

McClendon said they’re focusing on building up Democratic infrastructure because “a lot of those organizations just stopped getting the funding that they had been getting previously” in 2023 and 2024, when President Donald Trump swept back into the White House and Republicans held their majorities in Congress.

Those funding gaps in 2024, “I do think it had an impact,” she added

“My hope is that we can start to really push donors to think differently about the way they invest,” she said. “In no way am I saying we shouldn’t give candidates money … but I think we have to be more thoughtful about investing in the infrastructure that is here all the time, and not just around Election Day.”

Vote Save America started during Trump’s first term, raising $70 million for candidates and organizations since 2018. The group boasts an email list of 600,000 volunteers.

​Politics

Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old New York State Assembly member and democratic socialist, was elected New York City’s mayor on Nov. 4, 2025, after pledging to make the city more affordable through policies that include freezing rents, providing free public buses and a network of city-owned grocery stores.

During his campaign, Mamdani’s promises clearly resonated with New Yorkers struggling with the high cost of living.

Of all of Mamdani’s campaign commitments, free high-quality child care for every New Yorker from 6 weeks to 5 years old – while boosting child care workers’ wages to match that of the city’s public school teachers – could be the most transformative.

The cost of child care in New York City is expensive. More than 80% of families with young children cannot afford the average annual cost of US$26,000 for center-based care. A recent study found that families with young children are twice as likely to leave the city as those without children. The study identified housing and child care costs as key drivers of migration out of the city.

New York’s child care problem mirrors a nationwide system that is seen by many experts as broken. U.S. families spend between 8.9% and 16% of their median income on full-day care for one child. And prices have been rising: Between 1990 and 2024, the cost of day care and preschool rose 263%, much faster than overall inflation.

Despite high prices, child care workers are poorly paid: In 2024, the median pay for child care workers, who are mostly women and often women of color, was $15.41 an hour, or $32,050 a year. That’s nearly at the bottom of all occupations when ranked by annual pay. Additionally, child care programs face high turnover, and it’s difficult for them to recruit and retain qualified staff. Program quality suffers as a result.

As a feminist scholar who has written extensively about child care, I believe Mamdani’s promise of free universal child care, with decent pay for child care staff, could transform the politics and the reality of child care in New York and beyond.

An example to the nation

During the Great Depression, the Works Projects Administration, a New Deal agency created to combat unemployment, established 14 emergency nursery schools in New York. Opened between 1933 and 1934, these schools were primarily intended to offer employment opportunities to unemployed teachers, but they also became a form of de facto child care for parents employed on various work-relief projects.

With the onset of World War II, rising numbers of women took up jobs in the city’s war industries.

In 1941, the lack of adequate child care prompted the administration of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to fund a handful of already existing nursery schools, including the New Deal nurseries whose federal funding had dried up. New York became the only U.S. city to provide publicly subsidized child care services.

New York provided an example to the nation, and between 1943 and 1945, wartime child care centers were established in hundreds of cities under the federal government’s Lanham Act of 1941. It’s the closest the U.S. has come to establishing a universal child care system.

While most wartime child care centers were shuttered at war’s end, in New York a citywide grassroots mobilization of parents forced the city to keep its centers operating. It marked the first peacetime allocation of municipal tax dollars for child care programs.

Building blocks

In the 1960s, under the liberal administration of Mayor John Lindsay, public child care in New York City was expanded, and in 1967 child care workers organized a union, AFSCME Local 205 Day Care Employees.

After a bitter three-week strike in 1969 to protest low wages and poor working conditions, child care workers won a contract that included a wage scale comparable to that of elementary school teachers in the city’s public school system. The contract also included a training program that allowed them to upgrade their skills and get credit for it.

When President Richard Nixon vetoed federal child care legislation in 1971 that would have provided federal funding for child care programs across the nation, New York’s child care movement took to the streets to demand universal child care, even if the federal government refused to fund it. Groups like the Day Care Forum and the Committee for Community Controlled Child Care staged demonstrations on the city’s Triborough Bridge – since renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge – and set up a one-day “model day care center” on the lawn of City Hall.

Public child care services survived the city’s fiscal crisis of 1975, largely due to the activism of working-class communities who fought against day care closures.

Though far from universal, the child care system in New York today boasts the largest publicly supported system in the country, and can serve as the building blocks for Mamdani’s plan.

Transformative beyond New York

Mamdani’s campaign estimated that his universal child care plan would cost $6 billion annually. To fund his policies, Mamdani has proposed an increase of the state’s corporate tax rate and raising the city’s income tax by 2 percentage points on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year. While Mamdani will need the assistance of Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise taxes, Hochul supports universal child care, even if she disagrees on how to pay for it.

Universal child care has positive economic impacts, including more women in the workforce and more money in the pockets of parents to spend in the economy. Research from the liberal Center for American Progress concluded that the availability of affordable high-quality child care would lead 51% of stay-at-home parents to find work, and about a third of employed parents to work more hours.

In New York, the disposable income of families could increase by up to $1.9 billion due to the avoidance of child care costs.

One year from the U.S. midterms, Americans remain worried about the cost of basic needs. And majorities of both Democrat and Republican voters say the cost of child care is a major problem, and they want government to prioritize helping families pay for it.

If he can find the money to pay for it, with universal child care, Mamdani could blaze a trail that other policymakers follow.

Simon Black 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