Category: Politics

A number of Republican mayors are condemning the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, as they call on the president to pull back from Minneapolis and worry their cities might be next.

“It’s roiling the country,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told POLITICO. “We’re all sort of feeling the angst of our residents and the fear that our city will be next and that chaos is going to inevitably creep across the entire country.”

Fresno, California, Mayor Jerry Dyer said in an interview that “too much damage has been done” with the crackdown and “the trust in communities has been lost.”

And Burnsville, Minnesota, Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, warned that the agency’s current tactics meant “our cities are no longer safe.”

The remarks from the trio of moderate-leaning GOP mayors who have broken with Trump in the past came at the annual gathering of the nonpartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors, held blocks from the White House. Holt chairs the conference.

The Republican leaders’ calls for Trump to deescalate after the fatal shootings of two Minnesotans by federal agents show the GOP’s deepening fissures over the administration’s aggressive immigration agenda, even as the mayors and Republicans broadly offered support for the president’s overall goal. And their alarm comes as ICE ramps up operations in other states, including Arizona and Maine.

The escalating immigration enforcement crackdown hung over the annual gathering, dominating conversations among leaders who are scrambling to prepare their cities for ICE sweeps and allay anxious and outraged residents.

Dyer on Wednesday said federal agents need to receive more training in deescalation tactics — a practice that the Fresno mayor, who served in law enforcement for 40 years, including 18 as the city’s police chief, said is integral for local police departments. He also said federal agencies should only work in communities where they have the cooperation of local leaders.

“I don’t believe that agencies should be deployed into cities against the will of local government and without the cooperation of local law enforcement,” Dyer said. “That’s a recipe for disaster, and I believe that’s somewhat of what we’re seeing today.”

And he urged other Republicans to speak out against federal immigration agents’ recent tactics.

“The Republican Party in general cannot rubber-stamp everything a party does or this administration does,” Dyer said. “Too many people today are turning a blind eye when they should be speaking out in opposition.”

It wasn’t just big-city GOP mayors who were concerned with the administration’s response: Kautz’s town of 64,000 people is in Minneapolis’ south suburbs.

Kautz, who said she now carries her passport in public, called for ICE to use judicial warrants, arguing that while violent criminals need to be off the street, it needs to be done “through proper channels, the rule of law, due process [and rooted] rooting in the Constitution.” In Minnesota, “that is not our experience.”

A new POLITICO poll found that more than 1 in 3 Trump voters said that while they support the goals of his immigration agenda, they disapprove of the way he is implementing it.

Holt, who runs one of the most conservative large cities in the U.S. but backed Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024, warned that Trump’s interior enforcement was a failure.

“The president can feel, generally, that his policies at the border have been largely supported by a majority of Americans,” Holt said. “But what he’s doing inside the border seems to be not working.”

​Politics

Democrats could face a gloomy Electoral College atmosphere next decade, according to new population estimates released Tuesday that show red-leaning states like Texas and Florida making major gains and California as a big loser.

By combining the census bureau’s new state population estimates for 2025 with previous years’ data, experts quickly projected the number of House seats — and Electoral College votes — states will gain or lose after the 2030 Census in the process known as reapportionment. And while those projections differ slightly, they all had bad news for Democrats: GOP-leaning states will gain electoral power and Democratic-leaning states will lose it if the trends continue.

While Joe Biden would still have won in 2020 under the estimates, two projected maps show Democrats would no longer be able to win the Electoral College by relying solely on the Rust Belt battleground states.

One of the estimates from Jonathan Cervas, a redistricting and apportionment expert at Carnegie Mellon University, shows seat changes across the map, with Florida and Texas gaining four seats each, while California, New York and Illinois collectively lose eight.

Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah and Idaho would all pick up one more seat, while Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island lose one seat.

Another map from the GOP-aligned American Redistricting Project shows less seats shifting overall, with Texas gaining four seats, Florida gaining two, and Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah and Idaho gaining one. Under that estimate, California loses four seats, and New York, Illinois, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all lose one seat.

In both models, the shifts — which are significant in both projections given the already razor-thin margins in the House — stand to alter the battlefield for the 2032 presidential campaign and the fight for the House down-ballot.

While the changes are “not going to lock in” GOP wins, the map is certainly shifting in their favor, said Adam Kincaid, president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

“The Rust Belt states and Sun Belt states will continue to be the battleground,” he said. “The difference is that Republicans will be able to win the White House without a single Rust Belt state, whereas Democrats would have to sweep the Rust Belt and win in the Sun Belt.”

The new maps are mostly in line with earlier estimates from Democrats, who at the time presented changes to Florida and Texas specifically as the “result of population growth specifically in diverse, metropolitan, Democratic-leaning urban centers.”

That is leaving the party with some tempered optimism about their fate in the Electoral College and the battle for House control.

“As these folks are moving, they’re bringing their politics with them,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “And so I think it’s not necessarily safe to assume that those population shifts don’t or aren’t able to impact statewide results.”

But not everyone in the party saw good news between the lines. Plus, Democrats have long hoped population shifts in red states like Texas and Florida would lead to gains for the party, but so far that wish has not materialized.

David Hogg, the former DNC vice chair who has embarked on a mission to primary members of his party that he believes are not doing enough to stand up to President Donald Trump, said the estimates prove that the party must invest further in the South.

“If we don’t start building infrastructure in the South … we can kiss goodbye any chance of winning the white house in the 2030s,” Hogg said on X.

The shifts also amplify fears from Democrats that Republicans will try and gerrymander urban areas and lessen those voters’ impact in House races, something Jenkins said is designed to “dilute the voices of these communities.”

“We’re going to find in states like Texas is that as those communities grow, it’s going to become harder and harder for [Republicans] to gerrymander their way out of the fact that those people live there, and they’re real people,” she said.

Jenkins said it’s important to understand the projections “in the context of this effort to gerrymander the country into oblivion,” pointing to the White House-initiated mid-cycle redistricting effort that swept the country last year.

But both parties acknowledge there’s still plenty of time for populations to shift even more before the numbers are locked in during the 2030 Census.

Ahead of the 2020 Census, reapportionment projections were dire for Democratic-controlled states. But the shifts ended up being less dramatic than anticipated — in part due to an undercount of Black, Hispanic and Native American people, the Census Bureau acknowledged, that was partially triggered by the extraordinarily difficult task of counting every American during a pandemic.

“It’s basically halftime,” Kincaid said. “We’ve got 5 years to go. A lot can change.”

​Politics

The group behind the nationwide “No Kings” protests are planning their fourth demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term — and are anticipating even greater turnout than their earlier rallies.

Ezra Levin, a rally organizer and the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, said in an interview that the planned third “No Kings” protest on March 28 is in response to a “secret police force terrorizing American communities.”

“It is unfortunately not a surprise to us that this lawless police force is committing crimes all across the country and that people are standing up to it,” said Levin. “Our goal is safeguarding American democracy, protecting our communities and the people who are under threat by this regime.”

Nationwide protests have become a staple of both of President Donald Trump’s terms. Indivisible estimated 3 million protesters turned out for its “Hands Off” rally in April 2025, while 5 million showed up in June as part of the first “No Kings” protest and 7 million for the second “No Kings” demonstration in October.

Organizers said they are aiming for nearly 9 million people to turn out in March.

Levin said that Indivisible had been planning the upcoming protest since before Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer in Minnesota earlier this month, calling what is unfolding in the Midwestern state is “tragic and horrific.” A second person, Alex Pretti, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday not far from where Good died.

Still, Levin said, it is “inspiring and gives me hope that while this regime and many political leaders even outside this regime are cowards or fascist sympathizers, people on the ground aren’t putting up with it.”

Trump and his GOP allies have not been fans of the demonstrations. Ahead of the October marches — which took place amid the government shutdown — Speaker Mike Johnson called them “hate America” rallies, and Trump’s “war room” account posted a mocking picture of the president wearing a crown.

Levin said the organizers are taking safety precautions, including holding de-escalation training sessions. On Monday, the group held a session on non-violent documentation techniques for the public. And at the last “No Kings” protest, Levin said Indivisible trained thousands of volunteer marshals, emphasizing non-violent principles.

The tactics have a proven track record, Levin argued, with major cities reporting zero arrests during the last “No Kings” demonstration.

Still, Levin said, he can’t guarantee there aren’t risks to participating.

“Based on how the regime is behaving, the fact of the matter is, everybody should worry about it,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that there isn’t a risk involved to show up and exercise your constitutional rights. It’s a terrible thing to have to say in 2026 in America, but it’s the truth.”

​Politics

Democrats should “play hardball” ahead of a looming partial government shutdown and use their “leverage to reform ICE,” according to a new polling memo circulating among Democratic senators Tuesday.

The polling, in the field January 23 to 26 during the height of public backlash to Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis, found that 58 percent of likely midterm voters want ICE to be reined in. More voters prefer reforming ICE than the number who prefer eliminating the agency entirely by 30 percent to 19 percent, according to the survey shared first with POLITICO.

“Voters want ICE to follow the law, and focus enforcement on people who pose a threat to public safety. They want to see tangible changes to ICE operations and oppose letting ICE detain U.S. citizens, enter homes without warrants, or fail to wear identifying uniforms,” according to the memo. “There is a desire for immigration enforcement that is lawful, reasonable, and effective. “

The memo was written by Adam Jentleson, the former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), for his organization the Searchlight Institute, which conducted the 1,502-person online survey alongside Tavern Research.

The influential new think tank seeks to push the Democratic Party toward broadly popular positions, regardless of ideology. In the case of ICE, Jentleson writes, Democrats should embrace reforming, not abolishing, the agency.

“Democrats should use their leverage to demand commonsense reforms to ICE that have the backing of broad bipartisan majorities of Americans,” Jentleson writes in the memo, which came across the desk of aides to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday and continued to make the rounds among Senate Democrats early Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Searchlight’s latest survey finds that “bipartisan majorities of voters oppose ICE’s lawless tactics, including detaining U.S. citizens (73 percent), entering people’s homes without warrants (79 percent), and failing to wear clearly identifying uniforms (70 percent)”, according to the memo.

The polling comes as Senate Democrats are demanding to re-negotiate a hulking DHS funding bill ahead of a Friday midnight deadline for a partial government shutdown, carving it off from a six-bill appropriations package.

“This is likely to be their last major leverage point for several months at least if not for the rest of the year” to curtail the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Jentleson told POLITICO. “But there’s a larger reason, which is that the tragic events that have unfolded in Minneapolis have shocked the conscience of Americans and brought their attention to the horrible shit that ICE is doing. Those two things combined give them a lot of leverage at this moment.”

Democratic likely midterm voters were split in the poll over how to change ICE, with 34 percent favoring reforming ICE and 33 percent wanting to get rid of it as an agency — meaning that it’s “a coin flip among Democrats,” Jentleson said. That indicates that in contested Democratic primaries, it’s not clear which side of that debate will have the edge with base voters.

What’s clearer, he wrote in the memo, is that voters do support some degree of immigration enforcement. The memo notes that the view that “immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should not be deported” receives no more than 30 percent support among Democrats and young people, and even less among other groups.

Senate Democrats have embraced this push.

Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Schumer seemed to set the predicate for the partial shutdown, saying any administrative actions on ICE wouldn’t be enough and that “any fix should come from Congress. The public can’t trust the administration to do the right thing on its own and the Republicans and Democrats must work together to make that happen.”

Senate Republicans face a Friday midnight deadline to avert a shutdown. GOP Sens. Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski have said that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be fired. President Donald Trump acknowledged shaking up his border security leadership team Tuesday.

“Senate Democrats should embrace this reality and use their leverage to achieve meaningful changes that rein in ICE’s abuses and refocus the agency on its critical law enforcement mission,” Jentleson writes.

​Politics

The RNC distributed talking points highlighting Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino’s false statements about the killing of Alex Pretti just hours before he was sidelined by President Donald Trump — a sign of how quickly the party’s messaging has shifted on the events in Minneapolis.

The memo, sent to party surrogates midday on Monday and obtained by POLITICO, encouraged Republicans to cast blame for the shooting on Democrats for “inciting protestors to attack and aggressively confront law enforcement in Minneapolis.” The talking points also delve into administration officials’ account of how the shooting took place, including Bovino’s Saturday comments that the U.S. citizen killed by immigration agents “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The government’s initial account has been called into question by videos shot by witnesses as well as analyses conducted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

The memo includes the talking point that “Agents attempted to disarm the individual as he violently resisted. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a Border Patrol agent fired defensive shots.” Video from the scene appears to contradict that statement.

The whiplash between the RNC’s promotion of Bovino’s comments and his sudden removal shortly afterward from the federal operation in Minneapolis shows how the administration and other Republicans scrambled to contain the fallout from the shooting. A significant number of elected GOP officials have called for an official investigation into the matter, a rare and notable break with the Trump administration.

Immediately following the shooting on Saturday, high-profile administration officials like Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem publicly described Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, as a “domestic terrorist.”

By that evening, however, Trump was already more cautious in his description of what had transpired. In an interview that day with The Wall Street Journal, the president did not answer directly when asked whether the officer involved in the shooting did the right thing and said his administration is “reviewing everything.”

Speaking at a restaurant in Iowa on Tuesday, Trump said that he hadn’t heard the assessment from Noem and others in his administration, such as deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” or assassin, but said that “certainly he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.” Pretti had a permit to carry a firearm, according to Minnesota officials.

Monday’s talking points memo notably omits reference to any comments made by Noem since the shooting took place. While the White House has publicly stood behind Noem, administration allies have increasingly placed blame on the secretary’s handling of the chaotic crackdown in Minnesota as calls among Democrats for her impeachment have grown. On Tuesday evening, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Noem should be “out of a job,” while Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she “should go.”

Trump announced on Monday morning that border czar Tom Homan would go to Minneapolis to oversee the administration’s immigration operation there, a move seen as an acknowledgement that DHS’s leadership had mishandled the situation. Hours later, Bovino had been removed from his post as commander at large, according to The Atlantic.

Kiersten Pels, a spokesperson for the RNC, would not confirm the authenticity of the memo but echoed its overall sentiment in a written statement. “Democrats incited this violence by encouraging protesters to confront law enforcement,” she wrote. “Democrats are demonizing ICE and threatening to defund DHS instead of condemning attacks on officers – while President Trump and Republicans stand with law enforcement and public safety.”

Trump’s approval rating on immigration has dropped significantly since he first came into office, with only 39% of Americans now approving of the president’s handling of immigration, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The high-profile shooting in Minneapolis, following the fatal shooting earlier this month of Renée Good in the city, has only brought more attention to the administration’s goal of a mass deportation.

Democrats in the Senate have pledged to vote against funding DHS in a crucial vote later this week unless the bill is amended to add guardrails for the agency — and the RNC’s talking points seize on the potential for a partial government shutdown as well.

“Now, Democrats are threatening to defund law enforcement later this week by refusing to pass a DHS funding bill,” the memo concludes.

“While Democrats will stand in the way of ICE and law enforcement to defend terrorists and criminal aliens, President Trump and Republicans are working to keep our communities safe.”

​Politics

AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills issued a dire warning in her annual address to state lawmakers Tuesday night: The federal immigration raids sweeping the state are part of an ongoing attack on democracy nationwide.

The speech from Mills, who is a leading Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Susan Collins, marks perhaps the most prominent example of how the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids have upended communities — and potentially electoral politics — around the country. The crackdown has become a political crisis for the White House in recent days following two fatal shootings by federal officers in Minnesota.

“Tonight, I say to the people of Maine: We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced,” Mills said. “And to anyone outside these halls, including any federal officials, I say: if you seek to harm Maine people, you will have to go through me first.”

The Democratic governor’s defiant State of the State address on Tuesday came as a sweeping ICE operation in Maine has led to hundreds of arrests and prompted widespread protests throughout the state since it began last week. The killing of a protester in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers this weekend has amplified those pressures — and the political stakes.

​Politics

A Virginia state court blocked Democrats’ plans to redistrict this year, a blow to the party’s hopes of redrawing the state’s congressional lines ahead of the midterms.

Jack Hurley Jr., a judge on the Tazewell County circuit court, ruled that Democrats did not follow the right procedure to approve the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow for the last-minute redraw of the state’s lines.

Democrats are expected to appeal the decision. But the ruling is still a major loss for the party in the ongoing mid-decade redistricting fight, and one that could — if ultimately upheld — block the party from picking up as many as four seats in next year’s midterms.

Democrats in the Legislature first passed a measure to take up redistricting in October of last year, utilizing a special session left open by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Lawmakers took up the issue again in January, finalizing the plan to put the issue before voters ahead of the midterms.

But Hurley said using the still-open special session was not allowed because early voting in last year’s elections had already begun, and state law requires the Legislature to pass proposed constitutional amendments both before and after an election. Hurley also ruled that the proposed constitutional amendment was not properly noticed in state courts.

The judge also noted that lawmakers in the special session passed a procedural resolution along party lines, with the Democrat-controlled legislature delivering the decisive votes for the resolution’s passage. Because lawmakers did not vote unanimously, as is required under the Legislature’s own rules, and did not pass it by a two-thirds Senate majority, it was a violation of the rules governing a special session.

“Certinaly, both houses of the Commonwealth’s legislature are required to follow their own rules and resolutions,” Hurley wrote.

The Republican plaintiffs in the suit issued a statement praising the court’s ruling, calling it a “decisive victory for the rule of law” but also noting this legal challenge was not about partisanship, rather the process the majority used in attempting to rewrite Virginia’s Constitution.

“The court confirmed that Democrat legislative leaders unlawfully expanded a Special Session, violated their own rules, and attempted to force through a redistricting constitutional amendment while Virginians were already voting,” said Del. Terry Kilgore, the top Republican in the Virginia House, state Sen. Minority Leader Ryan McDougle and former Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a joint statement Tuesday.

Virginia had been seen as the crown jewel in Democrats’ redistricting fight, especially as state Republicans in GOP-led Florida eye midcycle redistricting later this year. Currently in Virginia, Democrats control six congressional seats and Republicans hold five. Virginia Democrats, had been forging ahead with their plans to unveil a proposed map by their self-imposed deadline of Jan. 31, with the goal of holding a special election to approve the maps in spring.

Democrats strongly criticized Hurley’s ruling.

“This is a clear attempt to confuse voters and block them from having a say,” said Karen Charles Dongo, who is heading Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-affiliated group that launched this month to urge the state’s voters to pass a pending ballot measure. “We’re prepared for what comes next, and Virginians deserve both the right to vote and the chance to level the playing field.”

Spokespeople for the top Democrats in the Virginia legislature, state Sen. Majority Leader Scott Surovell and state House Speaker Don Scott, did not respond to requests for comment on whether the ruling will impact the release of their proposed maps.

But in a joint statement along with other top Virginia Democrats on Tuesday, the group struck a defiant tone and promised to continue with plans to redraw maps, suggesting the ruling was but a minor blip in their quest to deliver what could be a 10-1 map that favors their party.

“Nothing that happened today will dissuade us from continuing to move forward and put this matter directly to the voters,” the Democratic lawmakers said. “We will be appealing this ruling immediately and we expect to prevail.”

Julie Merz, who heads up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, suggested the court overreached.

“This rogue decision is a disappointing, but temporary setback issued by a lower court that will be immediately appealed — where we’re confident it will be overturned,” Merz said in a statement. “The order issued today has no constitutional basis, but is instead a desperate attempt to keep electoral power out of the hands of Virginia voters.”

​Politics

A Democratic opposition research powerhouse is putting massive troves of its work product online ahead of the midterms. And it’s using artificial intelligence to help everyone from campaigns to podcasters figure out how to navigate it.

The project from American Bridge 21st Century, shared first with POLITICO, reflects an expansion of its efforts ahead of the 2026 midterms — as well as the evolving nature of political campaigning, including oppo research, in an increasingly fragmented media environment.

“Swing voters are generally speaking getting their information very ambiently,” American Bridge President Pat Dennis said in an interview.

A challenge in recent election cycles, he said, has not been a lack of opposition research, but rather how to best convey it when more voters are getting political news from podcasts, social media influencers or group chats. “If people can’t find it or read it, it’s no good,” Dennis said.

The new tool, titled Research Books, is a public-facing website featuring opposition research on dozens of Republican candidates in races that American Bridge has identified as crucial to deciding control of Congress. It also includes select statewide candidates.

Pages for each candidate feature messaging around key votes, candidate-specific research and — in some races — videos from Democratic trackers and sample media based on the oppo that closely resemble campaign ads.

It also includes an AI-powered search tool that aims to bring together different sources about a candidate into cohesive messaging. (The AI agent only probes the super PAC’s internal database, not external sources or the wider internet.)

Results from the search link back to original sources, which include news articles, videos and public records. The tool also integrates with other external large language model platforms such as ChatGPT.

The notion of publishing opposition research files online, rather than keeping them closely held by party operatives for strategic deployment, is not entirely new for American Bridge. Ahead of the 2020 election, the group posted 1,043 pages of opposition research about President Donald Trump online for use by other Democratic groups.

Sharing such research publicly is a way for super PACs to avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws that prohibit direction coordination.

Because the new research tool is publicly available online, it could similarly be used by Democratic campaigns or other outside groups — though American Bridge hopes the uptake is broader than that, including among influencers and voters.

For its initial public rollout, Research Books includes 15 GOP House incumbents in seats Democrats are hoping to flip this year, along with Republican Senate candidates in four seats Democrats are trying to flip, as well as Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is seeking reelection.

The initial list also includes 15 candidates for governor or attorney general in key states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire and Iowa.

The inclusion of attorney general candidates, newer territory for American Bridge, reflects in part the greater role that they have played in suing the Trump administration, Dennis said. He expects the tool to include more races and candidates as the midterms near, with the super PAC seeking to help Democrats cast a broad net.

“There are times where opposition research can fundamentally reshape a race, so we prefer to take an expansive view on this,” he said.

​Politics

Amy Klobuchar planned to officially launch her gubernatorial campaign on Monday, but has delayed it in the wake of the fatal shooting of a protester by immigration agents in Minneapolis over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the Minnesota Democrat’s plans.

The senator instead spent Monday morning speaking to White House officials, urging deescalation and pushing to get the administration to end its immigration crackdown in her state, according to a third person, who is close to the senator and, like the others, was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

Her decision to wait on her campaign launch comes amid weeks of turmoil in Minnesota that further escalated over the weekend when Border Patrol agents on Saturday fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse and American citizen.

Over the last two days, Klobuchar has been meeting with city and state leaders, strategizing with Senate colleagues over Department of Homeland Security funding and calling Trump administration officials, according to the third person, who said Klobuchar’s “focus is on de-escalating the situation and getting ICE out of Minnesota. There’s not time for politics today.”

Klobuchar’s nascent gubernatorial campaign has run headlong into a national crisis, another twist for a campaign that started under unusual circumstances. Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz unexpectedly dropped his reelection bid for a third term, as a swirling fraud scandal threatened to engulf his campaign, and met with Klobuchar about running for the office herself. Since then, two American citizens have been killed by federal immigration agents, thrusting Klobuchar into the center of a battle on an issue for which she’s traditionally cut a moderate profile.

“Regardless of what [campaign] Klobuchar is considering, this is what I’d expect from her, she’s been the leader in this state,” said Democratic Minnesota state Sen. Grant Hauschild. “We’re facing unprecedented circumstances of federal overreach and harm to our communities, and she’s stepped up, being present on the ground and fighting in Congress.”

The two people who described her changed launch plans said they expect the senator to formally launch before next Tuesday, when the state’s party precinct caucus kicks off. Klobuchar already filed paperwork with the state’s campaign finance board last week, allowing her to begin raising funds ahead of an expected bid.

Pretti’s killing also shook up the GOP side of the Minnesota governors’ race. Chris Madel, an attorney who launched his campaign as a Republican late last year, announced on Monday he would be dropping out, calling the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics “wrong” and “an unmitigated disaster.”

“I cannot support the national Republican-stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so,” he said in a video posted to social media.

Klobuchar is not expected to face a serious Democratic opponent when she enters the gubernatorial race, giving her some breathing room on both her announcement timeline and on her stance on immigration. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a well-known progressive who was considered a potential candidate, confirmed he would not be running for the job last week.

“What you hear from Klobuchar is, ‘ICE needs to get out of here,’ and I don’t think she needs to say more than that [because] without a primary challenger, I don’t think she’ll have to change her position on it,” said a Minnesota Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “She’s smart, she’s careful and she’s cautious, and she knows how to win suburban and independent voters.”

Klobuchar has always cut a moderate profile. She rose up in Hennepin County as its prosecutor before running for Senate. During her presidential campaign in 2020, Klobuchar rejected calls for “abolishing ICE,” drawing fire from immigration rights advocates groups in that race, and instead called for reforms of the agency.

When asked during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday whether she supported abolishing ICE, Klobuchar said “we’re always going to have some immigration enforcement in this country, and border control.” But she called for the ICE operation to leave the state because “this agency has been functioning is completely against every tenet of law enforcement.”

Klobuchar ticked through several reforms she supports: “New leadership. Stopping these surges across the country, not just in my state. Training them like they were supposed to be trained. … Mandatory body cameras. Stopping ramming into people’s houses without a judicial warrant.”

Those specifics could become part of Senate Democrats’ demands to give enough votes to pass a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government.

Other Democrats have called for more aggressive policies, including abolishing ICE altogether. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) posted on X that “voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum,” adding that ICE is “beyond reform” and to “abolish it.”

Klobuchar’s approach is once again drawing criticism from some immigrant-rights advocates. “I do not believe that’s far enough,” said George Escobar, executive director of CASA, an immigration advocacy organization. “Unless we deal with the cancer that is causing this, which is ICE itself, and unless we have a comprehensive reform of that agency, which to us, means abolishing it, then honestly, this cycle is just going to repeat over and over again.”One Democratic consultant who has worked on Minnesota races warned that Klobuchar’s deliberative approach could hurt her. “She’s incredibly cautious, and this is not a cautious moment,” they said. “So far, she has not put her foot in it by being too moderate, but she’s also not been under a huge spotlight — and that will change with the gubernatorial run.”

Nonetheless, Klobuchar’s messaging earned her praise from even some progressives. “I think she’s spot on,” said Mark Longabaugh, a former adviser to Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “If you’re going to step up and say that this organization needs to be restructured, or shut down and restructured, you also have to tie that to, ‘Listen, there is a legitimate law enforcement need here, both for customs and for border control.’”

Most Minnesota Democrats don’t think Klobuchar will suddenly center anti-ICE messaging in her gubernatorial campaign. Interviews with a half dozen operatives and elected officials found they still expected the campaign to largely revolve around the economy. “Affordability is still going to be central to her work, along with protecting her state,” said the person close to Klobuchar. “She will always stand up for Minnesota on both.”

“Who knows if, in 10 months, it will specifically be a part of the narrative or messaging,” said a Minnesota Democratic donor adviser. “But this isn’t going to go away any time soon … because we’re traumatized here.”

​Politics