Category: Politics

Rep. Bill Foster says the public is on Dems side in shutdown stalemate

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​Politics

Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive Democrat running for an open House seat in Illinois, faces federal charges after attending a protest at a U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement processing center outside Chicago.

Abughazaleh, a social media influencer who recently moved to the state, was charged with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer and assaulting or impeding an officer as they engaged in official duties at the Broadview ICE detention center.

According to the indictment, Abughazaleh was among several protesters who in September allegedly surrounded a government vehicle, banged on the hood and windows and scratched the body of the car, including etching the word “PIG” into the vehicle. The indictment also alleges the protesters broke one of the vehicle’s side mirrors and a rear windshield wiper.

Video of the encounter that day, posted by Abughazaleh, showed her and protesters placing their hands on the vehicle as the agent continued to slowly drive forward into the line of protesters, with some banging on the car.

Abughazaleh is one of the more than a dozen Democratic candidates running for Congress to fill the seat now held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who announced earlier this year that she won’t seek reelection in 2026.

In a statement, Abughazaleh called the charges “political prosecution” and a “gross attempt to silence dissent.”

“This case is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up,” Abughazaleh said, adding that the charges are “unjust.”

Other political figures named in the indictment include Catherine Sharp, a chief of staff to a Chicago alderman and a candidate for Cook County Board; Michael Rabbitt, a Chicago Democratic ward committeeman; and Brian Straw, a member of the suburban Oak Park Village board.

Sharp’s attorney, Molly Armour, called the charges “ludicrous,” saying, “we are confident that a jury of Ms. Sharp’s peers will see them for exactly what they are: an effort by the Trump administration to frighten people out of participating in protest and exercising their First Amendment rights.”

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Advocates and politicians have protested regularly outside the Broadview detention center since President Donald Trump ordered ICE agents into the city to conduct mass arrests.

Abughazaleh has previously protested outside the center, including at least once prior when she was teargassed and thrown to the ground by an ICE agent.

Following the release of the indictment, Evanston mayor Daniel Biss — who is also running for the seat — called the charges “frivolous” and accused ICE of engaging in “violent and dangerous behavior at Broadview.”

“As someone who has protested at Broadview multiple times, I know these protests are nonviolent demonstrations against the kidnapping of our neighbors,” Biss said in a statement posted on X. “Now, the Trump Administration is targeting protestors, including political candidates, in an effort to silence dissent and scare residents into submission. It won’t work.”

​Politics

Casten: ‘I think Trump commits impeachable offenses on a daily basis’

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​Politics

Will Rep. Jasmine Crockett run for senate?

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​Politics

Female mayors experience political violence at a much higher rate than their male counterparts, according to the results of a new study conducted by the Mayors Innovation Project.

The findings come as America faces an increase in political violence — including the assassination of Charlie Kirk last month and the killing of Minnesota State Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman.

“I don’t know if America is ready to talk about the steps that are … giving greater permission and room for violence,” said former Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, who helped develop and facilitate the survey and conducted interviews with some of the other current and former elected officials who were polled.

According to the poll, female mayoral candidates reported experiencing harassment in greater numbers both while campaigning and while in office. Eighty-four percent of female candidates were harassed while campaigning, compared to 64 percent of male candidates. And once in office, 25 percent of female mayors experienced harassment at least three times per month, while 10 percent of male mayors reported the same level and frequency of harassment. Nearly twice as many female mayors also reported threats to their family as male mayors.

The survey was conducted in February of about 235 mayors, who answered the survey online. Respondents were about 60 percent male and 60 percent were full-time mayors (versus part-time). Of the respondents, 43 percent represented cities of less than 30,000 people and 42 percent represented cities with a population of 30,000 to 100,000. Only 15 percent represented cities over 100,000. The survey was funded by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and conducted in collaboration with RepresentWomen and the Center for American Women in Politics.

Former Kankakee, Illinois, Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong also helped develop and conduct the survey. She herself was the target of harassment as mayor, and told POLITICO in an interview that she did not want to run for a second term in part because of the threats she experienced.

While in office, Wells-Armstrong said someone shot a bullet through her garage door. Another constituent posted a photo of a mailer she sent out with the caption “this is good for target practice.” And one man left a voicemail saying that she should be thrown off the third floor.

The poll found that this type of harassment came at a cost to the mayor and to the city, in terms of additional security and also the time taken to deal with harassment or threats that could have been spent dealing with city concerns.

After the poll, the Innovation Project also conducted in-depth interviews with 49 female mayors. One of them said a local school had to add extra security after a potential threat was made to a mayor’s grandchild, and another said they spent half of their $10,000 salary putting up security cameras.

By far, the most common experience reported by mayors was degrading comments on social media, said Katya Spear, co-author of the report and managing director of the Mayors Innovation Project.

“It was so pervasive that we basically stopped reporting on it,” Spear explained.

Americans are taking threats of violence more seriously in the wake of the Kirk and Hortman assassinations. Some states have toughened penalties for politically motivated violence. Others are now removing the home addresses of politicians from public documents and websites.

Wells-Armstrong said that deeming crimes motivated by politics as hate crimes would be a big step, and also suggests publishing a list of people who commit political violence — similar to the sex offender database.

“If you hit people where they’re going to be fined or lose their jobs or those types of things, I believe that that can be a big deterrent,” she explained.

Cities can also support increases in safety and security, the study’s authors suggest. Both Wells-Armstrong and Hodges said they were told they were overreacting when asking for additional security or for law enforcement to check on a threat — like the bullet holes in Wells-Armstrong’s garage door. Having an infrastructure that takes harassment and threats against all mayors seriously — including women — could prevent actual acts of violence and help mayors feel supported enough to continue doing their job well.

“In light of the many instances of physical and psychological threats, harassment, and actions documented here and in other research (and the media) recently, it’s critical to build public and media support for reasonable requests for safety-related staffing and infrastructure in a way that does not hinder the democratic process,” the report reads.

​Politics

When people with mental health problems are in crisis, police often are the first responders. Since many officers have little to no training on how to assess or treat mental illness, these situations can easily become violent.

In 2024, for example, 118 people were killed across the U.S. after police responded to reports of someone having a mental health episode. Such cases can lead to charges of police brutality.

This problem is not new. One of the first cases to receive wide attention and spur reform efforts happened 41 years ago, on Oct. 29, 1984. On that day, a white New York City police officer fatally shot 66-year-old Eleanor Bumpurs, a Black woman. Bumpurs, who lived in public housing and had a history of mental health problems, was killed during an eviction.

Bumpurs’ death ignited one of New York’s most significant social justice campaigns of the 1980s, centering on Black women’s encounters with police. It influenced decades of debate over police response to those with mental illness, which have continued right up to New York City’s current mayoral election.

Bumpurs lived across the street from my childhood home, and I was 10 years old when she was killed. In my new book, “Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City,” I explain how the police shooting of a grandmother roiled my neighborhood and sparked citywide action.

The eviction

On the day of the shooting, officers from the New York City Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit and the city housing agency gathered with a city marshal, public housing and welfare workers and medical technicians outside Bumpurs’ apartment. They were there to evict Bumpurs, who was four months behind on her rent and owed the city a little over US$400, equivalent to about $1,240 in today’s dollars. Housing Authority policy required police to accompany city marshals to all evictions.

As I recount in my book, this group believed Bumpurs was violent. Housing officers told the police that she was mentally ill and had a history of throwing lye on strangers.

While Bumpurs had a history of mental illness, she was also an elderly woman in need of medical care. As The New York Times editorial board later pointed out:

“… neither the city’s Housing Authority nor Human Resources Administration seemed able to help. Officials were unable to secure an emergency rent grant, for which she would have easily qualified. A consulting psychiatrist found her unable to function and recommended hospitalization, but no one moved fast enough.”

The officers were tasked with subduing Bumpurs. They had little information about her underlying condition or training to manage it.

Armed with gas masks, plastic shields, a restraining bar and a shotgun, six officers entered Bumpurs’ apartment. Police observed Bumpurs wielding a butcher knife in her right hand. Officer Stephen Sullivan fired two blasts with the shotgun. The first severely damaged Bumpurs’ right hand; the second struck her in the chest. Bumpurs died at a local hospital.

Public outrage

Bumpurs’ killing shocked New Yorkers. City leaders and community activists condemned what they saw as the NYPD’s use of excessive force against Black people and other people of color, particularly those with mental health conditions.

As then-city clerk and future mayor David Dinkins put it, “It is inconceivable to me that deadly force was employed here.” The New York Times called Bumpurs’ death “a grave error of police procedure and judgment.”

Bumpurs’ killing was discussed in Sunday morning sermons, university lecture halls, beauty salons and barbershops. Many New Yorkers denounced the shooting, although others praised Sullivan for protecting the lives of his fellow officers.

Artists took up Bumpurs’ cause. In her 1986 poem “For the Record: In Memory of Eleanor Bumpers,” Audre Lorde wrote:

 Who will count the big fleshy women
 the grandmother weighing 22 stone
 with the rusty braids
 and gap-toothed scowl
 who wasn’t afraid of Armageddon
 . . . . 
 and I am going to keep writing it down
 how they carried her body out of the house
 dress torn up around her waist
 uncovered
 past tenants and the neighborhood children
 a mountain of Black Woman
 and I am going to keep telling this
 if it kills me
 and it might in ways I am
 learning

In 1989, Brooklyn filmmaker Spike Lee dedicated his movie “Do the Right Thing” to Bumpurs and other Black New Yorkers killed by police officers.

Critics argued that Sullivan should be terminated and charged with homicide. They called for holding city workers responsible for mishandling the eviction and pressed Mayor Edward Koch and U.S. Attorney Rudolph Guiliani to investigate it.

Through rallies, grassroots lobbying and letter-writing campaigns, activists demanded legal justice for Bumpurs. They also called for reforms, including new police policies.

Amid activists’ calls for his arrest, Sullivan said he had been justified in shooting Bumpurs. He insisted that he had followed police procedures.

City action

In response to Bumpurs’ death, the NYPD implemented new procedures. Public pressure from activists inspired policy changes.

Officers were instructed not to confront “an emotionally disturbed person believed to be armed or violent. No action will be taken until the Precinct Commander or Duty Captain arrives and evaluates the situation.”

The new policies prioritized nonlethal methods for responding to these emergencies, instructing officers to use nets, Tasers and restraining bars and shields rather than guns.

Bumpurs’ family filed a $10 million lawsuit against the city, which ultimately led to a $200,000 settlement in 1990. In 1985, Sullivan was indicted by a Bronx grand jury on a manslaughter charge, which carried a maximum of 15 years in prison. He was convicted but acquitted on appeal in 1987 and restored to full duty.

Little lasting change

Even as the NYPD has adopted various training programs, people with mental illnesses continue to face excessive and deadly force when they confront the police.

Most recently, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the Crisis Intervention Team in 2015 and the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division program in 2021. In 2016, approximately 4,700 NYPD officers out of a force of slightly over 35,000 completed Crisis Intervention Team training, which provided instruction for responding to mental health emergencies.

Nonetheless, New Yorkers continued to confront police violence. On Oct. 18, 2016, police Sgt. Hugh Barry responded to reports that 66-year-old Deborah Danner, who was schizophrenic, had been screaming in the halls of her Bronx apartment building. Barry, who had not received CIT training, fatally shot Danner when she allegedly swung a bat at him. Barry was later indicted and acquitted of murder in 2018.

The B-Heard program dispatches mental health professionals and fire department paramedics to 911 mental health calls. As of 2024, however, it covered only 31 out of 77 NYPD precincts. Police officers still respond to many mental health calls using Tasers or firearms.

On March 27, 2024, for example, 19-year-old Queens resident Win Rozario called 911 because he was experiencing a mental health episode. Since no B-Heard unit served Rozario’s neighborhood, police were dispatched. Rozario was fatally shot minutes after officers entered his home.

Other U.S. communities have had greater success using civilian response teams. Examples include Denver’s Support Team Assistance Response program and Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion initiative.

Research shows that such initiatives are safer and more effective than relying on law enforcement interventions. They produce better outcomes for people with mental health conditions and help keep communities safer.

In interviews with Bumpurs’ daughter, Mary, I asked what she saw as the legacy of her mother’s case.

She replied, “To keep her spirit moving. To let people know what happened to her.”

More than 40 years after Bumpurs’ death, the public continues to remember her death. Activists and writers have paid tributes and written articles about Bumpurs, signaling the importance of her tragic killing to the current political movement against police violence.

LaShawn Harris 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

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem compared antifa to the transnational criminal group MS-13, Hamas and the Islamic State group in October 2025, she equated a nonhierarchical, loosely organized movement of antifascist activists with some of the world’s most violent and organized militant groups.

“Antifa is just as dangerous,” she said.

It’s a sweeping claim that ignores crucial distinctions in ideology, organization and scope. Comparing these groups is like comparing apples and bricks: They may both be organizations, but that’s where the resemblance stops.

Noem’s statement echoed the logic of a September 2025 Trump administration executive order that designated antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.” The order directs all relevant federal agencies to investigate and dismantle any operations, including the funding sources, linked to antifa.

But there is no credible evidence from the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security that supports such a comparison. Independent terrorism experts don’t see the similarities either.

Data shows that the movement can be confrontational and occasionally violent. But antifa is neither a terrorist network nor a major source of organized lethal violence.

Antifa, as understood by scholars and law enforcement, is not an organization in any formal sense. It lacks membership rolls and leadership hierarchies. It doesn’t have centralized funding.

As a scholar of social movements, I know that antifa is a decentralized movement animated by opposition to fascism and far-right extremism. It’s an assortment of small groups that mobilize around specific protests or local issues. And its tactics range from peaceful counterdemonstrations to mutual aid projects.

For example, in Portland, Oregon, local antifa activists organized counterdemonstrations against far-right rallies in 2019.

Antifa groups active in Houston during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 coordinated food, supplies and rescue support for affected residents.

No evidence of terrorism

The FBI and DHS have classified certain anarchist or anti-fascist groups under the broad category of “domestic violent extremists.” But neither agency nor the State Department has ever previously designated antifa as a terrorist organization.

The data on political violence reinforces this point.

A 2022 report by the Counter Extremism Project found that the overwhelming majority of deadly domestic terrorist incidents in the United States in recent years were linked to right-wing extremists. These groups include white supremacists and anti-government militias that promote racist or authoritarian ideologies. They reject democratic authority and often seek to provoke social chaos or civil conflict to achieve their goals.

Left-wing or anarchist-affiliated violence, including acts attributed to antifa-aligned people, accounts for only a small fraction of domestic extremist incidents and almost none of the fatalities. Similarly, in 2021, the George Washington University Program on Extremism found that anarchist or anti-fascist attacks are typically localized, spontaneous and lacking coordination.

By contrast, the organizations Noem invoked – Hamas, the Islamic State group and MS-13 – share structural and operational characteristics that antifa lacks.

They operate across borders and are hierarchically organized. They are also capable of sustained military or paramilitary operations. They possess training pipelines, funding networks, propaganda infrastructure and territorial control. And they have orchestrated mass casualties such as the 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Brussels bombings.

In short, they are military or criminal organizations with strategic intent. Noem’s claim that antifa is “just as dangerous” as these groups is not only empirically indefensible but rhetorically reckless.

Turning dissent into ‘terrorism’

So why make such a claim?

Noem’s statement fits squarely within the Trump administration’s broader political strategy that has sought to inflate the perceived threat of left-wing activism.

Casting antifa as a domestic terrorist equivalent of the Islamic State nation or Hamas serves several functions.

It stokes fear among conservative audiences by linking street protests and progressive dissent to global terror networks. It also provides political cover for expanded domestic surveillance and harsher policing of protests.

Additionally, it discredits protest movements critical of the right. In a polarized media environment, such rhetoric performs a symbolic purpose. It divides the moral universe into heroes and enemies, order and chaos, patriots and radicals.

Noem’s comparison reflects a broader pattern in populist politics, where complex social movements are reduced to simple, threatening caricatures. In recent years, some Republican leaders have used antifa as a shorthand for all forms of left-wing unrest or criticism of authority.

Antifa’s decentralized structure makes it a convenient target for blame. That’s because it lacks clear boundaries, leadership and accountability. So any act by someone identifying with antifa can be framed as representing the whole movement, whether or not it does. And by linking antifa to terrorist groups, Noem, the top anti-terror official in the country, turns a political talking point into a claim that appears to carry the weight of national security expertise.

The problem with this kind of rhetoric is not just that it’s inaccurate. Equating protest movements with terrorist organizations blurs important distinctions that allow democratic societies to tolerate dissent. It also risks misdirecting attention and resources away from more serious threats — including organized, ideologically driven groups that remain the primary source of domestic terrorism in the U.S.

As I see it, Noem’s claim reveals less about antifa and more about the political uses of fear.

By invoking the language of terrorism to describe an anti-fascist movement, she taps into a potent emotional current in American politics: the desire for clear enemies, simple explanations and moral certainty in times of division.

But effective homeland security depends on evidence, not ideology. To equate street-level confrontation with organized terror is not only wrong — it undermines the credibility of the very institutions charged with protecting the public.

Art Jipson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The U.S. housing market has been ensnared in a growing affordability crisis for decades.

The problem has gotten dramatically worse in recent years. Since 2019, home prices are up 60% nationwide. A record-high 22 million renters are “cost-burdened” – spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

Meanwhile, stagnant wages, limited housing supply and lagging federal assistance have helped leave more than 770,000 Americans homeless.

Despite these varied reasons, Vice President JD Vance has blamed the housing affordability crisis on undocumented immigrants. In August 2025, he attributed rising housing costs to immigration: “You cannot flood the United States of America with … people who have no legal right to be here, have them compete against young American families for homes, and not expect the price to skyrocket.”

Deportations, he argued, would lower housing prices. “Why has housing leveled off over the past six months? I really believe the main driver is … negative net migration.”

Despite Vance’s claims, research shows that immigration is not a substantial cause of unaffordable housing. In fact, studies have found that deportations exacerbate housing shortages through reductions in the construction workforce, which lead to lower production of housing units and higher prices.

From this perspective, its hard to see the administration’s deportation policy as a real effort to solve the housing crisis. Rather, it is using the housing crisis as a way to justify mass deportations to the public.

The current administration’s anti-immigrant housing policy reflects a long history of xenophobia in housing. As a sociologist of housing, I’ve traced the history of racial segregation in housing in Los Angeles County. I have found that the same far-right groups that sought to defeat public housing construction and maintain racially restrictive agreements in post-World War II Los Angeles also advocated to ban immigrants from U.S. housing programs.

Earlier anti-immigrant housing plans

Among the leaders of these efforts was the far-right politician and activist Gerald L.K. Smith. Described in 1976 by historian John Morton Blum as “the most infamous American fascist,” Smith helped bridge the American right’s 1940s conspiratorial and isolationist America First era and its 1960s anti-civil rights era.

Smith traveled the country advocating a Christian nationalist vision for American society, offering a religious justification for anti-communism and opposition to civil rights. He also ran for president unsuccessfully in 1944, 1948 and 1956.

After settling in Los Angeles in 1953, Smith led Red Scare campaigns – driven by hostility to communism – across the country.

In my research, I found that Smith was an early proponent of anti-immigrant housing policy. His 10 principles included a call to “Stop immigration in order that American jobs and American houses may be safeguarded for American citizens.” Elsewhere he called to “Release housing units occupied by aliens in order that they may be occupied by veterans and other American citizens.”

Smith wasn’t alone. His efforts were part of a broader environment in which public officials and local media worked to stop construction of public housing in Los Angeles in the 1950s, accusing its proponents of communism.

Recent anti-immigrant policy in housing

State and federal policymakers have also incorporated anti-immigrant stances into American housing policy over the past half-century.

The 1980 Housing and Community Development Act was the first federal legislation to specifically bar undocumented immigrants from public housing programs. Welfare reform in 1996 further restricted public housing assistance to only legal permanent residents and those with asylum or refugee status.

Echoing the alien land laws of the late 1800s that prohibited foreign property ownership, policymakers in the 2000s in states such as Pennsylvania and Texas passed laws forcing landlords to check immigration status as a condition of rental – though this was struck down by the courts.

Today, immigrant tenants experience fewer housing rights than citizens. These inequalities fall particularly hard on unauthorized immigrants who experience high rates of housing cost burden, crowding and poor housing conditions.

The Trump administration aims to expand restrictions on immigrants in public housing even further. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is in the process of adopting rules that will evict entire families if even one member is ineligible for assistance based on immigration status. Current law allows those families to live in public housing, while prorating their benefits to account for an ineligible member.

From Smith to Vance, anti-immigrant housing policies have been cast as a way for citizens to get more housing. But they fail to prevent or solve the housing shortage driving the crisis.

For example, the Trump administration’s effort to evict mixed status families from public housing will affect roughly 25,000 households. Setting aside the fact that those families may then be made homeless, that number is only one-tenth the amount of housing that the U.S. has lost due to the defunding and demolishing of public housing since 1990.

Indeed, many of the Trump administration’s immigration and economic policies are likely to exacerbate the housing crisis. The Trump administration has made deportation a priority and has significantly increased deportation rates compared to recent years, while instituting historically high tariffs on imports.

Deportations reduce the housing construction workforce, lowering the number of units built and increasing costs. And tariffs raise prices on building materials such as lumber, steel and aluminum. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that recent tariffs have raised building costs by US$10,900 per home.

In early 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency canceled or delayed a series of HUD grants for housing assistance programs. And the Trump administration has announced plans for more cuts to the nation’s already insufficient housing assistance budget.

Vance, like Smith before him, presents the issue like a pie, where citizens can get a larger slice only by deporting immigrants. But the reality is that the pie can be bigger: The government can fully fund the housing needs of all Americans for less than it has spent on its other priorities. The recently passed “big, beautiful bill,” for example, allocates more funding to border and interior enforcement per year than key rental assistance programs, public housing and Housing Choice Vouchers allocate for housing.

In Smith’s time, everyday Americans resisted this gambit, speaking out to protest his views. Today, as Smith’s anti-immigration housing ideas have ascended to the national stage, the housing justice community is speaking out against anti-immigrant housing policy and offering an alternative vision of how the U.S. can provide housing for all.

Rahim Kurwa 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

Centrist Democrats have a plan for their party to win again: Talk more about the economy and less about democracy. Reject corporate interests and ideological purity tests. Keep the progressive policies that are popular — like expanding health care and raising the minimum wage — and moderate on issues like immigration and crime.

Those are among the takeaways laid out in an expansive report Monday from WelcomePAC, which supports center-left candidates, on how Democrats can rebound from last year’s electoral wipeout in 2026 and 2028.

The 58-page prescription comes as Democrats continue to war over the direction of their party nearly a year after their national shellacking. And it drops a week before a slate of gubernatorial and mayoral contests that will serve as the first major temperature check of the electorate since 2024 and President Donald Trump retaking the Oval Office.

It features input from a who’s who of top Democratic consultants — including David Axelrod; James Carville; David Plouffe, a top adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign; Lis Smith; and former Biden White House spokesperson Andrew Bates — as well as analysts and strategists like Nate Silver, Sarah Longwell and former Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois.

The report is less an autopsy of the 2024 election — it spends a scant five pages on former President Joe Biden’s and Harris’ campaigns — and more so an indictment of the party’s leftward shift since the Obama administration and the donors, campaign operatives and progressive advocacy groups the authors blame for putting Democrats in an unwinnable position.

It largely echoes what moderate Democrats have been saying loudly for months — that the party should be running to the center and focusing on kitchen table issues.

It uses polling data to reinforce the message many centrist Democrats believe voters sent the party in 2024: that voters felt Democrats were prioritizing democracy, abortion and identity over top-of-mind issues like the economy, immigration and crime. It argues that moderate candidates tend to overperform progressive ones, citing centrist Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) as models for how the party should message on border security and the economy.

And Democrats “should distance ourselves from the Biden administration,” the authors write, “particularly by critiquing the Biden administration’s approach to border security and the cost of living.” Harris, they posit, lost in part because of her failure to do so — and because voters couldn’t let go of her past progressive policies even as she ran a more moderate campaign.

The report doesn’t call for a wholesale rejection of progressive stances. Expanding access to public health care, making the wealthy “pay their fair share” in taxes and raising the minimum wage are all popular with voters, and WelcomePAC believes the party should continue to focus on them. Democrats, the authors say, should emulate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Democratic nominee for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “relentless focus” on affordability.

But they also say Democrats should focus less on “lower-salience issues where our views are unpopular,” such as transgender athletes. They insist that running against the establishment — as is en vogue these days — doesn’t have to mean running toward the left. And they contend that simply running younger candidates “is not a panacea.”

WelcomePAC made no mention of next week’s gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia. But their strategy will undergo an early test in both states, where the party has put forward a pair of moderate lawmakers with military and national security backgrounds who are running campaigns centered on affordability. Democrats are favored to win both races, though Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s contest in New Jersey is expected to be far closer than former Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s in Virginia.

WelcomePAC warned against drawing conclusions from the elections heading into 2028 in its report, insisting that “doing well in midterms and special elections does not guarantee Democrats anywhere close to the same results in a presidential race” because less-engaged voters tend to skip those intermediate contests.

But Democrats across the ideological spectrum will undoubtedly be scanning the results of next week’s elections in two states that stayed blue in 2024 but shifted toward Trump for signs of what is — and isn’t — working for the party heading into a high-stakes midterm election and the critical presidential contest to follow.

​Politics

Americans are sharply divided on the NFL’s decision to feature Puerto Rican-born artist Bad Bunny at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, according to a new survey by Quinnipiac University.

Overall, nearly half of respondents said they approve of the decision, with 29 percent disapproving and another 24 percent offering no opinion. While nearly 3 in 4 Democrats said they approve of the NFL’s decision, more than 3 in 5 Republicans oppose the move.

Opinions were also largely divided by race and age: Bad Bunny enjoyed significantly more support among Black and Hispanic adults than among white respondents, and his biggest contingent of support came from those aged 18-34.

The NFL, which has repeatedly drawn the ire of the MAGA movement in recent years, once again faced attacks from President Donald Trump and his supporters after announcing last month that Bad Bunny would take the stage at the most-watched live event in the country.

The artist, who was one of the top three most-streamed artists in the world on Spotify last year, has been vocal in his criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, declining to schedule dates in the mainland U.S. during his upcoming world tour due to concerns about heightened ICE presence. The music video for his song “NUEVAYoL” also features a parody of Trump’s voice purporting to “apologize to the immigrants of America.”

MAGA firebrands quickly seized on the announcement to call the singer a “Trump hater,” and Turning Point USA announced a counterprogram halftime show, although the conservative organizing group has yet to announce featured performers.

Trump called the decision “absolutely ridiculous” in an interview with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly earlier this month, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has warned that ICE agents would be “all over” the Super Bowl.

Still, the NFL has stood by its decision, with Commissioner Roger Goodell reiterating last week that the league would move forward with the show despite blowback from conservatives.

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 16-20, with a random sample of 1,519 adults. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

​Politics