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    ‘A new political era’: fresh Democratic faces seek office to prevent their party from ‘sleepwalking into dystopia’

    Earlier this year, Liam Elkind seized an opportunity to ask his longtime congressman, Jerry Nadler, what everyday New Yorkers like himself could do to help Democrats stand up to Donald Trump. Nadler’s response, according to Elkind, was to “donate to the DCCC” – the group that helps House Democrats keep their seats. Deeply unsatisfied, the 26-year-old decided to run for office against the 17-term incumbent.In Georgia, Everton Blair also sought answers from his long-serving congressman, David Scott, at a panel event earlier this year. When Blair asked him about Democrats’ legislative strategy, the 80-year-old lawmaker was dismissive. “I don’t know who sent y’all,” he said. Blair, 34, is now making a bid for Scott’s seat.Jake Rakov began to worry when he noticed his former boss, 70-year-old California congressman Brad Sherman, repeating the same anti-Trump talking points he’d deployed eight years prior. To Rakov, 37, it was a sign that the Democratic party’s ageing establishment “wasn’t going to learn”. He is now one of two millennial-aged Jakes challenging Sherman.View image in fullscreenA year after Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office emerged as a major liability in the 2024 presidential election, followed by Trump’s return to power , demand for generational change has reached a fever pitch. A wave of younger, social-media savvy candidates, frustrated by what they see as an ossifying, out-of-touch Democratic establishment, is launching primary challenges against some of their party’s most senior incumbents.The insurgents charge that party elders have failed to act with urgency as Trump targets Democratic cities, voters and values, and they say they’re no longer willing to wait their turn.“If what happened last year was not a wake up call for the Democratic party that we need to do things differently and that we need to let some new voices in, then we should all be deeply worried about the future of the Democratic party,” said Luke Bronin, a 46-year-old who is running against Connecticut congressman John Larson, 77.The 119th Congress is the third oldest in US history, and three members – all Democrats – have died in office this year. More than a dozen House Democrats who will be 70 or older by election day 2026 are facing challengers, according to an analysis by Axios, though not all have said whether they plan to seek re-election.But the push to replace longtime incumbents isn’t just about age, says Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a former chief of staff to New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is running for the San Francisco congressional seat long held by the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.They say it’s about energy, vision and, crucially, how hard they’re willing to fight – which could explain why octogenarian brawlers like Maxine Waters haven’t faced calls to step aside while some relatively younger members, such as 50-year-old André Carson, have drawn challengers.“It’s being a part of a system for so long you just don’t actually think it’s your job to renew it,” Chakrabarti said.View image in fullscreenPelosi, 85, who stepped down from her leadership position to make room for a new generation in 2022, has not yet said whether she plans to seek re-election. ​A spokesperson for Pelosi declined to comment.While their campaigns are ​​textured by local​ issues and cultural references – Elkind touts his go-to bagel order (un-toasted everything with whitefish salad) and Chakrabarti pitches a publicly owned utility for San Francisco​ – their broader ​messages chime: Democratic elders have grown complacent, clinging to a broken status quo​ – with devastating consequences.Democrats’ popularity has cratered to record lows and the party has bled voters – especially young people, first-timers, and Black and Latino Americans.But the incumbents are pushing back. They argue their years of experience have delivered tangible results. “These guys would start off with zero seniority, just when the district needs the most help,” Sherman, the California congressman, said in an interview. He dismissed claims he’s been timid on Trump, noting he introduced articles of impeachment against him in 2017 and, earlier this year, confronted the president at an in-person briefing on the Palisades fire that devastated parts of his district.“The key to fighting Donald Trump is beating him in the 2026 election,” Sherman said. “If we don’t take the House back in 2026 we may not have elections in 2028.”Many challengers align politically with the incumbents they’re trying to unseat – several have voted for their opponent in the past. They argue the intraparty divide is not left-versus-center but a clash between “the fighters and the folders” – those who see the Trump era as a troubling but passing chapter and those who see it as a constitutional emergency that will determine the survival of American democracy.The younger candidates say the party needs to “meet voters where they are” – on social media, on podcasts, at red county diners and rambunctious town halls. They want leaders who can speak plainly about the ways the Trump administration is hurting working-class Americans – and how Democrats would help.But they also say it can’t only be about Trump. The party needs a full-scale reimagining of what Democrats stand for and how they communicate that to voters – a type of messaging they’ve struggled to articulate in the Trump era.Democrats haven’t always embraced primaries. They can be costly and time-consuming, and create headaches for general election races. But in the midst of deep party introspection and generational friction, more are embracing the contests as a way forward.Groups such as Leaders We Deserve, led by former Democratic national committee vice-chair David Hogg, are actively backing young candidates challenging “asleep-at-the-wheel” incumbents. The effort sparked an internal firestorm and ultimately led Hogg to step down from his role at the DNC.Republicans are watching the primary battles unfold with glee. “Democrats are engaged in a battle between the socialists and the party dinosaurs – and it’s only getting uglier,” Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the national Republican congressional committee, said.Next year’s elections will test Democrats’ desire for generational change but it may not resolve their identity crisis. Some districts will elevate centrist candidates, while others might embrace a democratic socialist. Some crave an anti-establishment streak, ideology aside.And some veteran lawmakers have already chosen to relinquish power. In May, Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky announced that her 14th term representing Illinois’s ninth district would be her last, saying in a statement: “It is now time for me to pass the baton.” Before she made the decision public, Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive political influencer, had already launched a campaign for the seat, asking Democrats: “What if we didn’t suck?”Primed for Congress, but not waiting for an openingAmong the contenders in Democratic primaries are local and state political leaders for whom Congress makes sense as a next logical step. In years past, they might have opted to wait for a retirement and then seek an endorsement from the outgoing congressman. Not any more.View image in fullscreenAt 46, Luke Bronin has a lengthy résumé of service: a lawyer, former Obama administration official, navy reserve intelligence officer and, most recently, mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. But he stresses that he’d also bring “an outsider’s commitment to making some bigger changes”.Bronin has spoken with Larson, the longtime incumbent in Connecticut’s first district, including an hourlong conversation in recent months. What was missing, he said, was any recognition that the job has fundamentally changed since Larson arrived in Washington in 1999.“I didn’t hear a sense of urgency that we need to hear from every single member of Congress,” Bronin said.Bronin thinks Democrats need to be “relentless and clear” about the ways Trump is making life worse for Americans, and “equally relentless and clear” about the Democratic party’s vision for improving their daily lives. He wants to see “an intense focus on issues like housing and healthcare and childcare”, and for Democrats to spread these messages in friendly and unfriendly forums.In a statement, the Larson campaign said the district needs a “proven fighter” to protect against Trump’s attacks on social security and Medicare.“That’s Congressman Larson. That’s why he’s backed by progressive groups, labor, and working people alike,” the campaign said. “What they don’t need is someone pretending to be a new voice who’s actually been in politics [for] decades that’s always been more focused on running for higher office than delivering results.”Chakrabarti, who has spend much of his political career working to elect progressives to Congress, said he began to seriously consider a run himself after listening to a New York Times podcast interview with Pelosi just days after the November election. He had expected Democrats’ crushing defeat to trigger a reckoning – but instead heard a defense of the status quo.It confirmed for Chakrabarti what he had long feared: the Democratic party was “sort of sleepwalking into this dystopia”.But progressives like Chakrabarti take hope from the success of state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary this summer.“When I look at the moment today, the appetite for change, it completely dwarfs what I saw in 2018,” Chakrabarti said, referring to the election year in which Ocasio-Cortez toppled one of the most senior House Democrats as a political unknown.“We’re at the point of a dawn of a new political era.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe crowded primariesSeveral candidates have filed to run in Georgia’s 13th district, a solidly blue area in the Atlanta suburbs, a sign of the vulnerabilities among older members and the enthusiasm to replace them. Scott, who has served in Congress since 2003, has not yet announced whether he will run again. Questions over his health and fitness for office have become public fodder – he lambasted a photographer for taking a photo of him in a wheelchair last year.Some are younger than the average age in Congress (58.9); all are younger than Scott, 80. One contender, state senator Emanuel Jones, is 66. In 2024, Scott fended off a crowded field of primary challengers to keep his seat.Jasmine Clark, 42, was first elected to the state house in Georgia in 2018. She has a PhD in microbiology, an expertise that has served her well in analyzing bills and communicating during the pandemic. If elected, would be the first woman with a science PhD in Congress.View image in fullscreenShe wants the district to have a fighter who can call out the rampant misinformation and disinformation coming out of the Trump administration. The Atlanta area is feeling the consequences of this information environment, she said, pointing to a shooting earlier this month at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by a man alleged to be fixated on the Covid-19 vaccine.“When you have the same people in the same place for a really long time, that stagnation leads to stagnation of ideas as well,” she said. “There should be a healthy turnover, where you still have institutional knowledge while ushering in new ideas. But for whatever reason, we don’t really see that in Congress.”View image in fullscreenEverton Blair, who served on the Gwinnett county board of education, is touting his deep ties to the district where he was born and raised. He sees a lot of opportunities left on the table because of inactive representation.“There’s a general sense of despondency and just apathy right now that we address and we combat by bringing those very voices and people back into the conversation and making sure that they feel represented well,” Blair said.“The leaders who got us into this mess are not the leaders who can get us out of it,” he added.Scott did not respond to a request for comment.In California, Jake Rakov, who served as a deputy communications director for Brad Sherman, the 15-term incumbent he’s challenging, is making a similar case. He hasn’t spoken to his old boss in years, but he has been talking to the congressman’s constituents. Many, he said, are shocked that any member – let alone their own – has been in Congress for nearly 30 years.“We’ve got people in office who’ve been there since the 1990s and are still legislating like it’s the 1990s,” he said, adding: “It is so antithetical to our idea of a representative democracy that it just is immediately offensive to people when they hear about it.”Sherman has also drawn a challenge from Jake Levine, a veteran of the Biden and Obama administrations whose mother lost her home in the January fires. “It’s time for something new,” Levine says in his campaign launch video.Sherman argued that calls for generational change aren’t new. Estimating that he’s taken about 5,000 votes in Congress over the past decade, the overwhelming majority of which his challengers would agree with, Sherman asked: “If you did something right 5,000 times in a row – 100% of the time – is there any chance that you should get fired?”The upstartsUpstart candidates traditionally face steeper challenges against incumbents, but, with the help of slick online content, they’re finding new ways to gain traction. In an Arizona special election earlier this year, Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old influencer and activist, came in a distant second behind a longtime Democratic official whose father held the seat until his death – but she still managed to win more than 22% of votes.Katie Bansil, a 34-year-old political newcomer who works in finance, is challenging congressman Frank Pallone, 73, in New Jersey’s sixth congressional district over his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Since launching her campaign, Bansil, who immigrated to the US from the Philippines and grew up in New Jersey, says she’s seen a growing desire for new leadership.View image in fullscreen“I started calling him ‘the asterisk’, because a lot of people have told me, ‘Oh, I just vote for the guy that is labeled as the incumbent,’” she said. “But I think people are actually waking up to the truth about what’s going on.”A spokesperson for Pallone said the congressman has “proven himself to be an effective champion of progressive causes”.“With daily assaults from the Trump administration on our democracy and institutions, Pallone will continue to use every tool to stop the Republican authoritarian agenda of stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” the spokesperson said.Liam Elkind, the challenger to Jerry Nadler, announced his campaign with a splashy video that opened with dirt being shoveled into a grave and his voiceover: “The Democratic party is dying.”“Our system often tells people to wait their turn,” Elkind said. “And look where we are.”A Rhodes scholar, Elkind founded the non-profit food delivery service Invisible Hands during the pandemic. He says that work – along with own experiences as a young person living in one of the most expensive cities in the world – would shape his approach to the job.Like many his age, Elkind doesn’t have health insurance. When he recently went to get a vaccine and was told it would cost $500, “I turned my ass around,” he quipped. “But look, that’s the day-to-day lived reality of a whole lot of people in this country.”View image in fullscreenA spokesperson for Nadler emphasized the congressman’s political strength, noting that he won his most recent election with 80% of the vote.“But this is the great thing about America, it’s a democracy – hopefully still – and anybody can run,” Robert Gottheim, the spokesperson, said, adding that Nadler would “put his over-30-year record of accomplishments against anyone including someone who appears to have no record of accomplishment to speak of”.Elkind said he voted for Nadler and respected his long record as a progressive voice for New York. But, he argued, the moment demands new energy and a break from the past.“The house is on fire, and we need leaders who can meet this moment,” he said. “We deserve to know that the next time a child is kidnapped off of our streets, that our congressman will be on that street in the next hour with a megaphone demanding that child’s release and then will travel to whatever foreign gulag the president has decided to stash that kid in.” More

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    Ex-Yankee Is Awarded About $500,000 in Damages for Moldy Greenwich Mansion

    Josh Donaldson, a former American League Most Valuable Player with Toronto, sued his former landlord over the conditions at his $55,000-a-month rental property.A Connecticut jury on Wednesday awarded the former New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson damages that are expected to top $500,000 from the ex-landlord of his $55,000-a-month Greenwich, Conn., rental mansion, which he complained was plagued by mold and squirrels.Mr. Donaldson, 39, terminated the lease about six weeks after moving into the five-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot home in April 2022 with his now-wife, Briana, who was pregnant at the time, and their 17-month-old daughter.In a federal lawsuit filed in Connecticut in June 2022, the now-retired baseball player accused the home’s owner, Bill Grous, of breach of contract and said that the rental in Greenwich’s backcountry section was a money pit.The neighborhood, sought after for its sprawling estates and privacy, is a magnet for professional athletes, other celebrities and financiers.Mr. Donaldson, a former American League Most Valuable Player with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, moved into the mansion a few weeks after being traded to the Yankees from the Minnesota Twins.His two seasons in New York were rocky. Mr. Donaldson struggled to replicate his success and was suspended by Major League Baseball in May 2022 for one game for repeatedly calling Tim Anderson, who is Black and was a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox at the time, “Jackie,” a reference to Jackie Robinson. In August 2023, Mr. Donaldson was released by the Yankees.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    12 States Sue Trump Over His Tariffs

    A dozen states, most of them led by Democrats, sued President Trump over his tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that he has no power to “arbitrarily impose tariffs as he has done here.”Contending that only Congress has the power to legislate tariffs, the states are asking the court to block the Trump administration from enforcing what they said were unlawful tariffs.“These edicts reflect a national trade policy that now hinges on the president’s whims rather than the sound exercise of his lawful authority,” said the lawsuit, filed by the states’ attorneys general in the U.S. Court of International Trade.The states, including New York, Illinois and Oregon, are the latest parties to take the Trump administration to court over the tariffs. Their case comes after California filed its own lawsuit last week, in which Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state attorney general accused the administration of escalating a trade war that has caused “immediate and irreparable harm” to that state’s economy.Officials and businesses from Oregon, the lead plaintiff in the suit filed Wednesday, have also expressed concerns about the vulnerability of the state’s trade-dependent economy, as well as its sportswear industry, as a result of the tariffs.“When a president pushes an unlawful policy that drives up prices at the grocery store and spikes utility bills, we don’t have the luxury of standing by,” said Dan Rayfield, Oregon’s attorney general, in a statement. “These tariffs hit every corner of our lives — from the checkout line to the doctor’s office — and we have a responsibility to push back.”Asked about the latest lawsuit, Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, called it a “witch hunt” by Democrats against Mr. Trump. “The Trump administration remains committed to using its full legal authority to confront the distinct national emergencies our country is currently facing,” he said, “both the scourge of illegal migration and fentanyl flows across our border and the exploding annual U.S. goods trade deficit.”The other states in the suit are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Vermont. All of the states have Democratic attorneys general, though Nevada and Vermont have Republican governors.Mr. Trump’s tariffs have shocked and upended the global trade industry. He set a 145 percent tariff on goods from China, 25 percent on Canada, and 10 percent on almost all imports from most other countries.The moves have drawn legal challenges from other entities as well, including two members of the Blackfeet Nation, who filed a federal lawsuit in Montana over the tariffs on Canada, saying they violated tribal treaty rights. Legal groups like the Liberty Justice Center and the New Civil Liberties Alliance have also sued. “I’m happy that Oregon and the other states are joining us in this fight,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, who is working on the Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit. More

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    Connecticut Shell Recyclers Are Helping Oysters

    Summer in New England means lobster rolls, fried seafood and, of course, freshly shucked oysters.But there’s a problem. Those empty shells usually end up in a dumpster instead of back in the water, where they play a key role in the oyster life cycle. Oyster larvae attach to shells, where they grow into adults and form reefs that improve water quality, prevent coastal erosion and create habitat for other marine life.Two men in Connecticut are working to fix that. They’ve started a statewide program to collect discarded shells from local restaurants, dry them and return them to Long Island Sound for restoration projects.50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year.“We fill that missing piece,” said Tim Macklin, a co-founder of Collective Oyster Recycling & Restoration, the nonprofit group leading the effort.It’s one of several shell recycling programs that have emerged to help reverse the steep decline in oyster populations along U.S. coastlines, a drop that experts largely attribute to overharvesting, habitat degradation and disease. Some of the largest programs process more than a million pounds of shell each year.Tell Us About Solutions Where You Live More

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    Selma Miriam, Founder of the Feminist Restaurant Bloodroot, Dies at 89

    She and Noel Furie had just come out as lesbians when they opened an unusual gathering place for women in Connecticut. Nearly half a century later, it is still thriving.Selma Miriam and Noel Furie were unhappy housewives, as they put it, when they met at a gathering of the National Organization for Women in Connecticut in 1972. Soon after, they divorced their husbands, came out as lesbians and set about creating a place for women to congregate.Ms. Miriam was a talented and adventurous cook, and at first they held dinners at her house, charging $8 for a weekly buffet of lush vegetarian dishes — a culinary choice they made because a friend pointed out that a feminist food enterprise should not contribute to the suffering of animals.In 1977 they opened Bloodroot, a feminist restaurant and bookstore tucked into an industrial building on a dead-end street in Bridgeport. They had no waiters, no printed menu and no cash register, and they did not advertise. Against the odds, the business thrived.Ms. Miriam, center, with Samn Stockwell, left, and Betsey Beaven, two of the original members of the Bloodroot collective, in 1977, the year the restaurant opened.Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times“The people who need us, find us,” Ms. Miriam always said.Selma Miriam died on Feb. 6 at her home in Westport, Conn. She was 89.The cause was pneumonia, her longtime partner, Carolanne Curry, said.“We don’t just want a piece of the pie, we want a whole new recipe,” Ms. Miriam declared in “A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot,” a feature-length 2024 documentary about the restaurant. (Another documentary, “Bloodroot,” came out in 2019.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Constitutional Convention? Some Democrats Fear It’s Coming.

    Some Republicans have said that a constitutional convention is overdue. Many Democratic-led states have rescinded their long-ago calls for one, and California will soon consider whether to do the same.As Republicans prepare to take control of Congress and the White House, among the many scenarios keeping Democrats up at night is an event that many Americans consider a historical relic: a constitutional convention.The 1787 gathering in Philadelphia to write the Constitution was the one and only time state representatives have convened to work on the document.But a simple line in the Constitution allows Congress to convene a rewrite session if two-thirds of state legislatures have called for one. The option has never been used, but most states have long-forgotten requests on the books that could be enough to trigger a new constitutional convention, some scholars and politicians believe.Some Democratic officials are more concerned than ever. In California, a Democratic state senator, Scott Wiener, will introduce legislation on Monday that would rescind the state’s seven active calls for a constitutional convention, the first such move since Donald J. Trump’s election to a second term.Mr. Wiener, who represents San Francisco, and other liberal Democrats believe there is a strong possibility of a “runaway convention.” They say that Republicans could call a convention on the premise, say, of producing an amendment requiring that the federal budget be balanced, then open the door for a free-for-all in which a multitude of other amendments are considered, including some that could restrict abortion access or civil rights.“I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution,” Mr. Wiener said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Expect an Icy Commute for Parts of the Northeast on Monday Morning

    Light snow and freezing rain are expected in parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania starting Sunday night and could make for a hazardous commute on Monday, forecasters said.A light snowfall and some sleet that will begin on Sunday evening in parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are expected to make roads icy for Monday morning commuters.The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory, in effect until 10 a.m. Monday for parts of northeastern Pennsylvania and until 11 a.m. for parts of New Jersey, as well as the Lower Hudson Valley in New York.Parts of Connecticut are also expected to be affected, including northern areas of Fairfield, New Haven and northern Middlesex Counties.In northeastern Pennsylvania, forecasters predict up to four inches of snow and sleet, which will turn into a light glaze of ice accumulation Monday morning. Most parts of New York and New Jersey will get less than an inch of snow starting on Sunday evening, spreading eastward into southwestern Connecticut overnight.By late Sunday night, the snow is expected to transition to freezing rain, creating hazardous, icy conditions, particularly on untreated roads and in higher elevations. The morning commute on Monday could be especially dangerous, with icy roads posing significant challenges for drivers, forecasters said.Ice accumulations are forecast to range from a light glaze to a few hundredths of an inch across most areas, while western Orange County may get up to an inch of ice. Higher elevations in the Poconos of Pennsylvania will get the heaviest snow and ice accumulations on Sunday evening, potentially up to four inches.Mike Kistner, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, N.Y., said the forecast for freezing rain and ice is what pushed the Lower Hudson Valley and parts of New Jersey to be under a winter weather advisory, though the snowfall should be light.While the cold air and below-freezing temperatures Monday morning will likely keep roads icy during the morning rush, Mr. Kistner said as it heats up later in the morning and throughout the day, conditions should clear. Bridges and overpasses may remain icy even if the main roads are wet, he added.Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the New York State Thruway Authority, said workers were ready to clear the roads and have pretreated them for freezing rain, though she warned drivers to take it easy on Monday morning.“Give yourself some extra time in the morning,” Ms. Givner said. “And just slow down. I think that’s always the best way to travel in this weather.”Winter weather advisories were also issued for areas in western Maryland, western Virginia, and eastern West Virginia, which could get up to two inches of snow and sleet.The Weather Service warned about slippery roads in those areas. Those advisories were in place until 1 a.m. on Monday.In West Virginia, northwestern Pocahontas County and southeastern Randolph County were under winter storm warnings until 1 a.m. on Monday as strong winds, snow and ice moved in Sunday night. More

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    Bomb threats target Democratic Congress members from Connecticut

    Several Democratic members of Congress from Connecticut have been targeted by bomb threats on their homes, the lawmakers or their offices said on Thursday.Jim Himes, Joe Courtney and John Larson all reported that their homes were the subject of bomb threats. Police who responded said they found no evidence of a bomb on the lawmakers’ properties.This happened a day after a number of Donald Trump’s most prominent cabinet picks and appointees reported that they had received bomb threats and “swatting attacks”, in which perpetrators initiate an emergency law enforcement response against a victim under false pretences.Courtney’s Vernon home received a bomb threat while his wife and children were there, his office said.Himes said on Thursday morning he was notified of the threat against his home during a Thanksgiving celebration with his family. The US Capitol police and Greenwich and Stamford police departments responded.Himes extended his family’s “utmost gratitude to our local law enforcement officers for their immediate action to ensure our safety”. He added: “There is no place for political violence in this country, and I hope that we may all continue through the holiday season with peace and civility.”Larson also said on Thursday that East Hartford police responded to a bomb threat against his home.The threats follow an election season marked by violence. In July, a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing him in the ear and killing one of his supporters. The Secret Service later thwarted a subsequent assassination attempt at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course in Florida, when an agent spotted the barrel of a gun poking through a perimeter fence while Trump was golfing.Among those who received threats on Wednesday were New York representative Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to serve as the next ambassador to the UN; Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial pick to serve as attorney general; Oregon representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who Trump chose to lead the Department of Labor, and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. More