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      The ‘Mamdani of Minneapolis’ is banking on a grassroots campaign to unseat the Democratic mayor

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      On a rainy October day, dozens of volunteers showed up at a Minneapolis park to grab campaign literature they would leave at voters’ doors, hoping to buoy up a Democratic socialist into the mayor’s office.A handful of door-knockers ran into an apartment building to escape the rain, joining Omar Fateh, the mayoral hopeful sometimes dubbed the “Mamdani of Minneapolis”.“We’re running on a campaign to make the city more livable, affordable and to protect all of our residents,” he told one voter, who said they hadn’t been following the race closely.Two others who answered knew Fateh’s name and lent their support. “I think I’m planning on voting for you,” one man told Fateh.Minneapolis voters will decide their next mayor on Tuesday 4 November.Fateh, a 35-year-old who became state senator by ousting an incumbent, has gained attention for comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist on track to win New York City’s mayoral contest. They’re both young, both part of the insurgent left, both Muslim, both state lawmakers. Their platforms, with a focus on affordability, align. Their campaigns tap into grassroots organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Their races use ranked-choice voting, allowing for alliances against the incumbent.Instead of a primary, Minneapolis holds caucuses and a city convention. Fateh earned the endorsement of the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, but it was then revoked by the state party after the electronic voting system failed to capture all votes in the contest, the Minneapolis DFL acknowledged, leaving the race without an endorsed candidate.View image in fullscreen“One of the biggest benefits of the DFL endorsement is name recognition,” Fateh told the Guardian. “But that name recognition became far greater than what we ever could have gotten with the endorsement after they revoked it.”The Minneapolis mayor’s race doesn’t feature the shamelessness of the New York City race – namely, the participation of the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and the ethically suspect incumbent mayor, Eric Adams. Few have the charisma of Mamdani, nor the organizing and social media prowess of his campaign, one that left-leaning candidates around the country will try to emulate.Minneapolis’s incumbent mayor, Jacob Frey, running for his third term, has his critics – for his handling of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in the city in 2020, persistent policing problems, a homelessness crisis and contentions with the more progressive city council. Frey, 44, often serves as a moderate check on the council, which includes several Democratic socialists.There are 15 candidates running in the race, four of whom – all Democrats – are considered viable. The three top challengers, including Fateh, have created an alliance, appearing at each other’s events, though only Fateh is explicitly telling voters not to rank Frey on their ballots. Public polling of the race is minimal, complicated by the ranked-choice voting method, though Frey typically shows as the top vote-getter, albeit not cresting the necessary 50% to win in a first ballot.“The fact that Fateh and other candidates are drawing as much support as they appear to be, I think, owes to the fact that the Democratic party has lost credibility among progressive voters,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “This is not a cross-section of America. This is an urban area in one of the most progressive kind of electorates in the country.”The rise of Omar FatehFateh, like Mamdani, is running a campaign full of progressive promises, including raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, a plan for rent stabilization, a public safety system that funds alternatives to police for calls like mental health crises and standing up to Trump. Six of the 13 council members have backed him, as have unions and state lawmakers.He casts Frey’s two terms as “broken promises and vetoes”, noting a 2017 campaign promise to end homelessness within five years and goals for public safety reform after Floyd’s murder.“We have a progressive city council that’s ready to do the work, that has been doing the work,” Fateh told the Guardian. “We just don’t have a mayor as a partner.”Fateh, born in Washington DC, moved to Minneapolis about a decade ago. In 2020, the Democratic socialist launched a challenge to an incumbent Democrat for the state senate, earning the party’s endorsement and eventually becoming the first Somali American and first Muslim in the chamber. As a senator, he pushed through a bill creating labor standards for ride-share drivers and championed a tuition-free college plan.His time in the legislature and reputation as a progressive fighter gave him a base of support in the mayoral contest, elevating him to top contender against Frey, Jacobs said.An increased national profile has brought along an increase in threats, racism and Islamophobia, Fateh told Sahan Journal, a local publication, this week. Earlier this month, he got a message that said: “Two bullets to the head, done.” He has had to take additional safety precautions and pay for security, he told the outlet. “Most campaigns don’t have to think about this,” his campaign manager told Sahan Journal.View image in fullscreenFateh believes the revoked endorsement is in part because of the donor class and how it would look to support a progressive candidate with a populist message, especially in suburban and rural areas where the DFL has lost ground.“The DFL and the Democratic party as a whole like to always say we’re a big tent, we are a wide spectrum, we welcome everybody,” he said. “But a lot of times it seems like when it’s the more progressive wing that they can shut out.”After knocking on doors, Fateh returned to the park, where families set up bubble machines and boxes of fruit snacks and goldfish for a “play date with Omar Fateh”, himself the tired first-time father of a newborn. He is quick to show off pictures of his baby. Frey also has a newborn, his second child – the two politicians’ babies were born within 10 days of each other.An organizer at the play date asked the crowd of a few dozen adults and kids if anyone knows who Fateh is. “I’ve seen him on the phone!” one kid yelled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSarah Quinn, a Minneapolis voter who spoke to the crowd at the event, said she had heard from people who were ready to vote against Frey, but weren’t sure how they would rank the other candidates. People seemed excited to hear about Fateh’s vision, she said, and she was sick of hearing about vetoes of council bills and “low-grade insults back and forth” among the mayor and council.“I feel like Minneapolis has this reputation of being a really progressive city, and I’m not actually feeling that as a resident,” Quinn said. “And so just hearing his agenda has really resonated with me, and I think that he’s somebody that can actually get the shit done with the city council.”The rise of the DSA has served as a boogeyman of sorts for the Democratic establishment: before the Minneapolis convention, one proposal, which was later pulled back, sought to make it so a candidate couldn’t be endorsed by both the DSA and the DFL.Fateh’s campaign has been boosted by the Twin Cities DSA. Brooke Bartholomew, the group’s co-chair, said they had seen new members sign up after Mamdani’s win in the primary.“We have the people power,” Bartholomew said. “That’s part of what DSA brings to the table for Omar Fateh’s campaign is people power – going on those doors, talking to neighbors and helping to build this really diverse coalition.”Is Frey vulnerable?Frey, endorsed by Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, has the money advantage over Fateh and the other two top contenders, Jazz Hampton and DeWayne Davis. That “organizational muscle” that comes from allied groups and the business community could help get out the vote for Frey, said Jacobs, of the University of Minnesota.The Guardian repeatedly sought an interview with Frey and asked to attend a campaign event. The campaign did not make the mayor available, instead sending a statement from a campaign spokesperson.View image in fullscreen“Over the last five years, Minneapolis was tested like never before,” the statement said. “Under Mayor Frey’s leadership, the city has been making a comeback. Violent crime is trending down, the city is creating eight times more deeply affordable housing than before Mayor Frey took office, and Minneapolis is taking the Trump administration to court to defend our neighbors. The mayor is running for one final term to improve public safety by hiring more police officers and implementing police reform, expanding affordable housing, and focusing on delivering excellent core city services. We’re optimistic that Minneapolis voters will support that vision next week.”Since Trump returned to the White House, Frey has vocally defended Minneapolis, which could become a target of Trump’s increased deportation raids or military occupations. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, came to town in late October, stoking speculation that the city could be next on Trump’s list. Frey, flanked by city leaders, put out a video on the day of her visit saying he had been preparing for months for a potential federal influx.“In Minneapolis, we have your back,” Frey said to the city’s immigrant communities. “You will be protected and respected by our city employees regardless of your immigration status.”Opposing Trump is an increasing part of the mayor’s purview, and one that all the contenders say is critical. Fateh wants the city to strengthen the separation ordinance that prevents city employees from aiding immigration activities.While the race is often cast as a two-person contest, Hampton and Davis see lanes for themselves to win, given ranked-choice voting, and not just to help Fateh.View image in fullscreen“I would not be running to prop up someone else’s campaign,” Hampton said. “I’m running to win, and I believe that we can and will. However, if that means door-knocking with other candidates to let everyone see us, that’s what we should be doing.”Davis, a minister and former congressional staffer, said voters were ready to move beyond “leadership by press conference and ribbon-cutting”, and the success of the three insurgent campaigns shows that.The Mamdani comparisons don’t track as much with the Minneapolis race, Davis said. Looking past the weak opposition from Cuomo in New York, Minneapolis has a “very active establishment” of business-oriented Democrats.“I think we are far more divided here,” Davis said of Minneapolis voters. “And so given the ranked choice with us, that division, it’s any guess about how that iteration of choices through ranked choice will end up happening.” More

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      Democratic contender for Congress indicted over Chicago ICE protests

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      Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive candidate for Congress, has been indicted on federal charges related to her participation in protests outside an ICE processing facility near Chicago in September.The indictment, filed last week, alleges that the 26-year old Palestinian American candidate and five other individuals “physically hindered and impeded” a federal agent who was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators”.Abughazaleh, who is running for Illinois’s ninth congressional district to replace the outgoing Democrat Jan Schakowsky, was charged with conspiracy to forcibly impede or injure a federal agent, and assaulting or impeding the agent while they were performing official duties.According to the indictment, the group “conspired with one another and others, known and unknown, to prevent by force, intimidation, and threat, Agent A, a United States law enforcement officer, from discharging the duties of his office”.It alleged that Abughazaleh, along with the other individuals, “banged aggressively” on the agent’s vehicle, “crowded together in the front and side” of the vehicle and “pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement”.According to the indictment, the group etched the word “pig” on to the vehicle and broke a side mirror and a rear windshield wiper. It also alleged that Abughazaleh specifically “joined the crowd at the front of the government vehicle, and with her hands on the hood braced her body and hands against the vehicle while remaining directly in the path of the vehicle, hindering and impeding” the agent.Following the indictment, Abughazaleh, who is known for her large social media platform on which she frequently criticizes Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns, called the indictment “political prosecution”.“This is a … gross attempt at silencing dissent, a right protected under the first amendment. This case is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up. That’s why I’m going to fight these unjust charges,” she said.Abughazaleh added: “As I and others exercised our first amendment rights, ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls, and teargassed hundreds of protesters, myself included. Simply because we had the gall to say masked men abducting our neighbors and terrorizing our community cannot be the new normal.“This case targets our rights to protest, speak freely, and associate with anyone who disagrees with this government … I’ve spent my career fighting America’s backwards slide towards fascism and I’m not going to give up now,” she continued.The indictment comes as the Trump administration ramps up federal immigration raids across numerous progressive cities including Chicago – a move which has been harshly criticized by local and state leaders.The raids have drawn widespread opposition from the public, congressional Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups, with the ACLU describing them as a “build out of a national paramilitary policing force that could be used to … consolidate President Donald Trump’s power”. More

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      Shutdown stretches into 28th day as Senate again fails to pass spending legislation

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      The US government shutdown stretched into its 28th day with no resolution in sight on Tuesday, as the Senate remained deadlocked over spending legislation even as a crucial food aid program teeters on the brink of exhausting its funding.For the 13th time, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have funded federal agencies through 21 November. The minority party has refused to provide the necessary support for the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold for advancement in the Senate because it does not include funding for healthcare programs, or curbs on Donald Trump’s cuts to congressionally approved funding.The quagmire continued even after the president of the largest federal workers union called on Congress to pass the Republican proposal, citing the economic pain caused to government workers.“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight. Today I’m making mine: it’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay – today,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement released on Monday.But the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, signaled no change in his party’s strategy of holding out for concession from the Republicans, citing the imminent rise of premiums for Affordable Care Act health plans. Though tax credits that lower their costs expire at the end of the year, many enrollees in the plans have received notices of steep premium increases ahead of Saturday’s beginning of the open enrollment period.“Families are going to be in panic this weekend all across America, millions of them. How are they going to pay this bill? How are they going to live without healthcare? It’s tragic, and of course, it didn’t have to be, but Republicans are doing nothing,” Schumer told reporters at the US Capitol.The Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, seized on the AFGE’s statement to argue that Democrats were being irresponsible for refusing to back the bill, which Republicans in the House of Representatives approved on a near party line vote last month before the speaker, Mike Johnson, ordered the chamber into a recess that has yet to end.View image in fullscreen“It’s not very often that I get a chance to say this, but I agree with the AFGE,” Thune said.He reiterated that he would negotiate with Democrats over the expiring tax credits, but not with “a gun to our heads”.“I sincerely hope, in the best interest of every American who is impacted by this shutdown, and particularly those who are going to be really adversely impacted come this weekend, that the enough Democrats will come to their senses and deliver the five votes that are necessary to get this bill on the president’s desk,” Thune said, adding that he planned to hold further votes on the spending legislation.Both parties traded blame for the imminent expiration of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), also known as food stamps. The Department of Agriculture has announced that it does not have the money to continue providing the benefit after 1 November, though on Tuesday, more than two dozen states sued the Trump administration, arguing that funds are available for Snap benefits to continue.North Dakota senator Kevin Cramer said Democrats should either support a proposal from fellow Republican senator Josh Hawley to allow Snap to continue during the shutdown, “or they could just reopen the damn government, which is what they should be doing and should have been doing for the last month”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSouth Dakota senator Mike Rounds said the tax credits should be addressed by bipartisan action, but criticized the affordability of Affordable Care Act health plans. “The Obamacare product itself is fatally flawed. It continues to create a death spiral coming down with regard to the increasing costs. There are people out there, real people, that are going to get hurt because Obamacare is not working,” he said.In an interview, Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren signaled no change in the party’s strategy for the shutdown, which began at the start of the month after Congress failed to pass legislation to continue funding that expired at the end of September.“Millions of people across this country are receiving their health insurance premium notices, and telling Democrats and Republicans, lower those costs,” Warren said. “Democrats are in there fighting to lower healthcare costs for millions of Americans. Donald Trump would rather shut down the government than help out these families.”Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine who has repeatedly broken with Trump as she faces what is expected to be a tough re-election contest next year, said she did not buy that the agriculture department lacked funding to continue Snap, but noted the money it had on hand was not enough to cover the program’s costs.However, Collins expressed concerns about the readiness of air traffic controllers, who did not receive a fully paycheck on Tuesday due to the shutdown. She noted that on two recent flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National airport, her plane had to divert at the last second.“I can’t help but think that reflects the strain on air traffic controllers,” she said. More

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      Zohran Mamdani represents the future of the Democratic party | Robert Reich

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      The only upside to living through this dark time is it pushes us to rethink and perhaps totally remake things we once thought immutable.Like the Democratic party.In case you hadn’t noticed, the current Democratic party is dysfunctional, if not dead.Better dysfunctional than a fascist cult like Donald Trump’s Republican party. But if there were ever a time when America needed a strong, vibrant Democratic party, it’s now. And we don’t have one.The brightest light in the Democratic party is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old member of the New York state assembly who has a good chance of being elected the next mayor of New York City when New Yorkers go to the polls a week from Tuesday.Mamdani is talking about what matters to most voters: the cost of living. He says New York should be affordable for everyone.He’s addressing the problems New Yorkers discuss at their kitchen tables. He’s not debating “Trumpism” or “capitalism” or “Democratic socialism”. He’s not offering a typical Democratic “10-point plan” with refundable tax credits that no one understands.He’s proposing a few easy-to-understand things: free buses, free childcare, a four-year rent freeze for about 2 million residents, and a $30 minimum wage. He’s aiming to do what Franklin D Roosevelt did in the 1930s: fix it.You may not agree with all his proposals (I don’t), but they are understandable. And if they don’t work, I expect that, like FDR, he will try something else.The clincher for me is that he’s inspiring a new generation of young people. He’s got them excited about politics. (My 17-year-old granddaughter is spending her weekends knocking on doors for him, as are her friends.)You don’t have to reach too far back in history to find Democratic politicians who have inspired young people. Bernie Sanders (technically an independent) and AOC. Barack Obama. (I was inspired in my youth by Bobby Kennedy – the real Bobby Kennedy – and Senator Eugene McCarthy.)And Mamdani.What do all of them have in common? They’re authentic. They’re passionate. They care about real people. They want to make America fairer. They advocate practical solutions that people can understand.View image in fullscreenNonetheless, Mamdani is horrifying the leaders of the Democratic party. Chuck Schumer still hasn’t endorsed him. Bill Clinton has endorsed Andrew Cuomo, who is spending what are probably the last days of his political career indulging in the kind of racist, Islamophobic attacks we’d expect from Trump.Meanwhile, the editorial board of the New York Times counsels “moderation”, urging Democratic candidates to move to the “center”. Tell me: where is the center between democracy and fascism, and why would anyone want to go there?In truth, the Times’s so-called “moderate center” is code for corporate Democrats using gobs of money to pursue culturally conservative “swing” voters – which is what the Democratic party has been doing for decades.This is part of the reason America got Trump. Corporate Democrats took the party away from its real mission: to lift up the working class and lower-middle class and help the poor. Instead, they pushed for globalization, privatization and the deregulation of Wall Street. They became Republican-lite.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2016 and again in 2024, working and lower-middle class voters saw this and opted for a squalid real estate developer who at least sounded like he was on their side. He wasn’t and still isn’t – he is on the side of the billionaires to whom he gave two whopping tax cuts. But if the choice is between someone who sounds like he’s on your side and someone who sounds like a traditional politician, guess who wins?Trump also fed voters red-meat cultural populism – blaming their problems on immigrants, Hispanic people, Black people, transgender people, bureaucrats and “coastal elites”. Democrats, meanwhile, gave voters incomprehensible 10-point plans.The Times tries to buttress its argument that Democrats should move to the “center” by citing Democrats who won election last year in places Trump also won.But that argument is bunk. Democrats won in these places by imitating Trump. One mocked the term “Latinx” and was hawkish on immigration. Two wanted to crack down harder on illegal immigration. Two others emphasized crime and public safety. Another bragged about taking on federal bureaucrats.This isn’t the way forward for Democrats. Red-meat cultural populism does not fill hungry bellies or pay medical bills or help with utility bills or pay the rent.Mamdani poses a particular threat to New York’s corporate Democrats because he wants to tax the wealthy to pay for his plan to make New York more affordable to people who aren’t wealthy.He aims to generate $9bn in new tax revenue by raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents and businesses. He’s calling for a 2% tax on incomes more than $1m, which would produce $4bn in tax revenue. He wants to increase the state’s corporate tax rate to 11.5% to match New Jersey’s, generating about $5bn annually.He’s right. The wealthy have never been as wealthy as they are now, while the tax rate they pay hasn’t been as low in living memory.Inequalities of income and wealth are at record levels. A handful of billionaires now control almost every facet of the United States government and economy.Even as the stock market continues to hit new highs, working-class and lower-middle-class families across America are getting shafted. Wages are nearly stagnant, prices are rising. Monopolies control food processing, housing, high-tech, oil and gas.The time is made for the Democrats. If the party stands for anything, it should be the growing needs of the bottom 90% – for affordable groceries, housing and childcare. For higher wages and better working conditions. For paid family leave. For busting up monopolies that keep prices high. For making it easier to form and join labor unions.Pay for this by raising taxes on the wealthy. Get big money out of politics.This dark time should wake us up to the bankruptcy of the corporate Democratic party.It should mark the birth of the people’s Democratic party. Zohran Mamdani and others like him are its future.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      Should Californians vote to redistrict and fight Texas’s fire with fire? | Moira Donegan

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      What, exactly, is Congress for? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to tell. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial legislative power, has become a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed even more of that power for himself, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.The power of the purse seems to have largely been stripped from Congress, too; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, much of the power to appropriate federal funds has also defaulted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any laws, either; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government simply shuts down. At least, that is, big parts of the government do – and it’s not clear how many people notice. Currently, the government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.And so the question of control of Congress can seem somewhat moot. Why should Americans care who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled states such as California, New York and Washington draw their maps via non-partisan independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to closely divided House control and a longstanding sense, by Democrats, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation next year; similar redistricting moves are under way in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)The California measure seems likely to pass, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and look for ways to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have critiqued the measure on more purely ideological pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting voices is muted, and that the process of deliberation, argument and persuasion that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.It is worth taking each of these objections on their own terms. The first critique, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their own maps in retaliation, fails as a causal argument: it does not make sense to say that Republicans will be made to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation or revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn, but a kind of melancholic desire for a different country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that most Democrats, I think, yearn for and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are rendered non-competitive. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and lessen the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from something more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only after the battle against Trumpism has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that Prop 50’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new Democrats are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Gavin Newsom confirms he is considering 2028 presidential run

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      Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, told CBS News Sunday Morning he plans to make a decision on whether to run for president in 2028 once the 2026 midterm elections are over.“Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise,” Newsom said in response to a question on whether he would give serious thought to a White House bid after the 2026 elections. “I’d just be lying. And I’m not – I can’t do that.”Newsom’s term as governor ends in January 2027 and he is not able to run again due to term limits, but cautioned that a decision is years away.“Fate will determine that,” he said.The California governor has emerged as a high-profile critic of the Trump administration through his social media accounts and push of a ballot measure that would increase Democrats’ congressional seats in response to Republican redistricting efforts – a move that has made him a target for critics.Donald Trump’s secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, accused Newsom of not caring about Californians in an interview with Fox News on Sunday as Duffy revealed plans to pull federal funds from California and threatened to revoke California’s ability to issue commercial driver’s licenses.“I’m about to pull $160m from California,” Duffy said, after US homeland security said earlier this week an undocumented semi truck driver caused a fatal crash in California that killed three people and injured four. Newsom’s office noted the federal government reauthorized the driver’s employment multiple times, which allowed him to obtain a commercial drivers license under federal law.Duffy already said he was withholding $40m from California for not enforcing English language requirements for truck drivers.“Former D-list reality star, now Secretary of Transportation, still doesn’t understand federal law,” Newsom’s office said in a statement last month in response to Duffy threatening to withhold federal funds from the state. “In the meantime, unlike this clown, we’ll stick to the facts: California commercial driver’s license holders had a fatal crash rate nearly 40% LOWER than the national average. Texas – the only state with more commercial holders – has a rate almost 50% higher than California. Facts don’t lie. The Trump administration does.”A CBS poll conducted earlier this month found 72% of Democrats and 48% of all registered voters said Newsom should run for president in 2028. Since Trump took office, Newsom’s favorability has increased to an average of 33.5% from about 30% and his unfavorability has decreased from an average of over 40% to 38.4%, according to Decision Desk HQ.Earlier this year, Newsom told CBS while on a trip to several battleground states around the US on whether he plans to run in 2028: “I have no idea.”He noted his earlier challenges in life, including being diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of five.“The idea that a guy who got 960 on his SAT, that still struggles to read scripts, that was always in the back of the classroom, the idea that you would even throw that out is, in and of itself, extraordinary,” he said. “Who the hell knows? I’m looking forward to who presents themselves in 2028 and who meets that moment. And that’s the question for the American people.” More

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      Can Democrats harness the energy of the No Kings protests to fight Trump?

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      They marched in their millions. Some waved the Stars and Stripes. Some clutched signs with slogans such as: “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting.” And some donned inflatable costumes that included aliens, chickens, clowns, frogs, lobsters, mushrooms, penguins, seahorses, sharks, squirrels, starfish and unicorns.The energy of last weekend’s No Kings protests against Donald Trump’s authoritarianism was palpable and peaceful, drawing an estimated 7 million people to 2,700 rallies across the country. Among them were the Democratic senators Cory Booker, Ed Markey, Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Raphael Warnock and Elizabeth Warren as well as the independent Bernie Sanders.But many Democratic lawmakers did not attend. Their absence was conspicuous at a time when the party stands accused of lacking fight and failing to meet the moment. As Trump runs riot through US democracy, Democrats face the challenge of harnessing the spirit of No Kings and turning anti-Trump sentiment into votes at the ballot box.“We’re in the process of a fight to save our democracy,” said Murphy, a senator for Connecticut who spoke at the event in Washington. “As I said at the rally, we’re not on the verge of an authoritarian takeover; we’re in the middle of it. And what I know from history is that the only thing that saves democracies from ruin when a demagogue is trying to destroy it is mass mobilisation.”For all his grandstanding, Trump is deeply unpopular. About 62% of Americans say the country is going in the wrong direction, according to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution, and 56% describe Trump as a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited”.The popular revolt against him appeared slow at first but is now gathering steam. There have been three major street protests organised by a broad coalition of dozens of groups including civil rights organisations, labour unions and pro-democracy movements such as Indivisible.The first, known as Hands Off!, was held in April and drew 3 million people. The second, No Kings, was staged in June to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday and a rare military parade in Washington, attracted 5 million people. Then came last weekend’s reprise of No Kings, whose turnout of 7 million people was said to be the biggest civic action in the US for more than half a century.View image in fullscreenNo Kings – which draws its name from America’s founding principles and resistance to the tyranny of Britain’s King George III – and the Democratic party are both essentially leaderless but the former’s momentum has thrown the latter’s inertia into sharp relief.Trump’s victory in last year’s election came like a kick to the solar plexus. His shock and awe approach on taking office left Democrats divided and despondent. The party’s approval rating was at the lowest level for a generation. In March Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, was berated for allowing a government funding bill to sail through the chamber without using it to challenge Trump.Six months on, however, Schumer’s Democrats have refused to vote on legislation that would avoid a government shutdown as they demand funding for healthcare. Polls suggest they are winning the argument in the court of public opinion.Democrats are fighting back in other ways. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is pushing a new electoral map in his state that aims to bolster his party’s chances of regaining a congressional majority in 2026 and counter Republican efforts to add more seats in Texas and other states. The effort has been endorsed by former president Barack Obama.View image in fullscreenNewsom has also been at the forefront of some savage online humour mocking Trump. Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois has been similarly pugnacious. This week Senator Jeff Merkley delivered a 22-hour 37-minute speech on the Senate floor describing Trump’s authoritarianism as “the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the civil war”.Murphy has been one of the most prominent senators sounding an alarm for the future of US democracy. He told the Guardian: “We should pay attention to the fact that we were a pretty unpopular party before we took a stand on government funding and we’re a more popular party after having taken this stance.“People do want to see us fighting. They do want to see us engaging in risk-tolerant behavior. They want us to use leverage when we have it and I hope my colleagues recognise that we won’t be able to beat Trump if people don’t see the Democratic party as an effective opposition party.”Indivisible has been urging Democrats to show some spine. Ezra Levin, its co-founder, believes the party has gone through three phases of defiance since Trump returned to power. First there was condescending dismissal.He said: “It was there will be no defiance, there will be no resistance, the grassroots is done and discredited and the smart move is to demonstrate how well we can work with Trump because that’s the future of the party. That was the dominant strategic vision of the Democratic party circa November, December, even January of this year.”According to Levin, however, once activists began showing up at town halls and took part in the Hands Off demonstration, Democrats were forced to recalibrate to a second phase, which he describes as performative resistance – the aesthetics of opposition.“It was strongly worded letters. I think a memo went around Democratic circles to tell people to cuss more so there was more cursing. You saw fiery speeches but still a refusal to use leverage. It’s in this period that Schumer surrenders on the Republican bill and you see Cory Booker vote for the crypto bill after giving an inspiring speech.”Now, Levin perceives a shaky third phase of unified defiance, exemplified by Democrats’ willingness to hold the line during the government shutdown. He hopes this resolve will feed into primary elections for next year’s midterms with candidates who are “fightback Democrats” rather than “do nothing Democrats”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOthers dispute this binary characterisation. Matt Bennett, executive vice-president for public affairs at the thinktank Third Way, said he has not met a single Democrat who does not believe Trump poses an existential threat.“It’s total bullshit,” he insisted. “Every single professional Democrat in America is in an absolute panic about what Trump means for everything we care about. There’s zero complacency. There is a huge set of disagreements on tactics and strategy but there is no disagreement about the level of the threat.”Norman Solomon, national director of the progressive group RootsAction, however, said: “The Democratic party leadership doesn’t have the credibility, vitality or capacity to inspire millions of people. How many are inspired by Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries? The question answers itself. In effect, the most vibrant opposition party is civil society, which is gaining momentum with grassroots organising and national networking.”Some commentators have drawn parallels with the Tea Party, a grassroots movement driven by a mix of libertarian, populist and conservative activists that emerged in 2009. It reshaped the Republican party with a focus on anti-establishment rhetoric, distrust of elites and racial hostility to Barack Obama that paved the way for Trump’s ascent.The Tea Party also acted as an “anti-inspiration” for Levin and his wife and Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg when, in 2016, they put together a Google doc proposing that progressives emulate the Tea Party’s tactic of constituents pressuring their members of Congress to derail the president’s agenda.Levin said: “I didn’t like their violence or bigotry or some of their strategies but I thought they were smart the way they organised as an outside movement to push the party to embrace their ideals. As heinous as those ideals were, they were effective.”He added: “Effective movements cannot simply be tools of the formal party system. They need to push the party. A smart party will see historic levels of grassroots energy and say, oh goody, I want that, what do I have to do to get there? That’s going to require some substantive changes, both in who the messengers are that lead the party and also in what policies and strategies they support going forward.”View image in fullscreenWhereas the Tea Party came from the right, No Kings is bigger, more ideologically diverse and able to avoid the factional disputes that inevitably dog a political party.Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, said: “I hope this isn’t like the Tea Party because the Tea Party led to the Republican party becoming an extremist party and helped lead to Trump. The central focus of this movement should be to mitigate the damage that Trump is doing and to help pro-democracy forces win back power in the United States. To do that, we need a big tent.”All is not lost for the Democrats. So far this year the party has won or overperformed the top of the 2024 ticket in 39 out of 40 special elections, flipping two state senate seats in Iowa alone. Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger are expected to prevail in next month’s races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia respectively. The party is feeling confident about the midterms, especially since the president’s party almost always loses ground.Donna Brazile, a former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “The energy is already out there. Some people who decided not to participate in ’24 are now anxious to get back involved in their community and to prepare for the next election.”Brazile also cautioned against trying to hijack the No Kings movement for party political ends. “I don’t see why we should make this partisan,” she said. “I don’t look at it as a Democratic party event. It was people coming out from all parts of life.“I had a friend in a red district saying that for the first time they thought Donald Trump has gone too far. They wanted to do something that was meaningful, that was not partisan. To the extent that lawmakers and others find themselves marching with ordinary citizens, that’s important. But they’re following the people and not leading. The people lead at this moment.” More

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      Early voting starts for New York mayoral and New Jersey gubernatorial races

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      Polling places opened on Saturday for the start of in-person voting for two of the year’s most closely watched elections: the New York City mayor’s race and the contest to pick New Jersey’s next governor.New Yorkers are choosing between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat on the ballot as an independent. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, is also on the ballot but dropped out of the race last month and recently threw his support behind Cuomo.The New Jersey governor’s race features Republican state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic US representative Mikie Sherrill.New York has allowed early voting since 2019, and it has become relatively popular. In June’s mayoral primary, about 35% of the ballots were cast early and in person, according to the city’s campaign finance board.New Jersey adopted early voting in 2021.The off-year elections in neighboring states could be bellwethers for Democratic party leaders as they try to decide what kinds of candidates might be best to lead their resistance to Donald Trump ’s agenda.The races have spotlighted affordability and cost of living issues as well as ongoing divisions within the Democratic party, said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University in New Jersey.“New York City pits the progressive wing against the establishment old guard in Mamdani versus Cuomo, while New Jersey is banking on moderate candidate Mikie Sherrill to appeal to its broad middle,” she said.Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has electrified liberal voters, drawn to his proposals for universal free childcare, free buses and a rent freeze for New Yorkers living in about 1m rent-regulated apartments.Cuomo has portrayed Mamdani’s policies as naive and financially irresponsible. He has appealed to voters to pick him because of his experience as the state’s governor, a position he gave up in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.Cuomo has also assailed Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, over his criticism of Israel.Mamdani, who has weathered anti-Muslim rhetoric during the contest, says Israel’s military actions in Gaza have amounted to genocide. Cuomo and Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels public safety patrol group, equate Mamdani’s position with antisemitism.The New Jersey gubernatorial candidates, in their final debate earlier this month, sparred over the federal government shutdown, Sherrill’s military records, Trump’s policies and the high cost of living in the state. The winner would succeed the Democratic incumbent, Phil Murphy, who is term-limited.Early voting is already under way in other states.In Virginia, voters began casting early ballots on 19 September. In that closely watched governor’s race, they’re choosing between former US representative Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, and the Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears.One of those candidates will become Virginia’s first female governor. They clashed over cultural issues such as the rights of transgender children in sports and school bathrooms during their lone debate earlier this month.Early voting runs through 1 November in Virginia and 2 November in New York City and New Jersey. Polling sites in all three states will then open widely for election day on 4 November. More