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What Miami’s Mayoral Election Says About 2026

Odd-year elections are not always reliable predictors of future events. But in Miami, where voters have increasingly moved right, progressive Democrat Eileen Higgins’ victory Tuesday over a Trump-endorsed rival is the latest warning sign for Republicans that, especially in communities with heavy immigrant populations, voters are frustrated with the GOP’s approach. And their frustration is leading to action.There are three main takeaways: The electorate is engaged and evolving, especially among D...
Bloomberg.com •

Cuellar’s Pardon Shows the Art of the Unsealed Deal

For the latest bit of proof that President Donald Trump has lost his political mojo and that his era is one of political rot, look no further than the curious case of Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat.Here’s the timeline: In 2022, just weeks before a competitive primary, federal agents raided Cuellar’s home and offices. The Biden Justice Department was investigating Cuellar and his wife for accepting approximately $600,000 over seven years from an oil and gas company wholly owne...
Bloomberg.com •

College Cancel Culture Is Getting Worse

It has been another brutal year for academic freedom. Colleges and universities have become entangled in political agendas; donors and trustees have used funding as a cudgel; and the Trump administration has withheld federal money to demand ideological compliance. America’s once-revered institutions have succumbed to intimidation, eroding the public’s confidence that they could uphold their commitments to free expression.It’s time for the US to hit reset on this trend. Universities can do it by...
Bloomberg.com •

Another Warning Sign for the GOP: This Tennessee House Race

Aftyn Behn, a Democratic state representative from Nashville, tried to flip a Tennessee congressional seat President Donald Trump won by 22 percentage points on Tuesday. She failed; Republican Matt Van Epps won with a 9-point margin. But the magnitude of the shift was another sign that even reliably Republican districts could be at play in the 2026 midterms, giving Democrats a good chance to regain control of the US House next year.Tennessee voters turned out in higher than expected numbers for...
Bloomberg.com •

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Voters Admire Her Courage. Will It Matter?

Marjorie Taylor Greene arrived in her district five years ago as an outsider who defeated a long list of unprepared Republicans with her acid-mouthed devotion to the then-former President Donald Trump and his conspiracies.Last week, with her surprise announcement that she is leaving the job a year early, she demonstrated a unique ability to counterpunch. The political implications of Greene’s resignation drew a mixed reaction from the members of her district I spoke with, but her candor drew pra...
Bloomberg.com •

The Military Is in a Bind Created by Its Commander in Chief

When President Donald Trump claimed that members of Congress deserved the death penalty this week, he showed yet again that he doesn’t respect the rule of law.The president turned to social media Thursday morning to accuse six Democratic members of Congress of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.” The commander in chief made this astonishing comment in reaction to a video these elected officials, all former members of the military or the intelligence community, had posted the da...
Bloomberg.com •

ICE Is Testing Charlotte’s Biggest Employers. They’re Failing.

The reaction by residents in North Carolina’s largest city to the immigration crackdown that began on Saturday has been empathetic and broad. The reaction by the region’s largest employers? Notably silent.This week, hundreds of students walked out of Charlotte-area schools to protest the Trump administration’s immigration raids. Volunteers donned fluorescent vests and wore whistles as they patrolled the perimeter of schools to keep federal agents from coming on campus. Churches held packed train...
Bloomberg.com •

The Property Tax Fight Is a Power Grab in Texas and Florida

As affordability politics take center stage across America, at least 18 states are attempting to lower or eliminate property taxes to offset the dramatic rise in property values. It’s a worthy debate, but wiping out property taxes, or dramatically limiting them, is dangerous. It not only strips local communities of an economically efficient tax , it also erodes their autonomy, making them more susceptible to any authoritarian-leaning lawmakers at the state level. There’s littl...
Bloomberg.com •

This Georgia Upset Is the Real Preview of 2026

Pocketbook issues took center stage in Democratic victories in Virginia, New Jersey and New York Tuesday night, as well as in a usually obscure election in Georgia. Both New Jersey and Virginia lean blue, but the Georgia election may be the real bellwether for 2026. With voters unhappy about higher electric bills and prices, and dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump rising, are Georgia voters telling us something?
Bloomberg.com •

The Strange Quest to Unseat MAGA Stalwart Thomas Massie

President Donald Trump’s months-long effort to find a primary challenger to Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, a fellow Republican and MAGA devotee, is the latest proof that Republicans in Washington were never truly intent on achieving the agenda they sold to voters last year. If they were, they would be endorsing Massie as exactly the kind of anti-establishment conservative they’d want to see more of in Congress.
Bloomberg.com •

North Carolina’s New Electoral Map Resurrects Jim Crow

North Carolina Republicans will officially enter the redistricting arms race this week when lawmakers try to heed President Donald Trump’s call to create additional Republican seats. But carving out another safe GOP seat will only further unravel the state’s already frayed democratic institutions and leave the state’s rural “Black Belt” region without meaningful representation in Washington. That’s not the representative democracy these lawmakers swore an oath to uphold.
Bloomberg.com •

National Guard Troops Didn’t Sign Up for This

“Nobody signed up for this.” That’s the reaction I keep getting from military and National Guard veterans about President Donald Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors.They worry that the very thing military members enlist to do — to serve and protect the country — is being undermined by a president whose use of the military for a political stunt is making the nation less safe.
Bloomberg.com •

Georgia Is Testing Whether Voters Still Cross Party Lines

It’s no secret that US politics has gotten more polarized. That means fewer voters split their tickets, voting for both a Democrat and a Republican. Between 2008 and 2022, the percentage of voters who crossed party lines fell from 12% to 5%, according to Daniel Moskowitz at the University of Chicago. But in Georgia, almost every candidate seems to be trying to win voters from the other party. That’s what our politics could look like if politicians had to do more than turn out their bases.
Bloomberg.com •

Threats Against Judges Have Crossed the Line

The destruction of South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein’s home in a fiery inferno over the weekend immediately led to speculation that it was an act of political violence. South Carolina officials are still investigating, and they said on Monday that “there is no evidence to indicate” that the cause of the explosion “was intentionally set.” But it says something about this moment that a judge being violently targeted was so easy to imagine.
Bloomberg.com •

Did Trump Notice Where His Presidential Library Will Be Built?

Presidential libraries often attempt to elevate accomplishments and whitewash failures. Donald Trump and his family think that Florida officials have given them a prime location to do just that with his library. But by choosing this setting, they have instead found the perfect way to create a permanent reminder of how Trump’s presidency tested and upended every foundational value of freedom and democracy in America.
Bloomberg.com •

This Florida Democrat Is a Test for the Party's Appeal

After Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic Party nomination for New York mayor in June, Democratic elected officials were slow to embrace him, worried about being tarred as socialists. A notable exception? The Democratic candidate for governor in the red state of Florida: David Jolly, a former congressman — and former Republican. He's not interested in pursuing more culture wars and his big tent idea of the Democratic Party is to focus on economic issues.
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