Bloomberg.com • 16th January 2026

Tillis Is Loud Quitting. He Shouldn’t Have To

Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, took to the floor of the US Senate on Wednesday and said that he is better situated to “speak truth to the president” because he has decided not to seek a third term.Then he launched into a 10-minute takedown of what he considers some of President Donald Trump’s recent mistakes, from the Federal Reserve to foreign policy to affordability. Tillis elaborated on his vow to “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upco...

Bloomberg.com • 14th January 2026

The White House Push to Undermine the Midterms Is Gathering Steam

The Department of Justice is assembling a first-ever national voter database. It has demanded that states turn over their complete voter registration lists — loaded with private information such as driver's license and Social Security numbers linked to names, home addresses and dates of birth. It has also turned the federal immigration database into what it calls a national “voter verification” tool to remove large numbers of voters from the rolls. Each of these moves evades federal privacy prot...

Bloomberg.com • 11th January 2026

What My Trump-Supporting Friends Won’t Say

Let’s resolve to have the courage to speak up more in 2026. I realize this is easy for me to say; I’m a columnist. But I live in Florida, where I have many friends who have been Trump supporters and who are privately queasy about what they see as brazen corruption coming from President Donald Trump and his administration. While there is widespread support for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, many wanted more transparency about the threat to our national interest. Yet, they don’...

Bloomberg.com • 28th December 2025

America Needs an Education Moonshot

America’s education system is in historic decline. According to the latest report card on 12th graders, students finishing high school have fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago. The learning losses revealed in that report, September’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, show that vast numbers of high school seniors don’t even meet the most basic thresholds in reading or math. And although the disruptions of Covid didn’t help, studies now...

Bloomberg.com • 21st December 2025

States Are Now the Check on America’s Executive

Thank goodness for state governments. One of the most underappreciated stories in 2025 was the role states played in checking federal overreach. As the Trump administration barreled through norms, rules and laws, state officials — sometimes from both parties — supplied the friction to slow the administration’s power grab. Trump swept into power with Republican control over both chambers of Congress, but he avoided working with Congress as much as possible. He spent the first year of his second t...

Bloomberg.com • 14th December 2025

Can Jasmine Crockett's TikTok Campaign Win Texas?

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett’s last-minute entrance into the Texas Senate race last week suggests that the most valuable political currency in this attention economy may be viral videos. But can she bank on them to win?

Bloomberg.com • 11th December 2025

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:

Bloomberg.com • 10th December 2025

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:

Bloomberg.com • 3rd December 2025

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.

Bloomberg.com • 3rd December 2025

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.

Bloomberg.com • 26th November 2025

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.

Bloomberg.com • 22nd November 2025

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.”

Bloomberg.com • 21st November 2025

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.

Bloomberg.com • 18th November 2025

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 • 12th November 2025

The Irony of the RNC’s Latest Election Lawsuit

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a case brought by the Republican National Committee against Mississippi, challenging its law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day. The RNC argues that accepting mail-in ballots that were postmarked on or before Election Day, but that arrived in election offices after that date, “undermines trust in elections.” It’s a specious argument.

Bloomberg • 11th November 2025

Republicans Just Got a Wake-Up Call on Their Midterm Maps

Republicans' strategy to create new Republican-leaning districts may have backfired, as last week's election results show the party losing support from the voter groups President Donald Trump won over in 2024.

Bloomberg.com • 6th November 2025

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 • 3rd November 2025

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 • 26th October 2025

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Pivot From Trump, Explained

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia Republican, has been breaking ranks with President Donald Trump and the GOP leadership in Congress on an increasingly long list of issues. She's not only reflecting the concerns of her district, her move is pragmatic. “Prior to these decoupling movements, she couldn’t run statewide,” a state legislator who represents part of her district told me.

Bloomberg.com • 20th October 2025

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.