ReportWire

Tag: Elections

  • California’s Prop 50 shakes up nation’s redistricting arms race

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats, said he was initially hesitant to support his party’s mid-decade push to redraw California’s congressional map to favor Democrats.

    The state in 2008 voted to create an independent redistricting commission in an effort to end gerrymandering. In August, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed Prop 50, a ballot measure that would temporarily override the commission and implement a redrawn map favoring Democrats.


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    Carson Gerber CNHI State Reporter

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  • This DOGE Whistleblower Is Running for Office

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    Chuck Borges has had quite the year.

    In January, Borges started a new job as the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, overseeing some of the most sensitive data systems in the federal government—including databases containing Social Security numbers, addresses, citizenship status, and benefits records of nearly every American.

    Or at least that was the job description. Instead, he spent seven months struggling to get basic visibility into the systems he was statutorily responsible for, at times learning about how Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was operating at the agency in press reports rather than internal discussions. By this summer, he filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that DOGE had copied and moved sensitive American data to an unsecure cloud environment. Borges was quickly forced to resign.

    Now, Borges is launching his campaign for Maryland state senator.

    In his first interview since the campaign began on Tuesday, Borges describes his clashes with DOGE, being sidelined at his own agency, and why he thinks technologists are needed to help steer this new era of government.

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    WIRED: Why did you decide to run for office? And how did working under DOGE influence your decision to run?

    Chuck Borges: I left SSA in late August, and the next month was very trying, both personally and professionally. There was a lot of congressional interaction. There was some media outreach. We had a lot of documentation to work on. I started to express to various local groups that they should be concerned about data privacy. This is not a partisan issue. It’s a nonpartisan issue that your data privacy should be concerning to you and that there’s risk involved.

    In early October, the local Democratic Party reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in running for office. The reason I’m running is pretty simple—I worked at the highest levels of federal government and through that process I saw a lot of interactions with Congress. There’s a lot of concerns in the country today around government dysfunction and a lot of things just aren’t working.

    DOGE didn’t influence my decision, but the dysfunction I experienced this year in general continued to motivate me to find ways to serve the public better.

    When you first heard about DOGE involving itself at SSA, what did you expect would happen?

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    Makena Kelly

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  • Voters’ anger at high electricity bills and data centers looms over 2026 midterms

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    Voter anger over the cost of living is hurtling forward into next year’s midterm elections, when pivotal contests will be decided by communities that are home to fast-rising electric bills or fights over who’s footing the bill to power Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers.

    Electricity costs were a key issue in this week’s elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, a data center hotspot, and in Georgia, where Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents for seats on the state’s utility regulatory commission.

    Voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City all cited economic concerns as the top issue, as Democrats and Republicans gird for a debate over affordability in the intensifying midterm battle to control Congress.

    Already, President Donald Trump is signaling that he’ll focus on affordability next year as he and Republicans try to maintain their slim congressional majorities, while Democrats are blaming Trump for rising household costs.

    Front and center may be electricity bills, which in many places are increasing at a rate faster than U.S. inflation on average — although not everywhere.

    “There’s a lot of pressure on politicians to talk about affordability, and electricity prices are right now the most clear example of problems of affordability,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of politics and government and pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

    Rising electric costs aren’t expected to ease and many Americans could see an increase on their monthly bills in the middle of next year’s campaigns.

    Higher electric bills on the horizon

    Gas and electric utilities are seeking or already secured rate increases of more that $34 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, consumer advocacy organization PowerLines reported. That was more than double the same period last year.

    With some 80 million Americans struggling to pay their utility bills, “it’s a life or death and ‘eat or heat’ type decision that people have to make,” said Charles Hua, PowerLines’ founder.

    In Georgia, proposals to build data centers have roiled communities, while a victorious Democrat, Peter Hubbard, accused Republicans on the commission of “rubber-stamping” rate increases by Georgia Power, a subsidiary of power giant Southern Co.

    Monthly Georgia Power bills have risen six times over the past two years, now averaging $175 a month for a typical residential customer.

    Hubbard’s message seemed to resonate with voters. Rebecca Mekonnen, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain, said she voted for the Democratic challengers, and wants to see “more affordable pricing. That’s the main thing. It’s running my pocket right now.”

    Now, Georgia Power is proposing to spend $15 billion to expand its power generating capacity, primarily to meet demand from data centers, and Hubbard is questioning whether data centers will pay their fair share — or share it with regular ratepayers.

    Midterm battlegrounds in hotspots

    Midterm elections will see congressional battlegrounds in states where fast-rising electric bills or data center hotspots — or both — are fomenting community uprisings.

    That includes California, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

    Analysts attribute rising electric bills to a combination of forces.

    That includes expensive projects to modernize the grid and harden poles, wires and substations against extreme weather and wildfires.

    Also playing a role is explosive demand from data centers, bitcoin miners and a drive to revive domestic manufacturing, as well as rising natural gas prices, analysts say.

    “The cost of utility service is the new ‘cost of eggs’ concern for a lot of consumers,” said Jennifer Bosco of the National Consumer Law Center.

    In some places, data centers are driving a big increase in demand, since a typical AI data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 homes, according to the International Energy Agency. Some could require more electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland or New Orleans.

    While many states have sought to attract data centers as an economic boon, legislatures and utility commissions were also flooded with proposals to try to protect regular ratepayers from paying to connect data centers to the grid.

    Meanwhile, communities that don’t want to live next to one are pushing back.

    It’s on voters’ minds

    An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from October found that electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults.

    Now, as falls turns to winter, some states are warning that funding for low-income heating aid is being delayed because of the federal government shutdown.

    Still, the impact is still more uneven than other financial stressors like grocery costs, which just over half of U.S. adults said are a “major” source of stress.

    And electric rates vary widely by state or utility.

    For instance, federal data shows that for-profit utilities have been raising rates far faster than municipally owned utilities or cooperatives.

    In the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid from Illinois to New Jersey, analysts say ratepayers are paying billions of dollars for the cost to power data centers — including data centers not even built yet.

    Next June, electric bills across that region will absorb billions more dollars in higher wholesale electricity costs designed to lure new power plants to power data centers.

    That’s spurred governors from the region — including Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Maryland’s Wes Moore, all Democrats who are running for reelection — to pressure the grid operator PJM Interconnection to contain increases.

    High-rate states vs. lower-rate rates

    Drew Maloney, the CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit electric utilities, suggested that only some states are the drivers of higher average electric bills.

    “If you set aside a few sates with higher rates, the rest of the country largely follows inflation on electricity rates,” Maloney said.

    Examples of states with faster-rising rates are California, where wildfires are driving grid upgrades, and those in New England, where natural gas is expensive because of strained pipeline capacity.

    Still, other states are feeling a pinch.

    In Indiana, a growing data center hotspot, the consumer advocacy group, Citizens Action Coalition, reported this year that residential customers of the state’s for-profit electric utilities were absorbing the most severe rate increases in at least two decades.

    Republican Gov. Mike Braun decried the hikes, saying “we can’t take it anymore.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • Op-Ed: Preventing Mass Layoffs in the Rust Belt, a Popular and Possible Initiative – Cleveland Scene

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    As the Democrats have lost ground to the Republicans with noncollege educated and working-class voters, particularly among white and Latino populations, researchers have wondered how Democrats might regain these voters’ support. While some have proposed a more socially conservative platform and others have advocated an “abundance” agenda, the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), in collaboration with the Labor Institute and Rutgers University, recently released a report looking at the possibility that economic populist appeals might win back voters, particularly in working-class heavy Rust Belt states.

    The study surveyed 3,000 Rust Belt residents, including 750 individuals from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Overall, the report finds that economically populist appeals, such as those targeting economic elites and corporate greed, are broadly and deeply popular among Rust Belt voters. Economic populism played well with both Democrats and independents—and with Republicans when delivered by an independent, rather than a Democratic candidate. In addition, the survey tested specific messaging and proposals that might garner broad support among voters.

    One proposal that we think might appeal to Rust Belt voters is an initiative to stop involuntary mass layoffs by companies that receive federal tax dollars. Our perspective is that if companies are receiving taxpayer funding than they have a responsibility to ensure stability for those very same individuals who fund them. Over the past half century, mass layoffs have disproportionately affected the Rust Belt. For instance, from 1996 to 2012, mass layoffs affected 16% of the Ohio workforce, particularly around Northeast Ohio and the state’s river towns.

    While this might seem like a radical proposal, a comparative look at how Siemens layoffs simultaneously affected the U.S. and Germany is telling of how such a policy might play out. When the technological giant pursued mass layoffs in 2020, all American workers lost their jobs. In Germany, however, where workers have strong representation on the board of directors and unions have more influence, no one was involuntarily laid off. Instead, workers were offered buyouts. While American workers don’t have the same sort of influence, we believe that federal contracts and taxpayer dollars could provide the hook needed to ensure that mass layoffs do not ensue.

    To test the popularity of this idea, we surveyed voters asking them about their preference for 25 policy proposals. Among those proposals, stopping mass layoffs was tied for the 5th most popular proposal. Indeed, this proposal was more popular than tariffs and raising the minimum wage. More specifically, it was highly popular among manual workers, noncollege graduates, independents, Democrats, and families making under $50k per year.

    Despite this policy’s popularity, however, the report finds that support diminishes substantially when the proposal is delivered by Democratic politicians rather than independents. To address this partisan penalty, the survey also tested how such a proposal would fare as a non-partisan ballot initiative, which allows voters to show support for specific policies without getting bogged down in partisan polarization. Overall, support for the initiative substantially outpaced opposition, even after survey takers were shown counter-messages that critiqued the proposal in different ways.

    Over the past several decades, working-class populations have increasingly moved away from the Democrats and towards GOP candidates. Despite its historic reputation as the party of the working-class, the Democrats have now become a party of the college educated. To win back working-class voters, the CWCP report demonstrates that Democrats should embrace an economically populist agenda that confronts corporate greed and economic elites. Otherwise, we should not expect this trend to reverse any time soon.

    Tim Gill is a native Clevelander, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, and a Research Associate at the Center for Working-Class Politics.

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    Tim Gill

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  • California’s Prop 50 shakes up nation’s redistricting arms race

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats, said he was initially hesitant to support his party’s mid-decade push to redraw California’s congressional map to favor Democrats.






    Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats




    The state in 2008 voted to create an independent redistricting commission in an effort to end gerrymandering. In August, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed Prop 50, a ballot measure that would temporarily override the commission and implement a redrawn map favoring Democrats.


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    Deene Souza, Tulare County GOP

    Deene Souza, director of grassroot efforts with the Tulare County Republican Party.




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    Erik Nisbet

    Erik Nisbet, director of Northwestern University’s Center for Communication and Public Policy




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    Chad Kinsella

    Chad Kinsella




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    Carson Gerber CNHI State Reporter

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  • California’s Prop 50 shakes up nation’s redistricting arms race

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats, said he was initially hesitant to support his party’s mid-decade push to redraw California’s congressional map to favor Democrats.






    Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats




    The state in 2008 voted to create an independent redistricting commission in an effort to end gerrymandering. In August, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed Prop 50, a ballot measure that would temporarily override the commission and implement a redrawn map favoring Democrats.


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    Deene Souza, Tulare County GOP

    Deene Souza, director of grassroot efforts with the Tulare County Republican Party.




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    Erik Nisbet

    Erik Nisbet, director of Northwestern University’s Center for Communication and Public Policy




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    Chad Kinsella




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    Carson Gerber CNHI State Reporter

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  • It’s not about inflation or the economy — the election instead delivered a ‘wake-up call’ on affordability politics, top pollster says | Fortune

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    From an economist’s point of view, conditions heading into the off-year elections probably didn’t seem so bad on paper. Inflation crept up but wasn’t spiking. Hiring was low but so was firing. Wages were still climbing, and the stock market was making investors feel wealthier.

    But voters who showed up to the polls on Tuesday had a different point of view and delivered stinging defeats to Republicans.

    “It’s a wake-up call,” polling expert Frank Luntz told MSNBC on Wednesday about the election results. “It’s a wake-up call to Democrats and Republicans. And it’s not the economy. It’s not even inflation because that’s something that’s used by professors and politicians. It is affordability.” 

    In particular, he pointed to housing and healthcare prices for the upper middle class, while workers who live paycheck to paycheck are focused on food and fuel prices.

    In a separate interview with CNN on Wednesday, Luntz also downplayed inflation as an election issue and drew a distinction with affordability.

    “The public is voting for candidates that they think will make life more affordable,” he said.

    Indeed, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the race to be mayor of New York City with promises to make housing, groceries and transportation more affordable.

    Moderate Democrats won gubernatorial races with similar messages too. Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, for example, targeted rising electricity prices, which have stirred discontent as the state’s AI data center boom has spiked demand for power.

    To be sure, inflation has cooled substantially since topping 9% in June 2022. But President Donald Trump’s tariffs have kept it sticky, with the consumer price index ticking back up to 3% in September.

    And while overall inflation hasn’t jumped sharply and consistently comes in below Wall Street forecasts, consumers are noticing higher prices at the grocery store for basics like coffee.

    “It explains why Trump was able to come back and do exceedingly well back in 2024, because the Democrats did not address affordability,” Luntz told CNN.

    So it’s not enough to tout the annual rate of inflation. What matters more is how much prices for bread, milk, cars, homes and insurance are.

    Democrats finally discovered that, after getting burned in 2024 and are making big promises to improve affordability, Luntz said.

    “But make no mistake, how much you pay at the cash register is going to determine who you vote for in these elections,” he predicted.

    For his part, Trump acknowledged affordability was a key issue in the election and ramped up his messaging on the topic while also reaching deals with drugmakers to lower prescription costs.

    In addition, the White House has highlighted lower gas prices and prices for Thanksgiving staples at top retailers as well.

    “I don’t want to hear about the affordability, because right now, we’re much less,” Trump told reporters Thursday, maintaining that his party is the one doing a better job. “The only problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it.”

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  • California Republicans sue over new US House map approved by voters

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Republicans filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to block a new U.S. House map that California voters decisively approved at the ballot.

    Proposition 50, backed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, is designed to help Democrats flip as many as five congressional House seats in the midterm elections next year. The lawsuit claims the map-makers improperly used race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters “without cause or evidence to justify it,” and asks the court to block the new boundaries ahead of the 2026 elections. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is funded by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night press conference at a California Democratic Party office Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

    The Supreme Court has ruled that “states may not, without a compelling reason backed by evidence that was in fact considered, separate citizens into different voting districts on the basis of race,” the lawsuit says.

    There have been two analyses showing there were no voting rights problems that warranted the redrawing of the map, it adds.

    The complaint was filed by The Dhillon Law Group, the California-based firm started by Harmeet Dhillon, who is now an assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The lawsuit also alleges that state lawmakers and a mapmaking consultant admitted in public statements that they intentionally redrew some districts to have a Latino majority. In one of the press releases from state Democrats, lawmakers said that the new map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters” while making no changes to Black majority districts in the Oakland and Los Angeles areas, the lawsuit says.

    “The map is designed to favor one race of California voters over others,” Mike Columbo, whose plaintiffs include a state Republican lawmaker and 18 other voters, said at a news conference Wednesday. “This violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, and the right under the 15th Amendment.”

    Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, speaks to reporters during a press conference announcing a federal lawsuit challenging Proposition 50, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

    Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, speaks to reporters during a press conference announcing a federal lawsuit challenging Proposition 50, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

    The mapmaking consultant Paul Mitchell declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

    Newsom’s office said on a social media post that the state hasn’t reviewed the lawsuit but is confident the challenge will fail.

    “Good luck, losers,” the post reads.

    Democrats said the measure is their best chance to blunt Texas Republicans’ move to redraw their own maps to pick up five GOP seats at Trump’s urging.

    It’s unclear whether a three-judge panel convened to hear such cases would grant a temporary restraining order before Dec. 19, the date when candidates can start collecting voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. It’s essentially the first step in officially running in the 2026 midterm elections. Columbo said he’s hoping to get a decision in the upcoming weeks and predicted the case to reach the Supreme Court.

    Republicans have filed multiple lawsuits in California to block Democrats’ plan with little success so far.

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  • From Bollywood to bodegas, Mamdani’s mayoral campaign found visual inspiration in unlikely corners

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    NEW YORK — The vivid blue campaign signs with bold orange lettering were impossible to miss as Zohran Mamdani made his historic and improbable run for New York City mayor this summer.

    On storefront windows and telephone poles from Queens to the Bronx, the “Zohran for New York City” signs stood out from the standard red, white and blue campaign fodder. The lettering was seen by many as an intentional reference to old-school Bollywood posters — a subtle nod to Mamdani’s Indian heritage.

    But Aneesh Bhoopathy, the Philadelphia-based graphic designer behind the visuals, said the campaign also drew from the vibrant primary colors that help bodegas, yellow cabs, hot dog vendors and other small businesses stand out amid the city bustle.

    The stylized font — with its drop shadow effect and vintage comic book look — was meant to evoke the old school, hand-painted signs that can still be found in some neighborhoods, he said.

    “Succinctly, it’s New York,” said Bhoopathy, who previously lived in New York and helped on past campaigns for Mamdani and the Queens chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

    It was also trendsetting.

    Mamdani’s main adversary, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, even rebranded midcampaign. The Democrat initially launched his mayoral run using a red, white and blue color scheme and a decidedly unfussy font, reminiscent of bumper stickers used by President John F. Kennedy in 1960.

    But after his defeat to Mamdani in the June Democratic primary, Cuomo kicked off his general election run as an independent candidate by rolling out a new logo featuring the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty’s crown and a new color scheme: blue and orange — Mamdani’s colors, but also the colors of the Knicks and Mets.

    Mamdani, who will be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, is the son of two prominent Indian American luminaries, Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair, who is known for “Monsoon Wedding” and other Hollywood films.

    The campaign’s aesthetic wasn’t merely stylistic, observed David Schwittek, a professor of digital media and graphic design at Lehman College, a city-owned college in the Bronx.

    “They evoke the working-class fabric of New York City: the bodegas, taxi cabs, and halal carts that not only sustain the city but also reflect its cultural richness,” he said.

    The decidedly retro vibe also likely helped foster “positive associations to happier political times,” at least among Democratic voters, suggested Gavan Fitzsimons, a business professor at Duke University who studies the impact of branding on voters and consumers.

    “It has the feel of something from a prior era, an earlier time when politics was less divisive and the Democrats were perhaps more organized, more successful,” he said.

    The branding was reminiscent of the distinctive campaign font that became a calling card for U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another youthful liberal New Yorker who shot to political fame, said Richard Flanagan, a political science professor at the College of Staten Island.

    The Democrat’s posters during her stunning 2018 victory over U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley for a seat representing parts of Queens and the Bronx similarly drew on her heritage and working class New York.

    The brightly-colored, upward slanting lettering reminded some of prewar labor union designs and others of Mexican “Lucha libre” flyers, particularly since it incorporated the inverted exclamation mark used in written Spanish.

    Court Stroud, a marketing professor at New York University, said it’s difficult to quantify how much the campaign visuals contributed to Mamdani’s success, but they certainly made him recognizable and memorable in an initially crowded field of mayoral hopefuls.

    “The playfulness of his campaign design created a brand that supporters wanted to wear and share,” he said. “Mamdani’s team showed how using visual design as a secret handshake can make politics feel real and community driven.”

    Campaign experts said it’s also too early to say whether Mamdani’s campaign designs will ultimately have the same staying power nationally as Ocasio-Cortez’s distinctive look, which has since become a staple of progressive candidate branding.

    “It’s still rare for candidates to move away from the tried and true red, white, and blue,” said Lisa Burns, a professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

    The popularity of Mamdani’s designs were certainly felt during the New York City mayoral race, helping inspire off-beat, viral campaigns such as the “Hot Girls for Zohran” merch worn by model Emily Ratajkowski and other young celebs.

    Schwittek said the key takeaway from Mamdani’s visual coup was that effective branding isn’t generic or safe, but specific and deliberate.

    “In a sea of sanitized political messaging, Mamdani’s visuals stand out because they mean something,” he said. “That’s the lesson.”

    Good campaign design should also still ring true to the candidate, added Bhoopathy.

    “None of the boldness and vibrancy here works without a candidate that is as energetic and full of life as the city that raised him,” he said.

    ___

    Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

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  • From Bollywood to Bodegas, Mamdani’s Mayoral Campaign Found Visual Inspiration in Unlikely Corners

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The vivid blue campaign signs with bold orange lettering were impossible to miss as Zohran Mamdani made his historic and improbable run for New York City mayor this summer.

    On storefront windows and telephone poles from Queens to the Bronx, the “Zohran for New York City” signs stood out from the standard red, white and blue campaign fodder. The lettering was seen by many as an intentional reference to old-school Bollywood posters — a subtle nod to Mamdani’s Indian heritage.

    But Aneesh Bhoopathy, the Philadelphia-based graphic designer behind the visuals, said the campaign also drew from the vibrant primary colors that help bodegas, yellow cabs, hot dog vendors and other small businesses stand out amid the city bustle.

    The stylized font — with its drop shadow effect and vintage comic book look — was meant to evoke the old school, hand-painted signs that can still be found in some neighborhoods, he said.

    “Succinctly, it’s New York,” said Bhoopathy, who previously lived in New York and helped on past campaigns for Mamdani and the Queens chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

    It was also trendsetting.

    Mamdani’s main adversary, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, even rebranded midcampaign. The Democrat initially launched his mayoral run using a red, white and blue color scheme and a decidedly unfussy font, reminiscent of bumper stickers used by President John F. Kennedy in 1960.

    But after his defeat to Mamdani in the June Democratic primary, Cuomo kicked off his general election run as an independent candidate by rolling out a new logo featuring the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty’s crown and a new color scheme: blue and orange — Mamdani’s colors, but also the colors of the Knicks and Mets.

    Mamdani, who will be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, is the son of two prominent Indian American luminaries, Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair, who is known for “Monsoon Wedding” and other Hollywood films.

    The campaign’s aesthetic wasn’t merely stylistic, observed David Schwittek, a professor of digital media and graphic design at Lehman College, a city-owned college in the Bronx.

    “They evoke the working-class fabric of New York City: the bodegas, taxi cabs, and halal carts that not only sustain the city but also reflect its cultural richness,” he said.

    The decidedly retro vibe also likely helped foster “positive associations to happier political times,” at least among Democratic voters, suggested Gavan Fitzsimons, a business professor at Duke University who studies the impact of branding on voters and consumers.

    “It has the feel of something from a prior era, an earlier time when politics was less divisive and the Democrats were perhaps more organized, more successful,” he said.

    The branding was reminiscent of the distinctive campaign font that became a calling card for U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another youthful liberal New Yorker who shot to political fame, said Richard Flanagan, a political science professor at the College of Staten Island.

    The Democrat’s posters during her stunning 2018 victory over U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley for a seat representing parts of Queens and the Bronx similarly drew on her heritage and working class New York.

    The brightly-colored, upward slanting lettering reminded some of prewar labor union designs and others of Mexican “Lucha libre” flyers, particularly since it incorporated the inverted exclamation mark used in written Spanish.

    Court Stroud, a marketing professor at New York University, said it’s difficult to quantify how much the campaign visuals contributed to Mamdani’s success, but they certainly made him recognizable and memorable in an initially crowded field of mayoral hopefuls.

    “The playfulness of his campaign design created a brand that supporters wanted to wear and share,” he said. “Mamdani’s team showed how using visual design as a secret handshake can make politics feel real and community driven.”

    Campaign experts said it’s also too early to say whether Mamdani’s campaign designs will ultimately have the same staying power nationally as Ocasio-Cortez’s distinctive look, which has since become a staple of progressive candidate branding.

    “It’s still rare for candidates to move away from the tried and true red, white, and blue,” said Lisa Burns, a professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

    Schwittek said the key takeaway from Mamdani’s visual coup was that effective branding isn’t generic or safe, but specific and deliberate.

    “In a sea of sanitized political messaging, Mamdani’s visuals stand out because they mean something,” he said. “That’s the lesson.”

    Good campaign design should also still ring true to the candidate, added Bhoopathy.

    “None of the boldness and vibrancy here works without a candidate that is as energetic and full of life as the city that raised him,” he said.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • Zohran Mamdani and London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, have much in common, but also key differences

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    LONDON (AP) — He’s the left-leaning Muslim mayor of the country’s biggest city, and U.S. President Donald Trump is one of his biggest critics.

    London’s Sadiq Khan has a lot in common with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — but also many differences.

    Khan, who has been mayor of Britain’s capital since 2016, welcomed Mamdani’s victory, saying New Yorkers had “chosen hope over fear, unity over division.”

    Khan’s experience holds positive and negative lessons for Mamdani, the 34-year-old Democrat who beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election.

    Khan has won three consecutive elections but routinely receives abuse for his faith and race, as well as criticism from conservative and far-right commentators who depict London as a crime-plagued dystopia.

    Trump has been among his harshest critics for years, calling Khan a “stone cold loser,” a “nasty person” and a “terrible mayor,” and claiming the mayor wants to bring Sharia, or Islamic law, to London.

    Khan, a keen amateur boxer, has hit back, saying in September that Trump is “racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic and he is Islamophobic.”

    Khan told The Associated Press during a global mayors’ summit in Brazil on Wednesday that it’s “heartbreaking” but not surprising to see Mamdani receiving the same sort of abuse he gets.

    “London is liberal, progressive, multicultural, but also successful — as indeed is New York,” he said. “If you’re a nativist, populist politician, we are the antithesis of all you stand for. ”

    Attacked for their religion

    Mamdani and Khan regularly receive abuse and threats because of their Muslim faith, and London’s mayor has significantly tighter security protection than his predecessors.

    Both have tried to build bridges with the Jewish community after being criticized by opponents for their pro-Palestinian stances during the Israel-Hamas war.

    Both say their political opponents have leaned into Islamophobia. In 2016, Khan’s Conservative opponent, Zac Goldsmith, was accused of anti-Muslim prejudice for suggesting that Khan had links to Islamic extremists.

    Cuomo laughed along with a radio host who suggested Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11 attack. Mamdani’s Republican critics frequently, falsely call him a “jihadist” and a Hamas supporter.

    Mamdani vowed during the campaign that he would “not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I’m proud to call my own.”

    Khan has said he feels a responsibility to dispel myths about Muslims, and answers questions about his faith with weary good grace. He calls himself “a proud Brit, a proud Englishman, a proud Londoner and a proud Muslim.”

    Very different politicians

    Mamdani is an outsider on the left of his party, a democratic socialist whose buzzy, digital-savvy campaign energized young New Yorkers and drove the city’s biggest election turnout in a mayoral election in decades.

    Khan, 55, is a more of an establishment politician who sits in the broad middle of the center-left Labour Party.

    The son of a bus driver and a seamstress from Pakistan, Khan grew up with seven siblings in a three-bedroom public housing apartment in south London.

    He studied law, became a human rights attorney and spent a decade as a Labour Party lawmaker in the House of Commons, representing the area where he grew up, before being elected in 2016 as the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital city.

    Mamdani comes from a more privileged background as the son of an India-born Ugandan anthropologist, Mahmood Mamdani, and award-winning Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. Born in Uganda and raised from the age of 7 in New York, he worked as an adviser for tenants facing eviction before being elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020.

    Similar big-city problems

    Khan and Mamdani govern huge cities with vastly diverse populations of more than 8 million. Voters in both places have similar worries about crime and the high cost of living – big issues that many mayors struggle to address.

    Khan was won three straight elections, but he’s not an overwhelmingly popular mayor. As Mamdani may also find, the mayor gets blamed for a lot of problems, from high rents to violent crime, regardless of whether they are in his control, though Mamdani made freezing rents a pillar of his campaign.

    Mamdani campaigned on ambitious promises, including free child care, free buses, new affordable housing and city-run grocery stores.

    “Winning an election is one thing, delivering on promises is another,” said Darren Reid, an expert on U.S. politics at Coventry University. “The mayor of New York definitely does not have unlimited power, and he is going to have a very powerful enemy in the current president.”

    The mayor of London controls public transit and the police, but doesn’t have the authority of New York’s leader because power is shared with the city’s 32 boroughs, which are responsible for schools, social services and public housing in their areas.

    Khan can point to relatively modest achievements, including free school meals for all primary school pupils and a freeze on transit fares. But he has failed to meet other goals, such as ambitious house-building targets.

    Tony Travers, a professor at the London School of Economics who specializes in local government, said one lesson Mamdani might take from Khan is to pick “a limited number of fights that you can win.”

    Khan, who is asthmatic, has made it one of his main missions to clean up London’s air — once so filthy the city was nicknamed the Big Smoke. He expanded London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, which charges the drivers of older, more polluting vehicles a daily fee to drive in the city.

    The measure became a lightning rod for criticism of Khan, spurring noisy protests and vandalism of enforcement cameras. Khan staunchly defended the zone, which research suggests has made London’s air cleaner. His big victory in last year’s mayoral election appeared to vindicate Khan’s stance on the issue.

    Travers said that beyond their shared religion and being the targets of racism, both mayors face the conundrum of leading dynamic, diverse metropolises that are “surprisingly peaceful and almost embarrassingly successful” — and resented by the rest of their countries for their wealth and the attention they receive.

    He said London is “locked in this strange alternative universe where it is simultaneously described by a number of commentators as sort of a hellhole … and yet on the other hand it’s so embarrassingly rich that British governments spend their lives trying to level up the rest of the country to it. You can’t win.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Eléonore Hughes in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this story.

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  • Virginia election winners break race and gender barriers amid national scrutiny on diversity

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    RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — As the polls closed on Tuesday across Virginia, it quickly became clear it was a night of firsts: Voters overwhelmingly elected a slate of candidates who broke race and gender barriers in contests considered among the most consequential nationally.

    Republicans in Virginia also fielded a historically diverse statewide ticket that would have set records.

    The results come as President Donald Trump has made his opposition to diversity initiatives a cornerstone of his platform, dismantling federal civil rights programs that sought to rectify a complicated history of racial discrimination. He has justified those moves by saying that race and gender equity programs overcorrect for past wrongs and foment anti-American sentiment — a position shared among many conservatives across the country.

    Still, Virginia’s election results — in tandem with high-profile Democratic victories across the U.S. — call into question whether Trump’s staunch positions on race, gender and gender identity are resonating with voters.

    Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.


    Follow on

    Virginia’s first female governor

    Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, giving Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and making history as the first woman ever to lead the Commonwealth. Her victory was decisive, with about 57% of the vote.

    The race was bound to make history regardless of who came out on top: Spanberger was running against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, marking the first time two women were the front-runners in a general election for governor.

    In her acceptance speech, Spanberger recalled how her husband said to their three daughters, “Your mom is going to be the governor of Virginia.”

    “And I can guarantee you those words have never been spoken in Virginia, ever before,” she said, beaming.

    Spanberger said her victory meant Virginians were choosing “pragmatism over partisanship” and “leadership that will focus on problem solving and not stoking division.”

    First Muslim woman elected statewide

    Democrat Ghazala Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid in the race for lieutenant governor, becoming the first Indian American woman to win statewide office in Virginia. She is also the first Muslim woman to be elected statewide in the U.S.

    Firsts are not new to Hashmi. She was the first Muslim woman elected to the Virginia Senate five years ago. Hashmi, a former English professor born in India, said at the time that her opposition to Trump’s Muslim ban motivated her to break into politics.

    This time around, her campaign for lieutenant governor focused less on her identity and more on key issues, such as health and education. Still, some said her identity was a prominent factor in the race. Reid recently took to social media to tie Hashmi to Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim elected mayor of New York City, despite marked differences in their platforms, nationalities and ages — a comparison critics said was Islamophobic.

    Like the governor’s race, the battle for lieutenant governor would have been historic either way: Reid was the first openly gay man nominated to statewide office in Virginia, and he faced hurdles on the trail in connection to his sexuality. GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked him to leave the ticket after opposition research linked him to a social media account with sexually explicit photos of men. At the time, Reid said he felt betrayed.

    In her victory speech, Hashmi said her candidacy reflected progress in the state and nation.

    “My own journey — from a young child landing at the airport in Savannah, Georgia, to now being elected as the first Muslim woman to achieve statewide office in Virginia and in the entire country — is only possible because of the depth and breadth of opportunities made available in this country and in this commonwealth.”

    Son of civil rights pioneers to be attorney general

    Democrat Jay Jones defeated Republican incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, becoming the first Black person elected as top prosecutor in the former capital of the Confederacy.

    Jones, a former Virginia delegate, comes from a long line of racial-justice trailblazers — a fact he emphasized throughout his campaign and after his victory.

    “My ancestors were slaves. My grandfather was a civil rights pioneer who braved Jim Crow,” Jones said Tuesday. “My mother, my uncles, my aunts endured segregation, all so that I could stand before you today.”

    That said, Jones’ victory is as much a referendum on dissatisfaction with the government shutdown and Trump’s mass firings, which have hit Virginia especially hard due to its high concentration of federal workers.

    Ever since Democrat Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, every time a new president has been elected, Virginia has voted in a governor the following year from the opposite party.

    Jones’ win comes after Miyares, elected in 2021, became the first Latino to hold a Virginia statewide office.

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  • At the 6-Months Mark, Pope Leo Finds His Footing and Starts Charting His Own Path and Style

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    VATICAN CITY (AP) — “You get used to it.”

    That was Pope Leo XIV ‘s matter-of-fact response when King Charles III asked about the swarms of televisions cameras documenting his historic visit to the Vatican last month.

    Charles is no stranger to paparazzi, so Leo wasn’t telling the monarch anything he didn’t already know. But Leo’s blasé comment seemed to confirm what Vatican observers have noticed recently: that Leo has indeed gotten used to being pope, and is finding his footing six months into the job.

    After his shock election in May and sharp learning curve over the summer, Leo’s key priorities are coming into focus, especially where he dovetails with his predecessor, Pope Francis, and where he diverges.

    As his pontificate’s six-month mark arrives on Nov. 8, here’s a rundown of what we’ve learned about the first American pope, his style, substance and where he might take the Catholic Church.


    Continuity with Francis on key social justice issues

    Leo showed himself in perfect lockstep with Francis when he published his first major teaching document last month, on the church’s non-negotiable “preferential option for the poor.” Francis began writing the text before he died; Leo took it over and made it his own.

    In it, Leo criticized how the wealthy live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while poor people suffer on the margins. He urged a renewed commitment to fixing the structural causes of poverty.

    Leo has also embraced Francis’ ecological legacy, presiding over the first Mass using a new prayer formula “for the care of creation.” He has given the go-ahead to Francis’ ambitious plan to turn a Vatican-owned property north of Rome into a massive solar farm that could make Vatican City the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

    Perhaps nowhere was Leo more Francis-like than on Oct. 23, when he met at the Vatican with Indigenous groups and representatives of popular movements who had been championed by the Argentine Jesuit.

    Francis had prioritized people on the margins, and exhorted the church to accompany them as they demanded the basic human necessities of “tierra, techo, trabajo,” – land, housing and work.

    Leo repeated Francis’ mantra during his audience and put his own spin on it, noting that his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, took up the issue of workers rights at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

    “Echoing Francis’ words, I say today: land, housing and work are sacred rights. It is worthwhile to fight for them, and I would like you to hear me say, ‘I am here, I am with you!’” Leo said.

    Cardinal Michael Czerny, a top adviser to both popes, said Leo is in perfect continuity with Francis, implementing processes that Francis set in motion.

    “The transition from one Holy Father to another is not primarily a transition in policies,” Czerny said in an interview. While a change in governments from one party to the next can signal a break, “here it would be a mistake to look for that.”

    “The stylistic differences are in the person, not in the teaching,” he said.


    Leo’s honeymoon with conservatives continues

    On style, it’s now clear that Leo is happy to pope the old fashioned way, wearing the red mozzetta cape and embroidered stole for all but the most mundane occasions.

    He sticks to the script of his prepared texts, shows discipline in his liturgical observance and doesn’t ad-lib with wisecracks the way Francis sometimes did.

    That has endeared him to many of the Catholic conservatives who bristled at Francis’ informality. Even though Leo is echoing many of Francis’ Gospel-mandated social justice preaching points, his style and gestures have generally won them over so far.

    “What I’m hearing and sensing is a real joy in the maturity, the discipline and the tradition that he brings back to the papacy,” said Patrick Reilly, founder and head of the conservative Cardinal Newman Society, which ranks Catholic colleges in the U.S. on upholding traditional doctrine.

    “I don’t know of anyone who has any concerns or is disturbed or anything like we saw,” with Francis, he said.


    The Latin Mass returns to St. Peter’s

    Many credit Leo for allowing a traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated at the back altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, presided over by none other than the figurehead of the American Catholic right, Cardinal Raymond Burke.

    Francis in 2021 cracked down on the spread of the ancient liturgy, saying it had become a source of division in dioceses. The crackdown fueled conservative and traditionalist opposition to Francis, leading to a new impasse in the age-old liturgical wars.

    But Leo has expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with traditionalists, suggesting a detente is possible.

    “We love our pope, we pray for him,” said Christina Tignot, who attended the Latin Mass service during the traditionalists’ annual pilgrimage. With her was her husband and homeschooled daughter, who joined her mother in wearing a lace veil over her head.


    A willingness to chart a new path

    For all his continuity with Francis, Leo has charted his own path and even corrected Francis when necessary.

    In one case of a reversal, Leo abrogated a 2022 law issued by Francis that concentrated financial power in the Vatican bank. Leo issued his own law allowing the Holy See’s investment committee to use other banks, outside the Vatican, if it made better financial sense.

    Leo has also met with a group of activist survivors of clergy sexual abuse, who said he promised to engage in dialogue as they press the Vatican to adopt a zero-tolerance for abuse policy worldwide. Francis had met regularly with individual abuse survivors, but kept advocacy and activist groups at an arm’s length.


    A new routine elicits a comment about abortion

    At the six-month mark, Leo’s personal routine is also showing a break from that of the workaholic homebody Francis.

    Leo has taken to spending Monday afternoons and Tuesdays at the papal country house in Castel Gandolfo, where he can take time off and get in a tennis game in the estate’s court. (He plays with his secretary).

    To the news media’s delight, Leo has agreed to field some questions each Tuesday evening as he leaves from a gaggle of reporters gathered outside, weighing in on everything from the Gaza ceasefire to immigration enforcement raids in Chicago. his hometown.

    His initially timid responses were noticed. They led to a biting television skit by Italian political satirist Maurizio Crozza, who suggested that the name “Leo” was perhaps a mismatch for a pope seemingly afraid of his own shadow.

    But with the passage of time, Leo seems to be getting into his groove. He sparked a brief but seemingly temporary alarm in conservative circles when, during one recent Tuesday evening Q&A, he chimed in on the U.S. abortion debate by challenging abortion opponents about what it really means to be pro-life.

    In a more formal setting, he also showed some chutzpah when Queen Rania of Jordan asked him if it was really safe to travel to Lebanon. Leo plans to visit Lebanon and Turkey on his first foreign trip at the end of the month.

    They were posing for a formal photo in Leo’s library after an official state audience. Rania’s question was picked up by the Vatican camera’s hot mic, as was Leo’s response.

    “Well, we’re going,” Leo said matter-of-factly, while smiling for the cameras.

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Republican Rep Elise Stefanik to Announce Run for New York Governor

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik is expected to announce a run for New York governor Friday, according to two people familiar with her plans.

    The two people spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly disclose her plans ahead of the official announcement.

    Stefanik, a fierce ally of President Donald Trump, represents a conservative district in upstate New York, and has been considering a run for months.

    In recent weeks she has ramped up her criticism of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, often referring to the Democrat as the “worst governor in America.” Stefanik has also attacked Hochul over her endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City.

    Trump had picked Stefanik to be his ambassador to the United Nations last year but later rescinded the nomination over concerns about the Republican Party’s narrow majority in the House.

    Hochul, a moderate, is facing a primary challenge from her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.

    A spokesperson for Hochul’s campaign referred AP to a statement from the Democratic Governors Association, which said: “Elise Stefanik has spent her career selling out New Yorkers to Donald Trump — and that is exactly why she is going to lose to Kathy Hochul next November.”

    Kim reported from Washington.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • America Begins Clapping Back at Donald Trump

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    After such an election thumping, another President might seek a deal to end the shutdown, which is, as of this week, the longest in history, breaking the thirty-five-day record set in Trump’s first term. Not Trump. Escalation not accommodation is his preferred move. On Wednesday, his Administration announced that, owing to air-traffic-controller shortages exacerbated by the shutdown, ten per cent of all flights at forty major airports around the country would be cancelled, causing travel mayhem in a high-stakes bid to force Democrats to end the impasse. I’m not quite sure about Trump’s theory of the case: If Americans didn’t blame the President already for the crisis, wouldn’t they be much more likely to now? (And the data suggest that the electorate already does hold Republicans responsible.) But whatever. The point is to change the subject, to show that he’s not rolling over just because the voters no longer love his party so much in Passaic County, New Jersey, or Lynchburg, Virginia.

    More fights will no doubt soon follow. How long can it be until Trump has successfully picked one with New York’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, the thirty-four-year-old Democratic Socialist whose unlikely ascension this year has been greeted with almost as much enthusiasm by national Republican strategists as by young progressives in Brooklyn? Mamdani’s election-night victory speech suggested that he is more than willing to play the foil to Trump, even trolling the TV-obsessed President by telling him to “turn the volume up” so he could hear Mamdani’s come-and-get-us-if-you-can words of defiance. Mamdani knew his man—the White House later confirmed that Trump was, in fact, watching.

    As Washington was still digesting the election results on Thursday, a fund-raising e-mail came across the transom from Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democratic congresswoman who has emerged as one of the Party’s louder TV warriors. Subject line: “His presidency is over y’all.”

    Crockett might have been hyping Trump’s post-election obsolescence a bit, but she was on to something. The whiff of generational change now hangs over American politics. One sensed it in Mamdani’s victory, for sure, but also in those of New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill and Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger, neither of whom, as my colleague Benjamin Wallace-Wells noted, were in politics when Trump first became President. Mamdani ended Andrew Cuomo’s attempt at a comeback, sending the former governor—whose father also held that office—once again into involuntary retirement. Cuomo, for now, is a name to be associated with the past, not the future, of New York politics.

    Election Day itself began with the early-morning news that Dick Cheney, one of the dominant Republicans of his generation, had died at the age of eighty-four. When Cheney first made his mark in Washington, as Gerald Ford’s wunderkind White House chief of staff, he was the same age that Mamdani is now. In a career that had many acts, including as George W. Bush’s influential Vice-President and chief Iraq War promoter, Cheney’s final one—as a fierce opponent of Donald Trump—was perhaps his most surprising. Where other leading Republicans, including his former boss, were largely silent as Trump took over their party and defied constitutional norms and principles that they had once loudly defended, Cheney proudly supported his daughter Liz’s efforts to resist him. One of the more indelible images of how much our politics has changed in recent years was the sight of Cheney on the House floor for a ceremony Democrats held to mark the one-year anniversary of the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on January 6, 2021; he and Liz were the only Republicans to attend. Democrats, many of whom had once shunned Cheney as tantamount to a war criminal, lined up to shake his hand. The visual, like this week’s elections, underscored something essential: politics moves on. It is not static. Cheney’s resistance to Trump in the final years of his life was a rear-guard action, not a sign of things to come. His version of the G.O.P. no longer exists.

    On Thursday morning, Nancy Pelosi, another giant of our recent politics, announced her decision to retire from Congress at the end of the current term. The two-time Speaker of the House, in which capacity she oversaw major legislative victories, including passage of the Affordable Care Act, during the Obama Administration, is arguably the most powerful woman in American history. During Trump’s first term, she became the President’s greatest scourge, rallying Democrats to come back from the shock of his 2016 victory and retake the House two years later. But this time, with Pelosi already eighty-five years old and no longer in a leadership role, it will be left to others to regroup.

    Trump reacted to Pelosi’s announcement in a text to Fox News’s Peter Doocy. “The retirement of Nancy Pelosi is a great thing for America,” he wrote, calling her “evil,” “corrupt,” and “highly overrated.” He added, “I’m very honored that she impeached me twice and failed miserably twice.” She tried to get rid of me, he might as well have said, but I’m still here.

    The clock, though, is ticking for Trump, too. The President himself knows it. He blamed Tuesday’s losses on the fact that he was not on the ballot to rally Republicans, but he did not mention a larger constitutional truth about his lame-duck status that neither he nor his Party seems to have begun reckoning with: he won’t be on the ballot heading the ticket ever again. ♦

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  • Opinion | When Irish Eyes Are Glaring

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    Tensions with the U.S. will heighten under the new left-wing president.

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    Robert C. O’Brien

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  • Illinois Congressman Forgoes Reelection With Eyebrow-Raising Move to Place Chief of Staff on Ballot

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    CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia confirmed Thursday that he won’t seek a fifth term, days after the Illinois Democrat backed a quiet effort to get his chief of staff to replace him on the March primary ballot.

    Garcia, a progressive Democrat who has made immigrant rights a signature issue, becomes the fifth U.S. representative from Illinois to forgo 2026 reelection, leaving one of the highest number of open congressional seats in state history. All five are considered safely Democratic, along with a seat left open by retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.

    Garcia, 69, turned in his nominating petitions for the primary ballot on Monday, Oct. 27, the first day of the Illinois State Board of Elections filing period. A week later on the last day of filing, his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, who is not related to the congressman, submitted her own to enter the 4th District race after a furious weekend effort to gather 2,500 signatures.

    The congressman didn’t announce the plan publicly, opting for sporadic interviews with local media outlets. He said the decision to leave politics culminated from a confluence of health and family concerns during the “most stressful” week of his life.

    He said his wife, who has multiple sclerosis, suffered a medical setback and asked him not to run. Then his doctor raised concerns about his heart health. In the same time frame, the couple finalized the adoption of their 8-year-old grandson. They have been raising grandchildren after the death of their daughter, Rosa, in 2023.

    “My cardiologist, the first day that I filed my petitions, told me that I need to take care of myself and I need to find something else to do,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday. “It was a hell of a week.”

    Still, the political maneuver immediately fueled criticism about Chicago-style politics with the congressman essentially anointing his chief of staff to public office.

    Patty Garcia submitted her petitions at 5 p.m. on the final day of the nominating period, according to state election board data, guaranteeing that no other candidate would have the chance to run in the primary as a Democrat.

    Garcia called the criticism fair.

    “I totally get why some people have come to that conclusion. I found myself in a very difficult position. I had to scramble,” he said. “I had to make sure there was someone on the ballot who was going to be a champion for immigrants, someone who understands the district and small businesses and someone who would be hitting the ground running.”

    The congressman said he’ll withdrawn his petitions. He intends to serve out his term, which ends in January 2027.

    The situation also prompted déjà vu as Garcia was first elected to Congress in 2018 under similar circumstances. His predecessor, former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez announced in the waning days of the 2017 filing period that he was dropping out and backing Garcia, then a Cook County commissioner who had served as a state legislator and Chicago City Council member.

    Born in Mexico, he came to the U.S. as a child. He was a college activist, organizing sit-ins for establishing a Latino cultural center. He later helped found community groups and served as a water commissioner under the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington.

    The mild-mannered politician — highly recognizable for his trademark mustache — has remained popular in his district, which includes Latino and immigrant-heavy areas. Most recently, he’s made headlines for calling for reforms at a suburban Chicago immigration processing center.

    As congressman, he’s touted bringing back more than $50 million in funding back to his district dozens of projects, including school programs, a suburban flooding project, a library expansion and funding a clinic for low-income residents.

    Garcia said he does not intend to run for public office again.

    “I am not stepping out. I am stepping back,” he said. “This doesn’t mean that I will disappear or cease to be active. I intend to be a mentor, someone who shares the history and struggles.”

    Patty Garcia, 40, has worked for the congressman since he took office. She did not respond to requests for comment this week.

    The congressman said his departure, along with others from the Illinois congressional delegation, would be a good thing.

    “I think we need new blood, new energy in Congress.”

    Four other representatives have said they won’t seek reelection next year. U.S. Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Danny Davis are retiring, while Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly are running for Senate.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • The Latest: Shutdown Progress in Doubt as Democrats Grow Emboldened From Election Wins

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    Trump has increased pressure on Senate Republicans to end the shutdown — now at 37 days, the longest in U.S. history — calling it a “big factor, negative” in the poor GOP showings across the country. Democrats saw Trump’s comments as a reason to hold firm, believing his involvement in talks could lead to a deal on extending health care subsidies, a key sticking point to win their support.

    Trump is refusing to meet with Democrats, insisting they must open the government first.


    Pelosi was a check on Trump during his first term

    As House Speaker, she became the Democratic Party’s antidote to President Trump.

    Trump was impeached by the House — twice — first in 2019 for withholding U.S. aid to Ukraine as it faced a hostile Russia at its border and then in 2021 days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted him in both cases.

    Pelosi stood up the Jan. 6 special committee to probe Trump’s role in sending his mob of supporters to the Capitol, when most Republicans refused to investigate, producing the 1,000-page report that became the first full accounting of what happened as the defeated president tried to stay in office.


    Nancy Pelosi won’t seek reelection, ending her storied career in the US House

    Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will not seek reelection to the U.S. House, bringing to a close her storied career as not only the first woman in the speaker’s office but arguably the most powerful in American politics.

    Pelosi, who’s represented San Francisco for nearly 40 years, announced her decision Thursday.

    “I will not be seeking reelection to Congress,” Pelosi said in a video address to voters.

    Pelosi, appearing upbeat and forward-looking as images of her decades of accomplishments filled the frames, said she would finish out her final year in office. And she left those who sent her to Congress with a call to action to carry on the legacy of agenda-setting both in the U.S. and around the world.


    Trump has other tariff options if the Supreme Court strikes down his worldwide import taxes

    President Trump has warned the United States will be rendered “defenseless’’ and possibly “reduced to almost Third World status” if the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs he imposed this year on nearly every country on earth.

    The justices sounded skeptical during oral arguments Wednesday of his sweeping claims of authority to impose tariffs as he sees fit.

    The truth, though, is Trump will still have plenty of options to keep taxing imports aggressively even if the court rules against him. He can re-use tariff powers he deployed in his first term and can reach for others, including one that dates back to the Great Depression.

    “It’s hard to see any pathway here where tariffs end,” said Georgetown trade law professor Kathleen Claussen. “I am pretty convinced he could rebuild the tariff landscape he has now using other authorities.”


    FAA says it will list airports where it’s reducing flights during the government shutdown

    Travelers through some of the busiest U.S. airports can expect to learn Thursday whether they’ll see fewer flights as the government shutdown drags into a second month.

    The Federal Aviation Administration will announce the 40 “high-volume markets” where it’s reducing flights by 10% before the cuts go into effect Friday, said agency administrator Bryan Bedford. The move is intended to keep the air space safe during the shutdown, the agency said.

    Experts predict hundreds if not thousands of flights could be canceled. The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by aviation analytics firm Cirium.


    Senators search for a potential deal

    Central to any resolution will be a series of agreements that would need to be upheld not only by the Senate but also by the House and the White House, which is not at all certain in Washington.

    Senators from both major parties, particularly the members of the powerful Appropriations Committee, are pushing to ensure the normal government funding process in Congress can be put back on track. Among the goals is guaranteeing upcoming votes on a smaller package of bills to fund various aspects of government such as agricultural programs and military construction projects at bases.

    More difficult, a substantial number of senators also want some resolution to the standoff over the funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.


    Trump’s approach to the shutdown stands in marked contrast to his first term

    During the shutdown in Trump’s first term, the government was partially closed for 35 days over his demands for money to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall. At that time, he met publicly and negotiated with congressional leaders. Unable to secure the money, he relented in 2019.

    This time, it’s not just Trump declining to engage in talks. The congressional leaders are at a standoff, and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home in September after they approved their own funding bill, refusing further negotiations.


    Trump sets another shutdown record

    Now at 37 days, it’s the longest in U.S. history.

    While some Democrats saw Trump’s comments on the shutdown Wednesday as evidence that he’d soon get more involved, he’s largely stayed out of the fray. Instead, the talks have intensified among a loose coalition of centrist senators trying to negotiate an end to the shutdown.

    Trump has refused to negotiate with Democrats over their demands to salvage expiring health insurance subsidies until they agree to reopen the government. But skeptical Democrats question whether the Republican president will keep his word, particularly after his administration restricted SNAP food aid despite court orders to ensure funds are available to prevent hunger.


    Progressives see election wins as reason to fight

    Grassroots Democratic groups nationwide touted Tuesday’s election results as voter approval of the shutdown strategy — and warned lawmakers against cutting a deal too soon.

    “Moderate Senate Democrats who are looking for an off-ramp right now are completely missing the moment,” said Katie Bethell, political director of MoveOn, a progressive group. “Voters have sent a resounding message: We want leaders who fight for us, and we want solutions that make life more affordable.”

    Some Senate Democrats echoed that sentiment. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats and a leading voice in the progressive movement, said Democrats “have got to remain strong” and should secure assurances on extending health care subsidies — including “a commitment from the speaker of the House that he will support the legislation, and that the president will sign.”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • Denmark eyes new law to protect citizens from AI deepfakes

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    COPENHAGEN, Denmark — In 2021, Danish video game live-streamer Marie Watson received an image of herself from an unknown Instagram account.

    She instantly recognized the holiday snap from her Instagram account, but something was different: Her clothing had been digitally removed to make her appear naked. It was a deepfake.

    “It overwhelmed me so much,” Watson recalled. “I just started bursting out in tears, because suddenly, I was there naked.”

    In the four years since her experience, deepfakes — highly realistic artificial intelligence-generated images, videos or audio of real people or events — have become not only easier to make worldwide but also look or sound exponentially more realistic. That’s thanks to technological advances and the proliferation of generative AI tools, including video generation tools from OpenAI and Google.

    These tools give millions of users the ability to easily spit out content, including for nefarious purposes that range from depicting celebrities Taylor Swift and Katy Perry to disrupting elections and humiliating teens and women.

    In response, Denmark is seeking to protect ordinary Danes, as well as performers and artists who might have their appearance or voice imitated and shared without their permission. A bill that’s expected to pass early next year would change copyright law by imposing a ban on the sharing of deepfakes to protect citizens’ personal characteristics — such as their appearance or voice — from being imitated and shared online without their consent.

    If enacted, Danish citizens would get the copyright over their own likeness. In theory, they then would be able to demand that online platforms take down content shared without their permission. The law would still allow for parodies and satire, though it’s unclear how that will be determined.

    Experts and officials say the Danish legislation would be among the most extensive steps yet taken by a government to combat misinformation through deepfakes.

    Henry Ajder, founder of consulting firm Latent Space Advisory and a leading expert in generative AI, said that he applauds the Danish government for recognizing that the law needs to change.

    “Because right now, when people say ‘what can I do to protect myself from being deepfaked?’ the answer I have to give most of the time is: ‘There isn’t a huge amount you can do,’” he said, ”without me basically saying, ‘scrub yourself from the internet entirely.’ Which isn’t really possible.”

    He added: “We can’t just pretend that this is business as usual for how we think about those key parts of our identity and our dignity.”

    U.S. President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation in May that makes it illegal to knowingly publish or threaten to publish intimate images without a person’s consent, including deepfakes. Last year, South Korea rolled out measures to curb deepfake porn, including harsher punishment and stepped up regulations for social media platforms.

    Danish Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt said that the bill has broad support from lawmakers in Copenhagen, because such digital manipulations can stir doubts about reality and spread misinformation.

    “If you’re able to deepfake a politician without her or him being able to have that product taken down, that will undermine our democracy,” he told reporters during an AI and copyright conference in September.

    The law would apply only in Denmark, and is unlikely to involve fines or imprisonment for social media users. But big tech platforms that fail to remove deepfakes could face severe fines, Engel-Schmidt said.

    Ajder said Google-owned YouTube, for example, has a “very, very good system for getting the balance between copyright protection and freedom of creativity.”

    The platform’s efforts suggest that it recognizes “the scale of the challenge that is already here and how much deeper it’s going to become,” he added.

    Twitch, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    Engel-Schmidt said that Denmark, the current holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency, had received interest in its proposed legislation from several other EU members, including France and Ireland.

    Intellectual property lawyer Jakob Plesner Mathiasen said that the legislation shows the widespread need to combat the online danger that’s now infused into every aspect of Danish life.

    “I think it definitely goes to say that the ministry wouldn’t make this bill, if there hadn’t been any occasion for it,” he said. “We’re seeing it with fake news, with government elections. We are seeing it with pornography, and we’re also seeing it also with famous people and also everyday people — like you and me.”

    The Danish Rights Alliance, which protects the rights of creative industries on the internet, supports the bill, because its director says that current copyright law doesn’t go far enough.

    Danish voice actor David Bateson, for example, was at a loss when AI voice clones were shared by thousands of users online. Bateson voiced a character in the popular “Hitman” video game, as well as Danish toymaker Lego’s English advertisements.

    “When we reported this to the online platforms, they say ‘OK, but which regulation are you referring to?’” said Maria Fredenslund, an attorney and the alliance’s director. “We couldn’t point to an exact regulation in Denmark.”

    Watson had heard about fellow influencers who found digitally-altered images of themselves online, but never thought it might happen to her.

    Delving into a dark side of the web where faceless users sell and share deepfake imagery — often of women — she said she was shocked how easy it was to create such pictures using readily available online tools.

    “You could literally just search ‘deepfake generator’ on Google or ‘how to make a deepfake,’ and all these websites and generators would pop up,” the 28-year-old Watson said.

    She is glad her government is taking action, but she isn’t hopeful. She believes more pressure must be applied to social media platforms.

    “It shouldn’t be a thing that you can upload these types of pictures,” she said. “When it’s online, you’re done. You can’t do anything, it’s out of your control.”

    ___

    Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, Kelvin Chan in London, and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco, contributed to this report.

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  • Reality check: Democrats celebrate, Trump deflects blame, Mamdani under fire

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    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    Everything changed on Tuesday.

    And nothing changed. 

    Bear with me.

    THE RESULTS ARE IN: 2025’S BIGGEST WINNER AND LOSERS FROM THE OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS

    Perhaps the most important thing that happened with the Democrats winning big in the off-year elections is the psychological boost. The Democrats haven’t had anything to celebrate for a year. Now, they’re high-fiving themselves. This is clearly a protest against President Donald Trump and Trumpism, which makes the victory a little sweeter.

    Two women had especially big nights. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill is the new governor-elect. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger is the commonwealth’s first female governor-elect. Hell, even Jay “two bullets” Jones, who sent those awful texts about wanting to kill the then-House speaker, won his race for Virginia Attorney General.  

    If you live in those states, your life may change a bit.

    Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger celebrates as she takes the stage during her election night rally at the Greater Richmond Convention Center on Tuesday, Nov. 4, in Richmond, Va. Spanberger defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to become the first female governor in the commonwealth’s history in an election that was seen as a national political bellwether leading into the midterms.  (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

    But, it’s also a reminder that politics is not just about policy. Sure, the Democrats were shrewd to run on affordability, given that the president had promised to bring prices down. But ultimately, voters want someone they feel comfortable with, someone who can deal with unforeseen crises.

    Yet on the national front, Trump still controls the White House. He still controls the House. He still controls the Senate. He’s largely backed by the Supreme Court, despite skepticism at yesterday’s oral argument about whether tariffs fall under his emergency powers.

    So what has really changed?

    The continuing government shutdown fueled a sense of frustration and impatience with the president, as he acknowledged in that terse response to the GOP losses — which extended to California, where Gavin Newsom pushed through a redistricting plan in response to Republican gerrymandering.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE 2025 ELECTIONS

    Trump was quick to note that he wasn’t on the ballot. But, in a very real sense, he was on every ballot.

    The media invariably overinterpret these off-year elections in two left-leaning states. Trump sensed disaster so he just opted out, not wanting to be tainted by the coming losses.

    But he’s still got all his power.

    Let’s imagine it’s six months from now and the shutdown, now the longest in American history, is a distant memory. Let’s say the economy has improved somewhat — a big if, to be sure. Who knows whether that means the Democrats will romp in the midterms?

    Joe Biden suffered no midterm losses when predictions of a blue wave never materialized. Barack Obama lost the House in his first midterm, and then lost the Senate in his second midterm. George W. Bush lost the House in his second midterm, making Nancy Pelosi speaker. Trump lost the House in his first midterm, in 2018.

    Bush called it a “thumpin’,” Obama a “shellacking.”

    It’s just too early to say whether Trump will suffer a similar fate in next year’s midterm elections, when Democrats would only need to pick up a handful of seats to take control.

    Zohran Mamdani delivers victory speech on Election night with his banner behind him.

    Zohran Mamdani delivers a victory speech at a mayoral election night watch party, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York City.  (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

    The other unfolding drama is in the media capital, where Zohran Mamdani was elected New York City’s first Muslim mayor, beating Andrew Cuomo for the second time. Cuomo refused to make the traditional concession call, a petty move that was beneath him.

    Talk about the power of personality. The obscure assemblyman, who’s never run anything, is a self-described socialist who started at 1 percent in the polls. He is beloved by younger people and put together a coalition that somehow combined wide-eyed liberals with working-class immigrants in Brooklyn and Queens.

    Mamdani did blunder by making a fiery speech, almost yelling at times, rather than a more inclusive one.

    WHAT THE RESULTS OF THE 2025 ELECTIONS MAY MEAN FOR DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS

    He fared poorly among Jewish liberals, who are upset by his refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and threatend to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu if he comes to the U.N.

    The mayor-elect will inevitably fail to fulfill many of his promises–free buses, free child care, free everything — because he won’t have the power and needs help from Albany. And some of his past comments from his defund-the-police, abolish-ICE days would have sunk a less charismatic candidate.

    Mamdani now has 81 percent name recognition, in keeping with the high profile of New York City mayors, from John Lindsay and Ed Koch to Rudy Giuliani, Mike Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio.

    AOC is thrilled, but it’s the Republicans who couldn’t be happier.

    The National Republican Congressional Committee just launched a digital ad against Mamdani, which is running in nearly 50 swing districts.

    Andrew Cuomo

    Independent mayoral candidate and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks to the press after voting at a polling location at the High School of Art and Design in the Manhattan borough of New York City on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.  (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

    “A radical left earthquake just hit America. The epicenter: New York,” the spot says.

    They had already been campaigning against Mamdani in trying to make him the face of an increasingly left-wing party. Some starry-eyed supporters see socialism as the answer, but it hardly plays as well in Butte or Baton Rouge as in the Bronx. 

    Circling back to Trump, who slams Mamdani as a communist: Does he moderate a bit? Not his style. 

    He is always about firing up his base and the party he has remade in his image, even if Hill Republicans are resisting his demand to abolish the filibuster.

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    The media are heavily anti-Trump, and in a visceral way, especially since their corporate owners keep settling his lawsuits. That’s why you’re seeing so many on-air smiles as they replayed the victory speeches all day long.

    But these early proclamations of Trump’s inevitable demise may well turn out to be exaggerated.

    Howard Kurtz is a media and political analyst and the former host of FOX News Channel’s MediaBuzz. Based in Washington, D.C., he joined the network in 2013 and regularly appears on Special Report with Bret Baier and The Story with Martha MacCallum among other programs.

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