Eleven candidates are running in Thursday’s Democratic Party primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.
The seat was left vacant after now New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill stepped down after winning November’s gubernatorial election in the Garden State.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face off with Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway, the only Republican to file for the special election, which will be held on April 16.
The special election in a district that tilts towards the Democrats comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218-214 majority in the House of Representatives.
Now-New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, stepped down from her seat in the House of Representatives in November, after winning the Garden State’s gubernatorial election.(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But the GOP may land a reinforcement before the general election for the open seat in New Jersey is held.
That’s because a special election is scheduled on March 10 in Georgia’s solidly right 14th Congressional District, in the race to succeed former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The MAGA firebrand and one-time top Trump House ally a month ago stepped down from Congress a year before her term ended.
A whopping 22 candidates, including 17 Republicans, are running in the Georgia showdown.
According to Georgia state law, all the candidates will run on the same ballot. If no contender tops 50% of the vote, a runoff election between the top two finishers will take place on April 7.
Greene won re-election in 2024 to the seat by nearly 30 points and Trump carried the district, which is located in northwest Georgia, by 37 points.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia stepped down from her seat in Congress in early January, a year before her term ended.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
While there’s a very crowded field in Thursday’s Democratic congressional primary in New Jersey, only a handful of the candidates have a possible shot at winning the nomination.
Among the frontrunners are former Rep. Tom Malinowski, an assistant Secretary of State in former President Barack Obama’s administration who represented the neighboring 7th Congressional District from 2018 to 2022 before being defeated by now-GOP Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill.
Also in contention are former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, John Bartlett, a Passaic County commissioner, and Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer who is running as an outsider and is backed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Sanders headlined a virtual rally for Mejia on the eve of the primary.
The suburban district in northern New Jersey leans to the left, with Sherrill winning re-election in 2024 by 15 points, the same margin by which she carried the district in November’s gubernatorial showdown.
But then-Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by just eight points in the 2024 presidential election, giving the GOP some hopes of possibly flipping the seat.
Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California, who represented a district in the northeastern portion of the state, died in early January.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
There’s one more vacant seat in Congress, in California’s 1st Congressional District, following the recent unexpected death of Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa.
A primary in the race to fill LaMalfa’s seat will be held on June 2, which is primary day in California. And the special general election will be held on Aug. 4.
The district, in northeastern California, is solidly Republican.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.”
Hoyer will not seek reelection and will retire at the end of his current term. After nearly 60 years in public office, the 86-year-old congressman stated he wanted to “pass the baton” while still in good health.
Multiple sources reported Wednesday evening that Maryland 5th District Rep. Steny Hoyer will be retiring from the House.
The Washington Post first reported that in a sit-down interview, 86-year-old Hoyer said he reached the decision over the holidays with his family. He stated that he wanted to pass “the baton” while still in good health.
Washington Post reporter Paul Kane told WTOP’s Nick Iannelli that Hoyer is still “pretty darn sharp,” though the longtime Maryland Democrat suffered a stoke in August 2024.
“He didn’t want to be one of those people who stuck around and ended up being pushed around in a wheelchair or getting too forgetful. There’s been a lot of those in recent years, Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress,” Kane said.
Hoyer is the third-longest serving member of the House of Representatives, having held his seat since 1982.
“I think that Steny Hoyer has basically come to a peaceful point in his life where he has decided he accomplished everything he possibly could have, and that now is the time to finally step away from politics after close to 60 years,” WTOP Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller said.
Hoyer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both worked together for the same lawmaker when they first got to Congress decades ago. The two rose through the ranks together, with Hoyer serving as the No. 2 leader among House Democrats for many years.
He served as House Majority Leader when Pelosi became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House. While they had a longtime rivalry, they also had a healthy respect for each other.
Hoyer has acknowledged that he would have liked to have become House Speaker, but it was not meant to be.
He stepped down from his role as House Majority Leader in 2022, endorsing Hakeem Jeffries as his successor. Hoyer continued his role as a Maryland representative and member of the House Appropriations Committee.
The veteran lawmaker has still had a major impact on Maryland politics in recent years. He provided an early endorsement to Wes Moore, who now serves as governor and is seen as a rising star within the Democratic Party. He also endorsed Angela Alsobrooks, who is now Maryland’s junior U.S. senator.
Hoyer’s departure could lead to a shake-up on the Prince George’s County Council, setting off a contested primary. In Prince George’s County, at least one member of the county council and one state delegate were waiting to see what Hoyer decides to do, with the intention of jumping in if the longtime incumbent decides to retire.
“It’s going to cause a ripple effect,” Kane said. “You’ll probably end up with people in small city councils who end up getting seats for the first time in their life in politics because of the ripple effect that this creates throughout the region.”
In terms of the 5th District race, Miller said it will very likely be a competitive race with many candidates vying for the seat.
“I think it’s just going to be a very, very difficult position to fill. Obviously, you have a change in the generations moving forward, but Steny Hoyer has just had a profound impact on Maryland politics,” Miller said.
While he’s leaving Congress after a storied political career, Hoyer seems content with all he has accomplished.
A spokeswoman for Hoyer only told WTOP that he will speak on the House floor at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
WTOP’s Mitchell Miller contributed to this report.
Former U.S. Rep. David Trone will seek a return to his former seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, setting up a 2026 Democratic primary challenge against his successor Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Dist. 6).
Former U.S. Rep. David Trone will seek a return to his former seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, setting up a 2026 Democratic primary challenge against his successor Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Dist. 6).
Trone, of Potomac, represented Maryland’s 6th District in Congress from 2019 to 2025. He is also the owner of Total Wine & More, an alcohol retailer headquartered in Bethesda.
Maryland’s 6th district includes the northern part of Montgomery County and all of Frederick, Washington, Garrett and Allegany counties. Washington, Garrett and Allegany counties lean Republican, while Frederick and Montgomery counties lean Democratic.
With one week to go until Election Day in a hotly contested race for a GOP-controlled vacant House seat in a solidly red congressional district in Tennessee, both Republicans and Democrats are pouring resources into the race.
Republican-aligned groups are spending millions of dollars to run ads in the Dec. 2 special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, to avoid the possibility of a major upset and protect the GOP’s current razor-thin 219-213 majority in the House.
President Donald Trump carried the district — which is located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville — by 22 points in last year’s presidential election.
But Democrats, energized following the party’s sweeping victories earlier this month in high-profile ballot box showdowns from coast to coast, are also spending big bucks in the race.
Democratic congressional nominee Aftyn Behn, a Tennessee state representative, is running in a Dec. 2 special election for a vacant U.S. House seat.(Aftyn For Congress)
“The stakes are exceptionally high, especially in the light of the results from the 2025 elections,” Vanderbilt University professor of political science John Greer told Fox News Digital. “Republicans are worried that this district, which is normally safe, could in fact swing to the Democrats.”
Republican nominee Matt Van Epps is facing off against Democratic nominee Aftyn Behn in the race to succeed former GOP Rep. Mark Green, who resigned from office in June to take a private sector job.
Democrats were laser focused on spotlighting the issue of affordability in this autumn’s elections, and Behn, a state representative, former healthcare community organizer and rising progressive star who some have dubbed the “AOC of Tennessee,” is keeping to that script.
“Angry about high grocery prices? Worried about health care costs? Feeling burned by tariffs? Then Dec. 2 is your day to shake up Washington,” she says in her campaign’s final ad.
By casting herself as the candidate who will put a check on Trump’s party in Congress, Behn sees a path to victory.
While Democrats privately acknowledge that the path to victory is narrow, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, who campaigned with Behn earlier this month, argued that she has “an excellent shot to win.”
Republican congressional nominee Matt Van Epps casts his ballot at an early voting site in the special election for the 7th District, Nov. 12, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee.(George Walker IV/AP Photo)
Van Epps, a military combat veteran and former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services who is backed by Trump, is showcasing his military career as part of his cost of living focus.
“Matt Van Epps. Nine combat tours. True American hero,” the narrator in one of his ads says, before Van Epps adds, “Now, I’m on a new mission: to bring down prices, create good-paying jobs and lower healthcare costs for working families.”
While both candidates are running commercials, it’s the aligned super PACs and other outside groups that are flooding the airwaves and digital landscape.
The Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. and the fiscally conservative powerhouse Club for Growth have each dished out seven figures to run ads in the race.
“It’s going to be a hard race. They all are, but he’s [Van Epps] going to win that race because he’s more in line with Tennessee,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh told Fox News Digital. “I’m confident of him, and we’re going to help him do it.”
Matt Van Epps talks with attendees before a debate at CabaRay Showroom in Nashville, Sept. 5, 2025.(Nicole Hester/The Tennessean/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
Also playing in the race is Conservatives for American Excellence, which is financed by GOP megadonors.
While not spending as much, Democrat-aligned outside groups are supporting Behn. And last week, House Majority PAC, the top group that backs House Democratic candidates, announced it was pumping $1 million into the Tennessee showdown.
Over the past week, Republicans have been targeting Behn over her past comments from a 2020 podcast.
“I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music, I hate all of the things that make Nashville apparently an ‘it’ city to the rest of the country. But I hate it,” she said in the podcast.
The district is solidly red, but includes parts of the Democratic stronghold of Nashville, Tennessee’s capital and its most populous city, and a major national center for the country music industry. The district encompasses parts of north and west Nashville, including the downtown area which has long been a very popular tourist destination.
“The Democrat running in a special election for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, Aftyn Behn, is running on the message: ‘I hate this place, elect me!’ Tennessee deserves better,” the Republican National Committee argued in a social media post last week.
State Rep. Aftyn Behn attends a campaign event on Nov. 13, 2025, in Nashville.(George Walker IV/AP Photo)
Republicans are also taking aim at Behn over an op-ed titled, “Tennessee is a racist state, and so is its legislature,” that appeared in a 2019 edition of The Tennessean newspaper.
The RNC, pointing in a social media post Wednesday to the six-year-old opinion piece, asked, “If Behn hates Tennessee so much, why is she trying to represent it?”
Also resurfacing in recent days are anti-police comments Behn made on a now-deleted social media account.
Behn campaign manager Kate Briefs, pushing back, said in a statement Monday,” The attacks from Washington Republicans are getting louder because their agenda is deeply unpopular—and because early vote returns show this race is a dead heat. They can’t talk about fixing healthcare, lowering costs, or protecting our hospitals because they have no plan. So instead, they’re throwing mud.”
Behn’s campaign is pointing to what it says is “a surge of first-time and infrequent voters” turning out for early voting.
But Greer, who is co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, predicted that the special election in an off-election year “is likely to be pretty low and early voting is certainly an indication that it’s going to be pretty low.”
“I still think the Democrats have an uphill climb,” Greer said. “But the fact that Republicans and Democrats are pouring money into the race, both sides see some evidence it could be close.”
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.”
On the heels of a historic 43-day government shutdown, Democrats are facing tough questions about whether the record-breaking standoff was worth it, and whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave up too soon.
After failing to secure the healthcare subsidies they demanded, and with several senators breaking ranks to join Republicans in reopening the government — a move widely seen as a black eye on Schumer’s leadership — Senate Democrats continued to blame President Donald Trump and the GOP for the shutdown when pressed by Fox News Digital.
“I’m disappointed and angry that Republicans forced a false and impossible choice between healthcare insurance and reopening the government,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Wednesday. “They promised that there will be a vote on extending the healthcare subsidies. If they fail to provide that vote, or if the vote fails, they should be held accountable. They are to be blamed.”
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., is seen on Nov. 5, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Blumenthal charged that it was Republicans who “forced the false choice between reopening the government and affordable health insurance,” which he said has been “viewed reprehensibly by the American people, and rightly so.”
Like many of his Democratic colleagues, the Connecticut senator sidestepped a question about whether Schumer could have done more to hold the line on negotiations.
Seven Democratic senators, including one independent who caucuses with them, and six House Democrats voted to reopen the government last week, without extending the pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that Democrats had pushed for since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.
The intraparty revolt has exposed a widening rift between Democratic leadership and its left flank, as progressive candidates accused Schumer of surrendering leverage to Republicans in exchange for a funding deal that left key healthcare priorities unresolved.
“We have federal workers across the country that have been missing paychecks. We have SNAP recipients, millions of SNAP recipients across the country whose access to food stability was imperiled, and we have to figure out what that was for,” Ocasio-Cortez said last week, before adding, “We cannot enable this kind of cruelty with our cowardice.”
Back on Capitol Hill this week, Democrats were less willing to blame Schumer for the Democrats who broke ranks, instead blaming Republicans for the ultimatum.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on July 17, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
When asked if the shutdown was worth it, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News Digital that Democrats “should absolutely continue fighting for healthcare.”
And Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., said, “I don’t think you can look at a shutdown from that kind of perspective” of whether it was worth it.
“I think what’s absolutely clear is that Republicans now own this healthcare crisis,” McBride added. “Americans very clearly understand that it was Republicans who are stopping at nothing to prevent a vote on the Affordable Care Act tax credit, including having been willing to shut down the government.”
“I voted against reopening without having secured the changes to healthcare and addressing the healthcare-increase spikes. That remains the focus, that remains the work ahead of us still,” Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said when pressed on the same question and without answering whether the government is headed for another shutdown.
Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2025. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Democrats who spoke to Fox News Digital said they hoped the government isn’t headed for another shutdown but maintained that the party should continue to fight for healthcare guarantees.
While the government reopened last week, the stopgap funding bill only keeps federal spending at current fiscal-year-2025 levels through Jan. 30 to give Congress more time to negotiate a longer-term appropriations package for fiscal year 2026. If Congress can’t reach a consensus, the government could be headed toward another shutdown.
As part of a backroom deal to reopen the government, Senate Democrats were promised a separate vote on extending healthcare subsidies.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., attends the Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 20, 2024. (Vincent Alban/Reuters)
“I certainly hope we’ll avoid another government shutdown, but, again, Republicans promised a vote on extending the healthcare tax credit subsidies. If they fail to provide that vote, or if the vote fails, they’ll be to blame. They’ll be held accountable,” Blumenthal said.
And Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said he was looking forward to Republicans having the opportunity to go on the record by voting on the healthcare guarantees this December.
As for whether the government is barreling toward another shutdown, Kelly said, “[You] gotta ask the President and the Republicans in the House and Senate.”
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kristen Gillibrand and Elissa Slotkin did not respond to Fox News Digital’s question about whether the shutdown was worth it, and their offices did not immediately respond to further inquiries.
When reached for comment, White House Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson flipped the script on the Democrats who placed blame on Republicans for the government shutdown.
“Democrats shut down the government and inflicted great pain on the American people because they wanted to use struggling families as ‘leverage’ for their far left agenda,” Jackson told Fox News Digital.
“President Trump defeated their absurd gambit and delivered yet another win to the American people, but it’s alarming that even after their ploy failed, Democrats still can’t admit their shutdown hurt the American people,” she added.
Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
new video loaded: Behind the Vote to Release the Epstein Files
The House approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, in a near-unanimous vote. Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer won unanimous agreement for the Senate to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber.
On Wednesday, more than twenty thousand pages of documents from Epstein’s files were released—not from the much-anticipated Justice Department trove but from a separate collection subpoenaed by Congress from Epstein’s estate—and, reading through them, it soon became clear how many new lines of inquiry could yet emerge. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald writer who has pursued the Epstein story longer and more doggedly than anyone, reported that Trump’s name appears thousands of times in these documents. Within hours, there were reports about Epstein’s correspondence with Steve Bannon, Larry Summers, and Michael Wolff. One Epstein e-mail suggested, but offered no proof, that Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. Another missive from Epstein implied, mysteriously, that he had spent the first Thanksgiving of Trump’s Presidency in Palm Beach, in close proximity to him, years after the two had supposedly broken off all contact. Several other e-mails also hinted at ongoing ties.
In a twist that took me by surprise but I suppose shouldn’t have, the e-mails also revealed that Epstein corresponded with a wide network of international contacts about Trump in the years before he died, including attempting to pass along a message to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in advance of Trump’s 2018 Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin. It was, in effect, an invitation to get the scoop on the American President, relayed via Thorbjørn Jagland, a former Prime Minister of Norway who was then serving as head of the Council of Europe. “I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me,” Epstein wrote. In the same e-mail exchange, he said that he had previously talked with Russia’s late Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, about Trump. “Churkin was great,” Epstein wrote. “He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.” I was not the only one stunned by this. In response to Politico’sreporting, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, wrote, “All of the times I’ve wondered what Putin had on Trump, and now we find out Jeffrey Epstein was talking to Putin’s ambassador about Trump.”
The e-mails—unverified, typo-ridden assertions from a man who is not around to testify about them—do not constitute specific proof of anything, it should be underscored, just fodder for endless new rounds of questions now that politicians in Trump’s own party have chosen to release them. Who knows what else is lurking in there?
At the White House, the attempts at damage control thus far have only fuelled the story. Trump, who now labels this the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” to distinguish it from all the other alleged hoaxes to which his various tormentors over the years have previously subjected him, certainly did not dispel concerns by summoning a Republican congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, to the White House Situation Room in the unsuccessful effort to dissuade her from signing on to the discharge petition. The Situation Room is where Presidents are supposed to discuss urgent national-security matters, not Jeffrey Epstein’s e-mails. Yikes. Smoke, meet fire.
At a briefing on Wednesday dominated by questions about the e-mails, meanwhile, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, noted that they “prove absolutely nothing.” She then added, in Trump’s defense, that “Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep.” But in 2019, when Trump was asked by a reporter at a White House press conference if he had “any suspicions” that Epstein “was molesting . . . underage women,” the President replied, “No, I had no idea. I had no idea. I haven’t spoken to him in many, many years.” The question naturally arises: If he had no suspicions about Epstein’s behavior with girls then how could he have kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago for being a pedophile?
By Thursday, Leavitt was complaining that the latest Epstein flareup was all “another Democrat + Mainstream Media hoax, fueled by fake outrage, to distract from the President’s wins.” The distraction lament is one I’ve heard many times over the years from embattled press secretaries. But it seems to me that it’s the Trump White House as much as Trump’s enemies who might want to distract from the news these days. At least, that’s usually how it works for unpopular Presidents whose poll numbers are sinking to record lows amid persistent inflation, at a time when his party is losing elections by big margins and fighting among itself over whether one of its leading propagandists should have given respectful airtime to a notorious white supremacist. But this is Trump, so who knows? ♦
WASHINGTON, DC – The longest federal government shutdown in the U.S. history is finally over.
On Wednesday night, the House of Representatives passed a funding measure to end the shutdown, on a vote of 222 to 209, and President Donald Trump signed it into the law a short time later.
Before the House vote, Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for the prolonged standoff.
“They admitted they were using the American people as leverage in this political game,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said. “They knew it would cause pain and they did it anyway. The whole exercise was pointless. It was wrong and it was cruel.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries claimed the bill doesn’t help Americans struggling with high costs.
“The longest shutdown in American history would rather do that than provide healthcare that’s affordable to working-class Americans, middle-class American, and hard-working American taxpayers,” said Jeffries.
John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, is running for Congress, launching a campaign to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler.
The 32-year-old Democratic influencer announced his candidacy on his Instagram page, saying in part, “There is nowhere I’d rather be than in the arena fighting for my hometown. Over the next eight months, during the course of this campaign, I hope to meet as many of you as I can. If you see me on the street, please say hello. If I knock on your door, I hope we can have a conversation. Because politics should be personal. Thanks more to come soon, and I’ll see you on the trail New York 12.”
The skew in Texas mirrored national trends: in the wake of Republicans’ 2010 gains, Democrats could conceivably have won the national popular vote by five percentage points or more and not won a majority of House seats. But that advantage eroded, such that, by last year, “the party that won the most votes for the House was quite likely to win the most seats,” as Nate Cohn, the data maven at the Times, recently explained to my colleague Isaac Chotiner. There are a variety of reasons for this reversal. Several states created California-style independent processes that took map-drawing out of politicians’ hands, and some state courts overturned partisan maps. In others, Democrats aggressively countered Republican gerrymanders with their own.
Changing voting patterns also played a role, as did (at least at the margins) what political scientists call “dummymandering,” a term—named for the Massachusetts governor Elbridge Dummy (just kidding)—that describes when gerrymanderers inadvertently spread their party’s votes too thin, or fail to correctly predict voter behavior. Especially since Trump first won, in 2016, “our politics have been very volatile,” Michael Li, an attorney focussed on redistricting and voting rights at the Brennan Center, told me. When politicians gerrymander, “you’re placing a big bet that you know what the politics of the future look like, and if you’re wrong, it can really backfire.” By way of example, Li pointed me, again, to Texas, where state legislative maps drawn to maximize G.O.P. gains after 2010 proved less advantageous by 2018, when suburbs of Dallas, for instance, swung to the left, and demographic shifts made heavily white districts more diverse.
Last year, politics shifted again: Trump performed surprisingly well with Latino voters in Texas, according to exit polls, winning fifty-five per cent to Kamala Harris’s forty-four. Since then, his approval among Latinos nationally has receded, and, after Texas passed its new maps this year, some Democrats expressed optimism that Republicans in the state might prove to be dummies—that the projection of five new seats was based on a risky bet that Latino voters would stick with the Party at Trump-2024 levels. Mitchell, who drew California’s retaliatory maps, told me that his Texas counterparts may have made existing G.O.P. seats less safe. (Mitchell claims that his maps in California will offer Democrats pickup opportunities and shore up vulnerable incumbents.) According to the Texas Tribune, Republicans in Texas were reluctant to redraw the maps before Trump demanded that they do so.
The independent data journalist G. Elliott Morris, however, told me that the Texas redistricting does not look like a dummymander, and other observers agree. (A lawsuit challenging the new maps alleges that they were drawn to distribute Latino voters who have lower rates of turnout in a manner that amounts to disenfranchisement.) Morris told me that, nationally, the worst-case net outcome of the current redistricting war for Democrats would lead to “potentially a pretty big drop” in representation. But predicting the precise number of seats they might lose is tricky, given that redistricting efforts remain in flux in several states—in addition to the purely partisan tit-for-tat, Utah and Ohio have been in the throes of mid-decade redistricting for mandated legal reasons—and, dummymanders or not, voter behavior can indeed buck expectations, especially in this era. (At least one Republican operative has expressed concern that moderate voters could punish the Party for initiating the mid-decade redistricting, which smacks of foul play.) Cohn told Chotiner that Democrats may have to win the over-all House vote by two or three points to gain the most seats in 2026—not a fair requirement, but hardly an insurmountable one given Trump’s unpopularity. If they fail, they won’t be able to blame redistricting alone.
Well, they might be able to. Recently, the Supreme Court heard a case that could gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which currently prohibits racial discrimination in mapmaking and has been, as the law professor Atiba Ellis told NPR, “the most important check” on partisan gerrymanders in many G.O.P.-led states in the South. The weakening of Section 2 could swing as many as nineteen House seats in Republicans’ favor; even a lesser effect, per Cohn, would put Democrats severely on the back foot.
FIRST ON FOX – A former longtime Navy SEAL and fifth-generation Kentucky farmer who is backed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared his candidacy in the state’s 4th Congressional District, as he challenges Republican Rep. Thomas Massie in next year’s GOP primary.
“I’ve dedicated my life to serving my country, and I’m ready to answer the call again,” Ed Gallrein said in a statement shared first with Fox News Digital.
And pointing to Massie, a frequent GOP critic of the president during his second term in the White House, Gallrein emphasized, “This district is Trump Country. The President doesn’t need obstacles in Congress – he needs backup. I’ll defeat Thomas Massie, stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, and deliver the America First results Kentuckians voted for.”
The campaign launch comes four days after Trump took to social media to praise Gallrein, urge him to run, and blast Massie.
Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, arrives for a news conference outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025(Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump argued that Massie was a “Third Rate Congressman,” a “Weak and Pathetic RINO,” and a “totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly.”
And the president applauded Gallrein, calling him a “Brave Combat Veteran” and a “very successful Businessman” who, if elected to Congress, would “fight tirelessly to Keep our now very Secure Border, SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment.”
Trump’s social media post included a photo of himself and Gallrein holding red MAGA hats in the Oval Office.
Gallrein served three decades in uniform, rising to the rank of Captain. According to his campaign bio, he served multiple times on SEAL Team SIX, deploying to Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and earned four Bronze Stars and two Presidential Unit Citations.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, on Tuesday launched a congressional bid to primary challenge Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Gallrein’s campaign launch comes four days after Trump backed him and urged him to run.(Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
His campaign release also highlighted that “Gallrein’s roots run deep in Kentucky.” He was born and raised in the state. And his family, which has farmed for over a century, built Kentucky’s largest dairy farm and Gallrein Grain Farms, one of the state’s largest grain operations.
Massie took aim at Gallrein following Trump’s social media endorsement, calling him a “failed candidate and establishment hack,” as he pointed to Gallrein’s unsuccessful run last year for the state Senate.
“After having been rejected by every elected official in the 4th District, Trump’s consultants clearly pushed the panic button with their choice of failed candidate and establishment hack Ed Gallrein,” Massie said in a statement to Politico. “Ed’s been begging them to pick him for over three months now.”
Trump started targeting Massie for ouster earlier this year over the seven-term lawmaker’s opposition to the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed the GOP-controlled Congress early in the summer nearly entirely along party lines. The sweeping GOP megalaw is the president’s major legislative achievement since returning to the White House.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) during a news conference with alleged victims of disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein outside the U.S. Capitol on September 3, 2025, in Washington, DC.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Massie is also leading the push, along with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, in forcing a House floor vote to urge the release of the Justice Department’s files on the late convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a move the White House and House GOP leaders have aimed to counter. Massie is on the verge of reaching the needed 218 signatures to force the vote.
Two top Trump political advisers — 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio — in June launched a super PAC that aims to defeat Massie. Nearly $2 million has been spent already to run TV ads targeting Massie.
But Massie has used the attacks from Trump and his allies to boost fundraising, hauling in more than $750,000 the past three months, which was the best fundraising quarter of his congressional career.
Massie’s district, in the northeastern part of the state, includes Louisville’s eastern suburbs and Cincinnati’s Kentucky suburbs.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.”
Funding gaps and government shutdowns haven’t always been a regular topic of conversation when Congress debates federal spending. The federal government shut down just after midnight Wednesday, making it the 21st funding gap and 11th shutdown since 1977, according to an analysis by the Get the Facts Data Team.A funding gap is a period of time during which funding for a project or activity is not enacted into law. This can be through a regular appropriations act or a continuing resolution. Funding gaps didn’t start occurring until the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 was passed, which established deadlines for passing federal budgets.Funding gaps and government shutdowns are two separate events. A funding gap occurs when there’s a lapse in funding, but a shutdown happens as a result of a funding gap when agencies begin closing and employees are furloughed.Prior to 1980, many government agencies continued to operate during a funding gap until Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued stricter interpretations, believing agencies “had no legal means to operate during a funding gap,” according to the House of Representatives.The shutdowns that occurred in the 1980s were partial or for only a few days, according to Jacob Smith, an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. The real era of shutdowns began in the 1990s.The process itself is very different now, too. Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills every year before the start of the fiscal year in October. The last time any of those appropriations bills were passed was in 2019.Instead, continuing resolutions are passed in lieu of the traditional process. When Congress fails to pass regular appropriations acts by the start of a fiscal year, a continuing resolution, or CR, may be used temporarily.The last time a continuing resolution was not needed was fiscal year 1997, when 13 out of 13 appropriations bills needed were enacted before the beginning of the next year.Congress is also pushing up against the deadline frequently — and not just in recent years. Smith believes the race to the deadline has been recent when compared to history, but has been going on for quite a while.“It’s become common that they’re really up against the clock,” Smith said. The Get the Facts Data Team identified continuing resolutions passed at the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 for the past ten years, not including the start of fiscal year 2025. These were enacted when regular appropriations bills were not passed by the deadline. The analysis did not include any of the other continuing resolutions passed in a given fiscal year. From fiscal year 1998 to 2025, an average of 4.8 were passed annually.The data team found that half were passed less than 12 hours before the deadline. Four of those instances were from fiscal years 2021 to 2024.The analysis compared the time of the last action by Congress, usually a vote or a motion to reconsider. The time the president signed the resolution into law was not incorporated in the analysis. When continuing resolutions and regular appropriations aren’t used to appropriate funding, Congress also passes omnibus or consolidated appropriations bills. These have played a larger role in recent decades as standalone regular appropriations bills aren’t passed.PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=
WASHINGTON —
Funding gaps and government shutdowns haven’t always been a regular topic of conversation when Congress debates federal spending.
The federal government shut down just after midnight Wednesday, making it the 21st funding gap and 11th shutdown since 1977, according to an analysis by the Get the Facts Data Team.
A funding gap is a period of time during which funding for a project or activity is not enacted into law. This can be through a regular appropriations act or a continuing resolution.
Funding gaps didn’t start occurring until the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 was passed, which established deadlines for passing federal budgets.
Funding gaps and government shutdowns are two separate events. A funding gap occurs when there’s a lapse in funding, but a shutdown happens as a result of a funding gap when agencies begin closing and employees are furloughed.
Prior to 1980, many government agencies continued to operate during a funding gap until Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued stricter interpretations, believing agencies “had no legal means to operate during a funding gap,” according to the House of Representatives.
The shutdowns that occurred in the 1980s were partial or for only a few days, according to Jacob Smith, an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. The real era of shutdowns began in the 1990s.
The process itself is very different now, too. Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills every year before the start of the fiscal year in October. The last time any of those appropriations bills were passed was in 2019.
Instead, continuing resolutions are passed in lieu of the traditional process. When Congress fails to pass regular appropriations acts by the start of a fiscal year, a continuing resolution, or CR, may be used temporarily.
The last time a continuing resolution was not needed was fiscal year 1997, when 13 out of 13 appropriations bills needed were enacted before the beginning of the next year.
Congress is also pushing up against the deadline frequently — and not just in recent years. Smith believes the race to the deadline has been recent when compared to history, but has been going on for quite a while.
“It’s become common that they’re really up against the clock,” Smith said.
The Get the Facts Data Team identified continuing resolutions passed at the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 for the past ten years, not including the start of fiscal year 2025. These were enacted when regular appropriations bills were not passed by the deadline.
The analysis did not include any of the other continuing resolutions passed in a given fiscal year. From fiscal year 1998 to 2025, an average of 4.8 were passed annually.
The data team found that half were passed less than 12 hours before the deadline. Four of those instances were from fiscal years 2021 to 2024.
The analysis compared the time of the last action by Congress, usually a vote or a motion to reconsider. The time the president signed the resolution into law was not incorporated in the analysis.
When continuing resolutions and regular appropriations aren’t used to appropriate funding, Congress also passes omnibus or consolidated appropriations bills. These have played a larger role in recent decades as standalone regular appropriations bills aren’t passed.
Funding gaps and government shutdowns haven’t always been a regular topic of conversation when Congress debates federal spending. The federal government shut down just after midnight Wednesday, making it the 21st funding gap and 11th shutdown since 1977, according to an analysis by the Get the Facts Data Team.A funding gap is a period of time during which funding for a project or activity is not enacted into law. This can be through a regular appropriations act or a continuing resolution. Funding gaps didn’t start occurring until the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 was passed, which established deadlines for passing federal budgets.Funding gaps and government shutdowns are two separate events. A funding gap occurs when there’s a lapse in funding, but a shutdown happens as a result of a funding gap when agencies begin closing and employees are furloughed.Prior to 1980, many government agencies continued to operate during a funding gap until Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued stricter interpretations, believing agencies “had no legal means to operate during a funding gap,” according to the House of Representatives.The shutdowns that occurred in the 1980s were partial or for only a few days, according to Jacob Smith, an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. The real era of shutdowns began in the 1990s.The process itself is very different now, too. Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills every year before the start of the fiscal year in October. The last time any of those appropriations bills were passed was in 2019.Instead, continuing resolutions are passed in lieu of the traditional process. When Congress fails to pass regular appropriations acts by the start of a fiscal year, a continuing resolution, or CR, may be used temporarily.The last time a continuing resolution was not needed was fiscal year 1997, when 13 out of 13 appropriations bills needed were enacted before the beginning of the next year.Congress is also pushing up against the deadline frequently — and not just in recent years. Smith believes the race to the deadline has been recent when compared to history, but has been going on for quite a while.“It’s become common that they’re really up against the clock,” Smith said. The Get the Facts Data Team identified continuing resolutions passed at the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 for the past ten years, not including the start of fiscal year 2025. These were enacted when regular appropriations bills were not passed by the deadline. The analysis did not include any of the other continuing resolutions passed in a given fiscal year. From fiscal year 1998 to 2025, an average of 4.8 were passed annually.The data team found that half were passed less than 12 hours before the deadline. Four of those instances were from fiscal years 2021 to 2024.The analysis compared the time of the last action by Congress, usually a vote or a motion to reconsider. The time the president signed the resolution into law was not incorporated in the analysis. When continuing resolutions and regular appropriations aren’t used to appropriate funding, Congress also passes omnibus or consolidated appropriations bills. These have played a larger role in recent decades as standalone regular appropriations bills aren’t passed.PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=
WASHINGTON —
Funding gaps and government shutdowns haven’t always been a regular topic of conversation when Congress debates federal spending.
The federal government shut down just after midnight Wednesday, making it the 21st funding gap and 11th shutdown since 1977, according to an analysis by the Get the Facts Data Team.
A funding gap is a period of time during which funding for a project or activity is not enacted into law. This can be through a regular appropriations act or a continuing resolution.
Funding gaps didn’t start occurring until the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 was passed, which established deadlines for passing federal budgets.
Funding gaps and government shutdowns are two separate events. A funding gap occurs when there’s a lapse in funding, but a shutdown happens as a result of a funding gap when agencies begin closing and employees are furloughed.
Prior to 1980, many government agencies continued to operate during a funding gap until Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued stricter interpretations, believing agencies “had no legal means to operate during a funding gap,” according to the House of Representatives.
The shutdowns that occurred in the 1980s were partial or for only a few days, according to Jacob Smith, an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. The real era of shutdowns began in the 1990s.
The process itself is very different now, too. Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills every year before the start of the fiscal year in October. The last time any of those appropriations bills were passed was in 2019.
Instead, continuing resolutions are passed in lieu of the traditional process. When Congress fails to pass regular appropriations acts by the start of a fiscal year, a continuing resolution, or CR, may be used temporarily.
The last time a continuing resolution was not needed was fiscal year 1997, when 13 out of 13 appropriations bills needed were enacted before the beginning of the next year.
Congress is also pushing up against the deadline frequently — and not just in recent years. Smith believes the race to the deadline has been recent when compared to history, but has been going on for quite a while.
“It’s become common that they’re really up against the clock,” Smith said.
The Get the Facts Data Team identified continuing resolutions passed at the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 for the past ten years, not including the start of fiscal year 2025. These were enacted when regular appropriations bills were not passed by the deadline.
The analysis did not include any of the other continuing resolutions passed in a given fiscal year. From fiscal year 1998 to 2025, an average of 4.8 were passed annually.
The data team found that half were passed less than 12 hours before the deadline. Four of those instances were from fiscal years 2021 to 2024.
The analysis compared the time of the last action by Congress, usually a vote or a motion to reconsider. The time the president signed the resolution into law was not incorporated in the analysis.
When continuing resolutions and regular appropriations aren’t used to appropriate funding, Congress also passes omnibus or consolidated appropriations bills. These have played a larger role in recent decades as standalone regular appropriations bills aren’t passed.
The Republican leader sent lawmakers home three weeks ago after the House approved a bill to fund the federal government. And they haven’t been back in working session since.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
“People are upset. I’m upset. I’m a very patient man, but I am angry right now,” Johnson said during one of his almost daily press conferences on the empty side of the Capitol.
“The House did its job,” said Johnson, of Louisiana. There’s nothing left to negotiate, he says, arguing it’s up to the Senate, which is also controlled by Republicans, to act. “That ball has been sent to the other court.”
To stay or go, no easy choices ahead
The House’s absence is creating a risky political dilemma for Johnson. It’s testing his leadership, his grip on the gavel and the legacy he will leave as speaker of a House that is essentially writing itself off the page at a crucial moment in the national debate.
There are few easy choices on the schedule ahead. If the speaker calls lawmakers back to Washington, he opens the doors to a potentially chaotic atmosphere of anger, uncertainty and his own GOP defections and divisions as the shutdown drags toward a third week.
Johnson’s initial strategy to avoid the government shutdown was a well-worn one — have the House pass its bill, leave town right before the deadline and force the Senate to accept it. Jamming the other chamber, as it’s often called. And it often works.
But this time, it’s a strategy that is failing.
As House skips town, blame falls to Senate
GOP senators have been unable to heave the House bill to passage, blocked by most of the Democrats, who are refusing to reopen the government as they demand health care funds for insurance subsidies that will expire at year’s end if Congress fails to act.
But after having called a vote more than a half-dozen times to pass the House’s bill out of the Senate, not enough Democrats have signed on as they hold out for a deal on the health care issue.
Stalemated, quiet talks are underway, as small groups of lawmakers are privately trying to negotiate off-ramps.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has proposed keeping the health care subsidies in place for the next two years while instituting changes to the program. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has a similar proposal, and GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has shared with leadership her own six-point plan.
“We’re making progress,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who is close to the Republican president. “I think we’re kind of starting to get to a place.”
Empty halls and viral moments
Not since then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, sent lawmakers home at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has the House been without its lawmakers for such an extended period of time outside of an August recess — but even then, leaders quickly stood up a new system of proxy voting as legislative business continued.
In the Capitol’s empty halls, a few lawmakers linger. They have been filming social media posts as they narrate the inaction. They have created viral moments, including GOP Rep. Mike Lawler’s confrontation with Jeffries. Some are simply giving tours to visiting constituents.
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has been among the most outspoken critic of her party’s stance, saying Congress needs to address the subsidies.
The representative-elect won the special election to replace her father, veteran Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died earlier this year after his own career in Congress.
Her arrival would shrink Johnson’s already slim majority to paper thin, and she has said she would sign onto the legislation demanding the release of the files pertaining to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, providing the last signature needed to force a vote. Democrats have clamored for the release of the Epstein files, looking to force Republicans to either join their push for disclosure or publicly oppose a cause many in the Republican base support.
Johnson, whose majority is among the most narrow in modern times, has refused to swear Grijalva into office.
House’s newest member waits and waits
The speaker has given shifting reasons for why he won’t allow Grijalva to take her seat, saying he’d do it whenever she wanted but also saying the shutdown needs to end first.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., holds a news conference to mark the seventh day of the government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
He said it has nothing to do with the Epstein files.
As questions mounted over the House’s next steps, so did the speaker’s exasperation.
“We had the vote. The House has done its job,” he said during Thursday’s press conference.
“The reason the House isn’t here in regular session is because they turned the lights off,” he said. “I’m trying to muster every ounce of Christian charity that I can, but this is outrageous.”
He declined to say if or when the House would be called back to session.
“We’ll keep you posted,” he said. “And let’s pray this ends soon.”
FIRST ON FOX: One of only two House Republicans serving in districts won by former Vice President Kamala Harris last year is preparing to announce that he’s brought in more than $1 million in the latest fundraising quarter.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., one of Democrats’ top targets in the 2026 midterms, will announce later on Wednesday that he’s raised $1.1 million in the third quarter of 2025.
His campaign said it was the strongest third quarter the moderate House Republican has had in a non-election year.
Lawler’s campaign spokesman Chris Russell told Fox News Digital that the numbers show “our message is winning, and our ground game is unmatched.”
Rep. Mike Lawler leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference on March 4, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images)
Russell went on to suggest part of Lawler’s platform is campaigning on the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” passed by Republicans earlier this year, and which Democrats have been messaging hard against.
“While our opponents trip over themselves to appease a far-left base, Mike Lawler is building a coalition of working families, labor, law enforcement, Republicans, independents and mainstream Democrats who are fed up with chaos politics and radical extremists,” Lawler’s spokesman said.
“Congressman Lawler delivered on SALT, secured historic tax relief for middle and working-class families and will keep focusing on commonsense solutions that make life more affordable and Hudson Valley communities safer.”
His $1.1 million haul means Lawler’s campaign ended the quarter with $2.8 million cash on hand, and $3.9 million raised for the 2026 election cycle so far.
Then–Vice President Kamala Harris listens during an event with President Joe Biden in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 26, 2024.(Susan Walsh/AP Photo)
Lawler’s district includes suburbs just outside New York City, which were critical to the GOP’s winning and then retaining the House in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
New York’s 17th Congressional District, which he represents, is currently rated +1 in favor of Democrats by the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
The competitive seat has already attracted eight Democrats for a crowded primary to take on Lawler in next year’s general election, but it appears he has outraised at least several of them.
Army veteran Cait Conley raised over $500,000 in the third quarter, former Briarcliff Manor Mayor Peter Chatzky raised over $340,000, and Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson raised $370,000, according to Politico Playbook New York.
Then-congressional candidate Mike Lawler delivers a speech to supporters during an election night party on Nov. 9, 2022, in Pearl River, N.Y. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP Photo)
Democrats nationwide are betting big on their base being energized in response to President Donald Trump and his policies, a gamble that paid off for the left in the 2018 midterms when they swept the House of Representatives.
But this cycle, New York Republicans have been able to seize on their own boogeyman in Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, the current frontrunner for mayor of New York City.
Lawler told Fox News Digital of Mamdani’s candidacy in June, “Frankly, for Democrats, this is a time for choosing. Do they align themselves with a radical socialist who engages in antisemitism, hates the police, believes that illegal immigrants should have free everything, and you know, is basically going to destroy the finances of New York City?”
“They can’t have it both ways,” he said at the time.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
new video loaded: The Man Expanding Trump’s Presidential Powers
Coral Davenport, a New York Times reporter, explains how Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, plans to circumvent Congress’s budgetary powers to advance the Trump administration’s agenda.
By Coral Davenport, Melanie Bencosme, Stephanie Swart, Laura Bult, June Kim and Ray Whitehouse
September 29, 2025
Coral Davenport, Melanie Bencosme, Stephanie Swart, Laura Bult, June Kim and Ray Whitehouse
Democrat Adelita Grijalva has won a special election in battleground Arizona, securing the congressional seat left vacant by her father’s death and further eroding Republicans’ razor-thin House majority.
The Associated Press reports that Grijalva, a former Pima County supervisor, defeated business owner and contractor Daniel Butierez, the Republican nominee, in Tuesday’s election in southern Arizona’s 7th Congressional District.
Grijalva will serve the remaining 15 months of the term of Raul Grijalva, who died in March following complications from cancer treatment.
Arizona Congressional District 7 special election nominees Republican Daniel Butierez, left, and Democrat Adelita Grijalva participate during a televised debate, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Tucson, Ariz.(Kelly Presnell/Arizona Daily Star via AP)
The younger Grijalva’s victory was anything but a surprise in the left-leaning district. Democrats enjoy a nearly two-to-one voter registration advantage over Republicans in the Hispanic-majority district, which stretches from Yuma to Tucson and includes almost the entire length of the state’s border with Mexico.
Republicans currently control the House 219-214, with two vacant seats remaining.
Besides Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, there’s also a vacancy in Texas 18th Congressional District, a heavily Democrat-dominated district in Houston, following the March death of Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner. The special election to fill the seat will be held on November 4, which is Election Day 2025.
Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, a right-leaning seat where Republican Rep. Mark Green stepped down in July to take a job in the private sector, is also currently vacant. The special election to fill the seat will be held on December 2.
The late Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, died in March of complications due to cancer treatment.(Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Grijalva, thanks in part to her family name and her support from national progressive rock stars, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, grabbed over 60% of the primary vote this summer in a five-candidate showdown.
Progressive activist and social media influencer Deja Foxx came in a distant second.
Grijalva, who with her victory became Arizona’s first Latina in Congress, targeted President Donald Trumpas she campaigned,
“In Congress, I commit to fight Trump’s cruel agenda, like the Big Ugly Bill that took away coverage from nearly 383,000 Arizonans and 142,000 children,” Grijalva pledged in a social media post, as she took aim at Trump, congressional Republicans, and their sweeping domestic policy measure that they named the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Democratic congressional candidate Adelita Grijalva is interviewed in Tuscon, Arizona, on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Grijalva had also said that if she won, she would immediately sign a discharge petition by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The petition, which is currently just one vote shy of passing, calls on the GOP-controlled House to vote to urge the Justice Department to release the files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Butierez, as he campaigned, had been promoting himself as the change candidate in a district controlled by Democrats since the seat was created over two decades ago.
“This is your chance to actually get a Representative who will represent everyone. If you vote we win, if you don’t only the radicals will have representation,” he wrote on X.
Candidate Daniel Butierez answers a question during the Republican primary debate inside the Arizona Public Media studio in Tucson, Arizona, on June 9, 2025.(Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star via AP)
Butierez, who as the 2024 GOP congressional nominee lost to the elder Grijalva while Trump narrowly carried the southwestern battleground state at the top of the ballot, easily won this summer’s Republican primary in the special election.
While Trump carried Arizona last year after losing it in 2020, 2024 Democratic presidential nominee and then-Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by 23 points.
Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, in a statement after the race was called, said that “Rep.-elect Grijalva won a hard-fought race. Now, Arizonans will have a fighter in their corner who will stand up to Trump on behalf of families who want to see real leadership in Washington.”
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.”
The divisions in American politics are usually obvious, often nowhere more than in the House of Representatives. But there are also glimmers of bipartisanship, and, lately, many of those have been driven by women.
At the start of this year, Reps. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat, and Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican, united forces to challenge House leadership with a push to make the House friendlier for new mothers. In the past few weeks, three of the most outspoken House Republican women broke ranks with their party — and bucked President Donald Trump — in an effort to release more files related to the case of the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
And this week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Republican Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida and Democratic Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California came together on a House resolution calling for expanded early screening for Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS), a blood-clotting disorder that can cause miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant people.
They credited their cooperation to singer Christina Perri, who learned she had APS after losing her daughter Rosie late in pregnancy in 2020. Perri is now channeling her grief into advocacy. She said in an interview that it was “a privilege” to see lawmakers like Kamlager-Dove and Cammack putting their party affiliations to the side and uniting on an issue so important to her.
“What matters is that we’re women, we’re moms, we just want other women and moms to be okay,” she said. “And I find that really inspiring at a time where everything is just so messy, and I feel grateful to be a part of something like this.”
Women make up half of the U.S. population but hold just 28 percent of seats in Congress. Research has not backed up the notion that women lawmakers are, overall, more bipartisan than men at the federal level. But select instances so far in this Congress show how unlikely coalitions of women lawmakers have united across party lines, challenged party leadership or both.
A major news conference at the Capitol with Epstein survivors last week yielded what four years ago would have been an all but unthinkable scene: Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a progressive Democrat, defending and embracing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a conservative firebrand and staunch Trump ally.
“She has shown so much courage on this issue, so much leadership,” Khanna said of Greene, who was met with an uneven reception by the crowd. “I saw some people, when I was coming here, calling her names. We’ve got to stop that. We’ve got to stop the partisanship on this issue.”
Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky are attempting to force a House floor vote on the Epstein files resolution with a procedural measure known as a discharge petition, which enables members to circumvent House leadership to get a measure to the floor. Every sitting House Democrat and just three Republicans other than Massie — Greene, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina — have signed the discharge petition, leaving it just one signature short of the 218 required to force a vote.
Never underestimate a woman. We all came here to do work. We all made promises, and some of us live up to them.
All three women have maintained their support for the measure despite fierce opposition from Trump and the White House. At the news conference, Massie called Greene “the bravest woman in Congress.” He also posed the question: “Where are the men?”
“Never underestimate a woman,” Boebert said at the Capitol on Tuesday. “We all came here to do work. We all made promises, and some of us live up to them.”
Shared experiences around pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood have united some House members to work across the aisle.
“I think I can say very candidly now, as a new mom, moms just know how to multitask and learn how to get things done,” said Cammack, who welcomed her daughter Auggie last month. “And that might be why you see more bipartisan efforts coming out of the women, even though we represent a minority in Congress.”
At Tuesday’s news conference, Kamlager-Dove, Cammack and Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio all spoke about their experiences with pregnancy losses while building their families.
“What unites us is far deeper than what may appear on the surface,” Kamlager-Dove said. “Many of us share journeys to parenthood that are marked by hope, loss and eventually, resilience.”
Luna, the Florida Republican, and Pettersen, the Colorado Democrat, are also among the handful of House members to give birth while in office — and both missed votes after giving birth. They teamed up on a measure to allow new parents in the House to temporarily designate another member to vote for them, also known as proxy voting. House Speaker Mike Johnson vigorously opposed the effort, leading the duo to turn to a discharge petition. They succeeded in getting 218 votes on their discharge petition and overcame Johnson’s effort to quash the measure on the floor, temporarily grinding House business to a halt. Luna later struck a deal with Johnson, standing down on the proxy voting push in exchange for other concessions (Pettersen and other Democrats criticized the deal as insufficient).
Now, Luna is a member of another bipartisan coalition, this one backing a proposed ban on stock trading for members of Congress. Another member of the group, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a progressive Democrat, said at a September 3 news conference that, unlike in other legislative negotiations, lawmakers turned around a better product than the one they started with.
“It is one of those rare moments where I feel like Washington is working the way it’s supposed to work,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And it feels foreign. And it feels alien … but I also think it is proof that things can work here.”
Women lawmakers “are better communicators,” Luna told The 19th while leaving House votes on Tuesday. At the September 3 stock trading ban news conference, she indicated she’s prepared to challenge House leadership again if necessary.
“I often feel like an adjudicator in this job,” she said. “And so I guess I’ll be the one to say that we’ve asked nicely for leadership to put this on the floor. If they don’t, I say timeline is end of month: There’s a discharge petition that is ready to go.”
It is one of those rare moments where I feel like Washington is working the way it’s supposed to work.
The most consequential legislation passed by Congress this year has been muscled through without Democratic support, and there have been plenty of moments of acrimony on the floor.
Much of it has been clearly gendered: On Wednesday, as the House considered its annual defense spending bill, Mace erupted at Rep. Sara Jacobs, a California Democrat, during debate over Mace’s proposed anti-transgender amendments to the legislation. Rep. Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat who this year became the first openly transgender lawmaker to serve in Congress, has faced repeated attacks and misgendering from some of her Republican colleagues.
High-profile but not expressly political public figures have, in many cases, been the catalysts for bipartisan congressional action.
Years of tireless lobbying by Paris Hilton led to Congress passing a bipartisan bill aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect in youth residential facilities last December. Engineer, author and science TV host Emily Calandrelli’s personal story of being hassled by TSA as a new parent led to the Senate and a House committee passing bipartisan legislation making it easier for parents to travel with breast milk and breastfeeding equipment through airport security. The legislation has not received a vote on the House floor.
And Epstein’s survivors, Khanna said, are “helping us come together as a country.”
“I’ve never done a press conference with Marjorie Taylor Greene before,” he joked at the September 3 news conference.
Both Cammack and Kamlager-Dove credited Perri with using her platform to raise awareness about APS — and bringing them together on a mission to promote the adoption of what they said is a simple test that could spare so many the heartache of pregnancy loss.
“We bonded over a common story of having a miscarriage and wanting answers to questions that were not easy to come by,” Kamlager-Dove said.
“Without her advocacy, without her courage to come forward, this wouldn’t be happening, and so she has been the driver in really bringing us together to make this a reality,” Cammack said.
Cammack said she’s “very confident” about the resolution on APS testing moving forward and getting a vote on the House floor. Perri said the measure’s passing would be “a win for everybody,” and a victory “that feels kind of rare right now.”
“My hope and goal is to have this changed forever, for women to not need to even know about it,” she said. “But until then, I will always speak about it, and I will help move the needle forward.”
Anna Commander is a Newsweek Editor and writer based in Florida. Her focus is reporting on crime, weather and breaking news. She has covered weather, and major breaking news events in South Florida. Anna joined Newsweek in 2022 from The National Desk in Washington, D.C. and had previously worked at CBS12 News in West Palm Beach. She is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University. You can get in touch with Anna by emailing a.commander@newsweek.com.
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The Democratic National Committee (DNC) reacted to the special-election win of James Walkinshaw to replace late U.S. Representative Gerald Connolly’s seat in Virginia.
The victory Tuesday night further shrinks the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
Why It Matters
The outcome whittles Speaker Mike Johnson‘s already narrow margin in the House, shrinking the GOP’s effective working majority and complicating the path for party-line votes ahead of a looming government funding deadline at the end of September.
Before the election, the House stood with 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats; Walkinshaw’s win moves the balance closer and limits Johnson’s margin for defections.
What To Know
In a statement sent to Newsweek via email, DNC Chair Ken Martin reacted to the party’s win, saying, “Virginians are seeing Republicans for who they are: self-serving liars who will throw their constituents under the bus to rubber stamp Donald Trump‘s disastrous agenda — and they’re ready for change.
“Rep-elect Walkinshaw’s victory continues the dominant trend we’re seeing so far this year – Democrats are massively overperforming in nearly every race. With elections in less than two months in the Commonwealth, Virginians are fired up and ready to hold Trump and Virginia Republicans accountable for their billionaire-first agenda.”
Walkinshaw, 42, member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and former chief of staff to Connolly, ran to succeed Connolly after his death in May, The New York Times reports.
The seat is in a heavily Democratic district in northern Virginia.
The Associated Press called the race for Walkinshaw at 7:36 p.m. ET.
This is a developing story that will be updated with additional information.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks at a news conference with Texas Democrats at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades union hall on August 5 in Aurora, Illinois. (Photo by… Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks at a news conference with Texas Democrats at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades union hall on August 5 in Aurora, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A digitally manipulated image of State Rep. Maureen Bauer has recently surfaced online in what is being called “a sextortion attempt,” a news release from the Indiana House of Representatives says.
Bauer, D-South Bend, has filed reports with the Indiana State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the image. Her team is also working with “appropriate platforms and legal channels” to have the image removed and those responsible for its creation held accountable.
State Rep. Maureen Bauer and fellow lawmakers gather in the Indiana Statehouse on Org Day, or organization day on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Indianapolis.
“No one should ever be subjected to this kind of violation,” reads the statement from Anna Groover, communications director for the Indiana House of Representatives. “Deepfake exploitation and the creation of altered sexual images are a form of abuse and will not be tolerated.”
She urged the public “not to view, share, or circulate this harmful content,” and to report it immediately to law enforcement and website or app administrators.
It’s the second time an Indiana politician has been faced with the issue of deepfakes.
Mooresville Republican Rep. Craig Haggard learned in August that a deepfake video portraying his wife topless was possibly circulating online. He had not seen the video himself and Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith told IndyStar his office “has found no evidence that a video was ever produced or viewed by anyone internally.”
