They helped Democrats win back the House in 2018. Now they’re taking on a new mission

They helped Democrats win back the House in 2018. Now they're taking on a new mission

In 2018, Democrats won back the House — ending eight years of Republican control — with the help of dozens of candidates with national security backgrounds who vowed to serve as a check against the first Trump administration. This year, two of those successful candidates — Virginia's Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey's Mikie Sherrill — are taking on a new challenge followingPresident Donald Trump'sreturn to power: running for governor. AsDemocrats grapplewith how best to improve their diminished standing with voters, the upcoming races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey will serve as crucial tests for the party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Spanberger's and Sherrill's campaigns could offer critical clues to next year's candidates as they seek to understand the mood of the electorate a year after Trump's 2024 victory. The two candidates — and former Capitol Hill roommates — are facing vastly different races. Sherrill is one of half a dozen candidates seeking to portray themselves as the Democratic fighter best positioned to take on the eventual Republican nominee and the Trump administration ahead of a June 10 primary. One recent Sherrill ad warns that Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Trump this month, will bring the president's "MAGA agenda" to the state. The spot highlights Sherrill's record as a Navy pilot and federal prosecutor and describes her as the Democrat "Republicans fear." Spanberger — who, like her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, is running unopposed — is directing much of her focus toward criticizing the record of outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The former CIA intelligence officer has hammered Earle-Sears and Youngkin over their response to theDepartment of Government Efficiencyas the Elon Musk-led effort aims to shrink the size of the federal workforce that employs more than 300,000 Virginians. Spanberger, who did not run for reelection in the House last year, and Sherrill, who held on to her seat, are portraying themselves as results driven and willing to buck their party if necessary. "People can label me however they want as a question of policy, but I think what is the most substantial characteristic that I ascribe to myself is pragmatic," Spanberger told CNN in an interview earlier this year. "Throughout my time in Congress, my frustration — when I had expressed it at various different points in time — was rooted in that pragmatism." They are also testing out ways to message on economic concerns, an area where Trump held a significant advantage among voters last November but has seen some erosion amid his trade war. They're also acknowledging that, if they're elected in these new roles, they would be in a much better position to impact the lives of a larger swath of people. "At this moment, the fight is really in the states, that's where the front line is," Sherrill told CNN after a campaign event in Elizabeth, New Jersey. "It's going to be strong Democratic governors who can best help the nation." Sherrill said Democrats need to build the party from the ground up by "taking an expansive view of state power" as they push to make life more affordable for voters and run effective governments. Even as Democrats are working to counter Trump administration policies, the party must continue to keep a focus on kitchen-table issues, she said. "Sometimes we get caught up in some of the concerns we have — which are huge, huge concerns — about what's coming up in Washington, but don't always remind people of the work we're doing to drive down costs," Sherrill said. Democrats flipped 41 House seats in the 2018 midterm elections and elected 67 new members overall. Three cycles later, about half of them are still in office. Several have already sought higher office. Andy Kim of New Jersey and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan were both elected to the US Senate, while former Reps. Colin Allred of Texas, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida and Katie Porter of California lost Senate bids last year. A handful are also running in primaries ahead of next year's midterm elections. Former Interior Secretary and New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland is running for governor in her state, as is Porter. Reps. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Haley Stevens of Michigan and Angie Craig of Minnesota are all running for Senate. Dan Sena, the executive director of House Democrats' campaign arm during the 2018 cycle, described the candidates who ran then as "independent, country first-driven" leaders who at times stood up to their own party. Sena, who is now working with an outside group supporting Sherrill's campaign, said Democrats should look to the 2018 recruiting formula next year. "They should be looking for candidates that can support the Democratic Party but look and feel like a different type of Democrat: a Democrat with a record of service, a Democrat that's a patriot, a Democrat that puts their country first," he said. Virginia and New Jersey shifted toward Trump during the2024 election, but history suggests political headwinds are likely to favor Democrats in the upcoming gubernatorial races. Over the last several decades both states have elected candidates from the party that lost the White House the year before, with two exceptions: Democrat Terry McAuliffe won the 2013 Virginia governor's race after President Barack Obama was reelected, and Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was reelected in 2021 after President Joe Biden won in 2020. Both seats are open due to the incumbents being term-limited. Democrats are also hoping to capitalize on high-profile Republican legislation, just as they did in 2018 when Democratic candidates blasted their opponents over their votes backing a failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. This time around, Democrats are pointing to thesweeping tax and spending cuts proposalHouse Republicans passed last week, which would add work requirements to Medicaid and make deep cuts to food stamps. "Winning these campaigns is really about being able to explain to voters the ways in which these candidates are going to stand up for them and fight for them," said Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILY's List, which works to elect women who support abortion rights and has long backed Spanberger and Sherrill. Republicans have started preparing their own messaging on the bill, arguing that provisions like no taxes on tips are popular, and that the restrictions on Medicaid benefits will sustain the program for those who need it most. "It's going to be imperative you tie them to national trends that are potentially negative in party politics that they're going to have to deal with in both New Jersey and Virginia," one GOP strategist who has worked on House campaigns said of Spanberger and the eventual Democratic nominee in New Jersey. Spanberger and the field of New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidates are attempting to rehabilitate the party's brand when it comes to economic issues. Or, at the very least, not be associated with it. Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor leader and former New Jersey US Senate candidate backing Sherrill, said affordability is the No. 1 issue for Garden State voters — including housing, transportation and energy bill costs. "That's how we counteract this idea that Trump and the Republicans are the only ones who care about the economy and your job," Campos-Medina said. "Democrats care about the economy and jobs and housing and schools and transportation, and that's the message that's going to resonate." At events in northern New Jersey, Sherrill repeatedly pointed to her proposals to build more residences to reduce housing costs. At a recent campaign event at a family-owned drugstore in Mechanicsville, a small, Republican-leaning town outside Richmond, Spanberger laid out her plan to lower health care and prescription drug costs. She also referenced the influence that health care issues had on her decision to first run for Congress. "Back in 2017 I watched my member of Congress vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act," Spanberger said. "It was then that I knew that I needed to run against him." As she highlighted her plan to boost the affordability of Virginia's health care as governor, Spanberger said she saw similarities between the 2017 health care debate and the current fight over the far-reaching domestic policy bill. "Now, unfortunately, we're seeing much of the same, which is an effort to further degrade a health care system that very frankly and objectively needs improvements," Spanberger told reporters. In interviews, Democratic primary voters in both New Jersey and Virginia said they were looking for governors who would serve as a check on the Trump administration. Many expressed frustrations with the Democratic Party, which they said either did not have a clear, unifying message or needed to focus more on affordability issues. Mary Butler, a 74-year-old retired social worker from Mechanicsville who attended Spanberger's speech and plans to support her in November, said health care access was deeply important to her because she saw how a lack of access could impact her former clients. Asked to assess national Democrats' performance, she said the party's vision wasn't being communicated well. "Why isn't there a really strong message being given — one clear, strong message?" Butler said. "It's a real question mark for me, I don't understand it." At a campaign stop over Memorial Day weekend, Sherrill gave her stump speech and took questions from a few dozen voters at a pizza shop in Jersey City, where one primary opponent, Steven Fulop, serves as mayor. The questions focused on housing costs, education and how Sherrill, as governor, would respond to parts of the president's agenda, such as immigration. Sherrill criticized Republicans, from Ciattarelli to members of Congress, for not pushing back on the president. She likened them to sailors on a ship ignoring impending danger for fear of reprisal over speaking out. "A lesson I learned in the Navy: The worst thing you can do is to run a ship aground," Sherrill said. "And you find when you do that, that people on that ship know it's going to run aground, and they don't say anything because they're scared." Susan Murphy, a 57-year-old retired theater teacher and Jersey City native, said she will vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, but she thought Sherrill seemed to be the strongest to go up against a "MAGA Republican." She said she viewed Democratic governors as a check on the administration and wondered why national leaders in her party seemed unprepared to take on the Trump administration at the start of his term. "I know that their hands are tied in terms of holding Trump accountable in many ways," she said. "My problem is, why weren't they ready? Why did it take so long?" David Patel, a 59-year-old business owner from Jersey City who is backing Sherrill, said Democrats "need to learn what people want." He said he sometimes gets frustrated with what he described as his party's tendency to focus on issues "that don't matter." Asked what those issues are, he instead pointed to what he would like to hear about: health care, job creation and training, and education. He said he hoped losing the presidential election would get the party back on track: "I think they got the message." For more CNN news and newsletters create an account atCNN.com

byDan Dunne

in

May 28, 2025

They helped Democrats win back the House in 2018. Now they’re taking on a new mission

They helped Democrats win back the House in 2018. Now they're taking on a new mission In 2018, Democrats won back the House — ending eig...

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New immigration case arrives to a Supreme Court that appears wary of Trump’s deportation policies

New immigration case arrives to a Supreme Court that appears wary of Trump's deportation policies

An appeal that landed at the Supreme Court Tuesday could test the justices' emerging concern about President Donald Trump's aggressive deportation policies and whether he is willing to defy judicial orders. The new administration case arises fromits desire to deport migrants to South Sudanand other places where they have no connection, without sufficient notice or ability to contest their removal. A US district court judge based in Boston said last week that the administration "unquestionably" violated his order when it began deportation flights and provided little time for migrants to challenge their removal to war-torn South Sudan. Irrespective of how the justices' respond to this latest deportation case, the controversy calls attention to developing distrust among the conservative justices regarding the Trump immigration agenda. This is one area where his norm-busting approach, typically splitting the justices along ideological lines, has driven them together. That was seen in the trajectory of earlier cases involving Venezuelan migrant deportations under thewartime Alien Enemies Actand, separately, in the justices' oral arguments in a dispute related tobirthright citizenship. One of the tensest moments in that May 15 hearing came when Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked US Solicitor General D. John Sauer if he was indeed saying the administration could defy a court order. "Did I understand you correctly to tell Justice (Elena) Kagan," Barrett began, "that the government wanted to reserve its right to maybe not follow a Second Circuit precedent, say, in New York because you might disagree with the opinion?" "Our general practice is to respect those precedents, but there are circumstances when it is not a categorial practice," Sauer answered. "Really?" Barrett said, leaning forward on the bench and pressing on, in search of some answer revealing adherence to court orders. She amended the hypothetical scenario to involve the high court itself. "You would respect the opinions and judgment of the Supreme Court," she asked, "You're not hedging at all with respect to the precedent of this court?" "That is correct," Sauer said. Barrett was not the only conservative picking up on concerns voiced by liberal Kagan or asking about Trump administration regard for Supreme Court rulings. "I want to ask one thing about something in your brief," Justice Brett Kavanaugh said to Sauer. "You said, 'And, of course, this Court's decisions constitute controlling precedent throughout the nation. If this Court were to hold a challenged statute or policy unconstitutional, the government could not successfully enforce it against anyone party or not, in light of stare decisis.' You agree with that?" "Yes, we do," Sauer said. The conservative-dominated Supreme Court is often aligned with Trump. The justices have endorsed many of his arguments for expanded executive branch authority. Last Thursday, the justices by their familiar 6-3 split bolstered the president's control over independent agencies, in that case, intended to protect workers. But when it comes to Trump's immigration crackdown, his uncompromising moves have caused the justices to shrink back. New fissures could emerge with Tuesday's case testing the deportation of migrants to places where they could face persecution and without any meaningful opportunity to contest their removal. The migrants whom the administration intended to send to South Sudan are now being held at a US military base in Djibouti. The migrants are from multiple countries, including Vietnam, Mexico, and Laos, and all have criminal records, according to the Department of Homeland Security. US District Court Judge Brian Murphy, who last week said the administration had violated his order when it undertook the deportation flight, on Monday reiterated his stance that the detainees are owed due process. "To be clear," he said, "the Court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories. But that does not change due process." In the administration's filing to the Supreme Court Tuesday, Sauer contended the administration had fulfilled the requirements of a Department of Homeland Security policy for such third-country deportations. Challenging Murphy's action, he wrote, "The United States has been put to the intolerable choice of holding these aliens foradditionalproceeding at a military facility on foreign soil – where each day their continued confinement risks grave harm to American foreign policy – or bringing these convicted criminalsbackto America." The court's response to the multitude of Trump cases arising over his many executive orders has been varied, defying any throughline. Even in the immigration sphere, Trump has on occasion prevailed. On May 19, for example, the court allowed him to lift the Biden administration'stemporary humanitarian protectionfor hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living and working in the US. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Yet Trump's drive to swiftly deport migrants deemed dangerous without the requisite due process of law has plainly fueled distrust of the administration across the federal judiciary. At the Supreme Court, the justices' confidence in Trump has been additionally undermined by the administration's stalling on the return ofKilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador in mid-March and sent to a brutal prison. The justices on April 10 ordered the administration to "facilitate" the Salvadoran national's return to the US. He is still not home. In a more recent detainee case, on May 16, the Supreme Court majority referred to Abrego Garcia as it expressed new wariness – and a new consensus – on Trump's use of 18th century wartime law for deportations. The first time the justices weighed in on a case involving Trump's effort to invoke the Alien Enemies Act against Venezuelan migrants accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, on April 7, the justices divided bitterly. Chief Justice John Roberts and most of the conservatives clashed with the liberals, who warned that the majority's decision largely favoring the administration failed to account for the "grave harm" the alleged Venezuelan gang members faced if deported to a Salvadoran prison as Trump wanted. "The Government's conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law," the liberal justices wrote. "That a majority of this Court now rewards the Government for its behavior … is indefensible. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this." But as Trump has accelerated his deportation tactics, the court's votes on the Alien Enemies Act have shifted. And onMay 16, a new majority of liberal and conservative justices voiced fears that migrants would be deported without sufficient due process. It was becoming evident that the Trump team was only grudgingly complying, if at all, with the court's earlier order that the Alien Enemies Act required due process. Lawyers for detainees said they were given scant notification and hasty deadlines for challenging their cases. Lawyers for a group of Venezuelan migrants being held in a north Texas detention center sought an emergency order to ensure they would not be rushed out of the country; the justices responded by imposing a brief freeze in the early morning of April 19 on deportations. After taking more time to review the situation, the court on May 16 extended the freeze and ordered a lower court hearing on whether Trump was lawfully invoking the Alien Enemies Act – a measure that has been used only three times since the country's founding and only during wartime. "Evidence now in the record (although not all before us on April 18) suggests that the Government had in fact taken steps on the afternoon of April 18 toward removing detainees under the AEA – including transporting them from their detention facility to an airport and later returning them to the facility," the justices said in an unsigned opinion joined by conservatives and liberals. Referring to the court majority's April 19 middle-of-the-night order preventing those deportations, the justices added, "Had the detainees been removed from the United States to the custody of a foreign sovereign on April 19, the Government may have argued, as it has previously argued, that no U.S. court had jurisdiction to order relief." To underscore that point, the majority referred to the Abrego Garcia case as evidence that the administration might claim it could not return detainees wrongly deported. (Only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from that May 16 order suspending use of the Alien Enemies Act.) Perhaps the most important court test in these early months of Trump's second presidency will be resolution of the dispute over injunctions preventing Trump from ending birthright citizenship for babies born in the US to undocumented people or those with temporary status. The right dates to the 1868 ratification of the 14thAmendment and has been reinforced by Supreme Court precedent going back to 1898. The legal issue in the case heard May 15 is not the bottom-line constitutionality of Trump's move to erase the birthright guarantee but rather the method lower court judges have used to temporarily block Trump's order signed on his first day back in office. US district court judges have employed "nationwide injunctions," under which a single judge blocks enforcement of a challenged policy not only in the judge's district but throughout the country. Trump wants the injunctions narrowed to cover only the individual parties to a lawsuit in a specific district. Some justices have in the past suggested lower court judges have exceeded their authority with such sweeping injunctions. But Trump may be forcing some of them to rethink that view because of the move to end more than 150 years of automatic birthright citizenship. "Let's just assume you're dead wrong," about the validity of Trump's executive order, Kagan told Sauer. "Does every single person that is affected by this EO have to bring their own suit? Are their alternatives? How long does it take? How do we get the result that there is a single rule of citizenship that is the rule that we've historically applied rather than the rule that the EO would have us do?" Conservative justice Neil Gorsuch also questioned whether "patchwork problems," such as babies born in the US to undocumented migrants having varying citizenship rights depending on the state – could "justify broader relief." The remarks reflected the larger dilemma for a court that itself has pushed boundaries. Some Trump positions play to the justices' interests; but some are so extreme that they rattle the justices' own presumptions. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account atCNN.com

byDan Dunne

in

May 28, 2025

New immigration case arrives to a Supreme Court that appears wary of Trump’s deportation policies

New immigration case arrives to a Supreme Court that appears wary of Trump's deportation policies An appeal that landed at the Supreme C...

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Israel's Gaza aid model is 'distraction from atrocities', UNRWA chief says

Israel's Gaza aid model is 'distraction from atrocities', UNRWA chief says

By John Geddie TOKYO (Reuters) -The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said on Wednesday Israel's model for providing aid to Gaza was wasteful and a "distraction from atrocities", criticising a chaotic distribution by a U.S.-backed foundation this week. On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians rushed an aid distribution site set up in the Israeli-held southern Gaza city of Rafah operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), with desperation for food overcoming wariness about biometric and other checks Israel said it would employ. "The model of aid distribution proposed by Israel does not align with core humanitarian principles," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told reporters at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. "We have seen yesterday the shocking images of hungry people pushing against fences, desperate for food. It was chaotic, undignified and unsafe," Lazzarini said. "I believe it is a waste of resources and a distraction from atrocities," he added, referring to civilian deaths during Israel's air and ground war in the small coastal enclave. Israel says its military operations target only Hamas-led militants and accuses them of using civilians for cover, which they deny. As a trickle of aid has resumed, Israeli forces - now in control of wide areas of Gaza - have kept up their offensive, killing 3,901 Palestinians since a short ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The GHF, backed by Israel and its close ally, the United States, said it had distributed about 8,000 food boxes, equivalent to 462,000 meals, since Israel eased an 11-week-old blockade of the war-shattered Palestinian enclave last week. The United Nations and other international aid groups have boycotted the foundation, which they say undermines the principle that humanitarian aid should be distributed independently of the parties to a conflict, based on need. U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce dismissed criticism of the aid program as "complaints about style". Israel says one advantage of the new aid system is the opportunity to screen recipients at designated sites to exclude anyone found to be connected with Hamas. Israel, at war with Hamas since October 2023, accuses Hamas of stealing supplies and using them to entrench its position. Hamas denies this. (Reporting by John Geddie; editing by Tom Hogue and Mark Heinrich)

byDan Dunne

in

May 28, 2025

Israel's Gaza aid model is 'distraction from atrocities', UNRWA chief says

Israel's Gaza aid model is 'distraction from atrocities', UNRWA chief says By John Geddie TOKYO (Reuters) -The head of the U.N....

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Minutes of Fed's May meeting likely to show officials grappling with uncertainty

Minutes of Fed's May meeting likely to show officials grappling with uncertainty

By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Reserve at its May 6-7 meeting undercut expectations that it would change its policy interest rate anytime soon, and minutes from that session released on Wednesday may show just how firmly policymakers are holding onto their current wait-and-see approach. The minutes will be released at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) and in key ways have been superseded by developments since then. The meeting took place when concern over the economic fallout from changes in global trade and tariff policy was intense, stoked by President Donald Trump's announcement in early April of massive new import taxes. A week later the most aggressive of the new tariffs had either been lowered or postponed in announcements by Trump that reduced pressures that had been driving bond yields sharply higher, buoyed a sinking stock market, and led analysts who regarded a U.S. recession as a near certainty in a high-tariff world to upgrade their growth forecasts. Still, the minutes are likely to show policymakers wrestling as much with uncertainty as with the negative outlook from early May, and the erratic nature of administration policymaking - Trump from this past Friday to Sunday announced then postponed steep new taxes on European imports - hasn't changed. "I've been describing this as driving through fog," Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television. "It's just very hard." Barkin said that data for the year so far shows the economy on the same path as it has been, with reasonably low unemployment and inflation easing to the Fed's 2% target. But there are competing narratives, he and other policymakers say, that see a new jump in inflation in coming months as tariffs take hold, or rising joblessness as widespread uncertainty and rising costs fuel a slowdown, or even a toxic combination of both. Until it is clear which way the economy pivots under the influence of shifting global trade rules, the Fed has little reason to alter the 4.25% to 4.50% policy interest rate it has maintained since December. "Published data shows an economy very much on the same trajectory that we've been on for the last year or two. Low unemployment, inflation settling toward target," Barkin said. "I could describe how some of these forces, like tariffs, might be inflationary. I can describe how other forces, like lower gas prices, might be disinflationary," he said. "Less government spending might be less employment...People who haven't hired for 18 months, if spending continues, might need to start hiring. So I'm waiting to see what happens." Fed staff have been trying to estimate the likely impact of different tariff rules in a series of studies that may get mention in the minutes if they were presented to policymakers as part of the discussion around the economic outlook. But even those reports are contingent on the assumptions made about final tariff levels, something likely to remain unknown at least until July when a 90-day reprieve on the stiffest import taxes expires. Market optimism about the final outcome of the trade debate has been based on an expectation that negotiated deals with lower levies will by then have been approved. Even then it may take months more for the Fed to know how the economy is responding. Investors now anticipate the Fed holding the policy rate steady at the June and July meetings, but cutting a quarter point in September and again in December. "Until we know more about how this is going to settle out and what the economic implications are for employment and for inflation, I couldn't confidently say that I know what the appropriate path will be," Powell said at a May 7 press conference at the end of the Fed's meeting. (Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

byDan Dunne

in

May 28, 2025

Minutes of Fed's May meeting likely to show officials grappling with uncertainty

Minutes of Fed's May meeting likely to show officials grappling with uncertainty By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Fede...

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Iran hangs a man convicted of spying for Israel

Iran hangs a man convicted of spying for Israel

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran hanged a man convicted of spying for Israel, state media reported Wednesday. The report said Pedram Madani was hanged after the country's supreme court upheld a death sentence issued by a lower court. The official IRNA news agency said Madani visited Israel and met Mossad officers to convey classified information about buildings in Iran where "infrastructure" equipment was installed. The report did not elaborate but said Madani received foreign currency and cryptocurrency in return for the information. It said Madani also met Mossad officers at the Israeli embassy in Belgium. Authorities arrested Madani, 41, in 2020. In April, Iran executed a manconvicted of working with the Mossadand of playing a role in the 2022 killing of a Revolutionary Guard colonel in Tehran.

byDan Dunne

in

May 28, 2025

Iran hangs a man convicted of spying for Israel

Iran hangs a man convicted of spying for Israel TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran hanged a man convicted of spying for Israel, state media reported W...

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