The leading candidates embody a clash over how Democrats can best rebuild their party
The final stretch of New York City’s mayoral race has provided some of the most riveting moments of a pitched contest: Brad Lander was arrested by federal authorities trying to escort a migrant out of the courthouse, Andrew Cuomo delivered an old-school homage to unions and the working class, and Zohran Mandani brought the house down with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a barn burner of a political rally.
All of the leading mayoral candidates are selling a blueprint for the future of a Democratic Party that is adrift. The contest, in many ways, looks like a referendum on the type of candidate best equipped to lead the party out of the wilderness of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The two competing forces can be described generally as centrist Democrats in the mold of Bill Clinton (Cuomo) versus new progressives more in the image of AOC (Mamdani).
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Florida Democrat Josh Weil, who lost a House election in April, is running for U.S. Senate
Josh Weil, who lost an April 1 congressional special election in the Daytona Beach area, is announcing he will run for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida on the 2026 ballot.
Weil, a former teacher who attracted endorsements from Bernie Sanders and rapper Killer Mike during that congressional run, says he thinks he can tap into anti-Donald Trump sentiment and raise $100 million to defeat incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody or any other comers.
"I think there’s a really big opportunity here in 2026," Weil told The News-Journal in a June 17 interview. "We just saw this past weekend with the (No Kings) marches how many people are unhappy, are demanding change. ... We’ve seen these actions all throughout our campaign harming people in regards to cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, veterans benefits and now we’re seeing with the ICE raids and immigration, just a whole other level of discomfort with these things coming from the American government.”
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Raja Krishnamoorti Leads by 13 in Illinois U.S. Senate Primary
In the latest survey of the nominating contest for the Democrats for the U.S. Senate in Illinois among the three leading candidates, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi holds a double-digit lead over his closest opponent. Raja’s lead over Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton and Congresswoman Robin Kelly is larger today than it was in our previous survey, which was taken before his official entrance into the race.
In addition to Raja’s growth, Congresswoman Kelly has also narrowed the gap between her and Lieutenant Governor Stratton since our last survey.
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Eugene Vindman draws a challenger in VA-7
Republican state Sen. Tara Durant announced Wednesday that she would challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman in Virginia's 7th District, a light blue constituency based in the southern exurbs of Washington, D.C.
Kamala Harris carried the 7th 51-48 last year, which represented a decided shift to the right from Joe Biden's 53-46 performance in 2020. Vindman nevertheless won his first term 51-49 after an expensive race.
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Gov. Hochul rips Zohran Mamdani’s proposed tax on rich, admits soaring costs are pushing New Yorkers to ‘Palm Beach’
Gov. Kathy Hochul shut down Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s plan to hike taxes on some New Yorkers — as she admitted high costs were pushing residents to move out of state.
Hochul was asked in a TV interview if she backed Mamdani’s plan to tax wealthy New Yorkers and up the corporate tax and flatly replied, “No.”
“I’m not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue,” Hochul told PIX 11.
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The D.N.C. Is in Chaos and Desperate for Cash
Just months into the tenure of a new party leader, Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee’s financial situation has grown so bleak that top officials have discussed whether they might need to borrow money this year to keep paying the bills.
Fund-raising from major donors — some of whom Mr. Martin has still not spoken with — has slowed sharply. At the same time, he has expanded the party’s financial commitments to every state, and even to far-flung territories like Guam.
Fellow Democrats are grumbling that Mr. Martin, who quietly accepted a raise after taking the post, has been badly distracted by internal battles. So far, they say, he has been unable to help unite his party against Republicans, who control the federal government.
www.nytimes.com/...
Pro-Cuomo super PAC launching nearly $300K field operation in final days of NYC mayoral race
The main super PAC boosting Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral campaign is launching a field operation in the final days of the mayor’s race to the tune of nearly $300,000 — including more than $14,000 spent just on T-shirts for volunteers, new filings show.
The expenditure from Fix the City, which has raised nearly $20 million to suppor Cuomo, comes after the ex-governor’s main rival in the Democratic mayoral primary, Zohran Mamdani, has mounted a significant field game, deploying tens of thousands of mostly unpaid canvassers to knock doors for him and hand out campaign literature.
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Democrats Need More Hobbies
For most of my adult life, I worked in and around Democratic politics, and my hobby was work. Then, in 2022, I started taking surf lessons and got hooked. In April of 2023, and again last December, I took a trip to an outdoor wave pool in Waco, Texas.
If you want to meet the voters who swung toward Donald Trump and put him back in the White House, you could do worse than the hot tub at Waco Surf. I went there with my pickup-truck-driving, Joe Rogan–superfan brother-in-law, and from the moment we arrived, he couldn’t have felt more at home, and I couldn’t have felt more out of place.
At first I couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, made me feel like the odd man out. But I soon developed a theory: The great divide between us is that I constantly think about politics and they do not.
www.theatlantic.com/...
Despite ranked-choice voting, Adrienne Adams declines to back rivals in NYC mayor’s race
NEW YORK — Mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams declined Thursday to say who she voted for, even as her opponents — and chief supporter — have begun to capitalize on the city’s ranked-choice voting system in their collective quest to block Andrew Cuomo’s return to power.
“I voted for me and I voted for my community,” the City Council speaker said after leaving her polling station in the Jamaica section of Queens on the sixth day of early voting ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary.
Asked who else she ranked on her ballot, Adams replied, “Well, I still believe in the secrecy of the ballot, and I voted for me and my community.”
She specifically declined to say whether she voted for democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani — the first choice for the Working Families Party, which endorsed Adams as part of a four-person slate intended to oppose Cuomo.
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