Politics
Bad Bunny created a cultural phenomenon. Can he spark a political one?
The world is watching for Bad Bunny to make a political statement at the Super Bowl. Democrats are watching closely to figure out how to make their own.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican recording artist known globally by his stage name, has created a pop culture phenomenon that will converge at a historic halftime show performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday when the New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks. Though Bad Bunny already made his Super Bowl debut alongside Shakira and Jennifer Lopez back in 2020, this time the spotlight will be on him and his exclusively in-Spanish catalog. And while his invitation triggered a harsh backlash on the right from the president on down, it’s also marking a major inflection point for Hispanic Americans of all backgrounds.
Sunday may prove to be Bad Bunny’s biggest chance to move the dial.
There’s an opportunity here, Democrats told Blue Light News, to turn Bad Bunny’s cultural phenomenon into a political one, right as the party is mounting its strongest resistance to Trump’s sweeping deportation agenda — and with months to go before the midterms to make amends with Latino voters who have left their tent.
Former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who is of Puerto Rican descent and whose tenure in the House was marked by his outspokenness for the Latino communities he represented, emphasized that Democrats need to seize this moment to win back Latino support.
Democrats “do too little to engage the Latino community, and then they wonder why all these Latinos voted for Trump? Because you didn’t knock on their doors asking to vote for the Democrat. You failed to message us in so many ways,” he said. “They should embrace it.”
“It’s such a huge watershed moment,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he used this as a very unifying moment, but also on very resonant and salient grounds to send a message to people.”
There’s already signs of what’s on the Latino rapper’s mind.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,’” Bad Bunny said last Sunday as he accepted the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album for his record-smashing “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” — just hours before taking home the night’s biggest prize, Album of the Year. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans.”
Bad Bunny isn’t new to political endeavors. But he has long focused primarily on island politics — he’s a big activist for Puerto Rican independence — and has only occasionally weighed in on mainland issues.
In 2024, shortly after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe infamously disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” during the pre-show for Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, Bad Bunny posted an endorsement of Kamala Harris to his tens of millions of Instagram followers. But he never appeared with Harris on the campaign trail.
His political trajectory has followed other Latino voters’ in recent months, however. Polls show many Hispanics have been particularly outraged at the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And they are highly motivated to vote and could shift left, after consecutive election cycles where Trump made significant inroads with Latinos.
Americans overall in recent polling have shown an increasing souring on Trump’s handling of immigration. The two fatal shootings in Minneapolis and the stream of videos of ICE raids online are driving a fierce grassroots opposition that is pushing Democrats to hold the line on Blue Light News and not cave in negotiations on the DHS funding bill. But Trump’s crackdown has been felt most acutely in Latino communities. For many, the stories of families being detained have fueled a feeling of solidarity across the diaspora.
“That’s bringing people of all kinds together — especially the Latino community, the diaspora of Latino communities, that come from so many different places, so many different subcultures. It’s bringing us together in a new vision of latinidad,” said Chicago Alderman Michael Rodriguez, who represents the city’s historically Mexican Little Village community. “Our community is being assaulted right now.”
During Bad Bunny’s massive world tour last year, the artist did not schedule any shows on the U.S. mainland, in part due to concerns that ICE would target his concerts for immigration enforcement operations. “It’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,” he told i-D magazine in a September interview.
After the rapper was announced as the halftime performer in September, Corey Lewandowski said there would be ICE enforcement operations at the Super Bowl — seemingly bringing to life some of the concerns that Martínez Ocasio voiced. Local leaders in the Bay Area have said this week they’ve privately been told no ICE officers will be at the show. DHS has remained more vague publicly about enforcement plans around the game. DHS did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Meanwhile, Republicans this weekend — many of whom in the MAGA universe have referred to Martínez Ocasio as “Woke Bunny” — are holding their own halftime performance to make a statement. Turning Point is counterprogramming Bad Bunny’s performance with a made-for-television “All American Halftime Show” featuring Kid Rock. “I think that that part of the country just felt offended,” said Andrew Kolvert, a spokesperson for Turning Point. “There needs to be a counter voice that says, ‘Hey, you know, we love this country. We love the rule of law, we love our troops, we love law enforcement, we love traditional America.’”
For Democrats, the question of how to better engage and win in Latino communities has dogged them as the party searches for a way out of the wilderness since their 2024 election losses. Bad Bunny has shown a natural ability to bring those communities together with his music, filling stadiums across the world for multi-night shows.
“It’s not that easy. We’re 23 countries, we fight each other every day,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who represents the largest Puerto Rican community in the Midwest — and whose city of Chicago was an early target of Trump’s increased immigration enforcement efforts. “For Bad Bunny to be able to bring Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Dominicans together, and all feel like they’re being heard and that he can represent them, says a lot about who is.”
As for Martínez Ocasio, he’s keeping mum about what to expect from his performance on Sunday night. “It’s going to be a huge party,” he said at a preview event on Thursday. “I want to bring to the stage, of course, a lot of my culture. But I really don’t, I don’t want to give any spoilers. It’s going to be fun.”
The cultural solidarity that Bad Bunny’s music has fostered could translate into political unity, Rodriguez, the Chicago alderman, said. And some of his fellow Democrats are ready to build on the moment.
“There’s just no scenario where he is not going to have a message,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said. “There are moments in history that really move a community and solidify them within a political movement. And I think that’s happening right now.”
Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.
The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.
Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.
Construction crews could begin the excavation process for what will be President Donald Trump’s massive 250-foot-tall arch in as soon as the next two weeks, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on Thursday.
The monument — which will be erected in a traffic circle at the head of the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River, coming between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery — has generated controversy as concerns emerged about the design and traffic congestion during construction.
The arch would take two to three years to construct on the proposed schedule, according to documents released in June.
“We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck,” Burgum said in a social media post.
The 250-foot-tall arch will be among Trump’s most visible projects, as the administration continues its attempts to remake Washington. Critics, however, have voiced fears that the structure may be too large, and overshadow other monuments, like the Lincoln Memorial on the other side of the Potomac River.
The proposed arch will dwarf the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in size. It is unclear at this time how much construction will cost; the National Endowment for the Humanities earmarked $15 million for the monument.
“This will be one the the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington National Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World,” Burgum said.
The monument will be constructed on land overseen by the National Park Service, and critics have argued Trump’s latest project requires explicit congressional approval. However, the Interior secretary continues to rebut these claims.
Instead, Burgum echoed previous statements and said historically “Congress and various congressionally chartered commissions decreed that a monumental work should adorn Columbia Island,” the traffic circle where the monument is planned to be constructed.
“Despite Congress’s intent, the site became and remains today a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment and significant historic value,” he said.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is revving up her involvement in the midterms. While some Democrats are eager to embrace her, others want her to steer clear.
Harris is planning to attend a canvass launch with Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford for his gubernatorial bid next month in Las Vegas, his campaign told Blue Light News.
“As anyone who is interested in 2028 should do, Kamala Harris will be coming through. We are a pivotal state in the presidential election,” Ford said in an interview in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “2028 starts right now in 2026.”
Harris’ plans to visit Nevada signal yet another step into the fray of the midterms — and the national political stage. On Tuesday, she publicly backed Rep. Chris Pappas in his Senate bid in New Hampshire, a must-hold seat for the party in a state that Harris narrowly won in 2024. And she waded into three House races, two Democratic-leaning districts in her home state and a solidly Republican one in Tennessee.
Harris had kept a relatively low profile so far on the campaign trail. Some Democrats prefer it that way.
Iowa’s two most prominent Democratic candidates have said they do not want Harris to campaign for them. Alaska’s Democratic Senate nominee rejected a fundraising solicitation Harris sent on her behalf. And a swing-district Democrat in Wisconsin and a long-shot Senate hopeful in Kansas both told Blue Light News they would prefer Harris keep her distance.
“I received 9,000 more votes than Harris in 2024,” Rebecca Cooke, the Democratic challenger to Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in western Wisconsin, said in a statement when asked by Blue Light News. “I don’t need anyone to come and campaign with me in my district. I do the work of building relationships — including across the aisle — on my own.”
The arm’s-length treatment isn’t necessarily surprising: red-state and rural Democrats have long been hesitant to tie themselves to national Democratic figures. They are increasingly distancing themselves now as polls show the Democratic brand remains underwater even as President Donald Trump’s own standing with voters continues to drop. Trump’s approval hit a weak 36 percent in a recent poll conducted by The Economic and YouGov, while a separate survey from the pollster showed over 56 percent of registered voters disapproved of the Democratic Party.
Harris’ favorability numbers at the end of last year only stood at 42 percent. As the party’s most recent presidential nominee, she is one of its most prominent avatars.
A Cooke campaign aide, granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said Cooke’s team has turned down campaign offers from other national Democrats as she focuses on making a personal case to voters in one of the party’s top target districts this fall.
Cooke hasn’t warded off everyone, however: During her primary she leaned heavily into support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), featuring him in campaign ads; his team also sent texts to help turn out voters. She also has accepted endorsements from potential 2028 candidates like former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
Other high-profile Democrats, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have similarly stayed relatively low-key with their own endorsements so far. He’s faced some Democratic distancing himself: Stefany Shaheen, who is running for a House seat in New Hampshire, emphasized her support from Granite Staters when asked about a fundraising email the governor sent on her behalf last month.
Harris, like other potential presidential candidates, needs to build a network of friends and favors — much of which she has already developed from her own runs for Senate, the White House and her four years as vice president — while staying relevant. She retains a powerful fundraising network that can help down-ticket Democrats, too.
But in many parts of the country where she lost, her involvement could be a drag for Democrats otherwise facing strong political tailwinds in the midterms.
“It’s all good,” Eduardo Negrón, a spokesperson for Harris, said in a statement. “Vice President Harris will continue to raise money and travel on behalf of candidates in races where she can help make a difference. With Trump so unpopular and our deep bench of strong candidates, we are now seeing deeply red states in play this cycle. The Vice President believes we should be ruthless about competing everywhere and that means giving candidates in tough races the space to do whatever it takes to win.”
Harris’ recent ramp-up marks a shift from what had been an otherwise quiet midterms strategy that has focused primarily on standing by close preexisting relationships. It’s strikingly different from other potential 2028 presidential candidates who’ve endorsed more widely and been more prominent on the campaign trail.
One of the few times she did weigh into a contested primary was for Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) — a co-chair of her 2024 presidential campaign — in her bid for Texas Senate. The vice president’s support came in the form of a robo-call released just days before the primary rather than an in-person appearance, and she quickly backed James Talarico shortly after he won the nomination. She also threw her support behind Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed after a bruising primary that has left Democrats scrambling to project unity heading into the general election.
Red-state Democrats have been particularly pointed in their calls to keep Harris out of their races.
“In Kansas, you’re trying to reach 45 percent of the state who are Republicans and a lot of really good people who are Republicans, but their vantage point or their worldview may be a bit different than Kamala Harris’,” Kansas Democratic Senate nominee Adam Hamilton told Blue Light News. “What I’m looking at is I’m really mounting a very Kansas-centered campaign, and I’m out speaking, I tell people I’m running as an independent-minded Democrat.”
Hamilton is running an uphill battle in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. The state is seen as potentially somewhat in play amid the ongoing war in Iran, trade wars with close allies and a persistent cost of living crisis that have cut especially deep in agricultural territory.
But that doesn’t mean a coastal Democrat like Harris would play well in the conservative heartland.
“Having somebody from California come in and try to tell Kansans who they should vote for is a pretty bad idea,” Hamilton said. Harris has not endorsed in the race.
Other Democrats have taken similar tones toward Harris in recent days. In an interview with Blue Light News, Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand said he would not want the former vice president to appear with him as he runs for governor, adding that the country needed “new leadership.”
State Rep. Josh Turek, speaking with reporters after an event for his Senate campaign in Cedar Rapids, broadcasted an even more blunt answer to the same question: “No,” he said flatly, letting out a laugh.
A similar scenario played out in Alaska last month. After Harris’ team sent a fundraising email for Senate candidate and former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) on the eve of the state’s primary election, a spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign told a local Alaska television station that she “isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48.” Peltola’s campaign did not respond to Blue Light News’s questions on the matter.
Campaign spokespeople for several battleground Senate Democrats locked in high-profile races, including El-Sayed in Michigan, Troy Jackson in Maine and Roy Cooper in North Carolina — who have all received her support — declined to respond to requests for comment about how involved they would like the former vice president to be in their races.
Harris’ support isn’t an albatross for all Democrats, however. For some, her endorsement is welcome — and they want her out on the trail.
One key battleground Democrat (and a potential 2028 rival), Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, embraced Harris’ support with open arms. “Senator Ossoff is grateful for Vice President Harris’ help and support in his re-election campaign,” campaign spokesperson Ellie Dougherty said in a statement, adding that he would welcome her to Georgia to campaign alongside him or on his behalf.
Harris lost Georgia, but the rightward swing in the state was the smallest of any battleground — in large part because of a population boom in metro Atlanta and the large share of Black voters.
And in deep-blue Massachusetts, former Biden White House aide Dan Koh won an open House primary on Tuesday after running aggressively on support from Harris and President Joe Biden. Koh sought their support and featured them prominently in a campaign ad and in social media videos. He said scheduling didn’t work out for them to hit the trail, though.
“I will never run away from two people I admire greatly, who I believe did a lot of good for this country,” Koh said last week.
Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
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