Congress
Florida Democrat Frederica Wilson not running for reelection
MIAMI GARDENS, Florida — Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Democrat from Florida known for championing education causes and expanding opportunities for Black communities, announced Friday she will not seek reelection.
During a street-naming ceremony in her honor next to the elementary school where she once served as principal, the 83-year-old said, “This has been a journey. But it’s time. It’s time.”
“I know all of you are saying, ‘What is the congresswoman going to do?’ Well, the congresswoman is going to not seek another term,” she said to a collective “aw” from the crowd gathered.
Wilson’s announcement makes her the latest in a line of aging members of Congress to choose not to run again ahead of November’s midterm elections. It also comes amid growing challenges to Black political power in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act. As Republicans rush to redraw congressional maps ahead of this year’s midterm elections, the Congressional Black Caucus — of which Wilson is a member — is poised to lose up to one-third of its members.
Florida earlier this month approved a new map heavily favoring Republicans, though Wilson’s Miami-based district remains a blue stronghold. State Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from Miami Gardens, announced Wednesday he wouldn’t be running for reelection for the Legislature in November. He is seen as one of the lead contenders for Wilson’s seat and would be the first openly gay member of Congress from Florida if elected.
Wilson is one of the most recognizable members of the House, known for a distinctive style that includes brightly colored clothing and matching cowboy hats. She had previously denied rumors that she was retiring, calling them “crazy.”
“I’m almost distraught,” she told Axios last week. “It’s not true. I am still planning on running.”
Wilson then conducted an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald that published Friday, in which she explained she’d tried to be “politically strategic” about her announcement given GOP redistricting. She added that she felt the weight of the decision given that her predecessor was Carrie Meek, a Black leader, saying, “I didn’t want to gamble on this seat being taken away from us.”
“I figured if I announced that I was retiring, what would the Legislature and the governor do? What would they say? Would District 24 be an easy target because Frederica is no longer there? I’m a strong candidate,” she said. “With me not here, would that weaken the survival of District 24?”
She also told the Herald that she wasn’t ready to endorse a successor yet but indicated she would be vetting candidates to make a decision.
The street-naming ceremony honoring Wilson on Friday featured numerous Miami-Dade County officials from both parties, with a packed audience gathered under a tent next to an elementary school named after the lawmaker. She wore a light pink suit with rhinestone embellishments and a cowboy hat to the event and said when she took the stage that the ceremony represented a “bookend” to her political career.
She also joked that the elementary school named after her would be easy to find now because it was on a street also named after her.
Speakers repeatedly raised her mentoring program for boys of color, which began when she was a school board member and is known as the “5000 Role Models of Excellence Project.” It has helped thousands of men obtain higher education degrees. Wilson said Friday she would be traveling across the U.S. to spread the program in other parts of the country.
“A street just isn’t enough,” said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, who is also among the names talked about for the seat, while praising her work on youth mentorship in the state. “We’re here because you’re not just an elected official — there are a lot of elected officials — not just a leader; you’re a living legend.”
Miami-Dade County Commission Vice Chair Kionne McGhee also took the stage and talked about how Wilson’s mentorship program changed his life. “It was this woman who looked at young boys who were told that they would never amount to anything and told them that they too can walk the halls of Congress — and not only walk the halls of Congress but effectuate policies that would dictate the future of their children,” he said.
Wilson, whose district encompasses parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties, has served since first winning election in 2010. She previously worked as a teacher, principal, school board member and in the Legislature, where she overlapped with now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio — whom she called a “dear, dear friend” — and pushed to require Florida public schools to teach African American history. She spoke extensively about her experience during Friday’s event.
She has served as the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee and as a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020, Wilson introduced legislation to create the U.S. Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys and later served as the agency’s chair.
During President Donald Trump’s first term, Wilson criticized the president as insensitive after a call he made to the widow of a South Florida soldier killed in Niger.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the homestretch of the election.
Paxton’s number is double his $9 million second-quarter total, and signals Republican donors are rallying behind their Texas nominee. The campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
Democrat James Talarico’s campaign has yet to release his fundraising totals for the quarter. He raised $30 million last quarter.
“We now have the resources to make sure every Texan sees Talarico’s radical record between now and Election Day,” said Nick Maddux, senior adviser to the Paxton campaign.
The past quarter — the first full reporting period after Paxton’s primary runoff victory in May — saw Republicans flock to Texas for their midterm convention, which featured pro-Paxton fundraisers on the sidelines. Last week, the Paxton campaign announced a massive $20 million ad buy across the state, one of the largest-ever single media investments in a Texas Senate race.
Paxton needs the money: In a recording of a private donor event last month shared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Texas has emerged as a huge money suck for Senate Republicans, who have poured tens of millions into the state to aid Paxton. Senate Leadership Fund, their top super PAC, has spent or reserved well over $100 million in the state to date, and the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and its affiliates plan to spend near $45 million in the state through Oct. 12.
Paxton has acknowledged that money has changed the race’s narrative: In a recording of a private donor event last monthshared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Most recent public polling shows Talarico with a small lead in the race in spite of the recent onslaught in GOP spending, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing Paxton leading by three points.
Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.
The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.
First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).
“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”
Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”
Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.
The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.
“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.
“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.
Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.
“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.
Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.
The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.
Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.
“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.
Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.
“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.
What else we’re watching:
— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.
— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.
Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
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