Politics
Beneath the Atlantic seabed, England and Argentina are both losing out
It’s win or bust for England and Argentina in Atlanta tonight.
But in one area of global affairs — in a part of the world very familiar to leaders in London and Buenos Aires — both are about to lose.
As first reported by the Financial Times, developers are prepping to drill the Sea Lion oil field north of the Falklands, the tiny archipelago and British Overseas Territory over which Argentina and Britain went to war in 1982.
Any windfall from an oil boom — and developers reckon revenues could run to hundreds of millions of pounds a year — would be directed to the Falklands government, much to the annoyance of Argentinian President Javier Milei, who insisted any resources “belong to Argentina.”
Not that Brits will look on particularly happily. Oil field cash flowing into Falklands’ coffers (and not to the British state) will be a reminder that the fossil fuel economy in the North Sea, once a powerhouse for jobs and Treasury income, is dwindling fast.
By 2034, according to Navitas Petroleum, co-owners of the Sea Lion field, its revenues could be worth £280 million to the island. By that point, the FT noted, its annual value to the Falklands would outstrip U.K. oil and gas revenues, which are set to dip to just £100 million by 2031.
The Falklands’ government is likely to use the money to rebuild knackered energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, lobby group Offshore Energies UK says, the decline of the North Sea is already costing a thousand jobs a month.
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Million-dollar fundraising advantages and even endorsements from President Donald Trump did little to sway Florida voters Tuesday as they rattled the state’s parties by opposing candidates backed by the establishment.
Newly minted Democratic socialist Angie Nixon scored a massive upset — and notched a win for progressives — by beating retired Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, who had a huge fundraising edge. And, in another major development, two candidates endorsed by Trump, scandal-plagued Rep. Cory Mills and former administration official Catalina Lauf, lost their bids for Congress.
Taken together, the results show Democratic and Republican voters in solidly red Florida are hungry for change amid dissatisfaction with the economy, an ongoing war in Iran and restlessness over the status quo.
“People are frustrated, frankly, with both parties,” said Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, who is a former legislator and chair of the Republican Party of Florida. “They’re frustrated with people not delivering. … They want people to deliver for Floridians. They want people to deliver for Americans.”
National Democrats scrutinized states throughout the country during the primary season, looking for every opportunity they could find to pick up seats and flip the upper chamber come November. The one thing they may not have been betting on: A progressive who sorely lagged in fundraising scoring an upset in Florida. But that’s just what they got with Nixon’s win.
A state lawmaker and Jacksonville community organizer who recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America — but notably did not have DSA’s endorsement — Nixon ended up handily winning with more than 55 percent of the vote, surprising the state as she’s now positioned to campaign against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody, the former state attorney general appointed to the Senate by Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
On Tuesday night, Nixon told supporters who gathered to hear her victory speech in Jacksonville that her win sent “shockwaves” to the Washington establishment.
“And they better get ready,” Nixon said. “When we realize that we are each other, we are not each other’s enemies, and that we are all struggling.”
In the state Legislature, Nixon was an adversary of DeSantis and his fellow Republicans, as she notably opposed Florida’s rare mid-decade redistricting push by railing on the newly drawn maps on the House floor in a pink jumpsuit and shouting through a pink megaphone. Nixon campaigned on progressive policies like free childcare and freezing rent nationally, helping her score support from national progressives like Democratic Reps. Maxwell Frost of Florida, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Vindman had a prominent profile as a National Security Council whistleblower who testified in Trump’s first impeachment trial and secured a massive fundraising advantage surpassing $20 million largely from small-dollar donors. Nixon, meanwhile, didn’t scratch $1 million. But being outgunned proved not to be a factor for Nixon.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a progressive Democrat from Orlando, said Nixon’s campaign centered around the needs of the working class, from affordability to health care. Those concerns generated enough momentum for Nixon’s campaign to overcome the millions of dollars spent by Vindman.
“It really just speaks to saying that money doesn’t determine everything,” Eskamani said. “They’re tired of health care not being affordable and one job not being enough.”
Some Florida Republicans celebrated Nixon’s victory, believing a progressive will be easier for the GOP to overcome in November.
“It was a wild night in Florida politics,” GOP Rep. Randy Fine said at the victory party for Rep. Byron Donalds after he won his own crowded primary. “I mean, the Nixon win is the greatest gift ever. She’s crazy and should be in jail for the stuff she pulled on the House floor.”
But Fernand Amandi, a Democratic strategist for both David Jolly, who won the Democratic primary for governor, said that Nixon’s win shows frustration with longtime GOP control in Florida.
“It tells me that Democrats are uniting behind a message that holds a Republican Party that has total control over Florida government for 30 years responsible for the cost-of-living crisis that Floridians from all walks of life are suffering through,” Amandi said. “It doesn’t matter which wing of the party — they are uniting behind the message.”
On the Republican side, Trump’s endorsement didn’t prove to be the deciding factor in two races. In Florida’s 19th District, Trump’s endorsed candidate, Lauf, a former adviser at the U.S. Department of Commerce during the president’s first term, lost to Jim Schwartzel, a media executive and owner of a conservative talk radio station, by about 7 points.
It was a crowded field, with several former congressmen, including former North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn and New York Rep. Chris Collins also running.
In Florida’s 7th District, Mills fell short of his bid to hold on to his seat, even with the president’s early backing. Instead, former television anchor Ryan Elijah defeated him by about 12 percentage points.
Under investigation by the House and shunned by some of his GOP colleagues in Congress, pressure has been building on Mills for weeks and only intensified recently as Republicans like DeSantis and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna came out against him. Mills has remained adamant that he has done nothing wrong amid a long line of incidents — including a restraining order placed on him at the request of a former girlfriend — and had defied calls from other Republicans to step down from his central Florida congressional seat.
Mills hoped Trump’s endorsement would put him over the line with voters, but it wasn’t enough. Elijah, who outraised Mills and other GOP contenders, tried to make the case during the campaign that a Mills win would make the seat an easier target for Democrats.
During his victory speech Tuesday night, Elijah highlighted the support he got from rank-and-file House Republicans, particularly Rep. Mike Haridopolos, with whom he said he has had a long relationship. And he noted the risk those GOP members took in balking against a Trump-endorsed candidate.
“To have those leaders jump on board with us a couple weeks ago, against an incumbent and against a presidential endorsement, and they did that anyway.” Elijah said. “That is courage right there, and I applaud them for that.”
President Donald Trump just suffered another endorsement loss, this time in deep-red Wyoming.
Republican state Sen. Eric Barlow defeated Trump-backed Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder in the gubernatorial primary on Tuesday.
It’s another blow to Trump’s once-stellar primary endorsement record, which has shown vulnerabilities in recent weeks. Former MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell lost his primary for governor in Minnesota last week, as did a Trump-endorsed Michigan congressional candidate who fell to an opponent who had already dropped out. Two other Trump-backed candidates fell in Florida Tuesday: Rep. Cory Mills and House candidate Catalina Lauf.
Trump’s endorsement power has seemed to particularly wane in governor’s races. Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette all fell in their primaries this year despite the president’s support.
Barlow, a fourth generation Wyomingite rancher, centered his campaign on protecting public lands, funding public schools and expanding rural health care access. Degenfelder leaned heavily on her Trump endorsement, and her campaign as well as outside groups supporting her ran repeated attack ads casting Barlow as too liberal to lead the state.
But Barlow was able to overcome those attacks and Trump’s endorsement on Tuesday.
Some battleground candidates are going viral for shooting from the hip. Jon Ossoff is doing it from a carefully controlled script.
Ossoff drew attention Sunday for calling out a little-known aide to President Donald Trump by first name on a Midtown Atlanta rally stage. It was part of a larger prepared speech that hammered Trump over the war in Iran — and part of a larger strategy to raise his profile in a critical Senate race, all while some national Democrats openly question whether he will mount a 2028 presidential run.
“He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace, gifted by the Emir of Qatar,” Ossoff said, referencing Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant. The comment, though just a brief remark in a 30-minute speech, drew over 5 million views on X and swift backlash from Republicans — including the president himself, who shot back Monday calling Ossoff a “Pee Wee Herman lookalike.”
It was just the latest time footage from an Ossoff campaign speech went viral.
Ossoff’s campaign appearances are marked by pithy stump lines that are prone to catch fire online and aggressive jabs at Trump and his Republican opponent that appeal to Democrats’ desire for fighter candidates. But behind his bold persona on the trail is a senator who is hands-on in all aspects of his campaign, including messaging.
Democrats in Georgia and beyond who have worked with Ossoff or seen him behind-the-scenes say he is meticulous about how he communicates and the details of his campaign’s work.
“He’s very, very involved in almost anything that kind of has his name on it or comes out of him,” said Seth Clark, a Georgia Democrat who has worked with Ossoff on statewide legislative priorities.
Clark recalled working with Ossoff on a letter to the Department of Interior last Congress, and “when it came back, you could tell he’d gone through every word himself.” That cautiousness has become a common part of his approach to politics, one that has carried through to his 2026 reelection battle.
Georgia’s is one of the most consequential Senate races in the country, and a misstep could carry enormous consequences. Democrats must defend a state that Trump won by just over two percentage points in 2024 in their uphill battle to flip the Senate.
“There are no decisions that get made that he doesn’t sign off on,” said a Georgia Democratic operative close to the Ossoff campaign, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly about their private interactions. “He’s very focused, very intentional, always on message but always on the right message. He doesn’t want complacency because this could slip away from us. He’s seen Georgia’s Democrats lose elections they should have won.”
Ossoff’s campaign declined to comment. In an interview with MS NOW on Monday evening, when asked why he chose to invoke the president’s aide Harp by name, Ossoff said that Trump has “mired” the country in a “geopolitical disaster” and “retreats into this bubble of West Wing aides who are his security blanket to make him feel good about himself.”
Public polling shows Ossoff ahead of his Republican opponent, Rep. Mike Collins. But his profile has extended far beyond Georgia, fueled in large part by the series of viral clips and moments — even if he and his allies privately and publicly insist his focus is strictly on winning reelection and has no White House ambitions.
“The moment the national political organization gets a whiff that Jon Ossoff is thinking about running for president is the moment that [the] Senate campaign falls from under him,” said a longtime Democratic strategist.
However: “That doesn’t take away from the fact that … national leaders, national supporters are paying close attention to a guy who should be ahead by, you know, by one point at the most in a state like Georgia.”
Ossoff, for his part, has repeatedly dismissed the idea that he is entertaining a 2028 presidential bid, and is instead focused on the Senate race before him.
Ossoff’s team has also placed national ad buys in an effort to capture more attention and money: His campaign has spent over $1 million for ads on streaming platforms in New York City’s market, and has hit nearly $20 million in spending on digital advertisements according to an AdImpact analysis.
And while Ossoff’s viral moments can appear off-the-cuff, people who have worked with him describe a candidate who is anything but casual in his public presentation.
A national Democratic pollster who has worked with Ossoff on a prior campaign said his “team understands how to put him and clip him … but I also think that he’s the type of guy, from knowing him, who’s in control of his message.”
“His speeches are just really optimized for clipping,” said Michael Vainisi, a content strategist who has worked with a number of past Democratic presidents and senators. “Really any speech should be, because at the end of the day you’re talking about maximizing clippable sound bites. It’s almost what a cable news hit was, except now you can control a lot more of the scene and what you’re saying.”
National Democrats who have watched Ossoff’s recent rise say the combination of careful message control and ability to go viral has made him stand out at a moment when the party is looking for candidates who can break through.
“Democrats want to fight back, they want to stand for something, and they want to show that they can govern,” said a New York-based Democratic donor who is planning to attend an Ossoff fundraiser in the Hamptons this weekend. “And he embodies that.”
Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.
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