Politics
Cleveland’s mayor wants Democrats to know millennials like him are impatient and ready to lead
The age of the millennial politician is here — nowhere more obviously than in city halls around the country. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb surprised Ohio’s political establishment in 2021 by soaring to victory at the age of 34. The former Obama intern-turned-Key Bank executive is now the president of the Democratic Mayors’ Association and a rising star within the party.
I met up with Bibb — clad in his signature round tortoiseshell glasses and a slim-cut navy suit suit even on a hot and humid Sunday in July. We talked about his city and its relationship with the federal government — from the impact federal cuts may have on his city’s hospital system to his desire to work with Republicans and President Donald Trump on permitting reform.
Over a plate of mac and cheese at trendy Cleveland bistro Luxe, Bibb said that Democrats at large have missed the fact that millennials are impatient — not willing to wait their turn to run for office, deeply entrepreneurial and chomping at the bit to solve the crises they’ve spent their entire lives navigating.
“When I ran for mayor, a lot of folks — a lot of establishment Democrats in the party — told me to wait my turn,” Bibb explained. “We are impatient about this country, because we know what crises look like … because we’ve experienced them firsthand.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You’re from Cleveland.
Born and raised in Cleveland. I live in the southeast side, in the Mount Pleasant/Union Miles neighborhood.
I’m not that familiar with Cleveland. So tell me what that means, vibes- or identity-wise.
It’s got a crazy identity in terms of its history. At the height of Cleveland’s prominence — and we were once the fifth largest city in the United States — it was a Jewish middle-class neighborhood. Then you have white flight, redlining, and it became a Black middle class neighborhood.
To this day, there’s still remnants of that. When I was growing up in the 1990s at the height of the crack epidemic in the city, it still had a strong Black middle class, still strong main streets. And one of the reasons why I ran was to try to reverse that decline.
In an interview earlier this year, you mentioned that housing was a policy space where this Congress might make some progress. Have you seen anything helpful since then?
Nothing yet. And what concerns me is that with the passage of this “big beautiful bill,” it’s adding to the deficit, which is going to lead to an increase in interest rates, which is going to lead to an increase in the cost of buying a home.
If there was one space where I think Trump could have some real bipartisan support, it’s around housing. He’s a builder, right?
I think every mayor or governor you talk to wants to see Congress support us on permitting reform at every level of government. And every mayor or governor you talk to wants HUD to streamline regulations so it’s easier to build in America.
Are there other places you see a missed opportunity, where interests align?
I know that the administration is looking at opportunity zones and … childcare tax credits.
And then on immigration reform … The best thing for us to do to be a competitive economy is to pass common sense immigration reform. So instead of all this theater and chaos and this other bullshit, let’s get back to work and let’s find common sense immigration reform. Everybody wants a secure border, but we also need to give people a pathway to citizenship, because if we don’t, we can’t be globally competitive.
You have connections with many other mayors because of the Democratic Mayors Association. Is there any housing policy you’re seeing in other cities that excites you?
A lot of us right now focus on permitting reform. Cleveland will be launching that effort this fall, where we’re streamlining the process to upload your drawings and to get a permit from City Hall.
Really proud of the work that Mayor Todd Gloria has done in San Diego, where he has really worked quickly to decrease street homelessness in the downtown parts of San Diego. That’s declined over 60 percent since he took office.
I look at what Andre Dickens has done in Atlanta, where he has taken old shipping containers and vacant lots and made it a homeless shelter where people have dignity and support to get the second chance they deserve.
What about some of the cuts that have come out of D.C. recently, on education funding or Medicaid. Are you finding any ways to backfill these cuts?
I think every mayor in the country will agree with this: There is no replacement that we can find to plug in the gaps from the federal government.
Cleveland is home to our only safety net hospital, Metro Hospital, and they could go out of business if these cuts go through. What’s striking is that [Trump] worked to put some provisions in this bill with Republican senators to help rural hospitals, but nothing to support urban hospitals. That’s gonna decimate our public health infrastructure.
And residents in Ohio are going to feel any impacts sooner, because Ohio also rolled back state Medicaid expansion — right?
Correct.
The state cuts … will put a further strain on hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic, Metro Health and emergency hospitals. It’s an issue of public safety, because people may be committing crimes out of survival now, because we no longer have a strong social safety net.
All these things are interconnected. It’s easy for the president and Republicans in DC to try to say, “Democrat-run cities are unsafe.” But they’re the ones making our country less safe by passing these uncompassionate, crazy bills.
I totally understand that you can’t replace the federal cuts. But you said at your State of the City address that you were looking for philanthropic avenues to try to help in other ways.
I’ll be convening healthcare CEOs and hospitals, I’ll be convening my foundation leaders, to figure out what we can do to stand in the gap until we get change from the federal government.
One idea is how do we start to promote more preventative care to make sure that folks aren’t getting sick before they need to go to hospital. I’ll be working with Metro Health Hospital, our local social safety net hospital, to get folks enrolled in the exchanges before these changes occur so they can get the care they need. And I have a mobile health clinic that we deploy at my department of public health as well. So all of the above is on the table.
You’re a millennial. What are Democrats missing about millennials?
That we’re impatient.
Say more.
When I ran for mayor, a lot of folks — a lot of establishment Democrats in the party — told me to wait my turn. We are impatient about this country, because we know what crises look like … because we’ve experienced them firsthand — from 9/11 to the great recession to two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the pandemic.
But we’re also the most entrepreneurial generation as well.
Follow-up question — though I don’t know how qualified we (millennials) are to talk for them — about Gen Z. In the 2024 election, nationally, millennials stayed the most blue. Gen Z swung toward Trump.
Gen Z sees a rigged system.
But we (millennials) do too, right? Why does it hit different?
I think for Gen Z … they see all the massive amount of wealth being created because of technology and the proliferation of Amazon, Uber, what have you. They don’t understand why we can’t get our shit together and fix this stuff quickly.
They looked to someone like Donald Trump, who is the disrupter, to fix it.
The reason why he’s losing his base on Epstein and the Epstein files is because they thought they could trust him as the disruptor. He would be transparent. We want transparency … and now they’re not getting that.
What do you want Democrats in D.C. to do more of?
Listen to mayors. We are closest to the challenges and the pain of what this federal destruction looks like, but we’re also closest to the damn solutions. We know how to fix America’s housing problem because we’re doing it. We’re fixing public safety in cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta. We know how to create good quality jobs with union and labor being a key partner.
The answer to the Democratic Party’s future and problems will not come from congressional D.C. Democrats. It needs to come from America’s mayors and America’s governors.
Your summer playlist — What are you listening to right now?
Drake is solid. I listen to a lot of Jungle, I love Jungle. I’ve been in a classic Jay Z mode too, recently. I feel like Jay Z [and] Memphis Bleak is like my quintessential growing up in this city [in the] summer vibe that gets me in a good mood.
I just sent my barber my [Spotify] day list. It was called “luxury barber shop Sunday afternoon.” And he’s like “Dude, it’s straight bangers.”
You know he’s playing it at the barbershop right now … And they’re like, “this is the mayor’s playlist.”
[laughing] Exactly, yeah.
Sen. Ted Cruz fired back at JD Vance for suggesting he’s already focused on a 2028 presidential bid, calling the vice president “insecure” while insisting he’s focused on the 2026 midterms.
“In my experience, people engage in political bomb-throwing when they’re feeling insecure,” Cruz said in a phone interview Saturday. “So he’s welcome to make whatever comments he likes. I’m going to keep focusing on the midterms and helping us win on Election Day in the next 30 days.”
Cruz’s comments came in response to an NBC News interview Thursday with Vance in which the vice president suggested Cruz was prematurely eyeing a White House run.
“It is really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president,” Vance said. “At this moment, I’m not. I’m trying to help elect Republicans. That’s what I’m going to keep on doing.”
Vance is widely viewed as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, but Cruz has said he doesn’t believe Vance is the sure-fire nominee and suggested he might throw his own hat in the ring. “I’ll certainly be part of the discussion,” he told MS NOW in August.
On Saturday, Cruz told Blue Light News he is dedicated to helping Republicans maintain control of both chambers of Congress. He pointed to his travel this cycle to campaign with candidates in Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina as well as in his home state of Texas as proof. He also said he has trips planned this month to campaign with Republicans in Alaska, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.
“Over the last 10 years, there’s no Republican in the country who has campaigned for more Senate candidates, more House candidates, more gubernatorial candidates than I have, and this year will be no exception,” he said.
Cruz rattled off a list of a dozen GOP candidates he’s helped bolster in past years, including former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, U.S. House candidate Karoline Leavitt — and the vice president.
“Indeed, ironically, I spent a full day on the road with JD Vance, campaigning with him when he was running for Senate in Ohio [in 2022],” Cruz said. “I was very glad he won that race. I was very glad to help him.”
A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to Cruz’s latest comments.
Vance campaigned in Texas and Florida this week and will hold a rally in Alaska on Monday.
Republicans have tried to find a new boogeyman this year as they rail against Democratic socialism and the “radical” left: Zohran Mamdani. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Bernie Sanders.
Still more mentioned than all of them, at least in campaign ads: former President Joe Biden.
A Blue Light News review of hundreds of ads running in battleground House and Senate races in recent months shows Republicans largely haven’t seized on progressive icons in paid media. Instead, Biden is the Democrat most likely to be mentioned in GOP ads this cycle, coming up across dozens of races.
President Donald Trump has frequently sought to blame Biden for high prices and other challenges that his administration has faced. Even so, the former president has become a far less useful punching bag for Republicans since leaving office and remaining largely out of the spotlight: At this time in the 2024 cycle, Biden had been mentioned in more than 1,000 Republican House and Senate ads, according to AdImpact data.
The data illustrates how Republicans have been unable to land on a clear villain as they seek to convince voters that Democratic control of Congress would be worse than keeping the GOP in charge. Their warnings about old establishment figures like Biden and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi don’t land like they once did. But they also haven’t been able to seize on emerging democratic socialists like they had hoped to.
Democrats’ foil, meanwhile, has never been more obvious, with Trump’s approval rating in the mid-thirties amid continued high prices and the Iran war.
“No one will match the level of Pelosi for Republicans, in part because the Obamacare vote was such a touchstone moment. And the ‘we have to pass it to find out what’s in it,’” said Doug Heye, a longtime Republican operative who noted he still has “Fire Pelosi” swag from the Republicans’ successful 2010 midterm rout. The then-speaker was central to the GOP’s campaign message that year.
Part of the challenge for Republicans comes from Democrats’ lack of a clear leader. Pelosi stepped down from Democratic leadership at the start of 2023, and her successor, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) does not elicit the same animus from Republicans. In the 2022 cycle, her last term as Democratic leader, Pelosi was invoked in more than 80 GOP ads, Blue Light News’s analysis found. Now, she’s mentioned just a handful of times, while Jeffries hasn’t been mentioned in any battleground TV ads this year, according to the Blue Light News review of transcripts.
Biden was an easy target for the GOP in 2022 and 2024, when Republicans blamed him for high inflation and the cost of living. Now, poll after poll shows that voters are more likely to hold Trump — not Biden — responsible for the current state of the U.S. economy, even as Trump tries to redirect the blame.
Even Kamala Harris, the most recent Democratic standard-bearer as their 2024 nominee, is named less often in paid media this cycle than Biden. And among other potential future Democratic presidential candidates, only California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez appear as Republican foils — and not as often as Harris or Biden.
Ocasio-Cortez is often mentioned by Republicans in the same sentence as Sanders, especially when the GOP seeks to tie Democrats in battleground races to the party’s progressive wing. In Michigan’s hotly contested Senate race, former public health official Abdul El-Sayed was endorsed by both — something his opponent Mike Rogers and GOP outside groups have seized on.
“El Sayed is endorsed by extreme liberals like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders,” one recent ad from the conservative super PAC Sentinel Action Fund says.
Some Republicans have sought to run against the progressives even when there are no such ties: One ad that ran earlier this year from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the state’s GOP comptroller promised to stand up to Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and the “new radical left.” Neither Sanders nor Ocasio-Cortez have endorsed in either race.
Most often, the GOP has run ads seeking to tie Democratic candidates to socialism or communism — the concepts themselves — in dozens of House battleground races and nearly every major Senate race. Just this week, the Trump administration launched a national $20 million DHS-funded campaign-style ad spree that features Trump lambasting “communism, socialism, and Marxism.”
But when it comes to specific political figures — like Mamdani, New York City’s mayor — it gets complicated. Republicans once salivated at the prospect of Mamdani as a foil when he was first elected last year. But his first year in office has largely boosted his standing with voters, complicating efforts to turn his tenure into a negative for Democrats.
Trump’s surprising continued embrace of the New York City mayor — just last week, the president stood by Mamdani and said he hoped he would “be a great mayor” — has further complicated GOP efforts to paint him as a villain.
In a handful of swingy New York congressional districts, Republicans have still attempted to tie their opponents to Mamdani, while Democrats have pushed back on the connection. In New York’s 21st District, which Trump won by more than 20 points two years ago, Democratic dairy farmer Blake Gendebien ran an ad arguing that his Republican opponent wants voters to think he’s “running against Zohran Mamdani” but “that’s a load of bull.”
The GOP has characterized prominent Democrats as socialist for decades. As progressives won a series of contested primaries this year, some Democrats worried the rise of figures with ties to the Democratic Socialists of America would give Republicans easy ammunition for the general election.
But being called a “socialist” may not have the same shock value it once did.
“I don’t think just calling a candidate ‘socialist’ works that well for Republicans, particularly this late in the game,” said Matt Towery, a longtime GOP pollster. “If a candidate focuses on parts of the DSA’s platform and can authentically pin it on their opponent, that might work. But Republicans just assume people have a bad reaction to the term socialist, and the term doesn’t elicit the same reaction it used to.”
Politics
‘A slow-moving car crash:’ Republicans are wary of the $200 million-plus price tag to save Ken Paxton
Republicans know they have to spend big to save Ken Paxton. They’re increasingly worried MAGA Inc. won’t throw down in time.
In private conversations over recent weeks, senior Hill Republicans and GOP officials have nudged President Donald Trump’s team to start spending more on the Texas Senate race before it’s too late, according to three people with direct knowledge of those conversations, who were granted anonymity to discuss them.
Those fears escalated after audio leaked of Paxton privately trashing Trump’s midterm convention, with some worrying it could impact whether MAGA Inc. continues spending after a current wave of GOP ad bookings run out Oct. 12.
A Trump operative told Blue Light News that MAGA Inc. and its affiliates are expected to spend near $45 million on direct mail, TV, and digital advertising in Texas through Oct. 12, an increase from its previous $20 million to boost Paxton. But they said the team is still assessing how much more money to send in the final weeks, in consultation with Senate Republicans and their top super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund.
The Trump operative, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly, would not commit to any plans when asked by Blue Light News.
With national Democrats starting to finally spend for their Senate nominee, James Talarico, after months of holding off, and as polling of the race tightens, Republicans expect the cost of salvaging Paxton’s campaign will only skyrocket. And, they’ve started to panic.
“It’s a five-alarm fire, no doubt,” one GOP senator said. “Can we put it out? I hope so.”
“This is a slow-moving car crash that we’re witnessing right now,” a Republican strategist in the state said. “And there’s a 75% chance that the ultimate result here will be catastrophic from a GOP Senate majority standpoint.”
A fourth Republican, a national operative, spoke to the urgency factor: “While it’s money we shouldn’t have needed to spend, it needs to be spent now,” said a national GOP operative, describing the state as more winnable than North Carolina, Georgia and potentially Ohio.
Even with a massive war chest, Texas is turning into a huge money sink for the GOP that senators worry could hurt them in other tight races as they work to defend deep-red states and try to flip blue seats in Michigan and New Hampshire.
Trump himself nodded to some of the concerns at a rally just across the Texas border in Oklahoma Thursday night, saying those voters aren’t the ones he’s concerned about.
“We’re worried about Michigan. We’re worried about Texas,” he told the crowd. “We’re worried about a few states.”The president is scheduled to visit Texas again next week for a rally in San Antonio next Wednesday.
SLF poured another $60 million into Texas on Wednesday, bringing its total expenditure there to a record-breaking $131 million. With the MAGA Inc. money and additional GOP ad reservations, the race is already on track to top $200 million from outside Republican groups hoping to save Paxton. Paxton’s own campaign recently announced a $20 million ad buy — one of the largest single media investments in a Texas Senate race.
Some Republicans want MAGA Inc. to take over spending for Paxton in Texas in the final few weeks, so SLF can focus its resources elsewhere. MAGA Inc. could also funnel money into SLF’s recently established Texas PAC. But, according to two people with direct knowledge of that matter, that hasn’t happened.
“At some point I think the people spending that money are going to have to make hard choices and figure out where the money can have the biggest impact, and certainly Texas is the most expensive,” Sen. John Cornyn, who lost to Trump-backed Paxton in the primary, recently told POLITICO.
SLF Executive Director Alex Latcham indicated to Blue Light News the group will keep spending in Texas: “Senate Leadership Fund’s investment through Texas PAC affirms our commitment to maintaining the Republican majority and defeating Far-Left liberals like James Talarico.”
But Republicans’ money concerns have been complicated by Paxton himself. A growing number of GOP senators and top operatives have been stunned by what they described as unforced errors by the Texas Senate nominee. For example, he crossed one of the brightest red lines with Trump, telling a group of donors that “everybody’s numbers dropped” after the president’s GOP convention in Dallas last month, according to the audio leak reported by The New York Times.
“There seems to be very little strategy there,” said another Republican senator, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the race. “Sometimes, I think [Paxton] wants to lose.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump, while on his way to Texas to tour a motor facility on Thursday, told reporters he hadn’t talked to Paxton about his convention comments. Later, he told a crowd in Texas that “Ken Paxton was at my side more than anybody, and I have to always remember that because he can be a pain in the ass sometimes. I’ll be honest.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told reporters this week that he hadn’t seen the audio of Paxton trashing Trump’s convention. He acknowledged the stakes in his home state were high — and that the influx of cash is key.
“The reason that it is a serious race and a close race right now is that for several months the Democrats were massively outspending us,” he said, “and I am glad now that we are seeing money invested in communicating with the voters.”
The White House has attempted to reassure concerned senators, with chief of staff Susie Wiles telling Senate Republicans this week that there will be enough money available for competitive races in the final stretch, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting.
GOP operatives in both Michigan and New Hampshire said they feel that some of the cash being shoveled toward Texas should be going to their states instead. Most polls show Republicans running narrowly behind or neck and neck in both states, even though they hold a spending advantage on the airwaves there.
“We’re focusing so much on ‘we’ve got to put this money into Texas.’ Why? We’ve never had a problem in Texas. Let’s focus on taking back a seat we haven’t had in years,” said an ally of former Sen. John E. Sununu, who’s in a tight race against Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. “There are real chances in Michigan and New Hampshire,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics.
Sununu’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Latcham, who heads SLF, said that “Texas PAC is a dedicated effort that will not take resources from our other ongoing investments across the Senate map.”
Recent polling still shows the Texas Senate race with a razor-thin margin. Most public polling over the past two months shows Talarico with an edge, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll Tuesday that shows Paxton leading by three points among likely voters, 48% to 45%.
“I don’t think the needle has moved in the last month,” said one Texas Republican elected official, granted anonymity to speak frankly. “Unless it’s the worst polling that’s ever been done in political history, all this spend hasn’t changed anything, and I think people have made their mind up.”
Lisa Kashinsky, Samuel Benson, Alex Gangitano and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
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