Politics

Colorado’s insurgent wave proves Democrats want fighters

Published

3 months ago

July 1, 2026

An anti-establishment avalanche blanketed Colorado on Tuesday night.

Across the Centennial State, the candidates who cast themselves as fighters against the old-line Democratic establishment soared to victory — the clearest proof yet that the base’s fury at their leaders extends far beyond the five boroughs, following insurgents’ major victories in New York City last week.

Colorado democratic socialist Melat Kiros scored a stunning victory over 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who was first elected before the 29-year-old Kiros was born, while Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated longtime Sen. Michael Bennet, losses for two of the most dominant Democratic figures in the state. Both winners were viewed as longshots just weeks ago, but Kiros and Weiser successfully positioned themselves as the true scrappers while painting their opponents as Washington insiders who were too beholden to the party machine, with little to show for their years in office.

“For decades Democrats have failed to meaningfully deliver for working families,” Kiros said in an interview after the race was called. “We have to root out the corruption and get money out of our politics … It’s not about popular support, it’s about political will — and that means we have to vote out any of the incumbents that are standing in our way by taking that kind of corporate PAC money.” That includes, she added, not supporting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.

Manny Rutinel, a progressive state representative backed by an infusion of cash from prominent Latino groups, also cruised to the Democratic nomination to face Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) for one of the most competitive House seats in the country.

Rutinel focused much of his campaign on attacking his more-moderate foe for failing to stand up to President Donald Trump’s ICE operations.

“Folks right now are upset with the establishment, and they’re looking for fighters who are going to stand up to Donald Trump and Gabe Evans, because they are destroying our economy,” Rutinel said. “We need fighters who understand the struggles, and we’ll fight for them every single day. That’s what I’ve done throughout my entire career. That’s what I’m going to do when I’m in Congress.”

That same anti-establishment energy ran up and down the ballot Tuesday night.

Moderate-leaning Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) won his primary. But his democratic socialist-aligned opponent, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, ended the night closing in on a single-digit loss — despite Hickenlooper’s nearly 9-to-1 fundraising advantage over Gonzales in a race few observers thought would be close. She led him in Denver, the city where he was once mayor. Hickenlooper’s margin of victory was narrower than Weiser’s with 90 percent of the vote counted.

A number of more-moderate state legislators trailed their further-left opponents as well.

“Voters are angry,” said Doug Friednash, a longtime Colorado Democratic strategist and former gubernatorial chief of staff to Hickenlooper. “They are all anti-establishment and don’t feel like our leaders have fought hard enough and don’t have a coherent voice. Kiros is the clincher.”

Kiros lost her job as an attorney after writing an op-ed slamming the backlash against critics of Israel’s government, and she launched her campaign nearly a year ago with an ad portraying herself as a fighter who would deliver change. She painted DeGette, a reliable progressive vote but low-profile member, as someone who wasn’t “fighting back like they should.” In the two-minute ad, Kiros referred to the need for a fighter six times — which she carried over into her victory speech Tuesday night.

Weiser’s campaign didn’t mirror Kiros’ DSA-backed candidacy, but he did cast himself as someone who would take on both the Democratic establishment and the Trump administration. While he’s a two-term statewide official — and at age 58, is only three years younger than Bennet — Weiser built his campaign around the dozens of lawsuits he’s brought as attorney general against the president. He’s sued over everything from the president’s executive order on birthright citizenship to federal funding freezes.

“Coloradans need a governor who is a fighter,” Weiser said in an ad earlier this year. “I’ll always stand up to bullies, especially Donald Trump. Congress isn’t doing it. But I am. We are stopping him in court, winning 34 times and counting.”

Kiros’ campaign was buoyed by a wave of support from national progressive leaders and groups. She picked up major endorsements from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Justice Democrats, which has been on a hot streak this primary season and was the first national group to back Kiros’ campaign, framed the win as validation. “Our candidates are winning because they are running on an affirmative vision to make life more affordable for working class voters — from Medicare for All to ending taxpayer-funded genocide — and they are not afraid to call out a Democratic establishment that stopped fighting for us the minute they started being bankrolled by the corporations raising our prices,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the group.

The Democratic Socialists of America also poured major resources into the race, running phone banks for Kiros nearly daily in the campaign’s final stretch, knocking on over 100,000 doors and making over 500,000 calls on the ground in Denver.

Popular socialist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who emerged as one of the most visible outside organizers in New York’s insurgent sweep, dedicated multiple streams to boosting Kiros’ candidacy in the weeks leading up to the primary. At one point, he hosted her for an extended interview and also ran multiple marathon phone-banking sessions for her campaign live on stream, urging his viewers to call voters alongside him before ultimately traveling to Denver to campaign with Kiros in person on primary day.

“A thirty-year incumbent was defeated tonight. It’s clear that there is a real hunger for change. Democrats all over the country are demanding it,” Piker said. “That change is a working class centered movement. It’s socialism. We are not done yet.”

Politics

Trump eyes an October campaign rally — in Alabama

Published

4 hours ago

September 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is tentatively set to visit Alabama for a political rally next week, a curious move in a deep-red state as his party fights for control of Congress in several battlegrounds.

The event is penciled in for Oct. 2 in Mobile, but the plans have not yet been finalized and are subject to change, according to two people with direct knowledge of the preparations who were granted anonymity to disclose private planning.

An October rally in Alabama would be a somewhat confounding decision for the president. The GOP has found itself having to play defense in their own territory recently, with Democratic candidates are seriously competing for Senate seats in normally red states like Alaska and Texas. But Alabama has not been considered a state where Democrats have any real shot at winning any statewide office.

Spokespeople for the White House and Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The rally could help shore up support for state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is locked in a somewhat competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures. Marques is still seen to have the advantage after the Supreme Court allowed the state to use a House map that reconfigured Figures’ majority-Black district earlier this year. Mobile, though, is outside of that district.

Marques’ campaign and Figures’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

A foray into Alabama would not be the first time that the president has tried to shore up support in a solidly Republican state this cycle — he rallied last month in South Carolina for Sen. Darline Graham during her primary runoff — but as the general election season has begun he has also started to visit battleground states. Last week, he rallied alongside GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley in North Carolina.

Trump’s potential campaign visit would follow Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s announcement last week that the Trump administration has granted a $2.5 billion loan to the Alabama Toll Road, Bridge, and Tunnel Authority. That money will fund the construction of the Mobile River Bridge — the largest infrastructure project in the state’s history. The president is also fond of GOP Rep. Barry Moore, who is running for Senate in the state. Another close ally, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, is the Republican nominee for governor. He’s running against Democratic former Sen. Doug Jones, who he unseated in 2020.

Politics

Young men are swinging away hard from Republicans, pessimistic about economy, new poll finds

Published

14 hours ago

September 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans’ 2024 gains among young men have evaporated — and that could have instant ramifications this November, according to a new Cygnal poll.

President Donald Trump narrowly carried young men in 2024, according to exit polls, a big swing toward the GOP from past elections. But Democrats’ generic ballot lead among male likely voters ages 18-30 now sits at 57%-40%, according to the new survey.

Trump’s favorability is underwater at just 38%-55%, and Republicans’ net favorability among the demographic now sits at -9 points, with 40% viewing the party favorably and 49% unfavorably.

One silver lining for the GOP: Among all registered voters sampled, including those least likely to turn out in November, the Democratic generic ballot lead is much smaller, 44% to 41%.

“It is not a very good electorate, if you’re the Republican Party, among the people who are the most determined to vote,” said Alex Tarascio, pollster and principal at Cygnal, in an interview with Blue Light News ahead of the poll’s release during Thursday’s Symposium on Young American Men.

Young men alone likely won’t determine control of Congress; they make up a fraction of the electorate, and they are less likely to vote than women of the same age or their older counterparts. But that lack of enthusiasm itself is a warning sign for Republicans, who will need to motivate their base ahead of November if they wish to maintain control of Congress.

The young men sampled are overwhelmingly concerned about cost-of-living issues — the same reason that many swung toward the GOP two years ago.

When given a list of options and asked which will matter most in determining their vote in November, a wide plurality — 29% — selected “inflation and the cost of living,” and another 14% chose “housing costs and being able to afford a place to live.” When asked what policies would make the biggest difference in their lives, the top answers again deal with the economy: The most-selected options were lowering the cost of goods, lowering housing costs and cutting taxes.

Many young men feel pessimistic about their ability to achieve success. When asked if they feel the rules in this country are set up to work for or against young men, 43% said they feel the rules are set up against them to 47% who said the rules are set up in their favor.

That pessimism bleeds into how they view other institutions. Both the Democratic Party (-1) and Republican Party (-9) have net-negative favorability among the demographic, and the White House’s current occupants are even more unpopular: Vice President JD Vance sits at 37% favorability with -10 net favorability, while Trump is at 38% favorability with -17 net.

“Young men are pretty down on institutions and political figures, and this one isn’t any exception to that,” Tarascio said.

Republicans successfully targeted young men and low-propensity voters in 2024 to help propel them to victory largely in part by having Trump sit for interviews with podcast hosts and influencers popular with young men. Trump has yet to return to those forums en masse ahead of the midterms, but he’s repeatedly told voters to pretend as if he’s on the ballot in November.

But Trump may no longer be the motivator he once was for turning out young, male, low-propensity voters. Among those surveyed who were least likely to vote, Trump’s net favorability is -22, lower than the respondents most likely to vote, where his net favorability is -19.

“If Trump gets in front of them, I don’t think it’s a bad bet, but for some of these people it could backfire,” Tarascio said.

The poll was conducted Sept. 15-18 with a sample of 800 registered male voters ages 18-30. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.

Politics

NRSC Chair Tim Scott leaves Georgia, North Carolina off his list of top Senate targets

Published

1 day ago

September 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is shifting its focus away from the North Carolina and Georgia Senate races as it works to shore up red states like Texas and flip other Democratic-held seats.

In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, Sen. Tim Scott, the chair of the NRSC, told Senate Republicans that the campaign arm will focus its spending going forward on defending GOP seats in Maine, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa and Texas and trying to flip the Democratic-held seats of Michigan and New Hampshire, according to four people in the room who were granted anonymity to share private details.

That list notably leaves out North Carolina GOP nominee Michael Whatley’s battle against Democrat Roy Cooper and Georgia GOP nominee Mike Collins’ effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Scott’s briefing is the clearest sign yet that Republicans have deprioritized the two states, as POLITICO has reported, while senior Republicans grow increasingly resigned to the possibility of losing those races. It’s a remarkable shift: President Donald Trump carried Georgia twice in 2016 and 2024 and North Carolina over the last three presidential elections.

In deprioritizing North Carolina, the NRSC is effectively ceding a state that Democrats haven’t won in the Senate since 2008.

Still, other GOP groups with massive war chests, including Trump’s MAGA Inc., could pick up the slack.

Scott also shared with the senators polling showing Republicans are locked in tight battles in several other key races, which tracks with much of the public polling, according to the four people.

For example, one poll found that GOP Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio is still trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Scott also showed polling indicating Republican John Sununu is essentially neck-and-neck with Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, a seat Republicans are laser-focused on trying to flip.

NRSC did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Collins’ campaign.

“As Roy Cooper said earlier this year about U.S. Senate races in North Carolina, ‘Democrats are often ahead until they are not.’ And then just last week Cooper, correctly, observed, ‘We know a lot of undecided voters lean Republican.’ We’re confident we will have the resources to get our message out to North Carolina voters and win,” said Whatley Spokesman DJ Griffin in a statement.

Georgia GOP party chair Josh McKoon dismissed the notion that his state was being deprioritized by Republicans in Washington, even as he acknowledged beating Ossoff will be a challenge.

“Every cycle, someone in Washington leaks that they’re thinking about moving money,” he said in a text message. “What matters is who shows up — and what the actual numbers say.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is set to headline a fundraiser for Collins in Atlanta on Thursday, alongside the state’s popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp. The Collins campaign is also making the case that one in 10 Georgia voters — who backed Trump in 2024 and plan to vote for Jackson — are still “up for grabs,” according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

“The goal in Georgia is to strike a balance where you are spending as little for Senate as possible while not derailing Rick Jackson’s, so far, very strong bid for Governor in a difficult environment,” said a GOP pollster granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape. Public polling shows the governor’s race has much tighter margins, with Jackson leading Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in some recent surveys.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost his Senate primary to Trump-backed Ken Paxton, was also in the room. He later told Blue Light News that the party has to make tough decisions.

“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,” Cornyn said.