Politics
Democrats are cashing in after DOJ failure to indict them
The six Democrats who urged military servicemembers in a video not to comply with illegal orders notched a significant legal win when federal prosecutors failed to criminally indict them. Now they’re looking to gain political momentum and build their campaign war chests.
“We are not done,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan at a press conference alongside fellow House members.
“We will continue to push back. The tide is turning and accountability is coming,” Colorado Rep. Jason Crow said in a video posted to social media.
Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin said in a fundraising email: “They tried to indict me.”
The group of Democrats, including two senators and four House members with backgrounds in national security, came out swinging against President Donald Trump and the Justice Department Wednesday for what they said was an abuse of power and a threat against all Americans’ right to freedom of speech. In addition to a flurry of social media posts and two afternoon press conferences, several have been making the cable news rounds and scheduled appearances on high-profile late night TV shows — signs that they see political opportunity in Trump’s attacks and are hoping to bottle that clout.
“Democrats have limited power at the federal level right now and need to leverage every opportunity to capitalize on Trump’s overreach and lawlessness to raise the necessary funds to ensure we have a balance of power at the end of the midterms,” said Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod. “It takes resources to get our message out, hold Trump to account, and win back seats, and I’m glad these members are seizing on this moment and fighting back.”
As Democrats sharpen their attacks against Trump heading into the midterms, his Justice Department’s unprecedented attempt to prosecute the Democratic lawmakers — most of whom represent crucial battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania — has inadvertently elevated their profiles. And the Trump administration, by failing to secure an indictment after months of public sparring with the Democrats and threats from the president, has bolstered their credibility as bare-knuckle fighters who can take on Trump and win.
In this attention-driven political economy, Trump has given a valuable boost to a group of Democrats that includes some with an eye toward future leadership positions in the party – including for Slotkin and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who are often discussed as potential future presidential candidates.
“Trump has elevated them by his baseless attacks and his attempt to weaponize the judicial system against them that has flopped so hard,” said Democratic strategist Ian Russell. “That certainly has given them a platform – an even larger platform – as leaders who are focused on keeping our country safe, serving those who serve us, and so forth.”
The six members of Congress released a video on social media late last year urging military servicemembers to ignore illegal orders amid questions about the legality of the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats from Latin America. That quickly drew Trump’s ire and prompted the launch of an investigation into the group that they lambasted as politically motivated.
The Department of Justice’s failure to indict the Democrats gave them a new opportunity to draw attention.
“Today wasn’t just an embarrassing day for the Administration. It was another sad day for our country,” Slotkin posted on X Tuesday night, as the first reports circulated that a grand jury had rejected the attempt to indict her and five Democratic colleagues.
Slotkin has become one of the party’s most prominent voices as it seeks to chart a path out of the political wilderness. Seizing on the new political attention — which can be hard to come by in a Republican-controlled Washington — she sent a fundraising appeal the next morning, held a press conference, went on TV and sent a barrage of posts on X.
“The investigations kept coming when we were quiet. So, if it’s going to be bad when you’re quiet, you might as well go on offense and have this conversation publicly,” Slotkin said in an interview on MS Now.
The strategy reflects a broader dynamic for the Democratic Party: Trump’s actions often serve as their best fundraising tool. A Blue Light News analysis of ActBlue data this week found that many of the party’s largest online fundraising spikes last year came after a Democrat stood up to — or was attacked by — Trump.
“Trump elevating them is the kind of thing that makes Democratic donors, strategists, activists, go, ‘Ah, I like what I see,’” said Russell, the Democratic strategist.
That dynamic has proven especially true for Kelly, who is also in a protracted public battle with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over the video. Hegseth initiated a review of Kelly’s public comments that could demote the Navy captain’s rank and reduce his retirement pay. Kelly has sued to halt the review.
Kelly has emerged as a top Democratic fundraiser, the Blue Light News analysis found, dominating online fundraising for weeks after the Pentagon announced the investigation even though he’s not up for reelection this year.
Shortly before news broke Tuesday night that a grand jury had declined to charge the Democrats, the Arizona senator blasted out another fundraising appeal that nodded to his legal proceedings. “What we need from this team, right now, is the peace of mind that Mark has all the resources he’ll need to stay the course,” said one fundraising email signed by “Team Kelly” on Tuesday.
At least two of the House Democrats investigated by the Justice Department sent similar pleas for cash in recent weeks. Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) – who serves as one of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s recruitment co-chairs – asked supporters for $10 after detailing the federal inquiry opened into the video, and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) made clear in his own pitch that he would not “be intimidated by any harassment campaign.”
In addition to fundraising appeals and appearances on cable news shows, the House members — which also includes Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire — presented a unified front at a Wednesday press conference, casting the effort as political retribution.
“This was about Donald Trump trying to send a message, a message that if you dare step out of line, if you dare dissent and speak up and push back against his agenda, that you will be crushed,” Crow, the Colorado Democrat, said at the press conference.
Longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said the failed indictments — and broader message of retribution — gives lawmakers in his party a potent political argument: Democrats were right when they warned that Trump was going to use the justice system for his personal retribution.
“He proved they’re not the boy who cried wolf,” he said. “They’re the meteorologist who predicted the hurricane.”
AUSTIN — Democrats’ vision of a blue Texas is finally here.
James Talarico has been elected a U.S. senator and Gina Hinojosa as governor, the first Democrats to win either office in more than a generation. The four other statewide candidates are leading as ballots continue to be counted. Democrats further down the ballot are leading some red districts, changing the complexion of the state legislature, congressional delegation and courts.
“It’s something that I haven’t seen in decades, that none of us have seen in decades,” said former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican.
It’s an outcome that even the most bullish Democrats didn’t dare enunciate in the late days of the election. But as results have poured in Tuesday night, the party is outpacing its expectations across the country’s second most populous state amidst a national romp.
Both Hinojosa’s and Talarico’s victory margins came by running up vote counts in Texas’ deep-blue urban centers and while also leading in the largest Republican-led county in the country, Tarrant County. They reversed Republican gains across the Latino-heavy Rio Grande Valley region, an ancestrally Democratic area that had swung hard to the right in recent years. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez romped to a near-20 point victory in a seat Republicans drew to favor them during last year’s redrawing of the state’s House map, ousting a top Republican recruit who campaigned alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to begin election day.
It amounts to a set of remarkable results in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988 and to the governor’s mansion since 1990. In recent cycles, Democrats have tried and failed to flip the state in presidential and U.S. Senate contests but have been largely uncompetitive for state offices. But Tuesday’s blue wave slammed into Texas particularly hard, as it combined frustrations over the economy, immigration enforcement, data centers and corruption with a collapse of Trump’s 2024 coalition.
“We reminded voters that Republicans have been in charge in Texas for 30 years. That every problem we have, was caused by Republicans,” Michelle Lowe Solis, chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party. “They aren’t going to fix the problems, they caused them.”
As votes continue to be counted, Democrats appear poised to blunt the impact of Republicans’ attempted gerrymander, likely sweeping the Rio Grande Valley congressional seats while holding onto another San Antonio-area district drawn to favor Republicans. In state Supreme Court races, they lead in all four seats up for grabs, potentially turning a 9-0 conservative majority into a 5-4 split. Among the first 36 state house races called by the Associated Press, 34 have gone to Democrats and just two to Republicans.“Voters aren’t dumb,” said Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC. “Even though the Republicans have tried to cheat with the series of gerrymanders, that has, I think, only made voters in those areas more willing to participate.”
Talarico’s and Hinojosa’s victories will be felt nationally. Texas Democrats, who have long asked for national money and resources in a state where elections are costly, now have a test case of how to win. And it will bolster their arguments that their state, with 40 electoral votes, should be treated as a presidential battleground.
Ali Bianco and Jonathan Martin contributed reporting.
Just a few hours into election night, Republicans acknowledged what appeared to be a historic midterm defeat — a long-feared “blue wave” that had started washing across the nation.
The extent of the washout became clear soon after polls closed: Republicans lost a South Carolina Senate seat for the first time in nearly 30 years. Democrats nipped on the heels of House incumbents in deep red Florida districts. And the man in charge of the party’s House reelection effort was at grave risk of losing his own seat.
By 10 p.m., Democrats had already flipped three GOP House seats — itself enough to win a majority if Republicans can’t make gains elsewhere — and many in the party feared dozens more could follow as voters registered their dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump.
Voters in Texas, a ruby-red state for a generation, appeared at risk of handing multiple statewide races to Republicans and possible control of the legislature. Joe Straus, a former state House speaker, cast it as a historic rebuke of an unpopular president.
“President Trump hasn’t exactly done any Republicans favors across the country,” he said on a Blue Light News election night broadcast. “They haven’t done themselves favors, frankly, by following so closely along.”
Many of the political professionals charged with getting GOP candidates elected in this environment said the results could be potentially historic in nature.
“We are looking at tsunami territory,” said one national Republican operative who, like others, was granted anonymity to candidly describe the returns.
“This is the worst electoral defeat in my lifetime and likely in history,” said another GOP operative working on battleground races. “Trump said his name and record was on the ballot and people responded — resoundingly.”
At an ill-fated victory party for Senate candidate Michael Whatley in North Carolina, staff were already packing up the room less than two hours after polls closed. Returns showed Democrat Roy Cooper on track to win by as many as 20 points in a race that was supposed to have been tooth-and-nail.
Standing in the room, one North Carolina Republican openly pondered what many others in the party had long avoided saying openly — that it was finally time to think about life after Trump.
“Trump has done some excellent things, and I appreciate that. But it can’t be the party of Trump forever,” said Jonathan Fletcher, a former GOP county chair. “If the Republican Party is going to be serious about winning, we have to be serious about winning people in the middle.”
Nearly every state, district and county shows movement toward Democrats, from counties that Trump won three times to blue strongholds where Democrats are improving their margins. County-level data shows Democrats doing on average more than 5 points better than Kamala Harris did in the 2024 presidential race.
That suggests that districts Trump won by double digits just two years ago are in reach for Democrats.
The losses threatened to pile up even after Republican candidates, committees and super PACs spent massive sums in an effort to retain control of Congress — including more than $380 million from President Donald Trump’s political operation.
“I can’t believe how these House races aren’t close given the amount spent,” a senior Senate GOP operative said. Another senior Senate GOP official called it a “bloodbath.”
Many of the Republicans said the war in Iran, which sent voters’ gas prices soaring, and continued frustration with the economy drove frustration with a party that won on those same issues in 2024.
On top of that some quickly vented about substandard candidates — such as Darline Graham in the South Carolina Senate race and Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate contest.
“Not only were folks upset about the war, inflation and gas prices, but add to that the fact they think he was making them eat a shit sandwich in Darline, and they just had enough,” said Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff and South Carolina congressman.
Trump said on Truth Social his own absence from the ballot for the drastic Republican underperformance — even after barnstorming the country begging Republicans to “vote like I’m on the ballot.”
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump posted shortly after 10:30 p.m.
Other Republicans were ready to blame Trump’s own decisions.
“Republicans got their asses kicked tonight because of the Iran war — plain and simple. Everything else is just noise and spin,” said a person close to the White House.
Meanwhile, power in Washington was already shifting. The likely next chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has been gearing up for massive probes into the Trump administration, issued a two-word statement Tuesday addressed to administration officials and the “Trump Crime Family.”
“Lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California said.
Will Steakin, Erin Doherty, Lauren Fedor, Ashley Ahn and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.
Joe Biden was unceremoniously ushered out of the White House two years ago.
On Tuesday, he got a small measure of revenge.
Prominent Biden administration alumni are winning in a handful of notable races, with Keisha Lance Bottoms — the one-time Atlanta mayor turned Biden’s senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement — leading the pack by flipping Georgia’s governorship.
The victories, his former staffers say, are an important part of rehabilitating his legacy within a Democratic Party that all but banished him in 2024.
“It’s proof that President Biden assembled a talented team of public servants — who the public is calling on now to help turn this country around,” said Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff. “These fantastic men and women will make life more affordable, health care more available, protect our rights, fight corruption, and make our country stronger.”
Biden was not a regular on the trail this year, and most Democrats kept their distance from the former president. But he did weigh in on a handful of primaries, helping put loyal lieutenants in front of voters who still held him in high regard.
While Bottoms was the highest profile victory, there’s a number of Biden alumni also poised to head to Washington. Gabe Amo, who won a 2023 special election in a blue Rhode Island seat, secured his first full term in Congress. And Dan Koh, who won Massachusetts’ 6th District to succeed Rep. Seth Moulton, was Biden’s deputy Cabinet secretary and deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
He leaned into his Biden endorsement throughout the campaign and this week reposted a video of a phone call he and his family had with Joe and Jill Biden on primary night in September.
“Mr. President and Madame first lady, thank you so much for all of your support,” he told them. “It wouldn’t have been possible without both of you. … You changed my life by giving me a job of a lifetime. And you got my back the minute I decided to run.”
Biden’s Cabinet also had a strong night in other governor races. Xavier Becerra, Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services, had a solid polling lead over Republican Steve Hilton in the race to be California’s next governor going into Tuesday. And, Deb Haaland, Biden’s Interior secretary, was projected to win the New Mexico governor race.
“In his farewell speech, President Biden warned that ‘an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,’” said Andrew Bates, the former president’s longtime spokesperson. “He urged his team and supporters to keep standing up for the values that we all care about, including decency, hard work, and a sense of national community. On the ballot and off, a whole lot of his alumni are fighting to carry on that legacy.”
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