Politics

Democrats flip Texas state Senate seat in shock upset

Published

7 months ago

February 1, 2026

Democrats flip Texas state Senate seat in shock upset

Democrats scored a stunning upset on Saturday in a special election runoff for Texas Senate, according to a projection from Decision Desk HQ, giving the party a major boost ahead of the November midterms. Fort Worth Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a machinist and Air Force veteran, defeated Southlake Republican Leigh Wambsganss to fill the vacant state Senate…
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Politics

GOP anxiety grows over North Carolina Senate race

Published

5 hours ago

September 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

DALLAS — Republicans are increasingly worried that North Carolina’s Senate race is slipping out of contention.

For months, they had argued that a post-Labor Day infusion of cash could jolt new energy into the largely stagnant but critical Senate race. But as Republican nominee Michael Whatley struggles to meaningfully close the gap against Democrat Roy Cooper in the polls, some in the party fear they’re running out of time.

Republicans’ concerns were apparent in side conversations, closed-door meetings and even on-stage speeches at their splashy midterm convention in Dallas.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, told Blue Light News that North Carolina was “probably one of the hardest” states on the map.

“You’re running against an existing governor,” Scott said of Cooper. “So that makes it harder in an open seat.”

One person, granted anonymity to discuss a private lunch they attended with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Senate Leadership Fund on the second day of the convention, similarly described the North Carolina race as “tough.” The lunch was focused on the party’s battleground Senate map, and Thune zeroed in on Alaska, Maine and Michigan as top targets.

“North Carolina and Georgia are seen by most as off the map at this point, and with Michigan and New Hampshire becoming real flip opportunities as we get closer to November, it’s becoming even more challenging to justify spending in North Carolina and Georgia,” said one GOP pollster who was in Dallas for the convention and, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Public polling has consistently shown Cooper ahead, including a survey released Thursday that found the Democrat leading Whatley by 11 points among likely voters.

Even President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge the challenge: “Now in North Carolina, you have a little more difficult case, because people don’t quite get it, but they’re going to find out,” he said during his speech on the first night of the convention, while reiterating his support for Whatley, his former handpicked Republican National Committee chair.

The White House later announced that he will travel to Gastonia, North Carolina, for a campaign rally with Whatley next week. “The president’s first visit in the coming week is going to be helpful,” said a person close to the Whatley campaign. “Roy Cooper has maxed out his support and can’t grow anymore. But voters in NC, especially on the right, tune in late and break late. The Trump visit will be a good motivator for our voters.”

North Carolina’s Senate contest has been one of the more subdued races of the cycle, especially for a perennial battleground that could play a pivotal role in determining control of the upper chamber. That could change as more money pours in during the final stretch — and if Whatley can pick up more steam.

“Some in D.C. — [Republicans] and [Democrats] — have viewed North Carolina as typically a slam dunk for Republicans,” Doug Heye, a longtime GOP strategist who is from North Carolina. “But that just isn’t true, as tight presidential and senatorial margins have shown us time and again.”

SLF, the top Senate super PAC, has pledged an initial $71 million in North Carolina through Election Day, including an initial $17 million summer advertising campaign supporting Whatley. No Going Back PAC, which is affiliated with the president’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, dropped roughly $5 million into North Carolina earlier this week. But in a state that has some of the country’s most expensive media markets, both parties may ultimately need to spend substantially more.

Whatley was at the Dallas convention, where he attended an event hosted jointly by SLF and the NRSC discussing the battleground map. He also had a speaking slot.

Whatley told Blue Light News that he was confident his campaign was “going to have the resources that we need to get our message out and talk to the voters about the issues that they care about.” Asked about the prospect of an influx of support from MAGA Inc., Whatley said he would “wait and see how that entire universe is going to come.”

But some Republicans are questioning whether additional money is enough to change the race’s trajectory at this point.

“There is still time, but even with at least $100 million, [Whatley] would need a campaign team capable of turning that money into actual points,” said one North Carolina-based Republican operative.

And Whatley could run up against the overall difficult environment for the GOP, as the party needs to shore up Republicans in other expensive states — like Texas — that historically have not needed attention.

“We can’t allocate a limited amount of resources and energy to 10 Senate races and expect to do well. We should be over-indexing where we think we have an edge,” the GOP pollster told Blue Light News in Dallas.

The NRSC isn’t worried about Whatley’s current standing.

“Summer polling has flattered North Carolina Senate Democratic candidates before only to be proven wrong in November,” Bernadette Breslin, NRSC national press secretary, said in a statement. In 2020, polling at this point in the cycle showed GOP Sen. Thom Tillis trailing Cal Cunningham, the Democrat, before Tillis ultimately won by roughly two percentage points. Cunningham was also caught in a late-cycle scandal.

Democrats haven’t won a Senate race or carried North Carolina at the presidential level since 2008, though they’ve come close a few times. But it’s undeniable that Republicans’ struggle to address high costs of living — voters’ top concern heading into November — and Trump’s sagging approval ratings are putting Democrats in a strong position, both in North Carolina and other key battleground states.

“When you look at Republicans who won close races in the past, the setting and political environment aren’t the same,” said a national GOP operative who was also in Dallas for the convention.

“Sen. Tillis was elected in 2014, a wave year for Republicans,” the operative said. “Tillis won reelection in 2020 with Trump at the top of the ticket, and his opponent had a huge scandal. 2022 was an open seat [and] Ted Budd was a congressman. Dems gave up on the seat and didn’t put the money needed into the race to win.”

For their part, North Carolina Democrats aren’t relying on Cooper’s current wide polling advantage to hold. The Cooper campaign noted that the former governor’s lead is already narrowing.

The political dynamics of the state also make Democrats uneasy: North Carolina has backed the Republican presidential nominee in each of the last four elections, and Whatley could still benefit from an enormous influx of outside spending.

“A Democrat has not won statewide federal office here in nearly two decades — and Whatley’s elite D.C. connections mean Republicans are going to spend whatever it takes to keep this seat,” Jeff Allen, Cooper’s North Carolina campaign manager, said in a statement. “North Carolina is a 50-50 state and this will be a margin-of-error race, which is why we’re building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them, while Michael Whatley will continue to enrich himself at their expense.”

Still, for Republicans, the challenge goes beyond money. Motivating lower-propensity Republican voters — who are loyal to Trump but who may otherwise ignore a midterm election — is central to the party’s strategy. It was an overarching goal of the midterm convention as GOP lawmakers and Trump officials repeatedly warned of a democratic socialist takeover and focused on bread-and-butter issues for their base.

Paul Shumaker, a longtime North Carolina GOP operative and top consultant for Tillis, said Whatley is running up against two key hurdles that threaten to dog Republicans this cycle: GOP voters’ low enthusiasm and Trump’s sinking standing with unaffiliated voters.

“The President is underwater with unaffiliated voters, and Michael Whatley has to win a majority of those unaffiliated who turn out this election year,” said Shumaker, who is unaffiliated in the race. “Given North Carolina’s registration number and the fact that there is little to no crossover voting between the two major parties, fixing both problems is the only path to victory.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Politics

At 9/11 ceremony, Giuliani and Mamdani … shake hands?

Published

1 day ago

September 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani shook hands and

BEST FRENEMIES: Didn’t see this one coming.

At Friday’s ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani — he of the recent anti-Muslim tirade — shook hands with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the subject of that rant.

The former Republican mayor even offered prayers for Mamdani during their brief exchange, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss it.

“Rudy told him he knows it’s a tough job and he’s praying for him,” the person told Playbook.

After attending a memorial service at a church near ground zero later in the day, Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, told reporters he and Giuliani “exchanged pleasantries” when asked what they discussed.

In another unexpected clasp, NBC News reported former Mayor Bill de Blasio was seen hugging and amicably chatting with his longtime tormentor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Republican Vice President JD Vance milled about among Democratic foes including former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama. And a Giuliani aide publicly defended both Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from allegations they were laughing throughout the ceremony (they were not).

What does it all mean?

It seems — despite an unprecedented buildup of partisan rancor directed, for the most part, at the current New York City mayor ahead of the Lower Manhattan ceremony — that the gravity of the event and the desire to focus on the 2,983 victims was enough to bring beefing politicians back down to earth, for a few hours at least.

“This is a moment of common humanity and that’s what I saw on display from people who may say things in the moment. But at that moment, we were united,” Gov. Kathy Hochul told BLN.

New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks told Playbook he believes Giuliani was “following in the steps of Jesus” by offering prayers to Mamdani. “He asks us to pray for not only those we love and who we agree with, but to pray for everyone,” he said. “So I just really believe that it’s following in his footsteps, and prayer is a powerful sign of unity, and however that exchange was between them, hopefully it’s a great reflection of Christ.”

The idea that a sitting New York City mayor would skip a 9/11 commemoration ceremony is farfetched, and 74% of New York voters told a pollster recently the mayor should go. But Mamdani was asked to stay away anyhow for reasons ranging from his association with a Twitch streamer who once said “America deserved 9/11” to his own religion. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman urged first responders to turn their backs on the young democratic socialist.

At Friday’s ceremony, however, none of that happened. And in fact, the elected officials were mostly an afterthought.

Family members read out the names of every victim over the course of several hours in a ceremony interspersed with moments of silence to denote milestones in the terror attacks, including the moments when two commercial jets slammed into the twin towers.

All living presidents and mayors — with the exception of President Donald Trump and former Mayor Eric Adams — attended.

Throughout the proceedings, Mamdani and the crowd of officials largely observed the recitation in silence, with Mamdani staying after the event to speak and take photos with several families.

The political comity, however, gave way to an arch warning once the memorial was over.

In an interview following the event, Cuomo said the memorial service should, in part, serve as a reminder to remain vigilant for a younger generation of political leaders like Mamdani, the man who defeated him in last year’s hotly contested mayoral election.

“They should be thinking that this is not a page of history,” he said, pointing to the war in Iran and rising concerns over antisemitism. “This is a present-day threat. It wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. This could happen again. The circumstances for it happening again are much more real than they’ve been in a long time.”

And outside the World Trade Center memorial, a heated clash between two elements of the far-right was a stark reminder of the country’s messy and increasingly fractured political landscape, with white nationalist Jake Lang staging an anti-Muslim rally that was counter-protested by a man shouting “Allahu akbar” and men dressed as Nazis shouting antisemitic slogans. — Joe Anuta, Nick Reisman and Chris Sommerfeldt

From the Capitol

New York is experiencing a spike in parents seeking to exempt their children from state vaccine mandates.

SCHOOL VAX: New York is seeing a spike in parents seeking exemptions from the state’s school vaccine mandates, with one of those challenges potentially headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A mother looking to preserve her unvaccinated child’s kindergarten enrollment at the Waverly School in Eastchester is challenging the state’s vaccination laws, which only allow students with an approved medical exemption to attend school without the required vaccines, according to court documents filed last month.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene in a Sept. 8 order, without offering any explanation. But Patricia Finn, the attorney representing the family, says the case will proceed at the federal trial court level, but the child won’t be allowed in school while the court deliberates. If they lose, they plan to petition to bring it before the Supreme Court.

The case represents a challenge to school immunization mandates that have been in place since 1996. The state Legislature eliminated religious exemptions after a deadly measles outbreak in an Orthodox Jewish community. Those mandates — which apply to all public, private and religious schools — require children to receive all age-appropriate required vaccinations in order to be admitted to or attend a school.

The state Education Department said it received more appeals requesting medical exemptions to required vaccinations during the 2025-26 school year than ever before. Both that agency and the state Health Department declined to provide data backing that claim, though.

However, the Health Department provided a dataset on the state’s school immunization survey. For the 2024-25 school year, 941 of 2,755 public schools outside New York City reported at least one student with a medical exemption, according to the data. Among private schools, 184 of 861 reported at least one student with a medical exemption.

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Gun safety group Every Town for Gun Safety endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul for reelection today.

ENDORSEMENT CORNER: Hochul picked up an endorsement today from Everytown for Gun Safety.

The gun safety group touted Hochul’s work “banning 3D-printed ghost guns, getting illegal guns off our streets, and driving gun violence to its lowest levels in recorded New York history.”

Hochul, who’s running for her second full term this year, has been leaning into messaging about safety and frequently touts drops in crime under her leadership. In 2022, crime was a pain point for New York Democrats up and down the ballot.

In its endorsement, Everytown chided Trump, as well as Hochul’s opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, for “cowering to the gun lobby.”

Blakeman has pushed back against a state law prohibiting guns in sensitive locations, including places of worship. He said he has “always supported the Second Amendment,” and in an appeal to Second Amendment supporters, vowed to “vigorously defend the rights of law-abiding New Yorkers.” Democrats have gone after him for implementing a provisional special deputy sheriff program made up of armed citizens.

But Blakeman has faced skepticism from gun-rights advocates for previously saying he supports “reasonable restrictions” on gun ownership.

While the NRA Political Victory Fund gave Hochul an F rating, it lists a question mark for Blakeman — along with his running mate, Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood, and GOP attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy. The group has not endorsed in any of New York’s statewide races. — Madison Fernandez

PAC IT UP: Major GOP groups are descending on the Hudson Valley to boost Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

No Going Back PAC, a super PAC affiliated with the president’s political operation, has reserved a $4 million ad buy in the district, according to the ad tracker AdImpact. A separate group called Safety and Affordability PAC placed close to $3 million in ads. And that’s on top of close to $7 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund.

In addition, America PAC, the group backed by Elon Musk, has so far spent around $50,000 on calls and printing, according to Federal Election Commission records. Another group, America First Agriculture Action Inc., put in more than $300,000 for mail and digital advertising.

There hasn’t been significant outside spending in support of Democratic challenger Cait Conley yet.

Outside GOP spending is also ramping up in Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi’s Long Island district. CLF has placed $4 million in advertising, per AdImpact, and No Going Back PAC has put in more than $200,000 to support Suozzi’s GOP challenger, former state Assemblymember Mike LiPetri.

The substantial buys are a sign of which New York districts national Republicans are prioritizing this year. Last week, CLF pulled its reservations in support of state Sen. Peter Oberacker, who’s challenging Democratic Rep. Josh Riley upstate. — Madison Fernandez

IN OTHER NEWS

— MOTOR SKILLS: A version of Tesla’s autonomous Cybercabs — which have been modified to include a steering wheel and an option for a driver to intervene — have hit the streets of New York City. (Gothamist)

— ENDORSEMENT WATCH: On the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Hochul secured the endorsements of three major firefighter unions. (City & State)

— BAR FLIGHT: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is among 1,000 lawyers suspended from practicing in New York. (Times Union)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.