Politics
Democrats gather in California feeling sunny once again
As Democratic Party leaders gathered in Los Angeles for their annual winter meetings this week, for the first time in a long time the mood was warm.
Optimism coursed through the hotel ballrooms, following a string of double-digit wins in off-year elections last month. Democratic National Committee members flocked to California Gov. Gavin Newsom — a likely presidential contender — for selfies and major donors are resurfacing after a period of hibernation. Conan O’Brien, Jane Fonda and Shonda Rhimes joined Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for a major donor gathering, according to an invitation obtained by Blue Light News. And Nebraska and Utah officials are among those expressing interest in hosting the party’s novel midterm mini-convention next year, according to three people briefed on the conversations.
“The party, broadly, is just feeling like they got their sea legs back,” Newsom told reporters in Los Angeles. “And they’re winning and winning solves a lot of problems.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin nodded to the vibe shift in his own remarks Friday: “I can tell you, it’s a much different feel in this room than a few months ago,” he said.
But for all the energy at the DNC’s winter meeting, Democrats are still confronting challenges. The committee’s finances are shaky at best, badly trailing their Republican counterparts. The committee has yet to release its 2024 autopsy in full, as Democrats continue to argue over why the party lost so resoundingly last year. A proxy battle looms over the presidential primary calendar, as several states continue to lobby DNC members on the sidelines of this week’s meetings.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris was warmly received when she addressed the convention Friday night, but her return to the national stage, fresh off a controversial book release, is also a reminder of the party’s fractured response to its sweeping losses in 2024, when Donald Trump defeated her in every swing state on his way to becoming president.
On Friday, Harris gave DNC members a reality check by delivering her most expansive diagnosis yet of what she sees as the country’s broken political system. “We must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than reality,” she said.
Most pressingly, the DNC faces serious financial problems. In October, it took out a $15 million loan, framed by the party as a financing investment into the New Jersey and Virginia elections that Democrats ended up dominating. While not unprecedented, it was a larger sum of money earlier in the cycle than is typical. The committee’s loan also brings the Republicans’ cash advantage into sharp relief — the Republican National Committee has $88 million more in the bank when accounting for the debt, according to November’s Federal Elections Commission filings.
And some party members still want answers from the committee’s self-diagnosis for what went wrong in 2024.
The DNC still hasn’t released its long promised post-election report, after earlier saying it wouldn’t come before last November’s elections. They have so far only shared initial findings with top Democrats at the committee’s national finance meeting in October. The preliminary findings, which a DNC aide insisted at the time were incomplete, criticized Democrats for not investing resources early enough, while ignoring discussion of former President Joe Biden’s age. But some DNC members are looking for more answers.
“It’s very hard for an organization to self criticize, so you need to keep the pressure up to make them do it,” said Eric Croft, the chair of the Alaska Democratic Party. “They said they’d do it. We’re going to make sure that they do.”
But things of late are looking much rosier. Democrats are cheered by their double-digit victories in New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races last month, as well as a slew of other off-year and special elections in which their candidates outperformed their 2024 margins. They even denied the GOP its supermajority in the Mississippi state senate. Public polling suggests the wind is at their backs in the 2026 midterms.
DNC members estimated the electoral momentum will help with fundraising.
“People are ready to open their wallets up now that they’ve realized what they’ve voted for,” said Manny Crespin, Jr., a committee member from New Mexico. “Now that they’ve realized it’s actually affecting their pocketbook, they’re going to do everything they can to reverse that.”
One of the biggest decisions ahead for the DNC will play out in a little-known yet powerful panel, the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is charged with setting the 2028 presidential primary calendar. States have until Jan. 16 to apply to be in the early window, but the behind-the-scenes jockeying for a spot has continued, several DNC members said privately.
“All of the early states are trying to lay their groundwork to get the committee to back them,” said a Democratic operative who attended the DNC meeting. “There’s a bit of a proxy war brewing on this.”
ALL EYES ON GRACIE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to sit down with President Donald Trump at Gracie Mansion this afternoon, their third in-person meeting in less than a year and the latest wrinkle in one of the strangest relationships in American politics.
Since Mamdani’s first, shockingly cordial meeting with Trump at the White House last November, political observers have scratched their heads about the democratic socialist mayor playing nice with the Republican president despite their deep disagreements on … just about everything. Ostensibly, Mamdani is putting his personal distaste for Trump aside and betting it’s best for New York City to keep things cordial so as to avoid drawing the president’s ire.
But as resistance to Trump remains animating for Democrats nationally ahead of November’s midterms, Mamdani’s strategy for engaging with him stands out.
Earlier today, Gov. Kathy Hochul made clear that she, for one, has no plans to meet with Trump while he’s in New York. “I speak to him on the phone whenever I need to,” she told reporters in Manhattan.
Hochul, who’s facing reelection in November and tends to directly criticize Trump more frequently than Mamdani, said it was her understanding that the mayor agreed to host the president at Gracie Mansion during a previous conversation at the White House.
“The mayor and [Trump] said that when he’s back in town again, he would go to Gracie Mansion,” the governor said. “I don’t have a Gracie Mansion to invite him to.”
Still, Hochul said there’s an opportunity for Mamdani to use the Gracie confab to push Trump on releasing federal funding for New York, including for law enforcement, that she said the president’s administration has been withholding.
“We have to continue fighting for what New York needs,” she said.
Mamdani’s office wouldn’t say who requested today’s meeting or share specifics about the expected focus in advance, only saying the mayor will talk to Trump about “issues affecting New York City.” A Mamdani spokesperson said the mayor will elaborate on what was discussed at a post-meeting press conference that Trump isn’t expected to attend.
After the appointment at Gracie, Trump is slated to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron before headlining a couple Republican fundraisers. By contrast, after his Trump tête-à-tête, Mamdani will have dinner with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s in the city to headline a United Nations Charter event this evening that will also feature pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a person familiar with the plans who was granted anonymity to discuss them told Playbook.
The Queens-born Trump is in town ahead of his Tuesday address to the United Nations General Assembly.
Maintaining a relationship with Trump isn’t without risk for Mamdani.
As Trump remains deeply unpopular amid the war in Iran and other controversies, some Democrats are privately questioning why the mayor sees a need to keep interacting with the president. But so far, Mamdani hasn’t faced any significant pushback from his hard-left base over his engagements with Trump, with leaders of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America largely viewing it as the mayor acting in the city’s best interests. — Chris Sommerfeldt and Madison Fernandez
From the Capitol
EYES ON AI: Hochul floated requiring safeguards like an artificial intelligence “kill switch” as part of state-level interventions to address the rapidly evolving technology.
During a Monday event in Manhattan rolling out next steps for enacting the RAISE Act, New York’s landmark AI safety law that is set to go into effect in January, the governor said she’ll “look closely at additional ways to build on” the legislation — including AI kill switches “if they’re deemed feasible and in the best interest of our state.”
The governor in recent days has vowed to take additional AI-related actions beyond the RAISE Act, but has not specified what that might look like. Her suggestion of a kill switch comes days after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to explore such a requirement for AI companies’ most-advanced models.
Some in the tech industry have argued implementing one is not technically feasible. Federal legislation to enact a kill switch requirement is currently stalled in Congress.
When asked to expand on the prospect of requiring a kill switch, Hochul said that “all options are on the table,” but wasn’t making a commitment.
“We’re going to do the research and make the decisions that are thoughtful to protect New Yorkers,” she said. “We’ll go as far as we need to to protect people of this state and ultimately this country in the absence of other leadership.”
Read more from Madison Fernandez in Blue Light News Pro.
MORE BLAKEMAN MONEY: Billionaire former casino developer Steve Wynn has donated $1 million to the main super PAC supporting Republican Bruce Blakeman’s gubernatorial bid, records filed with the state Board of Elections this morning show.
The committee, Strong and Safe New York, has now raised $5.3 million since July.
Wynn has been a top donor to national Republican causes for over a decade. His most recent large donations in New York came last year, when he gave $361,000 to the state GOP and $500,000 to a super PAC boosting Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral bid. — Bill Mahoney
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
ENDORSEMENT CORNER: Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) endorsed GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in his reelection campaign in suburban New York, Golden wrote in an opinion article published Monday.
Lawler is facing a tough reelection campaign against Democrat Cait Conley in one of the biggest House battlegrounds this November. The lawmakers have previously collaborated to advance the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, and are both members of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus.
Golden, who is not running for reelection, was one of two House Democrats to break with the party and twice vote in favor of the Republican legislative agenda earlier in September.
“Mike Lawler has been a true partner to me and a friend to fishing families he will never represent,” Golden wrote. “I strongly back him, and I hope voters send him back to work. Wherever you live, find the members who pass laws with the other party, and keep them.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the cross-aisle endorsement a “smoke and mirrors ploy” that “will do nothing to change the outcome of the race.”
“In desperation, [Lawler] is peddling an 11th hour endorsement from a retiring Congressmember who represents an out of town district more than 400 miles away,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Mike Lawler is an unadulterated phony who has never shown bipartisan courage when it matters.”
Read more from Blue Light News’s Elleiana Green.
ON THE AIRWAVES: With fewer than 50 days to go before Election Day, House Democrats’ main super PAC is making its first TV ad buy in support of Conley on Monday.
The House Majority PAC said it is reserving $1.2 million on cable in the Hudson Valley contest. (An additional $1.2 million is going toward fighting Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s re-election in New Jersey, which is also covered by the New York City media market.) HMP said earlier this year that it didn’t include the high-dollar NYC media market in its initial reservations because it was “prioritiz[ing] markets where rates increase significantly.”
Republicans have been largely outpacing Democrats in NY-17 on the ad spending front, thanks to significant buys from super PACs backed by the president and House leadership. From the beginning of September through Election Day, the GOP has placed $15 million on ads across broadcast, cable, CTV and digital platforms, according to ad tracker AdImpact.
The new HMP spend is the biggest from an outside Democratic group so far, but still leaves a large gap between the parties. Democrats have placed around $3 million on advertising in the period between September and Election Day, with the largest chunk coming from the Conley campaign. — Madison Fernandez
IN OTHER NEWS
IN OTHER NEWS:
— JUDGES CASH IN: Brooklyn Democratic Party leaders have raked in $190,000 in contributions from judges and judicial candidates since 2012, raising some ethical and legal concerns. (New York Post)
— AFFORDABILITY AHEAD: Anthony Shorris, the mayor’s new pick for the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, laid out a vision for solving the city’s affordability crisis that goes beyond Mamdani’s vision for five city-owned grocery stores. (The New York Times)
— BUY NOW, PAY LATER: The Mamdani administration is pushing Albany for tougher ‘buy now, pay later’ regulation, as many New Yorkers use the plans to pay for basic essentials, sinking deeper into debt. (amNY)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker revealed Monday that he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes two years ago and began taking a GLP-1 medication, resulting in an 80-pound weight loss that he says has transformed his health and daily life.
The disclosure marks the first time the Democrat has publicly disclosed that he has diabetes, as well as officially acknowledging that he is on GLP-1 medication, which is prescribed both for diabetes treatment and weight loss. The governor told CBS News he started taking the medication after doctors warned that he would likely need insulin for the rest of his life.
Pritzker is viewed as a likely 2028 presidential candidate and has spent two years batting away questions about his visibly slimmer appearance, though he did hint at his weight loss during the Gridiron Club and Foundation’s annual white-tie dinner in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.
“I’m JB Pritzker, governor of the great state of Illinois, and if you’re seeing me in person for the very first time, yes, I’m the guy who put ‘gov’ in ‘Wegovy,’” he told the high-profile crowd.
The 61-year-old governor said he has struggled with his weight since childhood, dating back to when he was a 7-year-old. That’s about the time his father, Donald Pritzker, suffered a fatal heart attack at age 39 while playing tennis.
President Donald Trump has made Pritzker’s weight an issue, often commenting about it in personal attacks. Asked about his weight loss during an interview with Blue Light News in the spring of 2025, Pritzker said, “How about, just for health.”
In Monday’s CBS interview, the governor said he closely monitored his cholesterol, triglycerides and other health markers for years because of his family history. But after becoming governor, he acknowledged the stress of leading the nation’s sixth-largest state contributed to additional weight gain.
Two years ago, that concern became more urgent when doctors diagnosed him with Type 2 diabetes, he told CBS. “My doctor said, ‘Oh no, you’ll never come off of it. You’re going to have to do this the rest of your life, and I recommend that you take a GLP-1,’” Pritzker recalled about being told he’d have to take insulin.
His wife, MK Pritzker, encouraged her husband to proceed on GLP-1. “I want him to be around for a really long time,” she told CBS.
The governor’s office confirmed that as a result of the GLP-1, plus improved diet and exercise, Pritzker “is no longer on insulin and down to levels that indicate no diabetes/prediabetic levels.”
Pritzker said the effects were almost immediate. Within days, he said, he didn’t feel the appetite urges. “It was the strangest feeling.”
The governor also has gained local attention for taking walks along the Lake Michigan walking path in Chicago. Along with adopting the healthy habit, it’s allowed him to talk regularly to constituents.
During Monday’s interview, Pritzker side-stepped questions about whether he was running for president. “I honestly am focused on what’s best for the people of Illinois,” he said.
The governor also talked about being proud of Illinois’ decision to cover GLP-1 medications for people with diabetes, becoming emotional describing a woman who approached him and told him access to the medication had saved her life.
The announcement about his weight comes as Pritzker is taking a more prominent role in the 2026 midterms, chairing a political action committee focused on investing at least $20 million in Democratic House races. The move has added to speculation about a potential presidential bid, where the demands of a national campaign would put his health and stamina in sharper focus.
Voters are perfectly fine supporting candidates who aren’t white men.
But they do show small preferences for candidates who are younger and Christian, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. And voters were most likely to penalize transgender candidates in hypothetical matchups, though Democrats were more likely to support them than GOP voters were.
The results cast a new light on a simmering, yearslong public conversation within both parties about what it means to be electable and whether putting forward candidates of varying backgrounds is too politically risky in a close election environment. It’s a debate that defined the last open Democratic presidential primary in 2020 and is poised to play a role in 2028 too.
Democrats have largely focused their debates on whether voters would accept a person of color or a woman, particularly after President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024 — while losing to Joe Biden in 2020. But the poll results suggest the characteristics voters care most about are different, shaped by frustrations over aging politicians and both new and old culture wars.
“The American people, I believe, think about identity way less than the average political consultant does,” said Mike Nellis, a longtime Democratic digital strategist who advised Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign. “Obviously there are factors in society that make it harder for women and people of color to get elected, but there are plenty of incredibly talented people out there who are capable of getting over the hump on that.”
To test whether demographic characteristics make a candidate more or less electable, Blue Light News’s polling partner, Public First, showed thousands of respondents a series of head-to-head matchups. In each case, respondents were given basic information about the candidate’s demographics, such as their race, age and gender; their career, with titles such as doctor, attorney general or CEO; and a single-sentence description of their political alignment, either as a progressive or moderate Democratic, independent, or moderate or MAGA Republican.
Respondents then picked which candidate they would prefer, and the results overwhelmingly showed voters cared the most about a candidate’s political ideology. But respondents also revealed more subtle patterns in their preferences.
Voters across both parties were more likely to reject older candidates in favor of younger ones. Republicans in particular favored candidates who were described as Christian or regular churchgoers, even when controlling for the candidates’ politics. GOP respondents picked candidates described as regularly attending a church just under 9% more often than candidates who did not have any faith.
That means that even though Republican respondents usually picked the GOP candidate in head-to-head matchups, for example, they were more likely to cross over and support an independent or Democratic candidate when that candidate was described as Christian.
The results on sexual orientation were more complicated: When candidates were described as “gay,” they were picked about 10% less often across all voters. But when the candidate descriptions describe the candidate as a man married to his husband — without a label for sexual orientation — respondents did not pick them less often in a statistically significant manner.
Voters were less likely to pick transgender candidates, with Democratic voters about 5% less likely while GOP voters were 17% less likely, all else held equal.
The age results were a strong signal that voters want a new generation of candidates after the last presidential cycle was driven by concerns about Biden’s age, fueling a slew of intergenerational primary contests this year and leading major Democratic voices to publicly call for a younger candidate for 2028. Trump is now 80, and Republicans have faced their own conversations about aging politicians, as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) faced serious health challenges earlier this year.
Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, which recruits candidates under the age of 40, said when the group started its work nearly a decade ago, younger people were often seen as “risky bets” electorally.
“Now I think people are starting to see that that is not true. Voters will judge people one by one,” Litman said. “They’re also really hungry for change and really hungry for someone who didn’t get us into this mess.”
The poll found candidates over the age of 70 were nearly 10% less likely to be picked than candidates under the age of 50, with Democrats slightly more likely than Republicans to disfavor a candidate due to age.
Notably, The Blue Light News Poll didn’t find differences based on a candidate’s race or gender overall, outside of gender identity. That has long been a topic of debate among Democrats thinking about winning the presidency.
When Harris replaced Biden on the top of Democrats’ ticket in 2024, few questioned that she would choose a white man as her running mate. Since her loss, some Democrats have argued that a white male candidate might be the best path forward for the party in 2028.
Harris also wrote in her memoir about the campaign that she thought picking former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as her running mate would have been “too risky” because he is gay, and that he otherwise would have been her ideal partner.
But Buttigieg, who is contemplating running for president in 2028, recently argued that the country is ready for a gay president, saying he wouldn’t have launched a bid in 2020 otherwise.
“What’s on people’s minds isn’t about you, your identity as a candidate,” he told NBC News last weekend. “It’s about them. It’s about their lives.”
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