Politics
Democrats zero in on Musk as a way to attack Trump
Democrats are starting to wake up and sketch out a plan to help them win back the working class: Turn the world’s richest person into their boogeyman.
They’ve set their sights on holding Elon Musk to account. Armed with new polling showing Musk’s popularity in the toilet, key Democratic leaders are going after the top Trump adviser who is dismantling the federal government. They are attempting to subpoena him and introducing legislation to block him from receiving federal contracts while he holds a “special” role leading Trump’s cost-cutting crusade.
In a sign of how toxic Democrats believe Musk is, battleground Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) called Musk an “unelected, weirdo billionaire” and said he has “been getting a lot of calls over the past few days” about him. Golden is a moderate who represents Trump country.
Even Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley and has had a relationship with Musk for years, is distancing himself from him. Khanna posted on X on Wednesday that Musk’s “attacks on our institutions are unconstitutional.” Khanna previously likened Musk to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “dollar-a-year men,” the corporate leaders who helped the government mobilize for WWII, and said he texts with him.
Democrats are also protesting him in Washington, making the calculation that the idea of an unelected billionaire wreaking chaos on the bureaucracy will be unpopular with voters. And they have some data fueling their efforts.
New internal polling, conducted on behalf of House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership, found Musk is viewed negatively among 1,000 registered voters in battleground districts. Just 43 percent approve of him and 51 percent view him unfavorably. The poll, conducted by the Democratic firm Impact Research and completed between Jan. 19 to 25, also found that Musk evoked strong negative feelings. Of the 51 percent who disapproved of him, 43 percent did so strongly.
The survey isn’t a one-off, either. An Economist/YouGov poll published on Wednesday also found Musk’s approval rating underwater, 43 percent favorable to 49 percent unfavorable.
In the Democrats’ internal polling, pollsters asked respondents for their thoughts on “the creation of a government of the rich for the rich by appointing up to nine different billionaires to the administration,” and found 70 percent opposed with only 19 percent in support — a stat that suggests Democrats have landed on a message that could gain traction with swing voters.
That data and focus groups held by House Majority Forward helped bring attacks on the administration into focus: Democrats “shouldn’t chide Musk, Trump, and others for being rich,” the group wrote, but point out Musk’s conflicts of interests as head of DOGE and note that he could undermine key safety net programs to enrich himself at the expense of American taxpayers.
“Participants laud Musk’s business acumen and aren’t opposed to the ideals of DOGE,” HMF found. But “Musk’s relationship with Trump – who they view as inherently pro-big business” makes them wary that billionaire’s cuts “could include programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.”
Robert White won the Washington, D.C., delegate Democratic primary, setting him up to represent the United States capital in Congress as its first new delegate in more than 35 years.
White’s victory begins a new chapter for Washington, which has been represented in the House by Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton since 1991.
He faces no major general election challengers in the deep-blue district and will ascend to a post that gives him a voice, but not a vote, to champion a city that has been roiled by President Donald Trump’s attempts to exert pressure in his second term.
White’s ascension caps off a long career for Holmes Norton — for whom he used to work. Holmes Norton was known as a behind-the-scenes operator in Congress who helped restructure Washington’s finances in the 1990s and brought major federal projects and jobs to the district. Holmes Norton’s signature project was D.C. statehood, elevating it from a Washingtonian pipe dream to a mainstream Democratic issue culminating in House passage of statehood bills in 2020 and 2021.
But Holmes Norton’s visibility and power waned in recent years, and questions about the 89-year-old’s acuity and ability to serve drew a steady stream of headlines in 2025. In October, D.C. police said that Holmes Norton was scammed out of more than $4,000, and an initial police report reportedly described her as having “early stages of dementia.”
A fifth-generation Washingtonian, White has served as an at-large member of the D.C. Council since 2016. He will be Washington’s third delegate since the position was reestablished in 1970.
White ran against primary challenger and fellow Council member Brooke Pinto on a platform focused on increasing affordability and public safety while defending the district’s autonomy — potentially setting him on a collision course with the president.
In an interview with Blue Light News last week, White cast Trump’s crime crackdown in the city, including federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of the National Guard and federal immigration agents, as “lawlessness” and “the opposite of public safety.” He also pledged to reintroduce a bill pushed for years by Holmes Norton that would grant command over the D.C. National Guard to the District’s mayor rather than the president.
The contest at times grew ugly. In April, Pinto’s campaign posted to her website a 67-page opposition research dossier about White, including information about his family and finances. White demanded Pinto withdrawal from the race, and Pinto’s campaign replaced the file with a new version that omitted information about White’s family, to whom Pinto apologized.
Republicans in Georgia just proved that one thing can overcome the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement: an endless stream of cash.
Health care executive Rick Jackson defeated Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, with the help of over $100 million of his personal wealth.
Jones’ loss is a major upset for the president in a marquee battleground state, and it follows several high-profile Trump losses in 2022, when his candidates either lost their primaries or the general election. The result is also a rare blunder for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who joined Trump in endorsing Jones to be his successor ahead of Tuesday’s primary, after months of sitting on the sidelines of the race.
Remarkably, neither Trump’s nor Kemp’s widespread influence could overcome the blunt force of Jackson’s spending.
Georgia Rep. Mike Collins is the GOP’s nominee to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in one of this year’s most closely watched Senate races.
Collins, boosted by a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump, defeated former football coach Derek Dooley to win the runoff Tuesday. The primary had turned into a messy proxy war between popular Gov. Brian Kemp, who championed Dooley’s bid, and Trump, who called Collins a “WARRIOR and WINNER!” on Truth Social.
Republicans will now pivot to a general election battle against Ossoff, who they fear will be hard to beat in November. The Democratic incumbent has spent months stockpiling cash and commanding national attention while Collins and Dooley have been locked in a costly and bitter primary fight.
Collins’ victory over Dooley is another notch in Trump’s endorsement record. Although the president did not weigh in until after the early voting period had ended, just days before the runoff, his backing was widely expected to help propel Collins to a first-place finish.
It was a relief for Collins, whose campaign was rocked by an internal controversy recently after his top aide, Brandon Phillips — who is also at the center of a House Ethics investigation — posted a vulgar insult directed at the wife of a Dooley-aligned operative on social media.
Collins quickly rebuked the post and moved to further align himself with Trump’s political operation, bringing on several top Trump campaign veterans, including pollster Tony Fabrizio, data strategist Tim Saler and Chip Englander as a general consultant.
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