Politics

Dems who outran Harris in battleground states urge party to focus on ‘kitchen-table issues’

Published

2 years ago

November 17, 2024

Democrats aren’t blaming Kamala Harris. But they have a lot of theories for what went wrong when Republicans swept control of the White House and Congress ten days ago.

After a week where many Democrats hid from Sunday shows in the aftermath of the election last Sunday, Democrats — especially from Trump-won states — came on to offer their critiques of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks so far — and offered insight into the Democratic soul-searching.

“Any party — and I can only represent the Democratic Party — needs to focus on the things that keep people up at night. That’s their pocketbooks and their kids,” Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said in an interview with BLN. “There are a lot of issues out there. But you’ve got to start with what keeps people awake, and that is kitchen-table issues, economics.”

Like Slotkin, Ruben Gallego is a member of the House who won a promotion to the Senate on Election Day — even though Trump carried Arizona at the top of the ticket. He agreed that, broadly, Democrats did not connect with Americans on the issues that mattered to them, especially on the economy.

“You can have all the graphs you want,” Gallego said on BLN’s “State of the Union.” “If you open up your checking account, and you see that you’re making less, and there’s not enough coming in, it doesn’t matter what the GDP growth is.”

Gallego also noted that Arizona had more registered Republicans than Democrats and said he knew voters from both parties were struggling economically — and could relate to them as someone who grew up poor.

“People were hurting. When I say people were hurting, people were — really felt the pain of the economy,” Gallego said. “We explained to people that what is happening right now is bad. And also by the way, it’s not your fault. But we’re going to work to fix it. And I think that’s the thing that we did for 23 months that made the biggest difference.”

Even Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), another current House colleague but from solidly-blue California, saw a similar messaging issue among Democrats..

“Frankly, I think one of the reasons I was successful in California is I was out there talking about the economy,” Schiff said in an interview with BLN’s “State of the Union.” “We need to make that case all over rural America that we understand what people are facing, that we respect them, that we’re going to deliver for them. I think that’s been missing.”

Pennsylvania was one battleground state that saw Republican gains down the ballot, with a Senate flip and two seats in the House. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who flipped a Republican-held Senate seat in 2022, also pointed to “unique” factors this cycle that made Trump the “strongest that he’s been in three cycles” — such as the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Elon Musk’s increased presence in the state.

Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) acknowledged that Democratic losses among the working class is “an incredibly important part of our analysis” as the party moves forward. He reiterated that Democrats must “put working families over the well-connected.”

“Poorly negotiated trade deals, the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs, the decline of unionization, and of course the rise of automation have all jammed up people in the heartland of America, the Great Lakes states, and working families all across the country,” Jeffries said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And it’s going to fall on Democrats, Republicans and independents to do something about it decisively. To me, that’s the lesson that I take from the most recent election.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is term-limited three years from now and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for national office in the future, noted that the upcoming Trump administration’s Cabinet picks open the door for Democrats to press their arguments.

“I certainly don’t want to do any finger pointing, because the vice president had 107 days, and she did her very best. And I proudly criss-crossed the country in support of her,” Beshear said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “But what I know is, going forward, over the next couple years, we have a chance every day, every moment, to show the American people that we are laser-focused on jobs, on their health care, on their infrastructure, on their kids’ education — just those everyday worries.”

He added, “And with this administration, at least right now selecting some very extreme appointees, it’s a chance to make a real difference, to really show people that we’re where their basic needs are.”

Beshear also noted that this does not mean Democrats should abandon their beliefs, pointing to his veto of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill passed by Republicans in the state legislature, but then got back to discussing jobs the next day.

“If we’re talking about this issue of the day, and then we’re talking about what Donald Trump said last night,” Beshear said. “And then we’re talking about jobs — we’re only spending a third of the time talking about what people are worried about and what impacts their life the most.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

4 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”