Congress

Elon’s back: The tech mogul’s checkbook and platform are galvanizing the GOP

Published

5 months ago

January 28, 2026

Just six months ago, most congressional Republicans kept their distance from Elon Musk after the tech mogul’s messy political breakup with President Donald Trump and his feverish attempt to kill their signature megabill.

Musk is persona non grata no longer, thanks to his mega checkbook and mega platform — both of which he is now using to influence the future of the GOP.

Republicans see his recent donation to a Kentucky Senate candidate as an encouraging sign that Musk will make good on his promises to back the GOP, and top House leaders are elated — especially those in charge of defending their razor-thin majority. Musk spent more than $260 million in the last election helping to elect Trump and Republicans.

“It’s definitely a positive development for us,” NRCC Chair Richard Hudson said in an interview.

He added, “By the way, when they had their rift, I told you all this would happen.”

That rift seemed unlikely to heal early on, with Musk accusing the president of covering up the Jeffrey Epstein files because Trump was named in the documents, then threatening to start his own political party.

But just six months later, Musk is back having dinners with Trump and attempting to steer GOP policy again — and he is making his presence felt in key offices on Capitol Hill.

Musk, who posted on New Year’s Day that “America is toast if the radical left wins,” did not respond to requests for comment.

Recently he has used his 233-million-follower X account to push Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE Act — a bill meant to tighten election laws to prevent noncitizens from voting, in part by imposing new proof-of-citizenship requirements and restricting mail voting.

The campaign has driven a huge volume of calls to member offices, according to two aides granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, forcing Republican after Republican to publicly state their support for the legislation. It has no Democratic support and has not been called up for a vote because it cannot overcome the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster hurdle.

Two of the Senate’s most endangered Republican incumbents — Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn — have leaned into Musk’s push to hold a vote on the bill, often reposting his messages on their accounts. Cornyn also spoke privately with Thune about the bill last week.

When Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas announced on X Saturday he was “reviewing” the bill, Musk reposted the message with a pair of American flag emojis.

Asked about the bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Tuesday night that he was sure it would come up for a vote “at some point” but “we’ll have to figure out where we can get it done.”

“We’ve got a lot of interest in it, and I’m supportive of it,” Thune said, noting he has co-sponsored the bill previously.

The public pressure campaign appears to have caught some Republicans by surprise given that there’s been little internal rush to formally sign onto the bill since it’s currently not moving and can’t pass the Senate.

Congressional Republicans, who have fresh memories of the trail of destruction he has often left on Capitol Hill, see Musk’s re-emergence as a mixed blessing. He blew up a carefully negotiated bipartisan government funding deal in December 2024 and almost sunk the GOP megabill in the final stages of passage over his personal objections to the cancellation of electric vehicle subsidies and other policies.

“He’s a big voice,” said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), a member of House GOP leadership, who recalled how Musk was “really antagonistic” about the huge Republican policy bill last year.

But, he added, “I think if he’s willing to be accurate, yeah, then I then totally want him on board.”

That’s especially true when it comes to Musk’s money. Even amid his feuding with Trump, he cut $10 million worth of checks to the GOP super PACs charged with preserving the House and Senate majorities.

But with Musk dropping another $10 million into Kentucky Senate candidate Nate Morris’ campaign effort — and ending his dalliance with a third party — the expectation is that more checks will now be on the way.

Hudson said he hasn’t talked to Musk yet about any future financial commitments to helping House Republicans. But members are straining to get in his good graces as Republicans face huge midterm challenges without Trump on the ballot.

“History is not on our side,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said, referring to the typical midterm losses suffered by the president’s party. “We’ll take any and all help possible to reverse that trend in history, because I think it’s important for the Republican Party.”

Whether they want Musk as a presence on the campaign trail is a more complicated question. His Department of Government Efficiency initiative is widely seen as a bust nearly a year later, and his post-2024 election efforts to vocally back conservatives — like a Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate — backfired at the ballot box.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a hard-liner who is running for governor of South Carolina, said Musk “did an unbelievable job in identifying waste, fraud and abuse” and would be welcome both on the campaign trail and in his potential administration as an efficiency consultant.

But Republicans in swingier territory are cooler to the idea of a large Musk presence in their races this fall.

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House, said he was pleased to see Trump and Musk patch up their rift — that “obviously we are better when we are united and as a team.”

Asked if he wanted Musk to campaign in his district, Bresnahan was more equivocal.

“I’m not really sure — I’m impartial,” Bresnahan said. “We look at whoever’s going to be supportive of what we’re trying to do for northeastern Pennsylvania, and if their mission aligns with our mission, then we’re going to embrace it.”

Congress

Congressional Black Caucus blasts Slotkin over her calls for new leadership in the House

Published

3 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Congressional Black Caucus is emphatically declaring its support for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — and denouncing Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s call for new leadership in Congress.

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, the entirely Democratic CBC declared that it stands united behind the nation’s first Black minority leader of the House. The caucus accused the Michigan senator of “posturing for higher office in 2028” and called attention to her votes to approve multiple members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

“House Democrats don’t need a lesson on reading the political moment from someone who handed Donald Trump one of the most corrupt Cabinets in American history,” the CBC said. “Voting to confirm Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and five other Trump Cabinet secretaries is not the posture of someone who understood the moment’ after 2024.”

The CBC closed its defense of Jeffries with a sharp parting shot of remaining focused on providing for Americans rather than “engaging in distractions that only serve to divide Democrats at a moment when unity and resolve are essential.”

A spokesperson for Slotkin, who has repeatedly called for a new generation of leadership in Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal

Published

6 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.

“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.

The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.

“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”

Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.

Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.

Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

9 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.