Politics

Fan of the people

Published

3 months ago

June 14, 2026

A delightful encounter between Morocco and Brazil just wrapped up at the Meadowlands, just a short train ride from downtown Manhattan. Back across the Hudson River, a potentially decisive Game 5 of the NBA Finals will tip off soon. The World Cup final will take place back here in less than six weeks.

All of a sudden, New York seems like the center of the sports world. And the city has a mayor who is taking full advantage.

Zohran Mamdani has been an ever-present face at Knicks games and at World Cup-related events, including today’s match, opining on both sports and often sporting an Arsenal or a Knicks jersey to boot. In doing so, the avowed socialist mayor is modeling for politicians around the world a new version of lefty sports fandom.

His good fortune on this front is undeniable. Mamdani is a hardcore soccer fan and player; his basketball knowledge is somewhat less developed, but he’s able to talk about the Knicks and sound like an authentic supporter. He has avoided pitfalls like the one that tripped up New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul when she recently said she would “ask [President Donald Trump] to name the starting lineup of the 1993 championship team and see how he does.”

(It was an almost unforgivable gaffe — the 1993 Knicks famously lost in heartbreaking fashion to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and failed to reach the NBA Finals.)

“He doesn’t sound like he’s speaking a second language like so many Democrats do when they talk about sports,” said a source close to Mamdani, granted anonymity to candidly discuss Democratic Party messaging strategy. “He’s not putting on — with other Democrats, you run into an issue where they don’t know who [Knicks star] Jalen Brunson is. They don’t know who KAT is. They don’t have Linsanity memories.”

Mamdani laces his World Cup press conferences with soccer references, so much so that Hochul has begun to call him a “super fan.”

In an April event the two pols did together on Staten Island, the mayor recalled going to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and said his fondest memories from that tournament included playing beach soccer in Durban.

At a midtown press conference last week laying out the city’s public transportation plans, Mamdani said the city would not “park the bus,” a joke about a derided defensive strategy that is familiar to soccer fans but that he had to explain to the American press corps.

When Mamdani earlier this week announced a massive World Cup watch party in Central Park, he did so alongside George Weah, the former Liberian president and soccer star who is also father of American forward Tim Weah.

“When I was a child growing up in East Africa, there were towering figures, and then there was George Weah, the first African player to ever win the Ballon d’Or,” he said. “If you had told seven-year-old me that I would one day go into the same line of work as this man, I would be extremely disappointed to understand that you meant politics.” Then he got in a subtle dig at Weah for playing for Chelsea — a rival to Mamdani’s Arsenal, whose uniform the mayor turned into a custom kurta during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in May.

But he has also treated his commentary on sports as almost separate from his broader political agenda. While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (still angry about the Brooklyn Dodgers’ owner moving them to Los Angeles in his youth) calls MLB team owners “baseball oligarchs,” Mamdani has assiduously avoided comments on Knicks owner James Dolan’s controversial invite to Trump to watch the finals, aside from noting that he would be in a much cheaper part of Madison Square Garden, with a standing-room-only ticket.

“Engaging with the sphere of sports for politicians can be more politically effective by being less explicitly political,” said Jules Boykoff, a former professional soccer player who is a professor at Pacific University and has written multiple books on sports and politics.

Mamdani’s sports-focused mayoralty hasn’t been all sunshine. After he attended a New York Mets game earlier this year and the baseball team went on a long losing streak, the New York Post dubbed it the “curse of the Mambino.” Any politician who dares to be a public sports fan exposes themselves to the vicissitudes of a game they cannot control — no matter how powerful any lucky jersey is.

But flexing sports fandom can work to advance a political agenda as well. If sports are often a reflection of society, and the World Cup is the globe’s most important sporting event, it stands to reason that a politician who can confidently talk about sports has a chance to benefit. Working with FIFA, which is frequently excoriated by the global left, Mamdani secured 1,000 tickets for just $50 to see World Cup games that are otherwise selling for thousands of dollars. That’s a very public way to advance his democratic socialist agenda.

“I think it could be effective politically, moving through the sport of soccer to make political arguments without actually talking about politics directly,” said Boykoff. “Just getting people tickets, making sure the working class is involved — I do see that as very much a path forward.”

Politics

Trump will hit several deep-red states in October campaign blitz

Published

5 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail — and a series of his stops are in deep-red states he comfortably won in 2024.

Trump will campaign in Iowa, Florida, Texas and Alaska ahead of Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-public plans. That’s on top of his scheduled stop in Oklahoma next week, as the RNC announced, and his visit to Alabama, which POLITICO first reported.

While the president has indicated a desire to stump for Ken Paxton in Texas and Dan Sullivan in Alaska, the addition of Iowa and Florida to his campaign schedule signals an expanded focus on red states as Republicans grow increasingly nervous heading into the final stretch of the midterms.

The president is also preparing to hold campaign rallies in more traditional battleground states starting Oct. 3, according to one of the people.

His travel schedule is a clear signal that the GOP is seeking to shore up their own territory — as rising voter anger over sky-high costs and mass deportations creates new openings for Democrats. The six confirmed states have highly watched Senate, House and gubernatorial contests this November, but they are also ones Trump won by double digits two years ago.

“While Democrats squabble over the last two cents their party has to spare, the president is barnstorming the country, energizing our base, and supercharging Republican candidates in key races and beyond,” said Natalie Baldassarre, an RNC spokesperson.

“We have the resources to spend, and Republicans are full steam ahead to protect and expand our majorities,” Baldassarre added.

The White House referred Blue Light News to the RNC.

Vice President JD Vance will also ramp up his campaign travel ahead of Election Day. He and Trump are expected to make stops in Ohio to boost GOP Sen. Jon Husted, as POLITICO has reported. Husted is trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in internal GOP polling by top Senate Republicans, according to two other people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share private details.

Trump’s latest midterms travel swing will first start with Oklahoma and Alabama — two deep-red states where Democrats haven’t made the same inroads in statewide elections as they have in other traditionally conservative states like Texas, Alaska and Kansas.

But his Alabama event could help drive turnout and shore up support for GOP state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is in a competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in the state’s 2nd District, despite Republicans’ effort to redraw the seat in their favor.

Republicans in Iowa, Texas and Alaska are growing increasingly alarmed about how close their Senate races are amid fallout from the Iran war and other policy moves by Trump. Florida Republicans have become uneasy about their own firewall, with some polling showing statewide races inside the margin of error.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate nominee in Iowa, recently publicly broke with Trump over the Iran war, as did several other Iowa House Republicans.

“The bigger question on everything continues to be, whatever you do, will there be enough time. I just don’t know,” said one person close to the White House. “We’re teetering on the edge of it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Alec Hernández contributed to this report.

Politics

Poll: A crack is emerging in Trump’s coalition over deportations

Published

11 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is running into resistance within his own voter coalition, as more and more Republican candidates publicly break with him ahead of the November election.

New results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA Trump voters to say his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, 31% to 14%. While roughly similar shares of both groups believe Trump’s campaign is about right, the MAGA base wants him to go even further: 36% of MAGA Trump voters say his campaign is not aggressive enough, compared with 23% of non-MAGA Trump voters.

Meanwhile, support across Trump’s entire voter coalition falls when it comes to deporting people beyond the most violent offenders, such as those with minor criminal offenses or who have been living in the U.S. for years without legal status.

The new survey, conducted by London-based Public First, reveals how Trump’s immigration agenda — which has long been one of his signature political issues and a reliable GOP rallying point — has divided the very coalition that helped power his two presidential wins. The president’s MAGA loyalists are still more inclined than other Trump voters to support a tougher immigration posture, but there are clear limits to how far voters want the administration to go.

Those intraparty tensions burst into public view this month, when Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) released a campaign ad pushing back against Trump’s deportation agenda, saying some of his efforts “have gone too far” and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 “feel betrayed.” It was a remarkable break from a sitting GOP lawmaker over one of the president’s defining policies, as Democrats have locked in on Florida’s 27th District as a prime target in their bid to flip the House.

Salazar’s public rift with Trump exemplifies the fears Republicans had been privately warning about for months: that the president’s immigration enforcement — marked last year by high-profile, flashy raids that rippled through communities — was alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support border security and immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it is being carried out.

And as the party stares down a difficult midterm landscape, including in districts and states Trump won in 2024, other GOP candidates followed Salazar’s lead, increasingly putting distance between themselves and the administration on key issues like immigration — despite having voted last year to approve billions of dollars for border security and immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), whose race has tightened against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also softened his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as raids in southwest Kansas prompt temporary business closures and schools.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe,” he wrote on social media, adding that he’s been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The Blue Light News Poll finds most Americans — including majorities of both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — believe people convicted of serious violent or sexual offenses should be prioritized for deportation, underscoring broad agreement on a more targeted approach to enforcement.

The survey also finds that few people — including among both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — prioritized targeting other groups for deportations. Less than a quarter of each group say people convicted of minor criminal offenses should be prioritized. Support falls further when voters are asked about prioritizing people who have lived in the U.S. for several years without legal status or people with dependent children in the U.S.

“A lot of it has to do with how you talk about it. They don’t want amnesty for people who have broken the law. They want everybody to do it the right way,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss how Republicans are viewing the issue. “They understand that some people might be law-abiding, hard working.”

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Blue Light News is “skewing data to paint a false narrative.”

“The American people sent President Trump back to the White House to stop the invasion of our country and deport the millions of illegal aliens Biden and Democrats allowed into the country. The president is delivering on his promises,” she said.

Days after releasing the ad, Salazar said she had a “fantastic conversation” with Trump and urged him to protect the political “fortune” he had brought to the Republican Party on immigration. She also told CBS last weekend that Trump and the average American understand “the between the narco and the nanny and the gangster and the gardener.”

She said the administration should distinguish between criminals and unauthorized immigrants working in crucial industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and health care.

That distinction is also reflected in The Blue Light News Poll. Both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters are open to maintaining or increasing the number of people coming into the U.S. to work in sectors facing labor shortages, such as health care or agriculture. Sixty-five percent of MAGA Trump voters and 69% non-MAGA Trump voters say they want to see about the same number — or more — people coming to the U.S. to work in those sectors facing labor shortages.

“Trump 2.0 that took over in January 2025 completely misread what voters were telling him and Joe Biden during 2024, which was that they wanted to see more order and security over the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Matt Barreto, who conducted polling for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. “Instead, what Trump told Americans was, ‘Now I’m going to go hunt down immigrants who are just working and contributing to America.’ And there was extremely limited support for that.”

Past POLITICO polling on immigration has shown that the Trump administration has been unable to reverse the damage with voters on the issue. Last fall, battleground Republicans were already expressing concern about the administration’s immigration tactics. Those concerns intensified in the months that followed, while negative voter sentiment hardened by April after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration, in the wake of bipartisan outrage, softened its rhetoric and abandoned flashy raids that often devolved into clashes with protesters. The president also installed Mullin, who moved quickly to repair relationships on Capitol Hill and keep the Department of Homeland Security out of the headlines.

But Mullin is also facing pressure from MAGA critics and immigration hardliners who think he’s not committed to the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. In an effort to shore up his support with that contingent, top administration accounts, including Mullin’s, have ramped up posts about ICE, arrests statistics and tough talk about the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.