Politics
Former President Barack Obama speaks during final public tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson
CHICAGO — Former President Barack Obama said the presidential runs in the 1980s by the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. set the stage for other Black leaders, including himself.
“The message he sent to a 22-year-old child of a single mother with a funny name, an outsider, was that maybe there wasn’t any place or any room where we didn’t belong,” Obama said Friday at a Chicago church as mourners paid a final public tribute for the civil rights legend.
“He paved the road for so many others to follow,” Obama said of Jackson.
Obama is joined by two other former Democratic presidents, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, at a celebration of life for Jackson. Obama received the loudest round of applause as the three entered the chamber.
“We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope,” Obama said. “Each day we wake up to some new assault to our democratic institutions. Another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible.”
“Each day we are told by folks in high office to fear each other,” said Obama, referring to the current Republican leadership in Washington.
Former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is also listed as a speaker on the program, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organization that Jackson founded.
President Donald Trump, who praised Jackson on social media after he died and also shared photos of the two of them together, was not attending the service, according to his public schedule issued by the White House.
Thousands attend Jackson memorial service
The event honors the protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate and follows memorial services that drew large crowds in Chicago and South Carolina, where Jackson was born. Friday’s celebration — at an influential Black church with a 10,000-seat arena — is expected to be the largest.
Crowds of attendees waited in long lines outside the church on the city’s South Side as television screens played excerpts of some of Jackson’s most famous speeches. Inside, vendors sold pins with his 1984 presidential slogan and hoodies with his “I Am Somebody” mantra.
Along with a slew of Illinois elected leaders, notable attendees included actor and producer Tyler Perry, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and political activist and theologian Cornel West. NBA Hall of Famer and Chicago native Isiah Thomas was one of the speakers.
Marketing professional Chelsia Bryan said Friday that she decided to attend the memorial service because it was “a chance to be part of something historic.”
“As a Black woman, knowing that someone pretty much gave their life, dedicated their life to make sure I can do the things that I can do now, he’s worth honoring,” Bryan said.
Jackson Jr.: Everyone welcome
Jesse Jackson Jr. said all were welcome to celebrate his father’s life.
“Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, right wing, left wing because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American,” Jackson Jr. said last month. “Dad would have wanted us to have a great meeting to discuss our differences, to find ways of moving forward and moving together.”
The elder Jackson died last month at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his mobility and ability to speak. Family members say he continued coming into the office until last year and communicated through hand signals. His final public appearances included the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Sitting in the crowd was 90-year-old Mary Lovett. She said Jackson’s advocacy inspired her many times, from when she moved from Mississippi to Chicago in the 1960s, taught elementary school and became a mom. She twice voted for Jackson during both of his presidential runs and appreciated how he always spoke up for underrepresented people. “He’s gone, but I hope his legacy lives,” she said. “I hope we can remember what he tried to teach us.”
Jackson’s service was to the poor, underrepresented
Jackson’s pursuits were countless, taking him to all corners of the globe: Advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues including voting rights, health care, job opportunities and education. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.
His son, Yusef Jackson, who runs the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, recalled how his father carried a well-worn Bible but also showed his faith by showing up to picket lines.
“He lived a revolutionary Christian faith rooted in justice, nonviolence and the moral righteousness,” Yusef Jackson said Friday. “He was deeply involved in the political struggles of his time, but his gift was that he could rise above them. It’s not about the left wing or the right wing. It takes two wings to fly. For him, the goal was always the moral center.”
Jackson’s services in Chicago and South Carolina drew civic leaders, school groups and everyday people who said they were touched by Jackson’s work, from scholarship programs to advocating for inmates. Several states flew flags at half-staff in his honor.
Services in Washington, D.C., were tabled after a request to allow Jackson to lie in honor in the United States Capitol rotunda was denied by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said the space is typically reserved for select officials, including former presidents. Details on a future event have not been made public.
Michigan’s Democratic coalition is fragmenting in real time days before a critical Senate election.
After it seemed like former primary rivals Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens might finally appear together, they’re back to sniping at each other. And it could hardly come at a worse moment as Democrats look to unite behind El-Sayed and hold on to a pivotal Senate seat.
El-Sayed’s campaign is asking Stevens to stay away from all future campaign events in the closing days of the race, two people familiar with the decision told Blue Light News, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive campaign dynamics. She should stay away “as not to distract from the central issues of the campaign,” one of the people said.
The brushoff capped off a day of the two lobbing increasingly pointed statements back and forth at each other, frustrating Democrats who say the infighting risks imperiling a state the party can hardly afford to lose as they try to flip control of the Senate.
“I have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing. This is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who was squeezed out of the Democratic primary by the two other candidates, told BLN earlier on Friday, before El-Sayed issued his response. “People are not talking about ads. They are not talking about Haley Stevens. They are talking about the price of gas and groceries.”
Stevens did not immediately respond to a question on if she will now stay off the trail, and did not respond to an earlier question about whether her appearance was contingent on him apologizing. El-Sayed’s campaign declined to comment.
El-Sayed narrowly defeated Stevens in a bitter and hard-fought primary in August that exposed division over support for Israel.
Michigan is crucial to Democrats’ plans to take back the Senate: the party can hardly afford to lose retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ seat as it hopes to use an otherwise-favorable year for Democrats to win seats in much redder states and seize control of the chamber.
Stevens and El-Sayed have not campaigned together since a post-primary unity breakfast, but appeared on the verge of doing so earlier on Friday.
Stevens initially said she would appear alongside El-Sayed and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) at a church in Detroit on Sunday.
But she said she expected the Democratic nominee to apologize for some of his past comments and condemn an ad run by an outside group supporting him that she described as antisemitic. The ad featured a conversation in a grocery store where a woman told a man they couldn’t buy eggs because they had to set aside money for “killing Palestinians.”
El-Sayed’s campaign had previously noted he was not affiliated with the ad.
In response, El-Sayed did not touch on the ad or his past comments on Israel, instead saying that has campaign “has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing” and that that focus “is why our people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70 [million] in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens.”
“So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago, let’s all focus on the task at hand: that’s beating Mike Rogers,” El-Sayed said.
Some Democrats tried to downplay the fight heading into the final days of the race.
“There’s been a lot of efforts to coalesce Democrats, both from Abdul and from the congresswoman. I think everybody’s on the same page of Democrats just beating Mike Rogers,” said Joe Tate, a state representative from Detroit who supported Stevens in the primary and is now backing El-Sayed. But he acknowledged that “when you have people that have competed through a primary, I know it can always have those lingering effects.”
Republicans have sought to play up the Democratic divisions.
“If you’re Black, or if you’re Jewish, and you vote for Abdul, you’re not smart,” President Donald Trump said at a Friday night rally in Daytona, Florida.
And Stevens’ comments so close to the pivotal election left some Democrats wondering what her goal was.
“If you are someone with a large platform — whether you are, say, an outgoing member of Congress or an out-of-state streamer — who genuinely wants Abdul El-Sayed to become the next U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan and for Democrats to take back the Senate and put a meaningful check on Donald Trump, before you speak publicly I would implore you to ask yourself ‘is what I’m doing actually helping, or am I just seeking attention?’,” Democratic operative Adam Carlson, who has polled for a pro El-Sayed super PAC, wrote on X.
Sophia Cai contributed to this report.
Democrats are poised for a good night next Tuesday. That doesn’t mean they’ve figured out how to win.
More than a dozen lawmakers, campaign operatives, strategists and pollsters warned in interviews that national Democrats risk drawing the wrong conclusions if they take back control of at least one chamber of Congress next week.
Those figures from across the party worry that the midterms, which have become a referendum on President Donald Trump, have done little to improve the Democratic Party’s brand. They caution that a favorable political environment has papered over persistent problems for a party still grappling with why it lost the 2024 presidential election. And they admit they are still sharply divided over what its message should be heading into 2028.
“Don’t confuse them losing with us winning,” said Morgan Jackson, the senior adviser to Democrat Roy Cooper’s Senate campaign in North Carolina. Cooper has consistently led in the polls by a wide margin in a state Trump won three times.
“This is not an affirmation of the Democratic Party in any which way,” said one veteran Democratic pollster working on Senate campaigns, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It is very much a rejection of Trump.”
The Democratic Party’s approval rating plummeted in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, and remains relatively weak. That’s even as voters tell pollsters they are more likely to trust Democrats than Republicans on several fronts, including addressing the cost of living, which voters consistently say is their top issue this cycle.
Democrats’ quest for a coherent, positive pitch to answer rising prices and perceived corruption in Washington has at times been stymied by infighting between the party’s progressive and moderate factions over the best way to respond to the Trump administration.
Democrats fought over whether to prolong government shutdowns to protest funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the slashing of health care subsidies in late 2025 and early 2026. They were quick to attack their own upon release of the Democratic National Committee’s formal autopsy on where the party went wrong in 2024.
But as Americans soured on Trump’s agenda and the Iran war drove up costs, Democrats zeroed in on a broad “costs, chaos and corruption” message that blamed the White House — without having to resolve their own internal tensions and disorder.
“When your opponent is destroying themselves,” said Matt Barron, a Democratic strategist who has done work across the rural Midwest and Rust Belt, “just get out of the way and let it happen.”
Nabbing wins in a midterm election with a historically unpopular president is one thing. Building a winning brand for a party that was soundly defeated at the polls just two years ago is another.
“If all you do is say the other people are terrible, that only gets you so far,” said Democratic donor Oliver Libby, who has advised Democratic House candidates Cait Conley in New York and Johnny Garcia in Texas this cycle. “You can have a minimum viable product of a midterm with criticism. You definitely don’t win a presidential year with just criticism.”
In a new Blue Light News Poll conducted by PF Global, more than half of Americans said if Republicans lose control of both the House and the Senate, it would be either because of Trump’s actions since he became president, or because Republicans have run weak campaigns. Just one in four said a Democrat-controlled Congress would be because the party had run a strong campaign.
“There are people who are going to vote in this election who are going to vote against Republicans,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist and adviser to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “That does not mean they are in love with Democrats. It just means they are voting against the people in charge.”
Democratic strategist Lis Smith, an architect of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, said the Democratic candidates performing well in historically deep-red territory are the ones distancing themselves from the national party.
“That should tell party leaders something,” she said.
Smith helped found the moderate groups Majority Democrats and The Bench, and is advising Democratic Senate candidates like Adam Hamilton in Kansas, James Talarico in Texas and Josh Turek in Iowa — all of whom have taken on that tack.
In Kansas, Hamilton publicly asked former Vice President Kamala Harris to stay away from his campaign, and said he would vote against Chuck Schumer remaining the party’s leader in the Senate. In Texas, Talarico vowed to challenge the party’s “establishment” and “change the Democratic Party.” And in Iowa, Turek says he rarely thinks about the party, while Rob Sand, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the state, has said he wants to end the two-party system altogether.
“The reality is that a lot of very average and even mediocre candidates get across the line in a wave election,” Smith said. “A wave can hide a lot of weaknesses, and so we need to be able to make sure that the party can survive when the wave recedes.”
Assuming Democrats take back control of at least one chamber of Congress next week, top party operatives see an opportunity for their side to deliver for voters who have wanted more checks on the Trump administration’s expansive use of executive power. But many caution that Democrats on Capitol Hill should avoid leaning too hard into an anti-Trump message next year, while others argue that the anti-corruption message will continue to galvanize the electorate.
“The thing that I would be concerned about, if you go from 2026 to 2028, is that people think that corruption, that elite control over our economy, is just a Trump issue,” said Bill Neidhardt, who worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and is now advising left-leaning Democratic candidate Will Lawrence and working to boost Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan. “What they need to focus on is that corporate power, those billionaire elites who are dictating the terms of our economy, that’s what people are upset with.”
William Garcia, the co-chair of Wisconsin’s La Crosse County Democratic Party, has been canvassing extensively for his party in the state’s rural-heavy 3rd district, where voters swung toward Trump in recent years. Democrats are now trying to claw back that support.
“I think we’re going to have a great night on Nov. 3. And then all these Democrats are going to have to deliver on all of these things we’re talking about,” Garcia said. “If we get to the end of 2027 summer and we haven’t passed bills to make a substantial difference in people’s lives, that’s my biggest fear. We gotta deliver.”
Others acknowledge that voters may hold the party to a higher bar if they succeed in taking back control of both chambers of Congress — and they’ll be ready to punish Democrats in 2028 if they don’t follow through on their campaign promises to hold the Trump administration to account and bring down the cost of living.
It’s a slippery slope for a party that has historically struggled to convince voters that it is well equipped to handle the economy. In 2024, Trump persuaded the majority of voters they would be financially better off with him in the White House, while painting Democrats as a party more concerned with social issues.
“If we start getting back into a party that cares more about non-economic issues, then we haven’t learned the lesson,” warned Pete Giangreco, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked on House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns this cycle. “People just are going to keep hitting the change button until the economy starts working for them again.”
Samuel Benson and Meredith Lee Hill contributed reporting.
POCONO RACEWAY, Pennsylvania — High up in the starting stand of a famed race track, Josh Shapiro waves a black-and-white checkered flag with an unmistakeable meaning: It’s over.
The metaphor isn’t entirely accurate.
“We may have a lead, but you’re coming down this home stretch. People are nipping at your heels,” the Pennsylvania governor told Blue Light News. “You’ve got to run hard.”
Shapiro, the potential 2028 contender and 2024 veepstakes short-lister, does have reasons to be optimistic — and careful.
He’s threatening a double-digit blowout over Stacy Garrity, a candidate backed by President Donald Trump, in the most important swing state in the nation.
He’s also putting his coattails to the test.
None of the other potential 2028 Democratic candidates has more at stake in their own backyard on Tuesday than Shapiro. He doesn’t have California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s map-breaking Proposition 50, designed to beat back the GOP redistricting, nor his platinum email list. He doesn’t have Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s billions or Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly’s deep bench of donors or former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s large map or the red-state credentials of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
Shapiro is on the brink of flipping four hotly contested congressional seats — and guaranteeing Democrats the House. Pennsylvania Democrats could also take control of the state Senate, including some heavily gerrymandered seats, giving the party a governing trifecta for the first time since 1992.
“I’m not thinking about this as a victory for me,” he told Blue Light News during a swing through the state. “I’m thinking about this as a victory for our country.”
All of which paves the way for him to pass a $15 minimum wage and a raft of other measures that could buttress a 2028 presidential bid.
Shapiro is very much following the Ron DeSantis theory of a presidential primary campaign: demonstrate dominance at home before branching out nationally — a strategy, it should be noted, that didn’t pay off for the Florida governor.
“I think what really hurt DeSantis was that he decided he wasn’t going to announce until after his legislative session, and that was May,” political strategist David Axelrod said. “Time is at a premium. If that’s his plan, that would be a miscalculation.”
Will we see him venture beyond Pennsylvania’s boundaries before the end of the year?
“I don’t know what my plans are,” Shapiro said.
The day had the feeling of both an ending of one campaign and the beginning of another. Even as he urged a midday audience of about 100 people to vote for Paige Cognetti, the Scranton mayor running against Rep. Rob Bresnahan, and Brian Wrightson, the state Senate candidate challenging Sen. Rosemary Brown, he is nationalizing his rhetoric.
“Don’t let Trump take away your hopefulness,” he told people gathered at East Stroudsburg University. “Don’t let him make you feel pessimistic. Don’t let him feel like change can’t come or that we have to look in the rearview mirror for answers. The answers are always straight ahead.”
Then there’s his set piece about the “American dream slipping away.”
He’s broadening out his message beyond the commonwealth.
“I think the work I do here in Pennsylvania, the confidence I give them about their government here can hopefully restore some of their faith in democracy, and I want in our democracy, and I want them to feel like they’ve got power to be able to shape the future of that American dream,” Shapiro told us.
A few hours later, Shapiro materializes inside Salerno’s, a tavern in Old Forge known for its American cheese-topped pizza. He sets a room in which patrons already have had a few too many Rolling Rocks and pumpkin martinis.
On the televisions, his own ad for Wrightson is playing on TV. He grips and grins and backslaps his way through the room.
At the end of the bar, he picks up five pizzas for the road, ducks out the door and boards his bus for another Cognetti rally.
Shapiro’s gubernatorial reelect isn’t drawing the buzz of some of the more razor’s-edge, online Senate races in the waning days of election season. But his project is no less remarkable.
“If we can win enough seats here in Pennsylvania to change the balance of power in Washington and be a check on Donald Trump, then we can both hold the president accountable and get stuff done in Washington,” Shapiro says. “Likewise, here in Pennsylvania, if we can win a trifecta for the first time since Bill Clinton’s election, I can raise wages almost immediately for tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians who are at or below minimum wage and raise wages for others. That’s a concrete thing that we can accomplish.”
At the raceway, he has just finished cutting a video racing around the Pocono Raceway’s Tricky Triangle when he flashes a grin.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he says, inviting Blue Light News to the starting stand above the storied three-turn NASCAR track in the Pocono foothills.
Up the stairs, the burnt-orange fall foliage dances on the Pennsylvania horizon. It’s a vantage point Shapiro, as a NASCAR fan, has taken in many times.
Despite the apt setting, he deflects when asked if he’s ready to announce the launch of his campaign.
“If this is a metaphor,” he says, “it’s for finishing the race strong.”
There is just one wrinkle: Before he brandished the black-and-white flag, he picked up a green one, waving it vigorously.
“I think you mis-saw that,” Shapiro said with a smile. “I was waving a checkered flag to finish the governor’s race.”
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- Data centers turn sleepy utility races into political battlegrounds
- Medicaid work requirements go live in two months. Many states won’t be ready.
- El-Sayed campaign wants Stevens to stay away after day of back-and-forth sniping
- Distaste for data centers brings bipartisan ballot blitz to Ohio
- Democrats are still looking for a message, even if they win big on Tuesday
- Josh Shapiro aims for a strong finish in a campaign with 2028 implications
- Shapiro takes the inside track
- Trump turns defense into midterm campaign pitch — never mind Iran
- RFK Jr.’s making a lot of friends in Iowa
- GOP lawmakers start contemplating a diminished Donald Trump
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