Gottheimer readies AI bill to vet powerful AI models for risk

Published

2 hours ago

June 18, 2026

The New Jersey Democrat says advanced AI models should face mandatory government reviews for national security, critical infrastructure and bioterror risks…
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Gottheimer readies AI bill to vet powerful AI models for risk

Published

40 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The New Jersey Democrat says advanced AI models should face mandatory government reviews for national security, critical infrastructure and bioterror risks…
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Kenyan McDuffie concedes to Janeese Lewis George in DC mayoral primary

Published

2 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Janeese Lewis George is on track to become the next mayor of Washington, D.C., after Kenyan McDuffie conceded the Democratic primary on Thursday.

Lewis George’s apparent victory will usher in a new era for the district and put her on a collision course with President Donald Trump for the final years of his term.

The Associated Press had not yet called the race at the time of McDuffie’s concession, but Lewis George has tracked ahead of McDuffie since vote-counting began on Tuesday in all but one of the city’s wards. In a statement, McDuffie said he had called Lewis George “to congratulate her on her victory and wish her success as she prepares for the general election.”

Lewis George would face no major challenger in November’s general election, putting her on a glide path to take the reins from Mayor Muriel Bowser next year and giving Washington a change in executive leadership for the first time since Bowser took office in January 2015.

In a primary stacked with anti-Trump Democrats, Lewis George presented herself as a candidate unafraid to oppose the president. She has pledged to rescind the order allowing the city’s police to coordinate alongside federal immigration agents and take a hard legal stance against any attempts by Trump to encroach on the District’s autonomy.

Lewis George told Blue Light News in an interview last week that she would “actively tell our employees to resist” if Trump again attempted to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department.

Her position is likely to pit the democratic socialist directly against a president who has attempted to tighten his grip on the district, taking extraordinary measures to crack down on crime and cut through bureaucratic red tape to pursue a slate of ambitious beautification and construction projects around the city.

When Trump was asked in the Oval Office about the possibility of Lewis George winning the primary and becoming mayor, he told reporters: “I wouldn’t like it.” “Maybe we’ll take back Washington, run it on a federal basis,” Trump said. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not gonna lose our businesses.”

A third-generation Washingtonian, the 38-year-old Lewis George has represented the district’s 4th Ward on the D.C. Council since 2021. She ran a progressive campaign, promising change from Bowser’s tenure and casting herself as a champion of the working class who would stand up to Trump. Her platform — including universal child care, social housing and public safety reforms — galvanized a coalition of voters that skewed young, white, college-educated and newer to Washington, according to polling.

McDuffie, her main opponent in the race, pitched himself as a more pro-business pragmatist who gained Bowser’s tacit support.

The change in leadership for Washington comes at a time of tumult in the city.

D.C. is facing a $1.1 billion budget gap, which Bowser has argued should be covered by cuts to social services. The Trump administration’s government funding cuts and decimation of the federal workforce hit Washington especially hard — resulting in the greatest number of job losses of any metro region in the country in 2025. And Trump’s moves to wrest control of the city by temporarily taking over the MPD and indefinitely calling on the National Guard to patrol the District’s streets were deeply unpopular among Washingtonians.

Washington is also dependent on the federal government for multiple high-profile projects that have the potential to accelerate a sluggish economy, including upgrades to Union Station and the redevelopment of the RFK Stadium campus. Lewis George told Blue Light News that “there are avenues I want to work with this administration,” including those projects — but she also promised to “stand up to anyone who harms our communities or threatens home rule.”

The race between Lewis George and McDuffie — whose base skewed toward voters who are Black, older and lifelong District residents, polls showed — had grown increasingly fraught in its final weeks. Lewis George collected endorsements from several top unions, while McDuffie found support among establishment Democrats, including former Mayors Sharon Pratt and Tony Williams, and former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison.

Lewis George leaned into a campaign focused on affordability, blaming rising prices on Trump and proposing that she would bring down sky-high housing costs by constructing 72,000 new units, compared to McDuffie’s proposed 12,000. McDuffie argued that imposing greater taxes on businesses to pay for more ambitious social programs would drive them away from the district, exacerbating its economic woes.

The candidates also differed on public safety, a marquee issue in light of Trump’s crime crackdown. Lewis George, who was first elected to the Council following the social justice protests of 2020, argued for public safety reform with a holistic approach to crime prevention that includes bolstering community programs and nonpolice response.

Politics

Michigan pollster accuses McMorrow campaign of killing unfavorable Senate poll

Published

20 hours ago

June 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A prominent Michigan pollster is accusing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s Senate campaign of pressuring a state capitol news outlet into killing a survey of the heated Democratic primary.

The pollster, Steve Mitchell, told Blue Light News the survey was conducted on behalf of Michigan Information & Research Service, an independent news outlet covering the state capitol that his firm regularly works with. But MIRS ultimately chose not to publish the survey after pushback from the McMorrow campaign.

The poll found McMorrow at just 6 percent ahead of the state’s pivotal Aug. 4 contest, far behind former public health official Abdul El-Sayed at 42 percent and Rep. Haley Stevens at 33 percent.

“The poll, in the eyes of the McMorrow campaign, understated their support,” Mitchell, whose firm Mitchell Research & Communications conducted and paid for the poll, told Blue Light News. “And they put intense pressure on MIRS, and therefore MIRS decided that they weren’t going to run the survey. That’s their decision, and I support their decision.”

McMorrow has trailed the other two candidates in a number of recent public surveys, but 6 percent would mark a new low — a sign her campaign for the critical Michigan Senate seat may be mired in third place. McMorrow’s campaign told Blue Light News the polling methodology was faulty and that its resulting memo was riddled with errors, including spelling her name wrong.

Kyle Melinn, a news editor with MIRS, said he killed the poll after speaking with the McMorrow campaign and other pollsters.

“I told Steve that the campaign did raise issues with the poll, and that they were pressuring me to not run the poll,” Melinn said in an interview. He added that after registering the McMorrow campaign’s concerns, he solicited the advice of other pollsters, and “didn’t run it because I didn’t feel comfortable with it.” The other unidentified pollsters shared his issues with the poll, according to Melinn.

McMorrow campaign spokesperson Jackson Boaz said in a statement that “Voicing concerns about a poll isn’t a pressure campaign. They chose not to publish a survey that is deeply flawed.” Asked whether the campaign had asked MIRS not to run the poll, Boaz said, “MIRS chose not to run the poll because they agreed the poll did not meet their standards.”

Boaz said the McMorrow campaign reached out to MIRS after “we noticed odd things about the data,” including that 0 percent of Black voters were undecided in the race; 0 or 1 percent of voters in Detroit and its metro area were undecided while other parts of the state had undecided voters at 25 percent, 48 percent, and even 54 percent; and that McMorrow was at just 5 percent support in her home base of Oakland County.

Their suspicion — which they said MIRS confirmed — was that the poll allowed anyone to take it through an open link, rather than having access controlled to ensure a random and representative sample of the state.

The poll was conducted through a methodology known as text-to-web, in which random voters are selected to receive a text message link to a survey to fill out. That allows pollsters to ensure they are reaching an appropriately wide-ranging group of voters. But the McMorrow campaign said all respondents received the same open-access link, which would allow anyone with the link to take the poll — potentially multiple times.

“The outlet that sponsored this poll declined to publish it because it didn’t meet their standards.

It was conducted through an open SurveyMonkey link sent over text, meaning anyone who

received this poll could vote multiple times or send the link to friends and supporters to impact

the results,” Boaz said in a statement. “This is fundamental polling malpractice. We urge either of our opponents, or any reputable pollster, to stand by this shoddy methodology.”

In an interview, Mitchell admitted he got some of the polling memo wrong, saying for example that he meant to write El-Sayed supported Medicare for All, not “Social Security for All.” But he said he stood by the poll and its methodology.

“I have always had 100 percent confidence in all the polling I do,” Mitchell said. “I believe that we’ve been very strenuous in the methodology that we use. We’re very careful about it. We weighted it well, and more importantly, we have a track record that shows we are a strong and good pollster.”

“A poll is a poll,” Mitchell said when asked about the open link question, sharing a poll with Blue Light News from GOP gubernatorial candidate John James that he said used a similar approach.

The controversy over the spiked poll underscores the importance of the Michigan Senate race. Democrats view defending the open seat as crucial to reclaiming the Senate majority, and the party establishment has mobilized hard against Bernie Sanders-backed El-Sayed, who they argue could pave the way to Republican Mike Rogers flipping the seat in November.

But recent pollssuggest McMorrow is falling behind El-Sayed, who is experiencing a surge in support, and Stevens, who is backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

In the memo about the contested poll, Mitchell wrote there has been a “huge erosion in support for Mallory McMorrow.”

“One of the reasons for her seeming collapse is the fact El-Sayed had received a large amount of unpaid media because of the endorsements by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Hasan Piker the anti-Semitic podcaster while Haley Stevens had an outside organization spend more than $6 million on her candidacy,” Mitchell wrote. However, he added: “Our poll was conducted June 11-13 which coincided with an ad buy of at least $5 million on behalf of McMorrow that started just the day before we began our polling. Therefore, McMorrow’s ads did not have enough time to impact our results.”