Politics
How blue states are plotting to thwart Trump
Donald Trump pledged in one of his final campaign speeches to work with Democratic mayors and governors if reelected. But just hours after the former president was projected to win back the White House, some blue-state leaders were actively plotting against him.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of Trump’s fiercest critics, on Thursday called a special legislative session to funnel more resources toward the state’s legal defenses to preemptively combat Republican policies around immigration, the environment, LGBTQ+ rights and reproductive care.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James — one of Trump’s most aggressive first-term adversaries — pledged to beef up coordination between their offices to “protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms from any potential threats.”
And attorneys general across blue states are prepared to take Trump to court — just as their predecessors did hundreds of times during his first administration.
If Trump’s reelection represented a realignment in American politics, blue-state leaders are choosing to confront it with a return to form, resuming the counterweight roles they played during his first administration as their party reckons with a nationwide repudiation.
“We’ve been talking for months with attorneys general throughout the nation, preparing, planning, strategizing for the possibility of this day,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a press conference in San Francisco on Thursday.
Trump’s two-year campaign to retake the White House — and polls that for months showed he could succeed — gave Democrats the lead time they lacked in 2016 to shore up their defenses against conservative policies. And they are using as a guide his campaign-trail calls for mass deportations and regulatory rollbacks, as well as Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a Republican administration that Trump has distanced himself from but that dozens of his former administration officials had a hand in crafting.
Governors and lawmakers in several blue states have already passed laws bolstering reproductive rights since the fall of Roe and stockpiled the abortion pill mifepristone in response to further legal threats to reproductive care. While Trump has vowed to veto a national abortion ban, that’s hardly alleviated Democrats’ fears. And as he barreled toward a second term, they raced to address other areas of concern, pushing ballot measures to protect same-sex marriage, labor rights and other liberal causes.
Even as he briefly pledged in the closing days of his campaign to work across the aisle, Trump has also vowed to punish his political opponents — and many blue-state leaders are at the top of his list of adversaries. On Friday, the president-elect tore into Newsom for calling a special legislative session.
“Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California,” Trump said Friday in a post on Truth Social, using his derisive nickname for the governor. “He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again.’”
And so Democratic governors and attorneys general who have spent months strategizing on how to protect their states’ progressive policies from a possible second Trump term are kicking those efforts into higher gear.
Some governors are discussing how to ensure that federal funding for state projects makes it to their coffers before Trump takes power, potentially with total Republican control of Congress, said one person who works in a Democratic governor’s office, granted anonymity to disclose private conversations. The discussions convey the concerns among some Democrats that Republicans could pause disbursements from, or even repeal, President Joe Biden’s signature programs, such as the CHIPS and Inflation Reduction acts.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also said Thursday that he has spoken with other Democratic governors since the election about how to best Trump-proof their states.
“There are many people whose lives and livelihoods are at risk, and there are many people who cried at the [election] result because they know what impact it may have on their families,” Pritzker said at a press conference Thursday.
He also delivered a warning: “You come for my people, you come through me.”
In California, where Democratic leaders became some of the de facto heads of the Trump resistance after his 2016 election, officials spent months working to shore up the state’s climate policies and disaster preparedness in anticipation of an antagonistic federal government even before Newsom called the special legislative session.
“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack,” Newsom declared in a statement. “And we won’t sit idle.”
In New York, Hochul and James created the Empire State Freedom Initiative, a program that is meant to address “policy and regulatory threats” from the incoming Trump administration, including against reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as gun safety and environmental justice. The New York governor also signaled she will propose legislation as well as take executive action in response to Trump’s victory, but did not provide specifics.
“New York will remain a bastion for freedom and rule of law,” Hochul said. “I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that New York remains a bastion from efforts where those rights are being denied in other states.”
James could have an outsize impact on how Trump’s policies trickle down to New York. The Democrat, who was first elected in 2018, sued Trump’s real estate business for fraud. She won a $450 million judgment, which is being appealed.
Meanwhile, state prosecutors who often served as the first line of defense against Trump’s most controversial executive orders in his last term — banding together to try to block his travel restrictions from some Muslim-majority countries, challenge his plans to roll back vehicle emissions standards, and more — have long been preparing to again serve as a legal bulwark.
In California, state lawyers have meticulously prepared for Trump’s return — down to crafting draft briefings, weighing specific legal arguments and debating favorable litigation venues, Bonta, the attorney general, told Blue Light News.
“If he comes into office and he follows the law and he doesn’t violate the constitution and he doesn’t violate other important laws, like the Administrative Procedure Act he violated all the time last time, then there’s nothing for us to do,” Bonta said. “But if he violates the law, as he has said he would, as Project 2025 says he will, then we are ready. … We have gone down to the detail of: What court do we file in?”
In New Jersey, state Attorney General Matt Platkin cited mass deportations, an “aggressive reading of the Comstock Act” to potentially impose an abortion ban and “gutting clean water protection” as potential sources of litigation.
“If you look at the things that have been said by the president and his associates during the campaign, … if you read Project 2025, there are proposals that are clearly unlawful and that would undermine the rights of our residents,” Platkin said in an interview.
And in Massachusetts, first-term Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office has been preparing to act against threats to reproductive, LGBTQ+ and immigrants’ rights and student loan-forgiveness programs, among other areas.
In response to a request for comment, Trump’s team said in a statement: “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
Democrats’ rush to reform their resistance to Trump is partly self-serving. Governors and state prosecutors who took on Trump during his first term burnished their national profiles in the process.
In some cases they were able to parlay their opposition into higher office: Massachusetts’ Maura Healey leveraged her lawsuits against Trump as attorney general to help win the governorship in 2022; California’s Xavier Becerra, the former state attorney general, is now the Biden administration’s Health and Human Services secretary and is eyeing a run for governor. And for Democrats who’ve been chafing for a chance to get off the party’s deep bench, a second Trump term presents a fresh opportunity for a potentially star-making turn ahead of an open 2028 presidential primary.
That jockeying has in some ways already begun. Several blue-state leaders held press conferences on Wednesday and Thursday to reassure anxious constituents that doubled as ways to establish themselves as leaders in the anti-Trump fight. On Wednesday, Healey was on MSNBC vowing that state police would not be involved in carrying out the mass deportations Trump has promised, seizing a national platform in a way she rarely has since challenging Trump in the courtroom as attorney general.
But there was some acknowledgment among top city and state Democrats that they would have to find ways to work with Trump, too — mainly on infrastructure projects which are often reliant on massive amounts of federal funding.
“If it’s contrary to our values, we will fight to the death,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said during a Wednesday press conference about the election results. “If there’s an opportunity for common ground, we will seize that as fast as anybody.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams similarly pledged to find ways to partner with the incoming administration, naming infrastructure as a target area for future collaboration.
“I communicated with the president yesterday to state that there are many issues here in the city that we want to work together with the administration to address,” Adams said during a news conference Thursday. “The city must move forward.”
Holly Otterbein, Melanie Mason, Nick Reisman, Daniel Han, Maya Kaufman, Shia Kapos and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.
Democrats aren’t done debating Graham Platner.
Platner’s decisive victory in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary quelled for now any serious discussion that he could be replaced as the party’s nominee in the wake of a recent bout of scandals. The party’s campaign arms were quick to indicate support for him after the race was called Tuesday night. Progressives took a victory lap while arguing their colleagues need to coalesce around the Maine nominee.
But a small yet notable faction of Capitol Hill Democrats still has qualms about the oysterman’s tumultuous past that has rattled some Maine voters — and what it could mean for their chances of defeating Sen. Susan Collins and taking back the upper chamber in November.
On Wednesday, several senators stopped short of outright endorsing Platner when asked by Blue Light News.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a potential 2028 contender who has kept his distance from Platner so far, said he thought Platner can defeat Collins and that “the path for us winning back control of the Senate runs through Maine.” But he still declined to endorse Platner, saying that he’d yet to meet or speak with the nominee. Asked whether Platner had done enough to address his scandals, Kelly said the oysterman has “got things to explain.”
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who had previously endorsed Gov. Janet Mills in the Maine Senate race, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) also declined to endorse Platner on Wednesday. Cortez Masto rattled off other top Democratic targets in Iowa, North Carolina and Alaska, while Duckworth said she’s “focused on the Midwest.”
And Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a frequent critic of his own party who has repeatedly raised concerns about Platner, said Maine Democrats have made their choice but “I would never [endorse Platner]. I’ll be a Democrat to refuse to carry water for that.”
Even Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who said Wednesday he would support all Democratic Senate nominees, suggested the oysterman still has “work to do” to address his scandals.
“The challenge that Platner has is the challenge that any candidate has, and it’s to address in a direct way both personal and political issues that are legitimate questions for the voters. He’s got to do that,” said Welch, who had also met with Platner last week to privately urge him to address voters’ questions head on. “Until the election is over, he’s got work to do, every day in every way.”
Not every senator traditionally endorses in every race. But Democrats’ chances of taking back the Senate hinge squarely on being able to defeat Collins, the only Republican senator seeking reelection this year in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024. The party has hoped to knock off Collins many times before only to come up short — and it’s now putting its hopes on Platner, whose campaign has electrified Maine and generated unprecedented grassroots support, but also faced a litany of controversies.
Continued Democratic division could be a boon for Republicans who are already launching into general-election attacks on Platner. Collins has repeatedly won reelection with a coalition that includes a substantial share of independents and Democratic voters, especially moderate women.
Platner’s rise came without the backing of the Democratic establishment: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) recruited Mills, who suspended her campaign in April after poor polling and fundraising numbers.
The political newcomer’s ability to challenge the establishment was part of his appeal to Maine voters, as he argued the Democratic Party had lost its way and needed to return to its working-class roots.
Some well-timed endorsements helped Platner in key moments in his primary campaign. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) early backing helped put him on the map. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) gave his campaign a boost earlier this year as he faced renewed questions about a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. And Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) even helped him fundraise in the aftermath of the most recent allegations.
The New York Times last week reported that several of Platner’s ex-girlfriends alleged toxic patterns of behavior, including one who said he grabbed her in ways that left marks. Before that, his campaign acknowledged he had exchanged sexual messages with other women while married. Last fall, his uncovered Reddit history included numerous offensive comments. And Platner owned up to having a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, although he said he was unaware of its meaning.
Platner has denied being violent with women and has argued that his past poor behavior reflects a difficult time in his life, as he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after leaving the military.
“I’ve made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I lived with, that I continue to learn from,” he said in a Tuesday night victory speech. “I’m still far from perfect, but every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before.”
Following his Tuesday primary victory, Platner’s Senate supporters urged their colleagues to rally behind him.
“They need to coalesce, they need to coalesce around Platner,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters on Wednesday, arguing Platner has “taken responsibility” for his past actions.
Sanders told reporters on Capitol Hill he was confident that Democrats would come around.
“Platner won a landslide victory last night, and I am quite confident that Democrats who want to regain the Senate will be supporting him as the Democratic nominee,” he said.
At least one lawmaker who had not previously endorsed Platner was ready to support him.
“Here’s a man who said ‘I made mistakes, I apologize for them, I am going to earn the trust of my constituents,’” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “That says a lot in contrast to the president, who never admits doing anything that is untoward, and who just blames everybody else, and who prosecutes people. I think Maine voters have expressed themselves and they’re willing to give him a chance.”
Other Democrats who had been skeptical of Platner’s viability in the general election — and had considered pressuring him to drop out — now appear resigned to him staying in the race.
“It was obviously a strong result for him which I think should quiet some of the immediate anxiety, but that will return if more revelations come out,” said one senior Democratic Senate aide, granted anonymity to discuss the race candidly. “Seems like even his supporters are not really defending the conduct, so [it’s] kind of incumbent on him to try to address more fully and move on.”
Another Senate Democratic aide, also granted anonymity to speak candidly about the race, agreed: “He weathered the storm, but is he out of it? Primary night didn’t answer that question. The next several weeks will determine whether this campaign is a referendum on his personal conduct or Susan Collins aligning with an unpopular GOP agenda that is hurting Mainers.”
Republicans have indicated they will try to make Platner’s controversies central to the race, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a pro-Collins super PAC launching ads that highlight some of the Democrat’s past Reddit comments. Platner, meanwhile, in his first general election ad on Wednesday, went after the “Epstein class” but did not mention Collins.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said her thinking on the race had not changed from a few weeks ago, saying she plans to “work with whoever the Mainers elect, period.”
“The way that this president has completely railroaded my Republican colleagues in this body, they don’t deserve to run a separate branch of government,” she said. “And if we want any chance of putting a check and balance on him that involves electing Platner.”
Asked whether Platner needs to do more to address his past scandals, Slotkin simply replied: “I just hope I’m not caught again live on TV answering the same questions about bad behavior.”
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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MAJOR SHIFT: Last week’s conclusion of Albany’s legislative session left Democratic state lawmakers poised for the biggest shakeup in their ranks since they assumed one-party control in 2019.
Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes is retiring at the end of the year, opening up the No. 2 job for only the second time since Carl Heastie became speaker 11 years ago.
State Sen. Mike Gianaris is on his way out too. His departure will leave open the role of Democratic Senate Campaign Committee chair, which he’s held since he was a senator-elect in 2010. It will also pave the way for a new floor leader and Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins’ deputy.
On top of that, Senate Democrats are about to become the first conference in state history to bump up against term limits.
Rules enacted in 2009 imposed eight-year caps on the majority leader and committee chairs. No party has remained in power long enough to be impacted since then, but the rules will soon apply to Stewart-Cousins and up to a dozen of her members.
“I’d probably have to,” state Sen. Liz Krueger said when asked if she’d vote to scrap the term limits. “Because it would mean Andrea couldn’t remain leader. And I do not actually accept the concept where Andrea doesn’t remain leader.”
Krueger is one of seven impacted chairs surveyed in recent months who unanimously said they want Stewart-Cousins to remain. But Democrats haven’t yet settled on what should happen to other top jobs.
“It’s really a question of ‘do you change all the term limits for everybody while you’re changing them for leadership, or do you allow for some new opportunities at the committee level?’” Investigations and Government Operations Committee Chair James Skoufis said. “I don’t know where I land on that.”
“The level of expertise I’ve developed, it’s not because I’m better or smarter than anyone else, I’ve just been in it longer,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera said of the “deep and dark and mysterious” realm of policy he oversees as Health Committee Chair. “I would be hard pressed to find somebody in the Senate who would be able to do the job on day one.”
Gianaris’ departure might lead to widespread shuffling, regardless. And while Krueger is running again, she missed the conclusion of this year’s session after an April stroke. It remains to be seen whether she’ll return to the grueling job of being the top Democrat on the Finance Committee as she’s been since 2011 — possibly leading to more musical chairs at the top.
Stewart-Cousins said she’s looking for a deputy “who can bring the same types of talents and skills that Sen. Gianaris has brought.” Names that came up in surveys of legislators and lobbyists include state Sens. Jamaal Bailey, Andrew Gounardes and Shelley Mayer. Still, there isn’t a widespread consensus.
There’s more agreement over who might replace Peoples-Stokes. Upstaters have held the job since 1979, providing some balance to speakers from New York City over the years. The pick will need to be somebody who can work well with Heastie, and conventional wisdom holds they should have a good amount of tenure. Over a dozen insiders mentioned the same three names as fitting each of those criteria: Syracuse’s Pamela Hunter, Rochester’s Harry Bronson and Albany’s John McDonald.
Heastie, however, isn’t making a firm commitment to tradition.
“The requirement that the majority leader comes from upstate, that’s more of a y’all thing,” he told reporters. “I inherited a great majority leader who happened to be upstate in Joe Morelle, one of my closest friends. And then Crystal was somebody I knew even before I was elected, and she’s been amazing. But I don’t know if I feel limited to if it’d have to be somebody from upstate. It could be Long Island, it could be the Hudson Valley — I haven’t even really thought about it.” — Bill Mahoney
From the Capitol
MONSERRATE LEADS PACK: The state’s Public Campaign Finance Board issued $1.96 million in matching funds payments Tuesday, marking the final day such outlays will be issued before the June 23 primary.
The scandal-plagued Hiram Monserrate was the state’s top beneficiary of public funds this week.
He’s running to return to the state Senate against the incumbent state Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas. Monserrate is the only sitting legislator to be removed by his colleagues in the past century, following his 2009 misdemeanor conviction arising from a domestic violence incident. Since then, this is his ninth comeback bid.
Overall, his haul trails the $348,000 in matching funds that Gonzalez-Rojas has received to date. Ramos has taken in $128,000 in recent months.
Read more from Blue Light News Pro’s Bill Mahoney here.
FROM CITY HALL
BROKEN PROMISES?: Transit advocates are intensifying their pressure on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to set aside more money to lower bus and subway fares. Groups of straphangers, like Riders Alliance, are now portraying the mayor as a promise breaker if he doesn’t support an expansion of the Fair Fares program, which offers discounts to low-income New Yorkers.
“New Yorkers are hurting, especially low-income commuters whose work we all depend on, and this is the mayor’s last chance to lower costs for transit this year, after emphasizing the importance of affordable public transit for his entire career,” Riders Alliance spokesperson Danny Pearlstein said in a text message.
Free buses was one of Mamdani’s three most prominent campaign pledges — alongside child care for all and a rent freeze — but the one he’s seemed to make the least headway on.
Riders Alliance, along with City Council members Tiffany Caban, Shahana Hanif and others, is holding a rally at noon tomorrow outside City Hall to “demand” the mayor “keep his promise to lower costs” — more pointed language than advocates have used publicly in the past.
While Mamdani’s free bus plan is on hold in large part because Albany isn’t on board, the City Council has backed more money for Fair Fares. The mayor, however, is reluctant to take that path because he generally doesn’t support policies where access is based on how much money people make. — Ry Rivard
WORKING THE REFS: Mamdani has a bone to pick about the officiating at Monday’s NBA finals game, which the Knicks lost to the Spurs.
“Crime is going down in New York City, but what we saw the other night did feel criminal,” Mamdani quipped to reporters today. “You just look at the disparity on fouls that were being called. I think many New Yorkers came away from that game with a very clear reflection of the absence of fair refereeing.”
Despite the mayor’s fandom, Madison Square Garden, the home of the Knicks, released a statement Tuesday calling Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch “party poopers” for instituting tighter security for a watch party outside the arena tonight.
Asked about it, Mamdani said the level of security planned is “in line with the measures that the NYPD uses for gatherings of this size, whether it be July 4 or New Year’s Eve.”
“This team has brought an extraordinary amount of energy, pride, excitement to every corner of our city,” the mayor said. “We want this to be a memorable night for all the right reasons.”
A watch party scheduled outside MSG for Game 3 on Monday night was moved to Bryant Park thanks to President Trump attending the game.
Asked whether he holds Trump responsible for the Knicks’ loss, Mamdani laughed — but declined to blame the president.
“I’ve made clear my complaints about the refs,” Mamdani said. “I’m hopeful tonight we’re going to see a different game.” — Janaki Chadha
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
WHAT TWEETS?: Darializa Avila Chevalier, Mamdani’s pick to unseat Rep. Adriano Espaillat, has come under plenty of fire for her old social media posts.
Mamdani claims he hasn’t seen them.
The posts in question include tweets where Chevalier wrote “F—k Kamala Harris,” criticized black and Arab men for “fetishizing ugly colonizer women,” and described wiping her hand on the American flag. They’re the subject of an Espaillat ad in which a narrator says, “Meet the real Darializa, the one she tried to delete.”
Asked about her social media imprint, Mamdani told reporters, “No, I have not seen those tweets.”
“What I’ve heard from her, and what I know a lot of others in the district have heard from her, is that her views have evolved, and that the campaign that she’s running on is reflective of what she’s going to be fighting for,” Mamdani said.
The mayor has opted against endorsing in other races, including the one for the Manhattan congressional seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler.
Gracie Mansion is in that district, and while Mamdani said he plans to vote in the Democratic primary, he has not yet decided on who he’ll back. The candidates include Assemblymembers Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg and Trump critic George Conway.
“I’m one of those classic yet-to-make-a-decision voters that frustrate campaigns so dearly,” the mayor said. — Janaki Chadha
IN OTHER NEWS
— THERE’S NO ‘I’ IN TEAM: Brad Lander says he is not endorsing fellow congressional challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier, despite putting out a joint “Mamdani’s team” ad with her. (Jewish Insider)
— DIY BALLOT LINE: Shut out of major third party endorsements, candidates for NY-21 Republican Anthony Constantino and Democrat Blake Gendebien are battling in court over the validity of their made up ballot line names. (Times Union)
— NO EASY EXIT: Uber is suing New York City to block a new driver protection law, arguing it would force the company to keep dangerous drivers on the road. (Reuters)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
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