Politics
How to grab onto an England victory
LONDON — England is on the cusp of joining the World Cup’s final eight, and hope is tentatively starting to spread that this month could finally end 60 years of hurt for a nation that has come home emptyhanded from every tournament since.
This week’s Westminster Insider podcast explores the strange but powerful relationship between soccer and politics — and the unwritten rules politicians should follow if they want to use the unique emotional power of the beautiful game to their advantage.
1. Get your timing right
It looks highly likely that Andy Burnham will become Britain’s new prime minister on July 20 — just one day after the World Cup final. If England were to lift the trophy, Burnham’s first day in office would coincide with a wave of national euphoria. History suggests this could be somewhat helpful to a new prime minister.
Ten days before England’s 1966 World Cup triumph, Prime Minister Harold Wilson introduced an emergency package of tax rises and spending cuts as Britain grappled with inflation and economic pressure. Morale was low.
Then came Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick and England’s glorious win over West Germany. England’s victory at Wembley gave the country a huge psychological lift — and boosted the standing of the government. Richard Crossman, then leader of the House of Commons, said in his diaries there was “a big change in Harold’s personal position.”
But if Burnham is hoping for a well-timed World Cup-inspired polling boost on arrival, he should be aware that there are obvious risks if England doesn’t go all the way.
In 1970, Wilson had hoped another deep England run would help create a feel-good factor before a general election. Instead, England surrendered a two-goal lead to West Germany in the quarter-finals just four days before polling day.
Home Secretary Roy Jenkins reported after canvassing that voters were despondent — less about the economy or immigration than who was to blame for England’s defeat. Wilson lost to Ted Heath’s Conservatives.
The electoral impact of the 1970 World Cup disappointment is still the subject of debate, though an intriguing fact has only added to the folklore: English voters swung more towards the Conservatives than Scotland and Wales.
2. It’s more than a game
Playwright James Graham, creator of the hit play and BBC TV series “Dear England,” argues politicians often underestimate soccer’s deeper social importance.
Amid the “hollowing out” of British civic life — declining high streets, weakened public spaces and fractured communities — the soccer stadium is one of the few places left where people still gather physically and collectively, he says. So it matters not just every two or four years during major tournaments, but every single week, shaping people’s routines, their communities and even their identities.
When people support their club, they are investing in something bigger than themselves: shared rituals, symbols, songs and belonging. “You have to turn up in person and in proximity with your physical community,” he says.
Graham argues that politicians who understand this are more likely to connect to voters in what he sees as an age of growing disconnection, as people’s lives are increasingly shaped by AI, growth targets and digital life.
“It’s a powerful opportunity to show the kind of country we are,” says Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. “The very best of people coming together.”
3. Be authentic
No discussion of the potential peril of mixing football and politics is complete without mentioning David Cameron.
The former prime minister — supposedly an Aston Villa supporter — famously claimed to support West Ham during the 2015 election campaign.
He later blamed a “brain fade” — but the damage was done.
Scarlett McGwire, political commentator and former Labour adviser, says authenticity is everything.
“One of the reasons it’s so important for politicians to be authentic is there’s this myth that politicians always lie,” she says. “If they’re not authentic, people think: if they’re lying about this, they could be lying about everything.”
Soccer fans can smell performative fandom instantly. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage recently faced criticism after posting what appeared to be recycled football content from Euro 2024 during this World Cup.
Writer and journalist Adrian Goldberg says when politicians are genuine fans “football can just be a little bridge between the electorate and the prime minister.”
Although this didn’t seem to help genuine Arsenal supporter Keir Starmer.
4. Remember the home nations
Navigating loyalties across the United Kingdom — which fields four separate national teams — is hard.
McGwire recalls former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s advisers deciding he was “too Scottish” and working to place a Daily Mail story about how he cheered on the English team.
“It was completely set up,” she says. “Nobody believed it.”
Scottish Labour backbench MP Brian Leishman — a long-suffering supporter of the Tartan Army — is less concerned about courting England fans.
“It would be intolerable if England won the World Cup,” he says. “I would hate it.”
That result could boost support for Scottish independence, he adds — only half-jokingly.
5. There is no single football audience
Soccer teams are cheered on by a wide range of people — from younger fans to older traditionalists, England obsessives to club loyalists, politically engaged supporters to those who simply want politics kept out of the game.
It has grown more difficult for politicians to balance them without stumbling into divisive culture-war debates. Goldberg argues the controversy over players “taking the knee” during the Black Lives Matter protests in the early 2020s left fans on the terraces divided.
“There were some fan bases where taking of the knee was booed, there were others where it was embraced and others where fans were kind of somewhere in the middle around that,” he says.
That makes targeting your desired crowd crucial. Farage and his Reform UK party appear to be seeking the support of football fans with a campaign of turquoise football shirts, and visits to clubs like Ipswich Town.
Politics
It might take ‘a lightning bolt from God’ to get these Senate Democratic hopefuls to bow for independents
Democrats vying for a pair of deep-red Senate seats are facing increasingly desperate calls from within their party to step aside for more promising independent candidates.
But they say they won’t drop out — unless there’s divine intervention.
Democrats Alani Bankhead of Montana and Julian Beaudion of South Dakota both told Blue Light News they have no plans to exit the race, despite pressure from national — and even some state — Democrats to step aside. Numerouspolls, coupled with strongerfundraising and campaign operations, show independents Seth Bodnar and Brian Bengs have a stronger — if still muddied — path to victory in November.
If the Democrats stay on the ballot, it will be almost impossible to claw these seats away from Republicans in Mountain West states that President Donald Trump dominated in 2024.
“I’m a person of faith. If a lightning bolt from God struck me and was like, ‘Alani, get out of the race,’ sure,” Bankhead told Blue Light News when asked if anything would change her mind. Otherwise, she said there’s “absolutely nothing.”
Beaudion has a similar resolve: “To be clear, we are not considering dropping out of the race,” he told Blue Light News.
By digging in, the Democrats could imperil their party’s hopes of regaining Senate control in an already uphill cycle. There’s broad agreement across the many factions of the Democratic Party that a crowded race relinquishes any hope of victory. Bengs has argued that Beaudion remaining on the ballot jeopardizes his chance of winning this fall against GOP Sen. Mike Rounds. Bodnar has maintained he has a viable path either way, and he could be helped out if the Libertarian candidate in the race pulls votes from Republican Kurt Alme.
The deadline to withdraw in South Dakota is Tuesday, and Montana’s is shortly after, on Aug. 10. Democrats across the ideological spectrum in Washington and their home states are calling on Bankhead and Beaudion to step down to help their party bank-shot a Senate majority, with the idea that a victorious independent candidate could caucus with a future Democratic majority — or at least not party up with Republicans.
“The math is inescapable. If it’s impossible for a Democrat to win, it is vital that the Democrats step aside and give the independent at least a shot of beating the Republican,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. “Beating the MAGA Republicans is priorities one, two and three. Who we beat them with is pretty far down the list.”
Democrats have already had some luck setting up one-on-one independent vs. Republican matchups in other Trump-won states. The Democratic candidate in Nebraska withdrew to pave the way for independent Dan Osborn — though an ongoing court case from a Democratic anti-abortion pastor could complicate things. And Idaho’s Democratic nominee recently dropped out in favor of independent Todd Achilles.
“Knowing that your campaign is not gonna break through, and just being able to recognize that is probably the hardest thing of all,” Achilles said of Democrat David Roth’s decision to step down. “I do appreciate what David did in Idaho.”
Bankhead and Beaudion insist they can win, even despite the headwinds. Bankhead expects to ride the anti-incumbency and pro-outsider wave into office, and Beaudion credits his relationships with voters throughout the state.
“Nobody ever knows what’s actually going to happen in an election,” Bankhead said. “The people decide on November 3.”
But Idaho and Nebraska Democrats reached a conclusion that Bankhead and Beaudion did not: The party’s brand is so tarnished in their states that the “D” label on the ballot line provides no viable path to victory.
“I am a professional partisan Democrat, and I have every incentive to be on the Democrat’s side here,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition-research firm. “But ultimately, the priority is to take the Senate majority away from Republicans. In some states, that path is very difficult to impossible for a Democrat. In those cases, it is both strategically and morally correct to take the path that is most likely to achieve the goal we’re going for.”
Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), did not go as far as to call for Bankhead and Beaudion to step aside. But he agreed that there’s real opportunity for independents who aren’t stuck with the Democratic brand’s baggage.
“Being someone who’s not associated with the two-party system right now helps you greatly in many parts of this country, particularly those that have much more rural and conservative tendencies,” said Shakir. “There’s frustration and anger with Trump, and there’s not as much of a love and appreciation for the Democratic Party.”
Shakir also said that competitive races in these red areas — even if the independents can’t pull off a win — could force Republicans to pull much-needed resources out of battleground races in order to defend their turf.
But he also offered a warning to his party: Talking too much about the independents’ strong fundraising and establishment backing risks tying them to the “donor class” and turning them “into a worse version of what people assumed of a Democrat.”
“You gotta give them the space to be both independent in mind and in spirit,” he said. “The argument for them is truly that they are building a movement in the state that people are hungry for, and that in the support of those people, they’re finding resonance. And that would be the argument for a Democrat to step aside.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are working to paint the independents and Democrats as one and the same. They’re also trying to elevate the Democrats in an attempt to stop the independents from gaining more traction: Trump on social media attacked Bankhead in July, ignoring Bodnar entirely.
“Democrat-backed independents all support the same socialist policies and middle-class tax hikes that made Democrats toxic across the country,” Joanna Rodriguez, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement. “Republicans will defeat them in November.”
The inside calls for Beaudion and Bankhead to step aside aren’t just coming from Washington. Many local Democrats in Montana and South Dakota have said publicly they should not continue their campaigns. Nancy Keenan, the former executive director of the Montana Democratic Party who has endorsed Bodnar, wrote in a June op-ed that “there is not a viable path for a Democratic victory in this race.”
Bennett, the Third Way co-founder, went further, saying if Democrats fail to flip the Senate in November, the blame would lie at the hands of Bankhead and Beaudion.
“If we fumble away a majority because these no hope candidates are too vain to get out of the race, that’ll be a political calamity,” he said. “These people need to understand that they will become pariahs.”
Bankhead doesn’t see it that way.
“I’m not swayed by it because I’m not here for power and money,” she said. “It’s still the old, rich D.C. powerful political circles that are trying to keep more progressive candidates out of the fight so they can maintain the status quo.”
FCC chair Brendan Carr on Trump, free speech and his threats against broadcasters
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Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and his team are discussing dropping out of the crowded Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The conversations come as Democratic officials in the state brace for damaging media reports about Barnes expected to hit in the coming hours. Barnes and his team have been on calls Thursday to discuss how to proceed, according to the people, granted anonymity to share private details.
The primary had become increasingly messy as more moderate leaning Democrats like Barnes have tried to stave off Democratic socialist Francesca Hong’s rise, worried her victory could boost presumed Republican nominee Tom Tiffany. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement of David Crowley — who reentered the race in the final stretch — further complicated the moderate coalition.
A spokesperson for Barnes’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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