Congress

Is the Democratic brand toxic? A growing number of Dems wonder if going ‘independent’ will help them win

Published

1 year ago

December 29, 2024

Losing to a twice-impeached convicted felon has left a small, but growing, number of Democrats wondering if their party brand is so toxic that they should shed the label — particularly in battleground and red states.

Mike Duggan, the longtime Democratic mayor of Detroit, is pursuing an independent campaign for governor in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in his state. Democratic strategists are studying this year’s bid by independent Dan Osborn, who as a Senate candidate in Nebraska overperformed the top of the ticket, as a model to win the upper chamber. And a Joe Biden mega-fundraiser is floating a gubernatorial run in Florida on what he calls the “Capitalist Party” ticket.

The deliberations, some of which are taking place in private, reflect the extent to which Trump’s win has made the party unsure of what to do next. Few Democrats are dismissing Trump as a fluke anymore after he carried the popular vote and expanded his support among key parts of their base.

Democrats who have jumped ship are making the bet that voters are so frustrated with the existing political parties that they will reward them for shaking things up.

“I reached the conclusion that if you call yourself a Democrat, all the Republicans automatically line up against it. You call yourself a Republican, all the Democrats automatically line up against it,” Duggan said in an interview. “And I really don’t think there’s a path forward for this state if you don’t get the reasonable folks in both parties to work together.”

A group of operatives at major Democratic media firms are in talks about creating a company that would help elect left-leaning independents, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was granted anonymity to talk about internal planning. The business would also back populist Democrats.

Independent candidates face enormous logistical challenges, however. They lack major parties to bolster them financially and structurally. Voters often worry that supporting them is a waste of a ballot, even as a growing number of Americans identify as independent themselves.

Still, some Democrats eye Osborn’s 14-point overperformance in Nebraska as proof that independent candidates who embrace economic populism can win back voters who are turned off by the Democratic Party.

Independent Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn departs an election night watch party Nov. 5.

A mechanic and former union leader, Osborn railed against big corporations during his campaign while also speaking positively about Trump’s border wall. He said on the trail that he wouldn’t caucus with either party, but even so, his victory would have helped Democrats by unseating the Republican incumbent, Deb Fischer. In fact, the Senate Democrats’ top super PAC quietly boosted Osborn.

With the Senate map in 2026 favoring the GOP — and many seats once held by Democrats looking out of reach for the foreseeable future — some Democrats are thinking about fielding more Osborns.

“Anyone looking at the Senate map, not just in 2026 but over the next six years and beyond, sees that we need a path to chipping into the Republican majority,” said a Democratic strategist who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. “And it doesn’t necessarily mean electing Democrats. But it means changing what the denominator is that we need to get to a majority.”

Osborn, who has not ruled out another run in 2026, hopes more people run for office as independents. “That’s really what the country needs,” he told Blue Light News.

John Morgan, the Florida-based Biden fundraiser considering a gubernatorial run, said he may launch a bid under a new party called the “Capitalist Party.” Morgan changed his registration from Democratic to independent a few years ago because he objected to the party’s left flank and how some describe themselves as “Democratic socialists.”

Morgan, who bankrolled an amendment in Florida to raise the minimum wage, said he would campaign as a “compassionate capitalist.” And Florida, he said, could be where a new third party germinates.

“I don’t know if Trump is a stable genius, but he’s a fucking genius,” Morgan said. “He tapped into something the Republicans never saw, which was anger and populism on that side.”

Some on the center-left have already abandoned the Democratic Party. In recent years, two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, switched their party registrations to independent after feuds with their party. Afterward, Manchin continued to caucus with Democrats, while Sinema said she didn’t, though she obtained her committee assignments through them. Both opted against running for reelection this year.

Kyrsten Sinema is one of two Democratic senators who switched their party registrations to independent after feuds with the party in recent years.

Sinema, who made the shift in 2022 after infuriating Democratic activists for opposing their efforts to eliminate the filibuster and other liberal priorities, called Duggan’s own switch “smart.”

Others see it as an opportunistic move that Duggan made to avoid competing in Democratic primary that is expected to be crowded.

“We’re going to have some very strong candidates in the Democratic primary,” said Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “I think what it speaks to is a mayor who has looked at the field and looked at the prospects going forward and made the calculation that his best path to victory is to not run in the Democratic primary.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats and ran twice for the party’s presidential nomination, recently floated an effort to back more candidates like himself. In an email to allies after Trump’s November victory, Sanders asked, “Should we be supporting Independent candidates who are prepared to take on both parties?”

Another independent who caucuses with Democrats, Maine Sen. Angus King, said the Senate map is evidence of just how far the Democratic Party has slipped with voters outside of coastal states and major urban centers. It’s a starkly different picture compared to when he took office nearly 12 years ago.

“When I came to the Senate, we had Democratic senators from North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, two from Montana, Florida, Arkansas, Indiana and about four or five more,” King said, adding those states are now viewed as out of reach for today’s Democratic Party.

King said the 2026 midterms favor the GOP because Vice President Kamala Harris only carried one of the states held by Republicans who will be up for reelection. It happened to be Maine.

But, King cautioned, campaigning for office as an independent is no easy task. He abandoned the Democratic Party in 1993 when he ran for governor of Maine. He said he built support “coffee by coffee” during that bid.

“Running as an independent is a difficult job because you don’t have a party apparatus,” he said. “I think there may come a time when there will be more people running as independents. But right now, the structure does not lend itself.”

Kimberly Leonard contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate Republicans want a say on Trump’s Iran deal

Published

14 minutes ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is touting a deal that would end the monthslong war with Iran — and potentially ease some of the political headwinds bearing down on Republicans.

GOP lawmakers still have lots of questions.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday left an information vacuum on Capitol Hill, where senators of both parties were left airing concerns about what the deal might entail.

Even most Republicans agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The bipartisan scrutiny of the long-brewing agreement is a legacy of the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Trump withdrew from the deal in his first term, and now he is back with an agreement that — pending release of the text and final negotiations yet to come — could end up looking like Obama’s deal. That has raised the hackles of both defense hawks who despised the original agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and Democrats who believe Trump never should have left it in the first place.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of those defense hawks, told reporters that he was “pulling for a deal,” while also making note of serious discrepancies in the terms that have emerged thus far.

“The MOU being described by us sounds really very good; the MOU being described by Iran sounds awful,” Graham said.

“If they can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA. If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal,” he continued, adding in a separate conversation that he was “skeptical that Iran will ever go there” to cease enrichment.

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The possibility that Congress would take any kind of vote on the agreement is also a legacy of the 2015 deal. Amid bipartisan concern about the Obama administration’s pursuit of nuclear talks, the GOP-controlled House and Senate that year passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.

That law, however, does not require Congress to approve a deal — it rather gives it the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto. That means each chamber would have to effectively muster a two-thirds majority to block Trump, something it did not come close to doing in 2015.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

“I just don’t know enough about it yet, and I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it,” he said, adding that he expected Vance or other administration officials to brief members on the deal at some point.

The lack of specificity was par for the course on Capitol Hill Monday, with many senators expressing exasperation that text of the signed agreement has not yet been released.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. Vance indicated in a series of interviews that the administration will attempt to ensure Iran does not develop or obtain a nuclear weapon but left details regarding civilian nuclear facilities and potential uranium enrichment unaddressed.

The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News. The administration also argued in the memo that the agreement “beats” the Obama-era agreement.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on the deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

“I don’t expect that to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said about a vote. “They’ll try to write it around the treaty requirements, so I don’t expect we’ll vote on it.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said the administration should send the deal to Congress “if they want it to be something other than a political agreement, like the JCPOA was.”

Most congressional Republicans have been eager for Trump to find a way out of the nearly four-month war, which has driven up energy prices ahead of the November elections. Thune predicted Monday that a deal would “have a very positive impact on the economic situation in the country and that obviously will translate into the political situation in the country.”

Some of Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill praised the agreement Monday.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said has had conversations with senior White House officials and he was “very hopeful.” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who is likely the next Senate GOP campaign chair, added on X: “President Trump deserves our trust and support as he works to bring peace to the Middle East.”

Democrats were largely keeping their powder dry Monday on how they would handle a vote on the agreement. Some could find it hard to oppose a deal that ends hostilities on negotiated terms roughly similar to what was secured under a Democratic president in 2015.

But plenty of Democrats questioned what was gained by the conflict.

“We still don’t know the details,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The American people need to know exactly what’s in the deal. … We know this for certain: We are worse off than before Trump began his foolish war of choice.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

Published

5 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate to confirm Jay Clayton as soon as Thursday

Published

7 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday on Jay Clayton’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence — a lightning speed pace that will necessitate buy-in from all 100 senators.

Confirming Clayton could help shore up enough votes from Democrats to extend a government surveillance program that expired last Friday over opposition to Trump’s pick for acting director, Bill Pulte.

“He will come out of the committee Thursday, at least hopefully, and then if we get consent, we can move,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Monday about Clayton, who Trump only nominated for the job late last week.

Democrats “ought to be happy with Clayton,” said Thune, adding that he’s a “good” and “solid” pick.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, floated Sunday to CBS News that Clayton could be confirmed this week if every senator cooperates.

Senate Intelligence will hold a hearing Wednesday on Clayton’s nomination. If every member of the panel agrees, he could then get a committee vote Thursday. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member will punt Clayton’s confirmation to next week.

Confirming Clayton Thursday would, crucially, limit — and potentially circumvent — Pulte from becoming acting director of national intelligence, which Trump has slated to take place Friday, June 19.

The president’s decision to put Pulte in charge after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure at the helm of the Office of National Intelligence sparked bipartisan pushback, with Democrats saying they will withhold support for extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while Pulte is in the acting role. Congress allowed the key government spy authority lapse last Friday without a deal.

Trump threw another curveball into a FISA extension over the weekend when he posted on social media that he was against reauthorizing Section 702 unless a GOP elections bill is attached. That bill, known as the SAVE America Act, does not have the votes to get through Congress.

Thune threw cold water Monday on tying the two issues together.

“Yeah, he’s, as you know, passionate about getting that done and wants to use every opportunity to take a shot at it,” Thune said of Trump and his desire to enact the elections bill.

But, Thune said, “we can’t get FISA done” if the policies are linked.