Politics

Klobuchar delays governor campaign launch as border patrol killing upends Minnesota

Published

5 months ago

January 27, 2026

Amy Klobuchar planned to officially launch her gubernatorial campaign on Monday, but has delayed it in the wake of the fatal shooting of a protester by immigration agents in Minneapolis over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the Minnesota Democrat’s plans.

The senator instead spent Monday morning speaking to White House officials, urging deescalation and pushing to get the administration to end its immigration crackdown in her state, according to a third person, who is close to the senator and, like the others, was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

Her decision to wait on her campaign launch comes amid weeks of turmoil in Minnesota that further escalated over the weekend when Border Patrol agents on Saturday fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse and American citizen.

Over the last two days, Klobuchar has been meeting with city and state leaders, strategizing with Senate colleagues over Department of Homeland Security funding and calling Trump administration officials, according to the third person, who said Klobuchar’s “focus is on de-escalating the situation and getting ICE out of Minnesota. There’s not time for politics today.”

Klobuchar’s nascent gubernatorial campaign has run headlong into a national crisis, another twist for a campaign that started under unusual circumstances. Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz unexpectedly dropped his reelection bid for a third term, as a swirling fraud scandal threatened to engulf his campaign, and met with Klobuchar about running for the office herself. Since then, two American citizens have been killed by federal immigration agents, thrusting Klobuchar into the center of a battle on an issue for which she’s traditionally cut a moderate profile.

“Regardless of what [campaign] Klobuchar is considering, this is what I’d expect from her, she’s been the leader in this state,” said Democratic Minnesota state Sen. Grant Hauschild. “We’re facing unprecedented circumstances of federal overreach and harm to our communities, and she’s stepped up, being present on the ground and fighting in Congress.”

The two people who described her changed launch plans said they expect the senator to formally launch before next Tuesday, when the state’s party precinct caucus kicks off. Klobuchar already filed paperwork with the state’s campaign finance board last week, allowing her to begin raising funds ahead of an expected bid.

Pretti’s killing also shook up the GOP side of the Minnesota governors’ race. Chris Madel, an attorney who launched his campaign as a Republican late last year, announced on Monday he would be dropping out, calling the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics “wrong” and “an unmitigated disaster.”

“I cannot support the national Republican-stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so,” he said in a video posted to social media.

Klobuchar is not expected to face a serious Democratic opponent when she enters the gubernatorial race, giving her some breathing room on both her announcement timeline and on her stance on immigration. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a well-known progressive who was considered a potential candidate, confirmed he would not be running for the job last week.

“What you hear from Klobuchar is, ‘ICE needs to get out of here,’ and I don’t think she needs to say more than that [because] without a primary challenger, I don’t think she’ll have to change her position on it,” said a Minnesota Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “She’s smart, she’s careful and she’s cautious, and she knows how to win suburban and independent voters.”

Klobuchar has always cut a moderate profile. She rose up in Hennepin County as its prosecutor before running for Senate. During her presidential campaign in 2020, Klobuchar rejected calls for “abolishing ICE,” drawing fire from immigration rights advocates groups in that race, and instead called for reforms of the agency.

When asked during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday whether she supported abolishing ICE, Klobuchar said “we’re always going to have some immigration enforcement in this country, and border control.” But she called for the ICE operation to leave the state because “this agency has been functioning is completely against every tenet of law enforcement.”

Klobuchar ticked through several reforms she supports: “New leadership. Stopping these surges across the country, not just in my state. Training them like they were supposed to be trained. … Mandatory body cameras. Stopping ramming into people’s houses without a judicial warrant.”

Those specifics could become part of Senate Democrats’ demands to give enough votes to pass a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government.

Other Democrats have called for more aggressive policies, including abolishing ICE altogether. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) posted on X that “voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum,” adding that ICE is “beyond reform” and to “abolish it.”

Klobuchar’s approach is once again drawing criticism from some immigrant-rights advocates. “I do not believe that’s far enough,” said George Escobar, executive director of CASA, an immigration advocacy organization. “Unless we deal with the cancer that is causing this, which is ICE itself, and unless we have a comprehensive reform of that agency, which to us, means abolishing it, then honestly, this cycle is just going to repeat over and over again.”One Democratic consultant who has worked on Minnesota races warned that Klobuchar’s deliberative approach could hurt her. “She’s incredibly cautious, and this is not a cautious moment,” they said. “So far, she has not put her foot in it by being too moderate, but she’s also not been under a huge spotlight — and that will change with the gubernatorial run.”

Nonetheless, Klobuchar’s messaging earned her praise from even some progressives. “I think she’s spot on,” said Mark Longabaugh, a former adviser to Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “If you’re going to step up and say that this organization needs to be restructured, or shut down and restructured, you also have to tie that to, ‘Listen, there is a legitimate law enforcement need here, both for customs and for border control.’”

Most Minnesota Democrats don’t think Klobuchar will suddenly center anti-ICE messaging in her gubernatorial campaign. Interviews with a half dozen operatives and elected officials found they still expected the campaign to largely revolve around the economy. “Affordability is still going to be central to her work, along with protecting her state,” said the person close to Klobuchar. “She will always stand up for Minnesota on both.”

“Who knows if, in 10 months, it will specifically be a part of the narrative or messaging,” said a Minnesota Democratic donor adviser. “But this isn’t going to go away any time soon … because we’re traumatized here.”

Politics

Iran set to progress at World Cup

Published

36 minutes ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Iran’s adventure through a World Cup beset by geopolitical complexity and logistical complications will likely continue after the team landed a frenetic 1-1 draw against Egypt. The high-stakes encounter kicked off hours after a tenuous peace between Washington and Tehran was threatened by American strikes on Iranian military installations along the Strait of Hormuz. Read the full story from Seattle by Sasha Issenberg and Sophia Cai here.

Politics

The “Pride Match” that wasn’t

Published

2 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

SEATTLE — As a lesbian who was born in Egypt, Noha Mahgoub could have chosen to dress for what local organizers branded a “Pride Match” in colors associated with either her sexual orientation or her country of origin. The 43-year-old Democratic legislative aide — one of the top staffers in Washington state government — chose the latter, arriving in a red Egyptian national team jersey, a black hat emblazoned with YALLA and red-white-and-black tricolor facepaint.

“I’ve seen Pride shirts, I’ve seen Pride face paintings,” she observed from a concourse minutes before national anthems began echoing around Lumen Field. “It’s been really great, but I’m seeing a lot more Egypt and Iran and people cheering for their countries and singing their songs.”

Indeed, despite FIFA’s announcement that rainbow flags would be permitted in the stadium, few were visible as the match began. Instead, the stands rippled with the colors of the two Middle Eastern countries on the field, including many of the pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun flags that FIFA has attempted to ban under a stadium code of conduct that prohibits political displays.

Mahgoub had seen Egypt’s national team in person only once before, as a child while the team was angling to qualify for the 1990 World Cup. Since then, Mahgoub and her family relocated to Washington state, where she said the local Egyptian-American community has become enlivened by new arrivals coming to work at Seattle-based tech companies.

“You know how it is, you start calling everybody your cousins — a lot of cousins that I wasn’t related to,” Mahgoub said. “Well, I think a lot of them are here.”

Politics

Why Belgium’s prime minister isn’t cheering on the Red Devils

Published

5 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ah, Belgium. The country of fries, chocolate, Kevin De Bruyne and, some might say, chronic political division.

Beyond Brussels, a mighty international melting pot, the country is split between Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia and a small German-speaking community. Those linguistic divisions are mirrored in its politics: Belgium has separate party systems on either side of the language border, as well as a highly devolved federal structure that gives significant powers to its regions.

Today, Belgian politics is as fragmented as ever. It took 234 days to form a federal government after the June 2024 election (yes, you read that right). The delay was driven largely by the fact that no camp came close to winning a majority, forcing months of negotiations between parties with sharply different ideological and linguistic bases.

Flemish nationalism has also become a growing force, shaped by two right-wing nationalist parties: the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which wants to transform Belgium into a looser confederal state and ultimately give Flanders far greater autonomy, and the far-right Vlaams Belang, which openly campaigns for Flemish independence.

So, you might think the 2026 World Cup would offer Belgium’s leader a rare opportunity to rally and unify the country behind a shared national symbol, right?

Wrong.

Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who hails from the N-VA party, has expressed almost no public support for the Red Devils, Belgium’s national soccer team.

That contrasts with leaders in nearby countries that also qualified for the World Cup. The leaders of the Netherlands, Germany and France have all publicly backed their squads, whether on social media or through public appearances.

The reason may be simple: De Wever just doesn’t care for the sport.

A Belgian official told Blue Light News: “The prime minister is not a soccer fan, so he doesn’t seek to project that image publicly. To do otherwise would not be authentic.”

Flemish media have indeed reported that the prime minister has little interest in soccer. In a podcast appearance a few years ago, he said the sight of people “going totally crazy in a group in the stands” left him feeling “ice cold.”

But politics is likely part of the story too. De Wever has led the Flemish nationalist N-VA since 2004. Throughout his political career, he has argued that Flanders should have far greater autonomy and that Belgium should evolve into a confederal state. For a politician with that background, overt displays of Belgian national unity probably don’t come naturally, and in fact contradict emphasis on Flemish autonomy.

This is not the first time the N-VA’s relationship with the Red Devils has attracted attention. In 2015, after Belgium reached No. 1 in the FIFA world rankings, Francophone Socialist Party leader Laurette Onkelinx asked the Chamber of Representatives to applaud the team. All parties joined in, except the N-VA.

During Euro 2016, the N-VA had to deny it instructed ministers and MPs to avoid publicly celebrating the Red Devils so as not to appear too Belgian, after rumors circulated in Belgian media.

One of De Wever’s few comments about this year’s World Cup concerned Belgium’s official tournament song. His complaint: It did not contain a single word of Dutch.

“My staff have confirmed to me that not a single word is sung in Dutch. That is, to put it mildly, not elegant,” he said, in keeping with his ideologies of promoting Flanders, when asked about the song during a parliamentary committee hearing.

Sport is often treated as a vehicle for national unity. In New Zealand, Belgium’s opponent in today’s match, elite teams have successfully woven elements of Māori culture into their sporting traditions, most famously through the prematch haka, which has helped create a shared cultural identity that connects Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders.

In Belgium, however, this World Cup has not yet become that kind of unifying project. At least not from the very top.