Congress

Policy specifics are elusive as House Democrats gather to prep midterm push

Published

4 months ago

February 26, 2026

LEESBURG, Virginia — House Democrats say they’re intent on putting a legislative agenda behind their midterm affordability message. They don’t know yet what’s going to be on it.

But they have gathered at a resort outside Washington to spitball some options for putting specifics behind their pledge to address Americans’ rising costs of living, with sessions devoted to utilities, housing, groceries and the “care economy.”

“We know it’s not enough to just lay out the issues and what the problems are,” said House Minority Whip Katherine Clark. “Our goal is to have simple solutions that we can put out and lay out that vision, that if you give Democrats the gavels back, this is exactly what we’re going to do.”

A few Democratic evergreens have started to emerge as consensus proposals — such as expanding the child tax credit and increasing the federal minimum wage. But by and large, the policies that most unify Democrats are simply reversing what President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have already done.

That includes things like ending Trump’s global tariff campaign and reviving the Obamacare health insurance subsidies that lapsed this year amid Republican opposition, as well as reversing cuts to federal safety-net programs made in last year’s GOP megabill.

Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said reversing the Trump tariffs is the one of the top priorities Democrats should communicate as they seek election this fall.

“He’s raised prices on people all across the country without the authority to do so,” DelBene told reporters. “But it has had an incredible impact on families all across the country and they’re doubling down on it.”

The effort to assemble a campaign agenda represents a reprise of prior efforts from a party out of power to put some specifics behind their election-year messaging. Republicans set the modern standard with their 1994 “Contract With America,” but Democrats did much the same 12 years later with their “Six for ’06” agenda and again in 2018 with “A Better Deal.”

In each of those cases, the insurgent party claimed dozens of seats and retook the majority.

This time, Democrats could have a tougher path, thanks in part to the effects of partisan gerrymandering putting fewer seats in play. Many in the party are also dubious that focusing only on an unpopular president will be enough to guarantee midterm victory.

“We can’t be just anti-Trump. We have to have an agenda,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who described this week’s retreat as the place that “lets every Democrat have a voice in inputting what we will be rolling out this year.”

The problem for Democrats is likely to be the sheer number of voices wanting input, as well as the diversity of policy prescriptions being proposed.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), a co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said that Democrats, should they win the majority, would aim to move a comprehensive housing package “that will help make safe, stable, affordable housing a fundamental American right for everyone.”

But he said the details of that proposal are as yet undefined. Complicating the issue is that a bipartisan housing bill passed the House earlier this month and will get Senate consideration next week. Trump could sign a bill in the coming months, defusing the issue.

“We don’t have specifics because it’s part of what this conference is for,” Frost said Thursday, pointing to the need to expand homeownership, lower rental costs and address a “crisis” in the homeowners insurance market.

The New Democrat Coalition — a large group of free-market-oriented members — put forward one of the more robust packages of policy proposals seen at the retreat, addressing matters such as broadband connectivity and data center construction. The group’s leaders are hoping to develop their own agenda that battleground Democrats can campaign on.

“Leadership is working through how they’re narrowing their focus,” Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), a New Democrats vice chair, said in an interview. “We want our agenda to be what comes top of mind for them.”

The Democratic Women’s Caucus highlighted the need to address costs facing American families, particularly those having to care for both their children and their aging parents — a message that former Vice President Kamala Harris put at the center of her 2024 presidential campaign with limited success.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) said in an interview she was not worried that the message might fall flat again.

“This is an issue that’s affecting not just kids, not just families,” she said. “It’s affecting businesses in the economy. So I’m not concerned that the message won’t get through.”

To be sure, the chances that any of the Democratic proposals would quickly become law are thin. Even if Democrats retake the House, Trump will still be president for another two years and the Senate could still be controlled by Republicans.

But Democrats are mindful that the ideas they put forward now could get real momentum if their party wins the presidency in 2028.

Back in Washington Thursday, Democratic senators joined in the effort with a Capitol Hill roundtable focused on spiking food costs.

Lawmakers and leaders of advocacy groups who appeared at the event emphasized the need to enforce antitrust laws and maintain competitive markets.

Basel Musharbash, managing attorney at the Antimonopoly Counsel, suggested Democrats push legislation to break up dominant firms in critical industries such as meatpacking, fertilizers and grocery sales, as well as to increase funding for antitrust enforcement agencies.

Congress

Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.

“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.

The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.

“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”

Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.

Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.

Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

7 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.

Congress

Divisive Israel vote to be discussed on Sunday House Democrats call

Published

8 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

An anticipated vote on cutting off U.S. military aid to Israel is among the subjects House Democrats are slated to discuss on an unusual teleconference Sunday evening.

Six people granted anonymity to describe private caucus plans confirmed the member call, which has not been publicly announced. Two of them said it would involve an amendment that would block aid to Israel and other appropriations matters.

Democrats are likely to be sharply divided on an amendment drafted by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to a fiscal 2027 spending bill funding the State Department and foreign aid programs. Massie is proposing to end Israel aid and cut the overall foreign military aide program by $3.3 billion.

House Republicans have not yet announced a vote on that bill, but two other people granted anonymity to describe GOP planning said it is likely to be added to the floor schedule next week. The House Rules Committee voted last week to set up debate on Massie’s amendment.

Senior Democrats want to talk through member concerns and strategy on the Sunday call, according to one of the six people.

The call comes just days after three outspoken critics of U.S. aid to Israel swept hotly contested House primaries in New York City, ousting two incumbents.

Meredith Lee Hill and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.