Politics

Progressives say they’re done re-litigating old posts. Are their opponents?

Published

1 month ago

July 11, 2026

Progressive Democratic candidates have one thing to say to their establishment amid a wave of primary victories poised to dramatically alter the ideological makeup of their party: Enough with the old posts.

Attacks that dredge up calls to defund the police, full-throated embraces of identity politics and more, born from the leftward lurch Democrats took during President Donald Trump’s first term, won’t be what voters are thinking about come November, they say.

Rather, candidates say a populist economic message that addresses affordability concerns will buoy them to victory.

“You can talk about my tweets if you want to, but you can’t afford your health care, you can’t afford your groceries, you can’t afford your housing,” Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed said in an interview. “And it’s because of Donald Trump’s absurd policies.”

The defensive tactic popular among progressive candidates represents a new path being forged by Democrats still haunted by a disastrous presidential election, which some blame on the party’s unwillingness to distance itself from progressive positions on trans rights, policing and other issues that alienated moderate voters.

They’ve largely leaned into their outspokenness, past and present, in the hopes that voters will appreciate their authenticity. But their moderate opponents are less convinced, fearing potential losses if primary voters give Republicans a candidate with obvious weaknesses.

The border between which past comments must be acknowledged — or fully apologized for — and which can be cleanly pivoted away from remains fuzzy. Broadly, however, progressive candidates are dismissing attacks on their past.

“I’ve been to 400-plus public events, and nobody’s ever asked me about my tweets,” El-Sayed said.

However, Roxie Richner, spokesperson for the campaign, said El-Sayed deleted all posts older than July of 2023 “to prevent any old posts from being taken out of context” and that the deletion did not target any specific topic.

Which former comments must be atoned for differs by primary. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, for one, has walked back some of his most outspoken comments calling God nonbinary and lamenting the privilege his whiteness affords him, admitting in interviews that those comments were “cringey.”

But in a Democratic stronghold in New York City, Darializa Avila Chevalier was able to pivot around attacks on her calls to abolish prisons on the way to ousting longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.).

She did, however, express regret for some old posts, including ones in which she wrote “fuck Kamala Harris” and called Joe Biden a “rapist.”

Bill Neidhardt, a Democratic strategist at the progressive consulting firm Middle Seat, said that while it’s not like “there’s never room to apologize,” a candidate refusing to entertain attacks on their progressive past can work remarkably well among voters itching for an outsider candidate.

“Whenever I see an incumbent focusing on tweets and not about the economy, I feel like my campaign is in the place where I want it to be,” said Neidhardt, whose firm has worked for progressives including Avila Chevalier, El-Sayed and Melat Kiros — a democratic socialist who recently toppled 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado.

El-Sayed, for one, has repeatedly emphasized that he isn’t interested in litigating the past — which opponents have sought to do over his since-deleted 2020 posts lamenting that police departments are overfunded relative to other social services and referring to them as “standing armies.”

He told Blue Light News that “the idea that you stand by everything you ever said, out of context, is an insane thing to assume about anybody.”

But El-Sayed’s shifting recollection of the past has put him in bind. After telling the Detroit News that he “actually never, never called for defunding,” CNN reported that he said “we do need to defund the police” in a June 2020 interview with Detroit Public Radio. In that interview, the former health official said that he considered defunding to mean reducing funding for prisons and police while investing more in “the means of educating and empowering, engaging communities with the means of being able to take on systemic poverty.”

El-Sayed has characterized such reporting as superfluous to the actual issues present in the campaign.

In an interview with BLN, El-Sayed was skeptical of the newsworthiness of the coverage: “I think this debate about 2020 and the ways that tweets are going to play are really nice on BLN if you want to get clicks.” And after BLN reported that he did in fact say “defund the police,” a campaign spokesperson told the outlet that El-Sayed’s “perspective has become more nuanced” since 2020.

When opponents and media dig up past comments, Neidhardt says he tells his candidates to keep their eyes on the ball, “and the ball is pocketbook politics, it’s not whoever is looking most proper for the Washington set.”

“They care about whether someone’s gonna fight for them,” Neidhardt said of voters.

That’s a philosophy mirrored in another progressive upstart in Wisconsin: gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong — a democratic socialist state representative that has faced similar critiques over a slew of social media posts calling to abolish the police. She is leading in most recent primary polls.

Alison Geyer, a spokesperson for Hong’s campaign, characterized the attention her posts have received as distractions from her otherwise popular slate of policies while acknowledging the blowback certain slogans can inspire without additional context.

Geyer said Hong “does not regret speaking out” amid a nationwide reckoning over police violence and racial injustice but acknowledged how slogans are “imperfect tools” that can’t always capture the full nuance of policy positions.

Still, problematic social media posts have bogged down some candidates — particularly when they go beyond far-left policy proposals to more personal controversies. Since-deleted posts authored by Maine Democrat Graham Platner, in which he said victims of sexual assault should “take some responsibility” and that many white rural Americans “actually are” racist and unintelligent, provide a picture of which past comments can severely hurt a political campaign.

Repeated scandals about Platner’s posts, in addition to the Nazi-aligned Totenkopf emblem tattooed to his chest — which he denied knowing the symbolism of — and reports of concerning behavior with former partners, now appear to some Democrats as a warning sign the party should have heeded before Maine’s June primary. Platner ended his campaign this week following Blue Light News’s reporting that an ex-girlfriend said he sexually assaulted her.

Platner has called that allegation false.

Still, progressives’ primary opponents — let alone the Republicans they hope to face in November — believe their outwardly nonchalant attitudes toward their past posts will haunt them. Spokespeople for three of Hong’s opponents in Wisconsin panned her posts, with opponent Joel Brennan saying “I don’t think there are three words that have done more damage to Democrats in the last decade than ‘defund the police.’”

“If we spend this fall defending those words, I’m afraid we lose,” continued the statement from Brennan, who trails Hong and other frontrunners in the polls.

Michigan Republicans, meanwhile, are salivating at the opportunity to run against El-Sayed. Presumptive Republican Senate nominee and former Rep. Mike Rogers said in a statement that “hide and deflect all he wants, Michiganders see Abdul and the Democrats for how out-of-touch they really are.”

And Arik Wolk, spokesperson for primary opponent Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), said that Republicans know El-Sayed “has real liabilities as a candidate” and accused Republicans of “spending money to ‘boost’ his campaign.”

El-Sayed has gotten a taste of what Republican opposition may look like if he wins the primary. In late June, the National Republican Senatorial Committee unveiled a new attack ad calling El-Sayed “too radical for Michigan.” El-Sayed has coyly responded to such charges that, in his telling, explain exactly why people should vote for him.

But taking that line of defense when it comes to attacks surrounding a candidate’s supposed extremeness can potentially backfire, said Kate deGruyter, the spokesperson for the center-left Third Way.

“Republicans are going to try to weaponize any evidence they have to paint a Democrat as a radical, and it sure helps them out when our candidates are confidently saying those things out loud on camera,” deGruyter said.

Politics

Democrats found their border message. ICE is another story.

Published

2 days ago

August 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats have figured out how to talk about the border. They still haven’t reached a consensus on ICE.

In battlegrounds across the country, moderate and progressive Democrats alike are calling for a secure border and admitting the Biden administration’s policy there led to political backlash in 2024. But with less than three months until Election Day, they still aren’t on the same page in how far to go in reining in Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with some high-profile candidates pushing reforms, and others calling to dissolve the agency altogether.

Many in the party see an opening: Half of Americans view President Donald Trump’s deportation push as too aggressive. But some Democrats are starting to worry that going too far on ICE could again kneecap their electoral chances in key battlegrounds now and in the future.

“The party is still struggling to get its footing on this issue and talk to voters about this,” said Daniel Delgado, a senior career Department of Homeland Security official who left the department after Trump took office in 2025 and now works as a senior fellow at the center-left Searchlight Institute think tank in Washington. “Trump’s actions are pushing people to adopt a more extreme position, but reform is what’s sticking with voters in the middle.”

Democratic candidates are pulled between a fired-up base that wants to see ICE abolished or dramatically reined in, and an undecided voter bloc that’s much less likely to support drastic measures — all while continuing to distance themselves from the Biden administration’s border policies that become political kryptonite for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 race.

A new Blue Light News Poll — conducted by Public First between Aug. 8 to 12 — found that just 21 percent of undecided midterm voters say they support abolishing ICE, while 51 percent of self-described moderate Democrats and 67 percent of progressive Democrats say they do.

Those findings track with other polling this year from Navigator Research and NBC News/SurveyMonkey that found Democrats are much more likely than independents to support abolishing ICE, though support for full abolition falls across all groups when respondents are given the option to “reform” the agency.

“A Democratic primary electorate represents less than 25 percent of general election voters,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, a former Bernie Sanders campaign veteran now advising Texas state Rep. James Talarico’s Senate campaign and numerous other candidates this cycle. “The electorate is really pissed, and the Democratic electorate has been very energized, but also these are different electorates from state-to-state.”

Battleground candidates running in border states like Arizona and Texas are calling for ICE officers to be held accountable and guardrails to be installed for the agency — like Talarico, who wants ICE to focus on violent criminals and be banned from using face coverings. Meanwhile, progressive nominees in key Senate contests in Maine and Michigan say the agency is beyond saving, and have used the potent catchphrase “abolish ICE.”

The intraparty divide was on display in Austin last weekend, where Democratic National Committee members could not reach a consensus on whether ICE should be abolished or reformed, eventually approving dueling resolutions that called for both.

That disunity comes as Democrats’ 2028 path to the White House will run straight through two early primary states with significant Hispanic populations — Nevada and border-state New Mexico — all but guaranteeing that immigration enforcement will be a central point of contention.

Immigration enforcement is an issue where Democrats in 2024 “really missed the opportunity to be who we are: smart, fair, and can deliver aggressively through Congress the things that really make a difference. And we couldn’t say it. We didn’t deal with it,” said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has called for more accountability regarding ICE but argues abolishing it is not a winning message. “Shame on us then. We better not make these mistakes again — now, in ’26, in the midterms, and certainly not in 28.”

Some of the party’s battleground Senate nominees, even as they support securing the border, see a path to victory with an abolish-ICE message.

Troy Jackson, Democrats’ nominee in Maine, called to eliminate the agency in response to a federal immigration agent killing a man in the state in July and has used the incident to hammer his opponent, GOP Sen. Susan Collins, for voting to further fund ICE.

And Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has called to abolish ICE and likened the agency’s hardline tactics to “normalizing paramilitary force.”

“There’s no question we need a safe, secure southern border. And there’s also no question that we have a responsibility to enforce immigration policy, but to do that in a way that does not supersede the Constitution itself,” El-Sayed said in an interview.

But he also acknowledged “different communities” around the country “are going to think differently about these things.”

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee for Senate, has avoided explicitly calling to abolish ICE, but has tiptoed up to the line: “We need to rip ICE apart,” she said in her primary-night victory speech. She won a hard-fought primary in Minnesota’s Senate race by castigating her Democratic rival’s votes with Republicans on a pair of immigration-related measures. She opened her general-election clash against Michele Tafoya by accusing the Republican of supporting the Trump administration’s violent tactics in her state.

Border-state Democrats sound different.

Moderate Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who currently sits as ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, frequently tells voters during stump speeches that he will chair the subcommittee should Democrats retake control of the House — and he’ll use that position to push reforms in the next DHS funding bill, like mandatory use of body cameras, requiring judicial warrants before entering a home or worksite, and reinstalling guidance on avoiding enforcement in sensitive areas like churches and hospitals.

“Let me just say this: I don’t believe in abolishing ICE. I don’t believe in defunding the police. There’s a role for them,” he told reporters last month after meeting with Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, a nun detained by ICE while walking to Sunday Mass. “But they have to have the right safeguards. What ICE is doing right now is not right. It is not correct.”

The South Texas Democrats pay little heed to the loudest voices in the party calling to abolish ICE. “I personally don’t follow what national Democrats are saying on this,” said Abel Prado, the campaign manager for Bobby Pulido, the Democratic nominee in Texas’ 15th District.

Some other candidates are altering their message now, too. William Lawrence, the Sunshine Movement co-founder who won the Democratic primary in Michigan’s swingy 7th District, called in January to abolish ICE. But he sidestepped when Blue Light News asked this week if that was still his position.

“I don’t care what our immigration enforcement agency is called,” Lawrence said in a statement. “What I care about is immigration policy that adheres to the Constitution and lives up to our country’s highest values.”

Frank Sharry, a longtime Democratic immigration activist, said Democrats would be wise to avoid the phrase.

“I don’t think that ‘abolish ICE’ gets you much more than a little bit of play in a primary and a round of applause in the blue bubble,” said Sharry, a senior fellow at Third Way who advised both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris during their 2024 campaigns on immigration policy. “Democratic candidates who want to win the seats that are going to deliver a majority of the House and the Senate, and then the White House in 2028, would be wise to steer clear of a rally slogan.”

Politics

‘I’m on the ballot’: Trump lends a hand to struggling Darline Graham

Published

2 days ago

August 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Friday to help save the candidacy of Sen. Darline Graham after a major debate gaffe raised questions about her readiness to replace her late brother and the wisdom of his endorsement.

Speaking at a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, days before a Senate runoff featuring Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman, Trump urged voters to support the sister of his ally Lindsay Graham, the longtime foreign policy hawk who died last month.

“We’re going to elect Senator Darline Graham to fight, fight, fight for South Carolina and to always put America first,” he said. “You vote for her, you’re going to be very proud of that vote.”

Trump also reflected on his close friendship with Lindsey Graham, invoking the memory of the stalwart of the South Carolina GOP who represented the state in Congress for 31 years.

“I think Lindsey respected Darline more than any other person he knows, including me,” he said.

Trump pushed for Darline Graham’s appointment to fill out the remainder of her brother’s term, offering his endorsement before she even formally launched her campaign.

But the value of Trump’s endorsement has arguably never been weaker. He has seen some notable favorites fall in recent primaries — including in South Carolina, where Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette lost the state’s gubernatorial primary to state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

Trump’s choice for governor in Wyoming lost on Tuesday, along with two Florida Republicans who scored his endorsement in House primaries. Also among the recent losers: Mike Lindell, the former MyPillow CEO and close ally who fell short in the Minnesota gubernatorial primary.

Those came after losses of Trump-endorsed candidates in Georgia, Michigan and Iowa earlier this year.

The president touted Graham’s focus on affordability and her support for traditional conservative social issues like the Second Amendment. But his primary pitch to Republicans in South Carolina was to treat Graham as an extension of himself.

“What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot. Just come and vote. It’s so important,” he said. “Just say that I’m on the ballot one more time.”

Graham sailed into the runoff, topping second-place Norman by eight percentage points. But an alarming debate hiccup over a question on the U.S.-Taiwan relationship in which she admitted she’s “not that informed on national security” and that “national security is not my thing,” triggered a pile-on from Republicans in South Carolina and elsewhere expressing concerns about her qualifications.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Norman supporter, slammed Graham for her debate answer. And former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford endorsed Norman hours ahead of the rally on Friday, noting that “the stakes are too high” to back Graham.

Trump appeared unbothered by Graham’s admission, telling reporters ahead of the rally that her loyalty to the president’s agenda was all that mattered.

“She was just being honest,” Trump said. “It hasn’t been her thing, but she’s surrounded by very good people, and she said that she’s totally for the military.”

“She’s going to do what the military wants, and really what the president wants,” he continued. “She understands that national security is my thing.”

Speaking ahead of the president, Graham attempted to sidestep the concerns about her resume by recalling Trump’s lack of political experience before his 2016 victory.

“The critics say I shouldn’t run for the senate. They say I’m not a politician. You know what I say? Guilty as charged,” she said, prompting a wave of applause from the crowd. “By the way, President Trump had never served in an elected office before, and I think he’s done a damn good job.”

Trump’s visit prompted an endorsement ahead of the rally from Gov. Henry McMaster, who said Graham “continued Lindsey Graham’s work, and stood firmly with President Trump to advance his America First agenda” while serving out the remainder of her brother’s term.

The president’s trip to the state — a rare as-advertised campaign rally amid a sea of official White House events elevating his endorsed candidates — marks a significant expenditure of the president’s political capital. The president hasn’t held in-person rallies for Republicans Senate candidates in many battleground states, opting instead for social media posts and telerallies. And he has yet to dip into the $403 million war chest at his primary super PAC, MAGA Inc., drawing some consternation from Republicans.

Trump told reporters on Friday he’ll spend “a lot of that money” to boost “Republican candidates that I think are good,” without being specific.

Trump warned of the stakes of losing control of Congress in the midterms, saying that Democrats will follow through on reported plans to investigate and impeach him.

“You’re going to lose everything,” he said. “I’m going to have to go through impeachment.”

Alec Hernandez contributed to this report.

Politics

Trump’s biggest political event so far isn’t in a battleground state

Published

3 days ago

August 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is going the extra mile for Sen. Darline Graham in deep-red South Carolina.

That’s left battleground Republicans wondering when it’ll be their turn, even while they acknowledge Trump’s campaign trip is in part owing to his strong ties with the candidate’s late brother, former Sen. Lindsey Graham. It’s also caused several supporters of Graham’s primary opponent to scratch their heads at the sudden attention he’s giving a state that is far from critical for ensuring GOP control in Washington. Trump is bringing back his hallmark campaign rally for Graham on Friday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, just days ahead of her runoff against Republican Rep. Ralph Norman.

It’s a far cry from the quieter strategy the president has used for candidates in battleground races in Georgia, Michigan and Texas: a couple supportive social media posts and, in some cases, a telerally on the eve of Election Day.

“It’s going to be a red seat,” said Randy Page, a longtime Republican operative in South Carolina who is supporting Norman in the race. “If I were the president, if I were giving him political advice, I’d say: ‘We’re right next to Georgia, we’re right next to North Carolina. Texas ain’t that far away.’ There are some real places that are going to affect the party keeping control of either the House or the Senate, and it’s like he’s just flying over them and ignoring them.”

Strategists involved with GOP candidates who could use Trump’s base-boosting help elsewhere are eagerly waiting to see whether he’ll put the same effort into their own races later this year.

“He’s coming in person for Darline Graham. He really hasn’t done much else,” said one GOP operative involved in several battleground races, including in Georgia, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “He probably has the ability to move the needle in Republicans’ favor better than anyone else in the country. The question is just: Will he? Is he willing to? Does he want to? Does he care enough?”

Trump’s appearance in Myrtle Beach is a significant and explicit foray back to the campaign trail in a year in which his previous appearances with his endorsed candidates were mainly on official White House business, focused on issues like affordability and domestic energy production. It also comes at a crucial moment for Graham, who is looking for a momentum boost after an embarrassing debate stage fumble on foreign policy.

He appeared with Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo in Las Vegas for an official event earlier this month billed to tout tax cuts in a state where the governor is facing a tough reelection battle. In late July, he traveled to suburban Atlanta to deliver remarks where he touted GOP Rep. Mike Collins’ Senate bid against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff (Collins himself was absent because of votes in Washington). And a month earlier, he took part in a roundtable discussion with frontline GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

But it’s been far less than in years past. Trump was ever-present on the campaign trail during the 2018 midterms, and blitzed across the country for rallies during his 2024 election bid, but his travel has been somewhat curtailed since he has faced two attempts on his life that same year.

The Friday rally is the kind of support that some Republican candidates wished had come for them in their own contentious primaries — and operatives in states with competitive general election matchups hope it signals more presidential help is on the horizon before November.

Trump’s heavy hand and his grip over the Republican Party has continued to shape the outcome of several primaries this year, but the degree to which he will help ensure control of Congress this fall — both through campaign appearances and spending his $400 million MAGA Inc. war chest — remains an open question.

For some Republicans in battleground states watching from afar, Trump’s Friday appearance with Graham is a reminder of how little time the president spent on the campaign trail during the primary season.

“Him posting on True Social and doing a tele-town hall has kind of, from what I can tell, been kind of the limit of what he’s done for most endorsed candidates. So this is a little different that he’s going down there,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist based in Texas who worked with Sen. John Cornyn on his unsuccessful reelection primary earlier this year and said he will support the Republican ticket this fall.

The White House dismissed concerns over Trump’s attention on South Carolina over other states in a statement.

“President Trump is the unequivocal leader of the Republican party who is committed to maintaining Republicans’ majority in Congress,” said White House spokesperson Olivia Wales. “President Trump will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and the radical Democrats in Congress who allowed millions of illegal aliens to flow through the border, unanimously opposed the Working Families Tax Cuts, and are soft-on-crime.”

Several Republicans said that Trump’s Friday rally is likely borne from his long and mostly close relationship with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who Graham’s sister Darline and Norman are running to replace.

“It’s partly that this one is unique,” Mackowiak said. “It’s partly about Lindsey and about I think he’s doing what he thinks Lindsey would have wanted him to do, and so he wants to see that through and see that succeed.”

Regardless of the impetus behind the decision to travel to the Palmetto State, the president’s in-person appearance is a major boon for Graham’s campaign, and her team is eager to capitalize on the rare in-person campaign moment as the recently appointed senator has weathered criticism over her political inexperience. Trump “knows Senator Darline is a true MAGA ally who will help him implement his agenda and fight against the Woke mob better than any other Senate candidate in the country,” Graham spokesperson Abby Zilch said in a statement.

Graham made a significant gaffe on the debate stage earlier this week, when she said “I’m not that informed on national security” in response to a question on U.S. interests in Taiwan. Norman’s allies were quick to seize on the moment to drive home their message that she’s “underprepared” for the office.

A person with direct knowledge of Graham’s campaign’s strategy acknowledged the misstep, but insisted that she had sufficiently cleaned up the flub during a Fox News appearance with Sean Hannity. Now, their focus is on the president’s visit: “This rally allows the campaign to own statewide earned media for a couple days,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “The Trump endorsement is big, but him coming in state is bigger. President Trump is all in.”

If Graham falls short on Tuesday, it will be one of Trump’s most embarrassing in a recent string of losses this primary season. He pushed for her appointment to the Senate to complete her late brother’s term and openly encouraged her to run for a full six years, with his backing.

Plus, he’s already stumbled in South Carolina before: His first pick in this year’s governor’s race, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, lost momentum to Attorney General Alan Wilson in the primary, leading to a rare double endorsement from Trump at the last minute.

Several Norman supporters think that Trump should put his focus elsewhere — even if they agree with the president on virtually every other issue.

“Michigan and Ohio and Alaska, Maine and Texas are all at risk of losing to the Democrats,” said state Rep. Jordan Pace, who has endorsed Norman’s bid. “That’s where the money and the attention should be, shoring up those states.”