Congress

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow announces Michigan Senate bid

Published

2 years ago

April 2, 2025

Mallory McMorrow formally launched a bid on Wednesday to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters.

The state senator framed herself as an outsider, declaring that the “same old crap out of Washington” wouldn’t fix their problems.

“We need new leaders. Because the same people in D.C. who got us into this mess are not going to be the ones to get us out of it,” she said in a two-and-a-half minute announcement video.

McMorrow, 38, is seen in the party as an effective communicator and a rising star. She attracted attention at last year’s Democratic National Convention after holding up an oversized copy of “Project 2025,” the conservative policy blueprint that ultimately became the backbone of Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn approach to government spending.

She previously said that she wouldn’t support Sen. Chuck Schumer as Senate Minority Leader. He faced intense intraparty backlash for voting to advance a Trump-backed government funding bill opposed by many others in the party.

She has also cautioned that the Democratic Party shouldn’t overcorrect.

“I think that Democratic values and Democratic priorities, especially compared to the chaos that’s being unleashed by Donald Trump right now, are still popular with voters,” she recently told Blue Light News. “We just have to be better messengers and better advocates for people.”

And amid a broader debate in the party over its handling of transgender issues, McMorrow’s launch video included footage of a 2022 viral speech she gave in the Michigan State Senate responding to a state GOP lawmaker who accused her of “grooming” children.

McMorrow’s state Senate district includes part of the city of Detroit and some of its suburban communities.

McMorrow brings to the race a national donor network that she built off her viral speech; by October of 2022, she amassed nearly 13,000 donors from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, raising a total of $2.35 million.

She won’t have the field to herself, and the state is expected to be one of the most hotly contested in the 2026 cycle. Reps. Haley Stevens and Kristen McDonald Rivet could also run, as could Wayne County Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services Director Abdul El-Sayed.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took himself out of contention for the open Senate seat, fueling speculation he’d mount another bid for the presidency in 2028.

Republicans see the state, which Trump won in 2016 and 2024, as a top pickup opportunity on the Senate battlefield. Former Rep. Mike Rogers is expected to launch a bid for the GOP nomination, and Republican Tudor Dixon is also weighing a bid.

Adam Wren contributed to this report

Congress

Mike Rogers opens the door for AIPAC support in Michigan Senate race

Published

6 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers signaled he would accept support from AIPAC as he remains locked in a tight contest against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

Rogers was asked during a debate Thursday whether he would welcome public backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — and he pointedly did not rule it out.

“Anybody that wants to help my campaign stop” El-Sayed, he said, “I’ll take all of that help.”

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, uncorked more than $30 million against El-Sayed in Democrats’ bruising primary. El-Sayed turned the deluge into a cudgel, railing against the group’s heavy spending to rally progressives to his side as support for Israel cratered among Democrats amid the war in Gaza.

The group does not appear to have spent on television ads since, according to tracker AdImpact.

The debate moderator asked Rogers about an Axios report from August that said allies of the Republican had asked AIPAC not to advertise on his behalf. The report said the group scrapped a video ad against El-Sayed a day after Rogers spoke with AIPAC board chair Michael Tuchin.

Rogers also reportedly attended fundraisers hosted by AIPAC in California in August.

A representative for UDP declined to comment.

Rogers and El-Sayed clashed over U.S. military aid for Israel in their debate. Rogers said he supports Israel’s “right to defend itself in a very difficult neighborhood,” while El-Sayed said “I don’t want our tax dollars buying weapons for other countries.”

Congress

Mike Johnson voices uncertainty about his future if GOP loses control

Published

16 hours ago

October 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that he could leave Congress if Democrats regain control — the farthest he has gone in acknowledging what he would do in a GOP House minority.

“Heaven forbid, if we lose this majority or whatever, I don’t know what my next chapter of life is,” Johnson said in an interview with Fox News posted this week. “If God moves on our hearts and says we should, you know, go back to my hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn business, I’ll do that with equal fervor.”

In the past, the Louisiana Republican has steered clear of the hypothetical.

Johnson also did not rule out a run at minority leader, instead telling Fox News that House Republicans will hold onto the majority and he will stay speaker.

“I’m going to be the speaker in the next Congress,” Johnson said, when asked if he would run. “I’m not going to talk about the scenario where we don’t win the House, because I am laser-focused on winning the House.”

With the midterms less than a month away, Republicans are doing everything they can to salvage their chances of maintaining their majority in an unfavorable political environment.

As some Republicans privately worry about their chances of holding onto the House, many believe jockeying for a GOP minority leader race is already underway.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan are potential names floating around to take over. House Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) had also been named as an option, though he could also run to stay as whip.

All three House Republicans have been campaigning across the country in the lead-up to the election. If Republicans lose the House, GOP members will begin the race for minority leader almost immediately when they return to Washington.

Congress

Capitol agenda: GOP ads have yet to overwhelm voters, poll finds

Published

20 hours ago

October 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans have a massive campaign cash advantage going into the final stretch before Election Day, but a new Blue Light News poll shows they aren’t yet capturing voters’ attention.

More than 70% of poll respondents who had seen ads said they’d either seen more spots in support of Democrats or an equal amount between the parties over the past week — including ads on television, social media, or any other platform. Only 24% said they’d seen more ads for Republicans.

The numbers are striking considering Republican-aligned groups had triple the amount of cash on hand compared to their Democratic rivals going into the final months of the campaign. That figure includes the $400 million war chest that President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC reported over the summer, for which Dems have no equivalent.

Republicans have been racing to saturate key battlegrounds — and even some deep-red districts and states — with GOP messages in the final weeks before the midterms to counterbalance the favorable political environment for Democrats.

One reason GOP ad dollars could be getting less bang for their buck may lie in ad rates: direct campaign accounts from prolific individual fundraisers — Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff or Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, for example — can buy ads at cheaper rates.

Timing may be another reason: Trump’s super PAC waited until recent weeks to start buying ads through affiliate groups, when rates were already high close to the election.

“It’s competition that drives [rates] up to these ridiculous amounts, and then when super PACs come in late with these reservations, it’s even more than a two times disadvantage,” Jeff Burton, GOP campaign strategist and president of Maven Advocacy Partners said in an interview.

Burton said Republican candidates will need to rethink spending strategies to catch voters’ attention in the final stretch. Still, having a cash advantage might only take some so far, he said, citing the massive outspending Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and Texas’ Ken Paxton overcame in their respective primaries.

“I think you’ll see a lot of these campaigns diversifying, paying for grassroots, paying for different mediums to try to reach voters,” Burton said.

The poll was conducted by surveying U.S. adults online between Oct. 3-5 with PF Global.

What else we’re watching:

— FIRST IN IC: DEMS WANT A GOP APOLOGY TO JACK SMITH — Senate Judiciary Democrats are asking chair Chuck Grassley to issue an apology to former special counsel Jack Smith on behalf of GOP committee members and Sen. Eric Schmitt. A letter from committee Democrats to Republicans, obtained exclusively by Blue Light News also demands Grassley turn over the underlying records Schmitt used last month to levy false allegations against Smith of secretly attending an NBA game in Atlanta to conspire with local prosecutors about convicting Trump.

— HILL LOBBIES FOR UKRAINIANS IN U.S. — Lawmakers afraid the Trump administration will cancel protections for Ukrainian seeking refuge in the U.S. want the president to consider another option: Do nothing. The administration has until Oct. 19 to renew or cancel temporary protected status for more than 100,000 Ukrainians in the U.S. who fled the war still ravaging their country. While a number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hoping Trump will renew the permission, some also support a backup option — letting the status expire without formally canceling it, triggering an automatic six-month extension.

Chris Marquette, Eric Bazail-Eimil and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.