Politics

Survey shows sharp gender gap in political harassment

Published

6 months ago

October 29, 2025

Female mayors experience political violence at a much higher rate than their male counterparts, according to the results of a new study conducted by the Mayors Innovation Project.

The findings come as America faces an increase in political violence — including the assassination of Charlie Kirk last month and the killing of Minnesota State Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman.

“I don’t know if America is ready to talk about the steps that are … giving greater permission and room for violence,” said former Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, who helped develop and facilitate the survey and conducted interviews with some of the other current and former elected officials who were polled.

According to the poll, female mayoral candidates reported experiencing harassment in greater numbers both while campaigning and while in office. Eighty-four percent of female candidates were harassed while campaigning, compared to 64 percent of male candidates. And once in office, 25 percent of female mayors experienced harassment at least three times per month, while 10 percent of male mayors reported the same level and frequency of harassment. Nearly twice as many female mayors also reported threats to their family as male mayors.

The survey was conducted in February of about 235 mayors, who answered the survey online. Respondents were about 60 percent male and 60 percent were full-time mayors (versus part-time). Of the respondents, 43 percent represented cities of less than 30,000 people and 42 percent represented cities with a population of 30,000 to 100,000. Only 15 percent represented cities over 100,000. The survey was funded by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and conducted in collaboration with RepresentWomen and the Center for American Women in Politics.

Former Kankakee, Illinois, Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong also helped develop and conduct the survey. She herself was the target of harassment as mayor, and told Blue Light News in an interview that she did not want to run for a second term in part because of the threats she experienced.

While in office, Wells-Armstrong said someone shot a bullet through her garage door. Another constituent posted a photo of a mailer she sent out with the caption “this is good for target practice.” And one man left a voicemail saying that she should be thrown off the third floor.

The poll found that this type of harassment came at a cost to the mayor and to the city, in terms of additional security and also the time taken to deal with harassment or threats that could have been spent dealing with city concerns.

After the poll, the Innovation Project also conducted in-depth interviews with 49 female mayors. One of them said a local school had to add extra security after a potential threat was made to a mayor’s grandchild, and another said they spent half of their $10,000 salary putting up security cameras.

By far, the most common experience reported by mayors was degrading comments on social media, said Katya Spear, co-author of the report and managing director of the Mayors Innovation Project.

“It was so pervasive that we basically stopped reporting on it,” Spear explained.

Americans are taking threats of violence more seriously in the wake of the Kirk and Hortman assassinations. Some states have toughened penalties for politically motivated violence. Others are now removing the home addresses of politicians from public documents and websites.

Wells-Armstrong said that deeming crimes motivated by politics as hate crimes would be a big step, and also suggests publishing a list of people who commit political violence — similar to the sex offender database.

“If you hit people where they’re going to be fined or lose their jobs or those types of things, I believe that that can be a big deterrent,” she explained.

Cities can also support increases in safety and security, the study’s authors suggest. Both Wells-Armstrong and Hodges said they were told they were overreacting when asking for additional security or for law enforcement to check on a threat — like the bullet holes in Wells-Armstrong’s garage door. Having an infrastructure that takes harassment and threats against all mayors seriously — including women — could prevent actual acts of violence and help mayors feel supported enough to continue doing their job well.

“In light of the many instances of physical and psychological threats, harassment, and actions documented here and in other research (and the media) recently, it’s critical to build public and media support for reasonable requests for safety-related staffing and infrastructure in a way that does not hinder the democratic process,” the report reads.

Politics

Key Democrat seeks inspector general probe into FAA chief’s airline stock divestment

Published

14 hours ago

April 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Key Democrat seeks inspector general probe into FAA chief’s airline stock divestment

Sen. Maria Cantwell and other lawmakers want an investigation into whether the agency’s administrator “profited from deliberately violating his ethics agreement.”…
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Politics

Key Democrat seeks inspector general probe into FAA chief’s airline stock divestment

Published

15 hours ago

April 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Maria Cantwell and other lawmakers want an investigation into whether the agency’s administrator “profited from deliberately violating his ethics agreement.”…
Read More

Politics

From Iran to Paris weather: Alleged prediction market violations start stacking up

Published

17 hours ago

April 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are quickly becoming an economic and political force, accruing multi-billion dollar valuations and drawing support from key officials in the Trump administration.

But backlash to the platforms is spreading — in Washington and in state capitals — with accusations of insider trading following White House military action in Venezuela and Iran and dogging several midterm election campaigns.

Fault lines over who is in charge of regulation are already emerging, with several frontline Democrats pushing to rein in the companies. In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order barring appointed state officials from using insider information to place bets on prediction markets. Regulation discussions are ongoing in other states, including Arizona and Massachusetts.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, meanwhile, is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket. And both companies are spending big to win over the country’s political class, with Polymarket opening a pop-up bar on K Street, among other efforts. Both platforms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here are some of the most recent incidents that have piqued the anxiety of state and federal lawmakers.

People gather at a government-organized event to watch former President Nicolas Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores appear in a New York court on a screen in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 26, 2026.

The capture of Nicolás Maduro

Federal authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of a U.S. Army special forces soldier they accused of using confidential information to place more than a dozen bets on Polymarket tied to the January capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old soldier who helped plan the Caracas operation, spent roughly $33,000 on the bets, earning more than $400,000 in payouts, the Justice Department said. Authorities charged him with unlawfully using confidential government information for personal gain, among other alleged offenses.

The operation saw U.S. forces capture Maduro overnight in his bedroom, before flying the longtime Venezuelan leader to New York City to face narco-terrorism charges.

Van Dyke’s alleged actions took advantage of that mission, the government officials argue.

“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Thursday. “Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”

A woman member of the Basij paramilitary, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, holds her gun and an Iranian flag during a state-organized rally in support of the supreme leader marking National Girl's Day in Tehran, Iran, on April 17, 2026.

U.S.-Iran ceasefire

In the hours before President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran in early April, at least 50 newly created Polymarket accounts spent thousands betting on a temporary peace, according to an Associated Press report.

One account, created just 12 minutes before Trump’s Truth Social announcement, made $48,500 on a $31,908 bet that a ceasefire would occur. Another cashed out for a profit of $200,000, the AP reported.

Polymarket also took heat after the U.S.’s initial strikes on Iran, with “six suspected insiders” placing bets on the attacks just before they took place, according to Blockchain company Bubblemaps, taking home more than $1 million.

Israeli authorities, meanwhile, charged two people in February for using classified information to place bets about military operations on Polymarket, according to NPR.

The U.S. Capitol building is seen April 20, 2026.

Congressional bets

On Wednesday, Kalshi announced that it was suspending three 2026 congressional candidates from the platform for betting on their own races. Minnesota Democrat Matthew Klein, Texas Republican Ezekiel Enriquez and Virginia Senate candidate Mark Moran were each given five-year bans and faced fines or penalties ranging from roughly $500 to more than $6,000.

Klein, who is running to replace outgoing House lawmaker Angie Craig in Minnesota’s 2nd District, issued an apology on X.

“This was a mistake, and I apologize,” he wrote. “My experience, like many other Minnesotans, points to the need for clearer rules and regulations for these types of markets.”

Enriquez has not appeared to publicly comment on his wager or suspension.

Moran, a former “FBoy Island” contestant who is running a long-shot bid to challenge Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in Virginia, took a different tack, writing on X that he wanted to be caught.

“I traded $100 on myself, knowing this would happen (also knowing that I wouldn’t be vying for the democratic nomination) and the attention it would create to highlight how this company is destroying young men and as Senator I will go after Kalshi and impose significant penalties on them – 25% – a vice tax – to pay down our national debt,” he said.

A man on a bicycle rides on the flooded banks of the Seine next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Feb. 25, 2026.

Playing with Mother Nature

Several Polymarket traders made thousands of dollars in profits for accurately predicting sudden, anomalous spikes in the temperature at Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport April 15, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Météo-France, the country’s weather service, is now investigating the incident, which could be tied to tampering.

Jimmy Donaldson, the popular YouTube video maker who goes by MrBeast, is seen at an MLS soccer match between Inter Miami and CF Montreal on March 10, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

MrBeast’s editor

In February, Kalshi reported Artem Kaptur, an editor for MrBeast, one of the world’s biggest influencers and most popular YouTube creators, to federal authorities for allegedly trading “on material, non-public information he obtained because of his employment” regarding the celebrity’s YouTube videos.

Kalshi suspended Kaptur from its platform for two years and imposed a financial penalty of more than $20,000. He was fired in March.

“Beast Industries has no tolerance for this behavior, whether by contestants or our own employees,” MrBeast’s company wroteat the time.