Politics
The lines Bill Ferguson won’t cross
When Wes Moore and Bill Ferguson stood together in a Baltimore bar on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in the summer of 2022, the two political figures projected a promising vision of power for Democrats in a blue-leaning state where they stood on the cusp of fully controlling government.
Moore was a former Rhodes Scholar and decorated combat veteran who was running for governor with Oprah Winfrey’s blessing but no experience in public office. Ferguson was a tactful consensus-builder who arrived in Annapolis with the moniker of “baby senator” before rising to become the chamber president a decade later.
“I’m a Baltimorean,” Moore told the campaign volunteers gathered in the Federal Hill neighborhood that Ferguson had represented since first being elected in 2010 at the age of 27. “Who’s making these decisions matters.”
Three years later, Maryland’s two top Democrats find themselves unable to agree on a big one. Moore has become a champion of redrawing his state’s U.S. congressional lines to generate an additional seat for his party in next year’s midterm elections. Ferguson, scarred by an earlier experience in which he helped deliver such an extreme map only to see it struck down by courts, is refusing to commit to even allowing a vote on a new redistricting measure.
The new rupture highlights a fault line emerging within both parties as Democrats and Republicans scour the national map for opportunities to improve their congressional positions via gerrymandering — between the short-term priorities of their respective national parties and the often longer-range yet parochial concerns of state legislative leaders.
For Democrats, the most immediate obstacle to further gains is Ferguson, whose defiance has made him a villain to party officials nationwide. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke with Ferguson in October ensuring he “understands the assignment,” as Jeffries put it. “We need the state of Maryland,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said upon redrawing his state’s maps via passage of Proposition 50 to give his party five Democrat-leaning seats in the state. “Grow a pair” and stand up to President Donald Trump, a top Virginia lawmaker bluntly instructed Ferguson the next day.
The stand-off will likely come to a head in the coming weeks, as Moore faces an imminent choice: Call a special session and rely on Ferguson to deliver a majority for a gerrymandered map, or wait for the General Assembly to return in January for a regular session to allow more time for negotiations. Either way, the governor will have to convince 24 of the 34 Democratic senators to buck a respected leader whose control of campaign funds could help determine the fate of their reelection bids.
The view from outside Maryland may have Moore, a likely 2028 presidential contender, towering over Ferguson. But in Annapolis, many think it is the Senate president who has made the better case for how Democrats should move forward.
Ferguson “holds the cards” on redistricting, says former state Sen. Jill Carter, who served under both men. “Moore is very popular and charismatic, but Bill is very politically savvy.”
William Claiborne Ferguson IV was born in Silver Spring, just outside of Washington, to a conservative-leaning father who worked in commercial real estate and a labor union-supporting mother who adored former President Bill Clinton. Ferguson attended Georgetown Preparatory School — the elite, all-boys Jesuit academy that also produced conservative Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — and Davidson College in North Carolina, where he studied politics and economics with sights on a business career.
But a post-collegiate stint with Teach for America at one of Baltimore’s toughest schools veered Ferguson away from his father’s career and towards one in left-leaning politics. While serving as an aide to local-government officials, Ferguson pursued a law degree at the University of Maryland and prepared to seek office. In 2010 he challenged Democratic state Sen. George W. Della Jr., who had been first elected in the year before Ferguson was born. As the primary devolved into mudslinging, Ferguson tried to keep the choice simple for voters: stick with the status quo or march with him into the future.
Ferguson came to a chamber dominated by Maryland Senate President Mike Miller, known for deploying hardball tactics to keep his caucus in line over what became a 33-year tenure in the role. As the chamber’s youngest senator, Ferguson won a reputation as a mild-mannered nerd who mastered education policy and the state budget while being teased by his staff for not knowing classic rock tunes.
When Miller prepared to retire in 2020, senate Democrats turned to the then-36-year-old Ferguson, unanimously voting him the next senate president. Many in the party cheered his ascension as a generational and philosophical pivot to a new progressive era in the state capital.
“Bill Ferguson is more collaborative. He listens. He is open to changing his mind when … arguments are effectively made,” said state Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Democrat who served under both Miller and Ferguson. “He’s less of a king and more of a leader among equals.”
Ferguson, now 42, spent much of his first few sessions as the Senate’s top Democrat in trying to reel in then-Gov. Larry Hogan’s Republican agenda. In the final two years of Hogan’s second term, Maryland Democrats overrode the governor’s vetoes more than two dozen times. Ferguson also scored some bipartisan wins, too, helping Hogan deliver on a campaign promise by passing the largest tax cut in state history.
But it was a standoff with Hogan following the 2020 Census that left an indelible mark on Ferguson.
Maryland had gained a half-million people over the previous decade, even as its largest city, Baltimore, suffered a steep population drop. Hogan saw the churn as an opening to target a Democrat-held congressional district — the 6th, stretching north from the Washington, D.C. suburbs to the Pennsylvania border and west to the West Virginia line — often described as one of the nation’s most gerrymandered. Hogan established a nonpartisan redistricting commission, which returned a map that had two of Maryland’s eight seats leaning Republican.
When Hogan called a special legislative session in December 2021 to approve the map, Democrats rebelled. With supermajorities in both chambers, they instead passed their own over Hogan’s opposition, turning seven districts into safe Democratic seats and the long Republican-dominated 1st district — represented by House Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris — into toss-up territory.
“I felt a little bit uncomfortable, I’ll be totally candid, with the first map we passed,” Ferguson recalled recently to The Bulwark. “I thought, I’m willing to help facilitate this process.”
After Republicans sued, astate court ruled in March 2022 that the Democrats’ map amounted to an “extreme partisan gerrymander” that violated the state Constitution. Already well into an election year, senior Judge Lynne Battaglia gave lawmakers just days to pass a new map. Democratic lawmakers had little choice but to pass a revised map that would win Hogan’s signature. Republicans kept their hold on the 1st district and Democrats have not since mounted a serious challenge to Harris there.
Ferguson, who declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article, now says he made a misjudgment in acquiescing to more seasoned leaders who convinced him a maximalist strategy would stand up to legal scrutiny. Seeing it shot down by the courts gives him a “different calculus of the risk,” as he told the Bulwark, about any attempt at a nakedly partisan gerrymander.
“Experience does matter. What you’ve seen and gone through in the past does matter,” said Malcolm Augustine, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Maryland Senate. “That’s the bottom line. He was there.”
On an unseasonably warm afternoon in January 2023, Ferguson stood at the state house to welcome Moore — a well-reviewed author and former college football player, Army officer, investment banker and nonprofit executive — to Annapolis. The ceremony dripped with nods to Moore’s status as Maryland’s first African-American governor. Ferguson, who is white, stood less than three feet away as Moore placed his hand on a Bible belonging to abolitionist Fredrick Douglass during the swearing-in, which was held in a private event in the Senate chamber.
Moments later, at the public outdoor ceremony before a crowd that included actor Chris Tucker and presidential daughter Chelsea Clinton, the new governor name-checked Ferguson in the second line of his inaugural address. “It’s an honor to be your partner,” Moore said.
After years of playing defense against a Republican executive, Ferguson now had an ally who could allow legislative Democrats to define a proactive agenda. Many wanted to use the state’s structural surplus to fund mortgage assistance programs for first-time homebuyers and cancel parole debt for long-serving inmates.
Early optimism about what the state’s Democratic trifecta could deliver evaporated. Economic downturns ballooned the state deficit, as the Trump’s administration’s dismantling of the federal workforce and government contracts hit Maryland especially hard. Earlier this year, legislators resorted to raising taxes and fees by $1.6 billion — and have braced for lingering effects from the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history. The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore last year that left six people dead has become an unending catastrophe: A state agency last month estimated bridge-repair costs have doubled while the expected reopening has been delayed by years.
This year, Maryland’s two top Democrats have found themselves frequently at odds. In April, Moore was unable to pass a bill expanding the state’s reliance on nuclear power, reclassifying it to count towards clean-energy goals. Ferguson’s critics haveaccused the Senate president of killing the bill to benefit the Baltimore solar-panel company where he works as an executive. (Officials in Maryland’s part-time legislature are permitted to maintain outside employment.)
When Ferguson the next month helped deliver a bill forming a commission to study reparations for descendants of slavery, Moore vetoed it. The surprising rebuff was viewed by many Senate Democrats, including those in the General Assembly’s Black Caucus, as motivated by Moore’s desire to demonstrate to a national audience that he was willing to buck his own party. “I strongly believe now is not the time for another study,” Moore wrote to Ferguson in a May 16 veto letter.
But it was a national movement on redistricting that did most to fracture Ferguson and Moore’s relationship. In June, Republicans in Texas — under public pressure from the White House — first entertained the possibility of redrawing their U.S. House maps to produce more Republican-friendly seats. Democrats looked for states where they could offset Texas’s moves with partisan gerrymanders of their own.
Maryland appeared a natural candidate to join the growing Democratic counteroffensive. While California, Colorado and Virginia would have to amend their state constitutions for politicians to redraw lines mid-decade — and in New York a lawsuit to upend the status quo — pulling off such a move in Maryland would require only simple legislation. In August, Democratic state Sen. Clarence Lam introduced a bill that would place more liberal-leaning voters in the Republican-held 1st district.
Moore soon embraced the idea of moving forward with such plans. In September, he accused Trump of “attempting to gerrymander Black leaders out of office” and called the actions of Republican legislatures akin to “political redlining” in a speech at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner.
“It’s time for Maryland to have a conversation about whether we have a fair map or not,” he told reporters then.
Ferguson, too, expressed openness to the redistricting idea, telling Blue Light News earlier that month that a mid-decade gerrymander was “the last possible option that we should explore, but we won’t sit by idly and watch democracy get undermined.”
But as the pressure nationally ramped up, the more his ambivalence began to surface. He reminded colleagues of a 2002 state-court decision in which judges redrew Baltimore-area state senate districts upon ruling that a map drawn by Democrats violated constitutional requirements for Maryland’s districts to be “compact in form” around county lines and bodies of water. Ferguson also likes to point out that since the more recent smackdown of the 2021 gerrymander, Maryland’s Supreme Court still does not favor Democrats: five of the seven judges now on the court were appointed by Hogan.
That make-up, Ferguson suggests, could mean if the courts throw out any newly passed map, reverting to congressional boundaries with the current 7-1 advantage is not a foregone conclusion — and a replacement could end up a lot worse for Democrats.
Other Democrats who participated in the 2021 redistricting case see the legal issues differently. “There’s no binding precedent in Maryland that would impact congressional redistricting in the way that I think Senator Ferguson fears,” former Attorney General Brian Frosh said in an interview last month.
Amid the uproar, congressional Democrats set their sights on Ferguson. Jeffries, who would become speaker if his party retakes the House, called Ferguson multiple times to make the case that the time was right for a partisan gerrymander. Days later, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a poll showing a majority of Maryland voters did not just support redistricting, but “are likely to support primary candidates that support Maryland redistricting by wide margins,” according to an accompanying memo from Change Research. Former Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer and Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin — a former state senator who served alongside Ferguson for six years — issued a public letter on Nov. 10 calling it an “ethical moral and political imperative” that state lawmakers break with the Senate president.
Moore, too, began ramping up pressure on Ferguson. He formed a Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission that holds virtual meetings with residents to solicit recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly on whether to move forward with redistricting. At the first meeting, Ferguson — the only member of the panel who has publicly opposed Moore’s plan — was seen nodding in solidarity with members of the public imploring the commission to stand down on redrawing lines.
Moore also launched a “Leave No One Behind” legislative slate, something akin to a political action committee that those around the governor suggest he may use to launch primary challenges to incumbent Democratic lawmakers. (Moore’s office declined a request to interview him for this article.)
If anything, the public pressure seems to be hardening Ferguson’s hesitation about redistricting into full-blown resistance. In late October, a week after speaking with Jeffries, Ferguson issued a memo to his Senate caucus laying out his biggest fear about moving forward: that his party could end up losing up to two seats if more aggressive maps were struck down and ordered redrawn by the courts. The “certainty” of the current map, he wrote, “evaporates the moment we start down the path or redistricting mid-cycle.”
“The legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous and the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic,” Ferguson wrote.
Some of the Democrats in Ferguson’s caucus have begun to internalize his arguments. Nick Charles, whose senate district covers Prince George’s County, a wealthy majority Black suburb outside of Washington, said his constituents want lawmakers to join the national fight, but soften when they learn of the potential risks.
“What happens if we take that position?” asked Charles. “On the surface, it looks good, like ‘Man, we look like we’re fighting.’ But it’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
Still other Democrats are growing more confident in their depictions of Ferguson as timid and naïve.
“I think President Ferguson … is an awesome public servant, very thoughtful guy, and certainly intends well,” said Baltimore city Councilman Mark Conway, who last month announced he would challenge Rep. Kweisi Mfume for not doing enough to confront Trump. Conway sides with Moore on redistricting and is disappointed by Ferguson for not jumping into the brawl. “I just think we’re looking at a new day and maybe some of the toughest times we’ve ever had as a country in light of the willingness of Republicans to do whatever it takes to secure power.”
Ferguson has already drawn his own primary challenge from social-media influencer Bobby LaPin — a charter-boat captain and political novice known to 90,000 followers on Instagram as the “Sail Local Guy” — who has said the Senate president’s resistance to redrawing maps pushed him to run.
Those close to Ferguson say he knows the intricacies of keeping his caucus together and brushes off the outside pressure campaign as political distractions. Ferguson had closely watched developments in Indiana, where Republican legislative leaders for weeks held off pressure from the White House and the state’s governor to take up redistricting, and had taken solace in their successful defiance. But those leaders reversed course and will begin a special session this week.
Maryland’s commission will end its work in December, which Moore could use as a basis to call a special session to take on the redistricting question. Otherwise, Moore could hold off until mid-January, when lawmakers return for their regular 90-day session. That would leave little wiggle room to move maps through the legislature, and limited time to survive likely legal challenges before the state’s all-important June primaries.
Each option carries political risks for Moore. Ferguson has the power to essentially ignore the governor’s desires by convening a special session and then quickly adjourning before a vote on redistricting. If Moore waits to focus his pressure campaign in January, Ferguson could respond by otherwise working to stymie the governor’s agenda at a moment he is hoping to elevate his national profile, including by overriding Moore’s veto of the reparations bill.
“It’s not going to be a good session for him, at least not starting,” a legislative aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly of Ferguson’s calculations, said of the governor. “He’s not going to get shit through — not a confirmation, not a thing.”
While Moore may feel urgency to join Democrats’ redistricting bonanza in time to shape the midterm elections, that time crunch is of little relevance to Ferguson. The Senate president is half a decade into his role leading the Maryland Senate — a blip compared to a predecessor who held it for more than three decades — and Ferguson expects to be still toiling away in Annapolis well beyond 2028.
Moore’s “only way out of the box that he’s built for himself is to either change Bill’s mind, which doesn’t seem likely … or it’s doing something that Wes has never done before in his life, and literally take out another politician — a sitting Maryland Senate president,” said Doug Mayer, a Republican strategist who worked for Hogan. “Bill Ferguson lives here, Wes Moore is just staying here. That’s why Bill Ferguson is saying no to this.”
Battleground Republicans across the country are on defense as ICE operations keep finding their way into local headlines.
A flurry of ICE activity in four rural Kansas towns this week prompted businesses to shutter and public schools to urge families to identify who could pick up children from schools in case their parents were detained. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) — a normally staunch MAGA defender who finds himself in a tougher-than-expected election — took to social media to say he was “closely following” the situation, signaled his displeasure that ICE wasn’t working more closely with local law enforcement, and said he had phoned Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Later, he complained that ICE’s failure to communicate with local law enforcement caused “mass disruptions to local communities and businesses.”
“We must keep our communities safe, but it has to be done in a responsible and secure manner,” he said in a statement Thursday evening.
Mullin took over DHS in March with a mandate to keep immigration enforcement out of the news following a public outcry over the killing of two Americans by immigration agents during enforcement operations in Minneapolis. No subsequent incidents have generated the same type of national attention — but ICE’s recent record-high arrest rate is still landing hard in some communities.
“It does cause quite a disruption in the community,” said Scott Fischer, the GOP chair in Ford County, one of the counties where ICE activity was reported this week. “We don’t want our community disrupted.”
In Florida, local officials are warning about the impact of ICE raids on businesses, and a Republican incumbent is on air with a Spanish-language ad denouncing Trump’s crackdown. In Michigan, Democrats are calling for an investigation after a man crashed his car and died while fleeing ICE. In Maine, the fallout from a fatal ICE shooting of a 25-year-old from Colombia continues to loom over GOP Sen. Susan Collins’ reelection race. In Texas, last week’s nonfatal shooting of a Venezuelan in Austin is just the latest of several highly publicized ICE operations that have fueled wall-to-wall media coverage.
“There’s already been some blowback associated with what people feel is a little bit of a heavy hand when it comes to immigration enforcement,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “Obviously, border security is critical, but I think the administration maybe has miscalculated a little bit. … It is going to be one of the factors people are weighing in the election.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the department “is focused on delivering the most HISTORIC mass deportation campaign in American history—exactly as President Trump promised.”“The men and women of ICE are enforcing the laws passed by Congress. We do not pick and choose which laws to enforce or where to enforce them,” the statement continued. “We will continue to enforce our nation’s laws and remove illegal aliens from American communities. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, if you break the law, you will face the consequences. Illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”
The Trump administration’s deportation spree is not widely popular. A new Blue Light News Poll finds that a plurality of U.S. adults, 49%, think the mass deportations campaign is “too aggressive,” while 26% find it “about right” and just 14% think it is “not aggressive enough.” And in an election cycle where cost of living is atop voters’ list of concerns, ICE enforcement has become an economic issue too: Immigration raids are affecting workers, from construction sites in Texas to meatpacking plants in Kansas, frustrating business leaders.
In Kansas, where Democrats aim to win a U.S. Senate seat for the first time in nearly a century, ICE’s activity this week has provided another political opening.
“This is not how Washington should be treating Kansans,” Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee for Senate, said on social media Wednesday.
“It impacts these operations economically,” said Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association, whose organization released a joint statement Thursday noting the “massive chilling effect” of ICE enforcement on “the legal, documented, skilled workers that put beef on the table and keep the cattle supply chain moving.”
“We’re all for getting the bad actors out of our communities,” Teagarden said. “The method by which they do that has an impact. We’ve seen it.”
Mullin said in a statement Friday that “ICE is not conducting worksite operations in Kansas” but “operations targeting heinous criminals including murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers and illegal aliens with final orders of removal.”
Some of Marshall’s allies downplayed the possibility that the immigration activity could have political ramifications.
“Senator Marshall has nothing to do with when ICE decides to do a surge, and I think most people understand that,” said Danedri Herbert, chair of the Kansas Republican Party.
But others winced at the way ICE conducted itself, even those who say enforcement is necessary to remove criminals.
“I’d sure ask that we go back to some of the concepts of working with local law enforcement who actually know the area better, and I think that might have improved things tremendously,” said Kansas State Rep. Jim Minnix, a Republican who represents Scott County, where some of the ICE activity occurred.
Texas has become the epicenter of ICE activity: One in five ICE arrests nationwide this year has occurred in the Lone Star State. Sunday’s Austin shooting came on the heels of a fatal ICE shooting in July. In South Texas, local news is consumed with a story of two teenagers who were stopped by ICE agents en route to a military recruiter’s office, one of whom was beaten on the side of the road. After17-year-old Luis Ochoa spoke out to say he was pepper sprayed and detained, his mother was quickly deported.
Bobby Pulido, the Democrat running in Texas’ 15th District, said his campaign has received more than 80 requests from South Texans asking for immigration help. The campaign passes those requests to pro bono attorneys, he said.
“Every single day we’re having people reach out. And it’s very frustrating, because we can’t help everybody,” Pulido said. “I’m not a congressman.”
His opponent, GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz, has attempted to separate herself from the administration’s immigration crackdown: She hit the airwaves with an ad this month featuring a woman touting De La Cruz’s work getting her husband, who had legal status, released from immigration custody.
“I have been very direct with the White House, with leadership, that enforcement policy should be focused on the criminals and on the cartels that are terrorizing our communities,” De La Cruz said during an appearance on a conservative radio show Thursday. “They should not be on hardworking immigrants that are navigating the immigration process.”
Maine Democrat Troy Jackson has made Duran Guerrero’s death a key focus of his Senate campaign, hosting a town hall in the city where he was killed earlier this month and frequently criticizing Collins for voting to fund the Homeland Security Department. In response, Collins has emphasized she supports guardrails for ICE officers like body cameras and deescalation training.
In South Florida, public pressure is growing this week against policing partnerships with ICE as businesses report a dropoff in sales. GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar released an ad — in both English and Spanish — that criticized the Trump administration for going “too far” on immigration. In the ad, she claims that half of the people detained in July “had no criminal record” and says Hispanics who backed Trump in 2024 feel “betrayed.”
Liliam López, president of the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Hispanic Women’s Chamber of Commerce, said that her communities “are really, really hurting” from the ICE crackdown.
“All elected officials of the Republican Party that think that their constituents are being affected in an adverse manner should speak up, like Congresswoman Salazar did,” she said. “You can’t do what this administration is doing because it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.”
The concerns from vulnerable Republicans come as Mullin seeks to balance pressure from immigration hardliners with public backlash. When he took over the department in the spring, the administration moved to make its arrests of unauthorized immigrants more discreet, but the dip in visible deportation operations — coupled with messaging missteps wherein Mullin seemed to indicate an openness to some legal pathways for would-be immigrants — prompted considerable pushback from some of the loudest anti-immigration voices in Trump’s coalition.
DHS then recalibrated its messaging to highlight increased deportations and project continued operational toughness, in an effort to shore up support from that section of the president’s base.
The reported lack of body camera footage in the Austin shooting in particular has frustrated even some of Mullin’s defenders, given consistent pledges from DHS that the technology would be deployed and operational by the end of September.
“If the public report is accurate, that’s unacceptable,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “Markwayne needs to pull these folks in and say, every piece of equipment you have, whether it’s a camera, a handgun or a mace canister, you show up to work with it every day or you’re failing to do your job.”
Voters’ concern seems to be building again with the election looming.
“Obviously for Hispanics, but I think just all voters in general right now, their main issue is overreach. They feel that there’s been abuse of power from everywhere,” said Sofia Kinzinger, a former DHS deputy assistant secretary during the president’s first term, and the wife of Trump-critical former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). “Either you speak firmly against it, or you try to justify, which right now is the opposite of what people need.”
Jessica Piper contributed reporting.
Not everyone thinks there’s an affordability crisis.
While many Americans say the cost of living is the top issue facing the U.S. more than any other, President Donald Trump’s MAGA base does not always agree, according to a new analysis of The POLITICO Poll. Just 28 percent of voters who self-identify as part of the MAGA movement say expenses have become less affordable since Trump took office.
In fact, MAGA voters are more likely to say things have gotten better rather than worse.
That’s a stark break from the rest of the country, including the voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 and those who voted for Trump but do not identify as part of the MAGA movement.
The Blue Light News Poll results reveal a complicated challenge for Republicans: In an election all about the economy, cost of living concerns are reinforcing partisanship divides — entrenching Democrats’ opposition to Trump — while also driving a wedge among Republicans’ own base. Now, GOP candidates are facing frustrated voters from all sides.
Harris voters are far more likely than Trump voters to say groceries, gas and other expenses have gotten more expensive since the president took office, despite facing similar increases in household costs, according to a Blue Light News analysis of cost of living data.
Democrats hope to ride that frustration to victory in November, and have made affordability their top messaging issue this fall. They’re poised to benefit from the backlash to Trump’s economic agenda — from his unpopular tariffs to an Iran war that’s raised gas prices — which politicians and strategists widely agree are helping motivate Democratic voters.
“Those Democrats are definitely going to go vote,” said Michigan-based GOP strategist Jason Roe. “And we’ve got some voters that are a little harder to get to the polls, and when they are mad, frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, in disagreement, and we don’t have them motivated, that’s going to be a problem.”
Many of those disillusioned Trump voters, The Blue Light News Poll suggests, are the ones who don’t identify as part of the MAGA base.
Consider the 52% of non-MAGA Trump voters who say the cost of living in their area is the “worst” it has ever been: Nearly half say they either wouldn’t vote for a Republican in the midterms or are still making up their minds.
But what is a boon to Democrats today could be a problem for them later. Partisanship also shapes how Americans remember the economy in years past, the poll results show.
Harris voters have a more favorable memory toward Democratic presidents and Trump voters have a more favorable memory toward Republican presidents, each saying life was more affordable when their party held the reins.
Democrats and Republicans simply don’t share an understanding of the economic reality — and without a common frame for the past, nor whether things are improving in the present, any party in power stands to lose its grip against an increasingly frustrated opposition when the economy is the key issue.
This year, that will be a major challenge for Republicans.
MAGA vs. Non-MAGA vs. Democrats
The Blue Light News Poll asked adults across America last month about affordability in their area, including about local prices and their memory of when prices were more affordable in the past.
Across the board, Harris voters outpaced Trump voters in their pessimism about the economy. And among Trump voters, non-MAGA voters outpaced their MAGA counterparts.
For example, 70% of Harris voters and 52% of non-MAGA Trump voters say the cost of living is worse than they can “ever remember it being.” MAGA Trump voters disagreed — a 43% plurality said the cost of living today is bad, but they could “remember times when it was worse.”
The results are a warning sign about the Trump coalition: In question after question, the president’s most loyal base is still sticking with him, but among the non-MAGA voters he convinced to back him in 2024, their frustration more closely resembles how Harris voters feel.
“There will be voters who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 who know he’s made life more expensive and won’t vote for his party this time,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson. “Some will vote for a Democrat, some won’t vote. But they won’t cast a ballot for a Republican who they blame for the high cost of living.”
Of the non-MAGA Trump voters who say the cost of living is the worst they’ve seen, just 53% say they would vote for a Republican if the midterms were held tomorrow. More than 25% would vote for a Democrat or third-party candidate. The rest say they would stay home or have not yet made up their minds.
Changes to family budgets are similar on average among those that voted for Trump and those who voted for Harris, according to a Blue Light News analysis of data from the Living Wage Institute, a nonpartisan public benefit corporation that produces cost of living data. Across the country, family budgets have increased by 2.5 percent on average from early 2025 to early 2026, according to the Living Wage Institute.
But it is the concept of who is to blame that creates division among each voting bloc. Though each group is concerned about affordability — the cost of living is the most common concern for each — only MAGA Trump voters remain sympathetic to the current administration.
Young voters — and young men in particular — have also grown disillusioned with the Trump administration amid cost of living concerns, a warning sign for the GOP. Among those under the age of 25 who say the cost of living is the worst it’s ever been, 56% say they trust Democrats to bring down the costs. Just 20% trust Republicans to do the same.
“Young people feel like the system isn’t working for them,” said Joe Mitchell, a Republican running for Iowa’s open and competitive 2nd District. Mitchell, who is 29, would be the second Gen Z member to join the House if elected. “You see them being attracted to some of these DSA candidates like Zohran Mamdani. And they’re going to be attracted to these candidates if we don’t figure something out for them now.”
Partisanship even drives memory
Partisanship also colors how Americans see the past, making it difficult for any incumbent party to convince voters of plans for the future.
The Blue Light News Poll asked respondents whether it was easier or harder to afford everyday items in years past compared to today in one of two ways: In one, they were asked about a specific calendar year, and in another, the presidential administration in power at the time.
For each question framed around a calendar year, Trump and Harris voters gave similar answers. But when asked to compare how easy or hard it was to afford things during a particular presidential administration compared to today, their answers split along party lines.
For example, just over a third of both Harris and Trump voters said it was “easier” to afford everyday items in 2024 compared to today. But when asked the same question about the “end of [former President] Joe Biden’s term,” 55% of Harris voters said everyday items were easier to afford, compared to 39% of Trump voters.
The results show that Americans lack a common frame of reference on the issue most people care about — the cost of living — creating a massive hurdle for politicians hoping to win over new voters who may not be willing to listen.
The same effect happens among Trump voters looking back on a Democratic administration. When asked about costs in 2010 compared to today, 63% of Trump voters said everyday items were easier to afford then compared to now. But when asked about costs during the “middle” of former President Barack Obama’s first term — or 2010 — only 36% of Trump voters said the same.
It’s only when a political party is attached that Americans’ version of the truth changes.
When Blue Light News asked whether it was easier or harder to afford everyday items “just before the Covid-19 pandemic” or in “2019,” majorities from both parties said things were easier to afford then, and in both framings.
The challenge for both parties is that voters don’t know “who has a better plan for the future,” GOP communications strategist Kevin Madden said. “Instead, what you’re seeing is a gap — or a canyon — emerge between the rest of the country and Washington.”
He added: “When you see that gap emerge, watch out if you’re an incumbent.”
Alisa Vasquez and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail — and a series of his stops are in deep-red states he comfortably won in 2024.
Trump will campaign in Iowa, Florida, Texas and Alaska ahead of Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-public plans. That’s on top of his scheduled stop in Oklahoma next week, as the RNC announced, and his visit to Alabama, which POLITICO first reported.
While the president has indicated a desire to stump for Ken Paxton in Texas and Dan Sullivan in Alaska, the addition of Iowa and Florida to his campaign schedule signals an expanded focus on red states as Republicans grow increasingly nervous heading into the final stretch of the midterms.
The president is also preparing to hold campaign rallies in more traditional battleground states starting Oct. 3, according to one of the people.
His travel schedule is a clear signal that the GOP is seeking to shore up their own territory — as rising voter anger over sky-high costs and mass deportations creates new openings for Democrats. The six confirmed states have highly watched Senate, House and gubernatorial contests this November, but they are also ones Trump won by double digits two years ago.
“While Democrats squabble over the last two cents their party has to spare, the president is barnstorming the country, energizing our base, and supercharging Republican candidates in key races and beyond,” said Natalie Baldassarre, an RNC spokesperson.
“We have the resources to spend, and Republicans are full steam ahead to protect and expand our majorities,” Baldassarre added.
The White House referred Blue Light News to the RNC.
Vice President JD Vance will also ramp up his campaign travel ahead of Election Day. He and Trump are expected to make stops in Ohio to boost GOP Sen. Jon Husted, as POLITICO has reported. Husted is trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in internal GOP polling by top Senate Republicans, according to two other people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share private details.
Trump’s latest midterms travel swing will first start with Oklahoma and Alabama — two deep-red states where Democrats haven’t made the same inroads in statewide elections as they have in other traditionally conservative states like Texas, Alaska and Kansas.
But his Alabama event could help drive turnout and shore up support for GOP state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is in a competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in the state’s 2nd District, despite Republicans’ effort to redraw the seat in their favor.
Republicans in Iowa, Texas and Alaska are growing increasingly alarmed about how close their Senate races are amid fallout from the Iran war and other policy moves by Trump. Florida Republicans have become uneasy about their own firewall, with some polling showing statewide races inside the margin of error.
Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate nominee in Iowa, recently publicly broke with Trump over the Iran war, as did several other Iowa House Republicans.
“The bigger question on everything continues to be, whatever you do, will there be enough time. I just don’t know,” said one person close to the White House. “We’re teetering on the edge of it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Alec Hernández contributed to this report.
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