Politics

The midterms of scandal are underway

Published

1 month ago

August 21, 2026

Privately, many Republicans wanted GOP Rep. Cory Mills to lose his primary in Florida. Like with so many scandal-plagued candidates this year, they worried he would turn a safe seat into a battleground.

But rather than push him out of the race, they let voters decide his fate. With weak fundraising and polling amid allegations of sexual misconduct and domestic violence, party officials believed he was going to lose anyway, saving them from having to intervene.

“There wasn’t much of a push to yank him out,” said one national Republican operative working on House races, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

On Tuesday, Florida voters rejected Mills’ reelection bid, avoiding what would have been another headache. This election cycle, both parties keep playing whack-a-mole as candidate after candidate becomes embroiled in controversy ranging from ethics scandals to sexual misconduct, including in key races that could determine who controls Congress. Neither party has settled on a clear playbook for when to step in or what counts as disqualifying — though they have drawn those lines differently.

Top Republicans are now quietly getting behind Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who is mired in allegations of domestic abuse involving his ex-wife and child, and defied calls to drop out. They declined to push out then-Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), whose staffer died by suicide after he had an affair with her. Facing an expulsion vote, he did not resign until hours after embattled Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) did, effectively evening out the margins. And GOP leadership eventually got behind scandal-ridden Ken Paxton, but after President Donald Trump and Texas voters embraced him in the Senate primary.

Many Democrats also grappled with what to do about Graham Platner throughout a series of escalating scandals until POLITICO’s report of a sexual assault allegation forced him out of the Maine Senate race. Their months of indecision, some worry, will continue to haunt them through the midterms.

“We don’t trust our instincts anymore,” one longtime Democratic strategist said.

“The laws of political gravity have just been so upended” since Trump won in 2016 over a series of scandals, the strategist said, adding: “We’re reluctant to apply the old rules because … are we handicapping ourselves or potentially punishing ourselves by adhering to the old standards that haven’t been serving us, or certainly didn’t stop the other side from winning the presidency twice?”

In Mills’ case, his loss brought Republicans private relief even as it meant a Trump-endorsed incumbent was ousted. The representative is facing an investigation by the House Ethics Committee and remains under a restraining order imposed last fall after a former girlfriend accused him of threatening to release sexually explicit videos of her. He has denied wrongdoing.

Trump, in the aftermath of the primary, wrote on social media that he asked Mills “to get out of the Race, but he wouldn’t listen” and immediately backed the winner, Ryan Elijah.

Voters have increasingly displayed a willingness to tolerate controversy — especially when political power is on the line. A recent POLITICO Poll shows voters are willing to accept their preferred candidates having DUI convictions, being accused of using tax loopholes, concealing a terminal illness or exaggerating their military service, though Democrats were less tolerant than Republicans of sexual assault and domestic violence allegations.

“[When] the gavel is on the line, people in both political parties have the … highest tolerance for political weakness of their party,” said an Ohio-based GOP operative. “This is the year like no other where voters and political leaders and political parties are willing to look past blemishes and weaknesses of their own candidate.”

The GOP and Democratic Party have shown different responses to the most serious of allegations. Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson have often called for processes to play out and to let voters decide their future. And even as White House officials or Trump himself placed a call to get a scandal-plagued Republican like Mills or Miller to drop, they rarely followed through on pulling their support.

Democrats have shown they’re more willing to draw a line, particularly around sexual assault allegations. But their biggest example — Platner — is a complicated one: Many in the party tolerated months of controversy, from a Nazi tattoo to reports of volatile prior relationships, before ultimately calling for him to suspend his campaign.

“They either didn’t care about the scandal, were willing to turn a blind eye to it,” said a second Democratic operative working on Senate races. Democrats were so focused on beating Susan Collins they were willing to accept multiple scandals, they said, but “I am glad to see that credible allegations of a sexual assault were actually a red line for people.”

Democrats did quickly turn on Swalwell, who suspended his bid for California governor days after sexual assault and misconduct allegations pushed his campaign into a tailspin. But Democratic leadership has not yet called on Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct, instead pushing for a “thorough and swift” Ethics Committee investigation.

Gomez has admitted to extramarital affairs but said they were “consensual in nature,” a claim disputed Wednesday by lawyers of the woman interviewed by the ethics panel.

On the GOP side, Johnson and House Republican leaders took weeks to pull their support for Gonzales. It wasn’t until a day after Blue Light News reported that independent House investigators found a “substantial reason to believe” Gonzales had sex with his subordinate, a violation of House Rules, that they abandoned him.

But the GOP let the voters decide in Arizona, where Trump-endorsed Mark Lamb, the former Pinal County sheriff, recently won his congressional primary despite allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse of power.

And Republicans have quietly accepted Miller in Ohio. Once the Trump administration saw Miller was unlikely to abandon his reelection bid, they asked Ohio Republicans to refrain from waging a public pressure campaign to avoid a messy situation where they then have to defend a candidate they once tried to oust.

Democrats say that’s a clear example that they are more willing to draw a line than Republicans.

“Graham Platner is not a candidate, and Max Miller is. That should tell you everything you need to know about the differences between the two parties,” said Democratic ad maker Ian Russell.

“There are complicated situations that have definitely not been handled in retrospect by both parties as well as they could have been, but there is nothing the same in how Democratic leadership has responded to issues in our ranks versus our Republican leadership has responded to issues in their ranks,” Russell said.

Still, the calculus for scandal, a second national GOP strategist and a longtime senior House staffer argued, most often comes down to Congress’ razor-thin margins.

“It’s about numbers,” they said. “It’s not about the gravity of a scandal.”

Chris Marquette and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Politics

Farm-state Republicans are having a cow over Trump’s beef imports as Election Day approaches

Published

1 day ago

September 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Farm-state Republicans don’t support President Donald Trump’s move to import cheap beef — but they’re still getting grilled for it.

Trump’s plan to combat sky-high beef prices by introducing discounted, tariff-free foreign beef has been widely condemned by ag-state Republicans who are concerned it will undercut the domestic beef industry and hurt ranchers, a normally reliable constituency.

And their opponents see an opening to paint Republicans as unconcerned about voters’ pocketbook concerns.

“Our ranchers and our farmers keep getting kicked in the teeth, and we have politicians that keep telling us that everything’s great, that we’re the hottest country,” Dan Osborn, an independent running for Senate in Nebraska, said in an interview. “And to be quite frank, I’m pretty pissed off about it.”

Osborn’s state is one of the top four top cattle-producing states — along with Texas, Kansas and Iowa — all of which have more-competitive-than-expected Senate races this cycle. And Trump’s controversial plan to remove tariffs from 300,000 metric tons of imported beef, sold at 25 percent below current market prices, is doing Republicans no favors.

Osborn’s campaign went on air with a pun-filled ad this week in which he says the import plan is “selling out American farmers and ranchers,” and blasts Congress for being “too chicken to stand up to the corporations who bought them off.” The campaign says it plans to spend at least six figures airing the spot. It’s the first major spending from a campaign focused on the beef import plan. But it plays into a larger economic argument Democrats are pushing to break through with farmers and ranchers: Trump and Republicans have turned their backs on rural America, as a worsening farm crisis and spiking fuel and fertilizer prices pinch agricultural communities.

“It’s part of a wider frustration,” said an adviser to one of the farm-state GOP senators, granted anonymity to speak openly. “I don’t think it sways anyone’s vote, but it isn’t a great look. … It isn’t fun for me to read the headline. It’s frustrating.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Osborn’s opponent, said in a statement he has a record of standing for his state’s agriculture community, “no matter who is president — from fighting Biden’s 30×30 plan to opposing this beef import plan.”

“Ranchers know the difference between a senator who delivers and a candidate reading a script his socialist ad agency wrote,” Ricketts said.

Farm-state Democrats and independents believe beef imports provide a window to speak to rural voters who have skewed red for decades but suddenly look more competitive amid Trump’s plunging political standing. A strategist working on Osborn’s campaign, granted anonymity to discuss strategy, said Osborn’s ad “codes as non-partisan in a way that running ads about taxes or healthcare doesn’t.”

Trump’s overall unpopularity is hurting Republicans across the map, but this policy could be especially problematic in a quartet of once-sleeper Senate races that could hand Democrats control of the upper chamber.

Spokespeople for the GOP nominees in Iowa and Kansas declined to discuss the issue, pointing to their candidates’ statements in August, when Trump’s plan was announced: Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) called Trump’s plan a “bad idea,” while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) said the priority should be growing the U.S. cattle herd, “not flooding the market with imports.”

Last week, during a debate at the Kansas State Fair, Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton slammed the import plan as “a slap in the face of all of our cattle ranchers,” earning a raucous response from fair-goers, and hit Marshall for “tepidly respond[ing] to it as opposed to shouting like hell that this is not okay.”

In Iowa’s agriculture-heavy first district, Democrats have been on the air since June with an ad hammering Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks for record-high beef prices” and other cost-of-living increases under the Trump administration. The Republicans who were already getting hammered for high prices before now are now hobbled by a proposed remedy — one that has infuriated their own base.

When asked how Republicans should message the beef plan back home, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, acknowledged there’s “certainly a lot of concern amongst our cattle producers.”

“I think they understand what’s going on. They’re just not pleased with it,” Boozman said. “We’re in contact with the administration, a lot of members are in contact, helping them understand the unintended consequences of it. We’d like to lower prices, but again, we don’t want the unintended consequence of lowering cattle futures significantly.”

That leaves ranchers worried that the import plan will undercut their struggling industry.

“President Trump wants to lower the price of beef, I think that’s where it’s coming from,” said Ben Menges, a cattle rancher in Arizona’s battleground 6th District. “The best way that President Trump can do that is by lowering the cost of fuel, not by importing a bunch of beef.”

Some Republicans have looked to turn the conversation into a culture war issue — hitting their opponents for past stances on meat consumption or veganism.

Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Iowa Friday — which Hinson did not attend — slammed Hamilton, the pastor-turned-Democratic nominee for Senate in Kansas, for having a “kind of a ‘gee whiz, I’m a nice pastor’ vibe” who tells his congregation to “repent for their white privilege while eating beef.”

It’s an attack Marshall made at last week’s debate, hitting Hamilton for a sermon he delivered on climate change and the impact of meat consumption.

“I think the senator needs to repent for not standing up for the beef industry,” responded Hamilton.

Politics

The Blue Light News Poll Electability Experiment

Published

1 day ago

September 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Respondents presented with 2 choices of candidates with various traits. Results represent the estimated impact of each trait on likelihood of selection.

Politics

‘States should have a say’: Candidates for governor race to take on AI regulation

Published

1 day ago

September 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Gubernatorial candidates across the country are racing to stake out positions on AI as the battle over regulating the technology intensifies.

They’re watching as sitting governors of both parties turn the rapidly evolving technology into a political priority, from Gavin Newsom in California to Ron DeSantis in Florida and Kathy Hochul in New York.

Now they’re starting to join the chorus, calling for more state-based action to put guardrails on AI — even if they don’t know what that would look like yet.

Blue Light News reached out to more than 18 Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates on their plans and received responses from eight. Nearly all said they want states to take the lead on AI, signaling a frustration with Washington’s inaction and acknowledgement that — if they eventually secure the governor’s mansion — they can’t dismiss the growing warnings.

Candidates said they were motivated by different concerns including fraud, job displacement and children’s safety. Their lack of detail on just how to address AI also reveals a tricky pivot these gubernatorial candidates are facing: To date, much of their campaign messaging on AI or the technology race with China has focused on data centers’ impact on energy prices.

Now, with less than six weeks until Election Day, they’re attempting to talk about AI in a more existential — and more far-reaching — manner.

“The federal government has failed to lead on this issue, and we cannot trust the billionaires profiting off of AI to self-regulate,” said Gina Hinojosa, Texas’ Democratic nominee for governor, in a statement. “State government has the most direct impact on our day-to-day lives, and at a time when Texans are more uncertain and concerned about AI than ever, it’s critical that we put the needs of Texans before corporate profits.” (GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, Hinojosa’s opponent, did not respond to a list of questions.)

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who’s heavily favored to succeed Newsom in California, is in conversations with tech industry leaders and economists on the path forward. He will “work to set firm guardrails to prevent the threat of real harms to workers, to children, to our privacy rights, to public safety,” spokesperson Jonathan Underland said in a statement. “California is the birthplace of modern AI, and California will lead the way in making it safe.”

Becerra’s longshot Republican opponent, Steve Hilton, told Blue Light News that there’s a place for narrow regulation on AI — even though he thinks some of the warnings are overblown and “preposterous.”

“California should lead on this because we are leading on the technology, and therefore we should lead on the regulation,” Hilton said. “I would prefer to see both the Congress and politicians in other states back off and stop talking about something they don’t understand.”

Recent warnings from top AI leaders about the technology’s potential apocalyptic trajectory roiled Democrats and Republicans both in Washington and on the campaign trail. According to a new POLITICO Poll, a majority of voters now think that AI poses an existential threat to humanity and a plurality want to see a pause in development of advanced models.

“There is a lot of education that’s needed here, and people are navigating an issue that they weren’t even really thinking about six months ago beyond the beyond ‘Should we have data centers’?” said Alyssa Cass, a Democratic strategist who has worked with Alex Bores, a New York state lawmaker who gained national attention in his failed campaign for Congress for opposition to unchecked AI.

“They’re talking about it,” she added. “That’s a meaningful difference.”

The National Governors Association, which convened a working group on AI’s impact on the workforce earlier this year, plans to release a policy roadmap for governors in November on how states can take action.

“We have 39 gubernatorial elections happening in November, and at least 21 new governors will be sworn in in January,” said Sophia Yager, the NGA’s policy director for workforce development and economic policy. “So we wanted to have a resource available not only for incumbent governors who are thinking and working on this issue, but for all of the new governors coming in, wanting to have something available for them from the jump in November.”

So far, Democrats have taken the sharpest aim at the Republican-controlled federal government for its inaction on establishing safeguards against AI.

“While regulation is strongest and most effective at the federal level, President [Donald] Trump dismisses the need for even the most basic guardrails, and we know it can take time for Congress to act,” said Federico Araujo, a spokesperson for Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, who’s locked in a tightening battle for reelection. “States, in the meantime, must act with more urgency and do everything possible to manage how AI impacts our economies, energy prices and natural resources.”

David Crowley, the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin, told Blue Light News in a statement that AI safety is “an issue Wisconsin can address” but “we need strong leadership and partners in Washington who are looking out for us at home.” Still, he didn’t offer specifics, and much of his battle with GOP nominee Tom Tiffany — and even the Democratic primary — has been focused on data centers’ proliferation in Wisconsin.

Tiffany did not respond to a request for comment.

The calls for action on state-based regulation have not been limited to Democrats alone. Republicans — including some Trump allies — signaled a willingness to create safe buffers for the technology at the state level, following the lead of governors like DeSantis and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who have long advocated for states’ abilities to install guardrails amid federal inaction.

“States should have a say in how AI is regulated,” said Dan Capodilupo, spokesperson for Iowa GOP gubernatorial nominee Zach Lahn. “Zach is committed to protecting states rights.” State Auditor Rob Sand, his Democratic opponent, did not respond to a request for comment.

In Georgia, Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for GOP nominee Rick Jackson, stopped short of calling for local regulations but said that the health care executive “supports efforts to ensure that new models are tested for risks and that safety standards are established. He added that Jackson is “committed” to working with the state legislature on protecting consumers from AI-driven scams.

Georgia’s Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has labeled concerns about AI’s existential threat a “HOAX” and derided efforts to regulate the technology, and his White House has pushed preemption of state-level regulation. In February, the White House urged Utah legislators to abandon an AI transparency bill; the administration has similarly gone after state-level legislation in Colorado and in California.

A POLITICO review of state-level legislation found 18 laws in 13 states, led by both Republicans and Democrats, that contradict the White House’s preemption framework.

These candidates’ calls for state-based action mirror some early actions that both red and blue state executives are taking from their statehouse perches, explicitly defying Trump’s hands-off approach to regulating the nascent but powerful industry.

This week, Cox urged Washington to “establish a consistent national framework for the development of frontier AI,” and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, in a speech at an AI-focused conference in Pittsburgh, called for the “federal government to step up and regulate the AI industry just like they do for nearly every other industry that significantly impacts our lives.”

Shapiro — who’s up for reelection in the battleground state this year and is considered a 2028 presidential contender — outlined what he sees as the stakes of slow-walking protective measures.

“By the time Congress comes back into session after the election, we could be dealing with a whole new generation of generative AI, and more scary examples of AI agents going rogue,” he said.

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.