George Conway wants to impeach President Donald Trump. He may soon get a vote to do so.

The attorney, pundit and staunch anti-Trump critic formally launched his bid for a Manhattan House seat today and is framing his run around an all-encompassing effort to oppose the president.

The rollout includes a 2-minute video that features images of Jan. 6, a woman being led away by immigration enforcement officers and photos of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Vladimir Putin. In the video, Conway calls Trump “mendacious,” “corrupt” and “criminal.”

He pledges to “not be an ordinary member of Congress” given the extraordinary political moment.

In an interview with Blue Light News, he went even further, saying that Trump’s actions in Venezuela — including the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro to face criminal charges in the U.S. — are among the impeachable crimes he’s committed.

“He completely disregarded the War Powers Act,” Conway said. “He’s abusing his power as commander-in-chief. Don’t get me wrong, Maduro is a bad guy and he’s probably guilty of all the crimes he’s been charged with in the Southern District of New York. But President Trump is doing this without consultation to Congress.”

The White House did not return a message seeking comment.

Conway is a first-time candidate who only recently registered as a Democrat ahead of filing to run in the deep blue district being vacated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler. A former Republican, Conway left the GOP in protest during Trump’s first term.

He’ll face a large field of Democratic contenders, including state Assemblymember Alex Borres, New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher, former Nadler aide and state Assemblymember Micah Lasher and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg.

The seat is unlikely to be competitive in the November election, making the winner of the Democratic primary Nadler’s likely successor

Conway’s positioned himself as a forceful Trump antagonist — the kind of aggressive posture that’s popular with Democrats eager for a sharp-edged approach to take on the president. Conway and his wife Kellyanne, a former Trump adviser, announced in 2023 they would divorce.

His House campaign will test the limits of how much Democratic voters want to express their disdain for the president. Many candidates this year are placing a focus on affordability — a buzzy political issue that Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode to success in their campaigns.

Yet Conway believes voters’ concerns all flow from one source: Trump.

“The politics of this aren’t divided in my view between talking about Trump and holding Trump accountable and then all the kitchen table issues,” he said. “They’re not separate.”

Conway will still have to persuade Democratic primary voters, though. His recent conversion to the Democratic Party will likely come under scrutiny. But he insisted his ties to the district are strong — adding that his kids were born in the city and that he now lives there.

“I made my life here,” he said. “This district has been the center of my life since I got out of law school.”

A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News’s New York Playbook. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to New York Playbook.

Democrats hoping to win higher office this year are seizing on President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela to push a twist on one of his campaign promises: America first.

Across the country, candidates and lawmakers are slamming Trump’s decision to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and are using the moment to hammer their domestic affordability message.

“Ohioans are facing higher costs across the board and are desperate for leadership that will help deliver relief,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running to reclaim his seat, said on X. “We should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans – not Caracas.”

The frame from Democrats shows how potent the party views affordability as an issue in the midterms, one that Trump and his team have grown increasingly preoccupied by after across-the-board losses in 2025.

“The problem Trump was already having was that he looked like he was focused on everything other than what matters in people’s daily life,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “And now he’s just supercharged that.”

Trump won in 2024 largely by running on affordability, and his less interventionist “America First” approach helped him win over more isolationist voters who had been alienated by the neoconservative approach of the Republican Party in the Iraq War era. But continuing economic uncertainty and persistent inflation, combined with his second-term shift towards a more aggressive foreign policy approach, threaten to hurt the president and his party at the ballot box.

Polling shows that cost of living will remain top of voters’ minds before November, something that Ferguson said “transcends every subgroup.”

In some of the party’s most competitive 2026 midterm primaries, Democrats are coalescing around messaging on Venezuela.

In Michigan, where the war in Gaza drew clear fissures between Democratic opponents, all three candidates sang the same domestically-focused tune.

“Americans have made themselves crystal clear: they don’t want to risk sliding into another costly war abroad. Families are struggling to buy groceries. People are skipping doctor’s visits because they can’t pay for healthcare,” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said in a statement.

“Make no mistake, this is about enriching his oil executive donors who want access to Venezuela’s oil — not about democracy or Maduro or narcotics. Meanwhile, they tell us we can’t afford healthcare at home,” Abdul El Sayed, the former head of the Wayne County Department of Health, wrote on X.

“Taking over another country while Americans can’t afford their rent and groceries is unacceptable,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).

The issue isn’t just being used by midterm hopefuls. Potential Democratic 2028 candidates are bringing affordability to the forefront of their Venezuela messaging.

“As of this week, millions of Americans are now paying thousands more for health insurance,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday. “If the President and Congressional GOP think Washington has the capacity to ‘run’ Venezuela right now, why won’t they fix the insurance cost crisis they’ve created here at home?”

Longtime Miami-based Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert thinks his party is right to remind voters of what they see as failures in Trump’s domestic agenda as he sets his sights abroad, including on cost of living issues — as long as that messaging doesn’t overshadow a cogent perspective on how they would approach relations with Venezuela. South Florida is home to one of the biggest Venezuelan communities in the country, which has been shaken by Trump’s recent revocation of Temporary Protected Status for those fleeing Maduro’s regime.

“Democrats need to also appreciate that many things can be true. It’s not a single issue, especially in this moment, and we have to talk about it in a way where you can join Venezuelans in speaking up that Maduro being gone is a victory for Venezuelans,” Ulvert said.

Some Democrats who served in foreign wars have also chosen to center a critique of American interventionism in addition to joining in on the party’s pivot back to cost of living.

Graham Platner, a veteran of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan who is now running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, has seized on Trump’s vague suggestions that the U.S. will run Venezuela following Maduro’s forced ouster.

“Bullshit. This has never worked,” Platner posted in response to a clip of the president’s Saturday morning remarks. “I watched my friends die in Iraq in the wake of speeches like this one.”

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego — an Iraq War veteran — has been outspoken on the American military action in Venezuela, flooding social media and cable news with broadsides aimed at Trump. He expressed a similar frustration: “I fought in some of the hardest battles of the Iraq War. Saw my brothers die, saw civilians being caught in the crossfire all for an unjustified war. No matter the outcome we are in the wrong for starting this war in Venezuela.”

Republicans, however, are backing Trump and praising the action he took against Maduro.

“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country — crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and today he learned what accountability looks like,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X the day the operation became public.

ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to center her reelection campaign on the cost of living. Doing so is putting her at odds with both the populist left and a resurgent Republican right.

She faces left-flank pressure to raise taxes on rich people so that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s expensive agenda comes to fruition. On the right, Republicans have pledged to exploit any effort to support Mamdani’s goals as a sign the moderate Democrat is beholden to the upstart democratic socialist.

Hochul holds wide leads over likely Republican nominee Bruce Blakeman and primary challenger Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, but the strength of her campaign will be vital for down-ballot Democratic candidates running in crucial House races. New York’s swing Congressional districts have the potential to determine control of the closely divided chamber and the future of Trump’s presidency.

Yet she must still work with both the untested mayor who vowed at his inauguration to govern unapologetically from the left and the volatile Republican president eager to shape the fate of Democratic-led states. Veteran politicians aren’t envious of the challenge she faces.

“I’m glad it’s Gov. Hochul and not me,” former Gov. David Paterson said. “You’re dealing with two very excitable people who are on opposite ends of the spectrum. My only suggestion to her is let them yell and criticize, but be the voice of reason. It’s putting yourself out there to your fellow New Yorkers.”

Yet the governor is showing signs that she’s willing to blend the policies of both the mercurial president and rookie mayor — making cost concerns a centerpiece for the coming year amid the expectation voters will reward her for sympathizing with their pocketbook problems.

Hochul plans to make a major push for free child care, a signature Mamdani proposal and an issue she’s supported during her time in office, with a multi-year plan to phase in a statewide program, she said in a recent radio interview — essentially backing a downpayment with the promise of future installments if she wins reelection. The governor also embraced a Trump-backed proposal to cap taxes on tips at the state level amid Republican pressure to do so, signaling plans to introduce legislation this year to the Democratic-dominated Legislature, which is set to reconvene Wednesday in Albany.

“As we welcome in the New Year, affordability remains my top priority and I am doubling down on my commitment to put money back in New Yorkers’ pockets,” Hochul said last week.

The governor, though, is facing opponents who will try to lay claim to the affordability mantle that Mamdani leveraged so effectively in his longshot bid for mayor. That will put pressure on Hochul to deliver on these populist themes — or potentially face the electoral consequences.

“Politicians are the original copycats,” said Democratic strategist Austin Shafran. “Zohran masterfully articulated an affordability agenda and was able to articulate concerns to a broader electorate. You’re going to see a lot of people try to thematically copy the message of his campaign and that may counteract a lot of the uncertainty.”

Hochul’s reelection will hinge on whether she can adroitly navigate a destabilizing populist tide that has consumed this political era — defined by voters fed up with rising costs and elections won by norm-shattering politicians like Trump and Mamdani. Hochul is drawing energetic challenges from Delgado, her own hand-picked lieutenant governor who is trying to channel Mamdani’s victory in his uphill bid, and Blakeman, a Trump-backed Republican who hails from a suburban bellwether county.

Impatient voters are increasingly willing to punish any candidate who fails to grasp their cost-of-living concerns. How Hochul adapts to this political moment will determine her electoral fate — and potentially provide a roadmap for fellow moderates struggling to make the center hold.

Mollifying voters’ affordability concerns is not an easy task and Trump’s low marks over his handling of the economy is a case in point. The president’s insistence that inflation is tamed, prices are down and the economy under his watch is on the rebound runs the risk of replicating voters’ complaints that Democrats were oblivious to how they felt about their financial plight.

Further complicating Hochul’s year is the unusual bind she finds herself in — essentially sandwiched between the two main characters of America’s political drama.

Mamdani’s free child care and bus service must be approved by Albany and will be difficult to deliver to voters in a deeply expensive city. Increasing taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and large corporations, while politically popular and drew enthusiastic cheers during Mamdani’s inaugural speech, opens Hochul up to Republican attacks as she runs for reelection. Trump may further meddle in his native state’s affairs by slashing federal spending to the Empire State. His administration shelved two offshore wind projects, including one near the Long Island coast, and Trump recently expressed frustration to Hochul with a controversial Manhattan toll known as congestion pricing.

Voters are willing to turn to Hochul-like moderates amid the Trump 2.0 era. In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger decisively beat Republican Winsome Earle-Sears. Mikie Sherrill retained the New Jersey governor’s office for Democrats by a double-digit margin — bucking an historical trend in the process.

Hochul, who often references her family’s economic challenges growing up in the Buffalo area, was sensitive to affordability concerns before it was a buzzy political concern.

As a new governor, Hochul backed a temporary suspension of the state’s tax on gasoline. She’s touted rebate checks to taxpayers, framed as a way of combating inflation. Hochul scaled back green energy plans amid widespread concerns over spiking utility bills — drawing complaints from environmental activists. And she reduced a controversial Manhattan toll from $15 to $9 after delaying its implementation for six months ahead of the 2024 elections out of political concerns.

But the political environment is giving her less leeway to pick and choose her policy fights.

This year, the staid governor is contending with a celebrity New York City mayor whose ardent left-leaning base will pressure her to back policies she’s been hesitant to embrace, like raising taxes. Hochul has repeatedly ruled out boosting income tax rates on the richest New Yorkers, but has hedged over hiking levies on large corporations.

Republicans pressed Hochul to back Trump’s push to cap taxes on tips by instituting a similar policy on the state level. After the governor announced her support to end taxes on up to $25,000 in tipped income, Blakeman’s campaign accused her of flip flopping on the issue — though her campaign said she never outright opposed the measure.

“Kathy, if you want more of my ‘tips’ on how to govern, just continue to follow my lead,” Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, said in a statement.

Left-leaning advocates, meanwhile, are mounting a renewed push for another state-level minimum wage increase — a move that is opposed by the governor’s allies in the business community. Hochul approved a 2023 measure that will link future wage hikes to the rate of inflation.

Hochul’s political bet, in part, is on voters preferring a steady hand on the wheel in an age of political disruption that has benefited both Trump and Mamdani. At the same time, she has strived to counter the president, including a successful effort that got him to restore $187 million in Homeland Security funding.

“She doesn’t have to be the disruptive leader that follows this trend because that might seem inauthentic,” said Basil Smikle, a former executive director of the state Democratic Committee. “What she does need to do is find a way to create a strong relationship with Mamdani. He can be the disruptive politician and be a counterweight to that, but still give a pathway to bring a lot of policies to the forefront.”

The new mayor has forged a publicly steady relationship with the governor despite their differences on key issues like Israel. Hochul has also approved of Mamdani’s hires, most notably the retention of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch — a favorite of the city’s business community.

Mamdani remains a lightning rod, though, especially among Jewish voters and suburbanites — constituencies the governor will need as she begins to campaign in earnest. The new mayor kicked off a firestorm on his first day in office when he revoked several executive orders meant to bolster Israel and deleted old tweets from his office’s X account about fighting antisemitism.  

Blakeman, Hochul’s likely November opponent, is already blasting her for aligning herself with the 34-year-old democratic socialist. Hochul’s political standing is tied in large part to the incoming mayor’s success.

“It depends on how Mamdani does,” said longtime Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “If Mamdani fails in the first six months, then she’ll take a beating.”