Texas turning blue wouldn’t have been on any Democrat’s bingo card back in November 2024, when President Donald Trump took the state with 56.2 percent of the vote and Ted Cruz easily held the senator’s seat. But thanks to Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s controversial past, and the popular progressivism of Democrat James Talarico, the Lone Star State stands a good chance of swinging left…
Democrats avoided the worst outcome in the California governor’s race. While it will take several more days for the state’s mail-in ballots to be counted, former congressman, California attorney general, and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will finish among the top two candidates and therefore advance to the general election. What’s not yet clear is whether Republican…
Republican Representative Ashley Hinson was caught on tape last week saying that President Trump’s Iran war will be a “political liability” if it continues any longer.
Politico reports that Hinson, who will be the likely Republican nominee in Iowa’s Senate race after Tuesday’s primary, told voters in a private meet-and-greet in the state on Thursday that she hopes that a peace deal in the war…
The merry-go-round of negotiations between the two countries continues. The latest began on Saturday, when US President Donald Trump said an agreement was “largely negotiated,” before Iran poured cold water on this. The US military then hit Iranian missile launchers and boats suspected of dropping mines in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Iran…
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 20 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.****
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic , produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Donald Trump just endorsed MAGA nutjob Ken Paxton in the Texas GOP primary for Senate. This all but ensures a weaker GOP nominee,…
In mid-May, around two weeks before the Texas Republicans’ Senate primary runoff election, state Attorney General Ken Paxton dropped yet another ad smearing his opponent, incumbent John Cornyn, for having “turned his back on President Trump.” Accompanied by a cinematic score, replete with intense, brassy blasts (BRAAAM!), the ad spliced together Cornyn admitting “the idea of a [border] wall is…
Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights,…
Nate Blouin said that hiding the fact that he is a progressive Democrat to appear more moderate in Utah’s 1st Congressional District race isn’t what Utahns need — or want.
In a conversation with controversial online streamer Hasan Piker, Blouin said that voters want someone who doesn’t change their politics to match constituents — but they instead, “should be electing people who are, you know,…
In an interview with _The_ _New York Times_ last week, Tucker Carlson, once a Trump stalwart, called President Trump’s war with Iran “the single most foolish thing any American president has ever done.” The conservative podcaster no doubt was being intentionally hyperbolic, as his followers expect; it’s hard to argue that this military misadventure already qualifies as a more foolish decision…
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You can watch this episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon above or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. You can read a transcript here.
California’s gubernatorial race has never had a clear front-runner, says David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect and a resident of the state. In the latest edition of Right Now, Dayen explains why the race has been so…
As a _New Republic_ reader, you’re well aware that 2026 is a midterm year. But unless you’re a political junkie—or a voter in a handful of states—you might be unaware that primary season has already begun. Five states have held primaries already, while the rest are taking place this spring and summer. On the Democratic side, there’s no shortage of ideological disputes, age gaps, and longtime…
Maine Governor Janet Mills’s decision to suspend her U.S. Senate campaign and effectively concede to upstart Graham Platner is a huge temporary victory for progressive Democrats in their ongoing fight with the party’s center-left establishment wing. But it will only be a true victory for progressives if Planter wins in November. And the left will be diminished if the untested Platner loses the…
Carl Wilson, the former chief of staff for New York Sen. Erik Bottcher, has declared victory over a New York City Council seat in a district seen as the birthplace of the gay rights movement, local news outlets have reported.
Wilson will serve as the fifth consecutive gay representative for Manhattan’s 3rd District in the New York City Council. The district, which includes Stonewall Inn, as…
LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly passed on Monday the Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2026, which sets 18 years as the minimum legal age for marriage for both boys and girls and declares underage marriage a non-bailable offence.
The bill was presented in the assembly by Punjab Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman. However, the lawmakers were not initially provided copies of the bill,…
Most Americans, even many Republican voters, disapprove of the war in Iran and remain unhappy about the high cost of everything from gas to groceries, which is only getting worse as the conflict continues. So it’s not surprising that President Donald Trump’s overall approval rating hit record lows this week. That’s great news for Democrats ahead of this fall’s midterm elections—but there’s a…
Twenty-second-century historians tracing the ascent of American technocracy from quirky garage tinkerers grooving on the Whole Earth Catalog to sinister oligarchs enacting Philip K. Dick prophesies may locate its apogee in four lectures that Peter Thiel (net worth: $29 billion), chairman of the data-mining giant Palantir and a co-founder of PayPal,…
“California’s students deserve a state superintendent who understands the system from the inside — from the bottom and the top — and who is committed to making it work better for every one of them. That is the experience and the commitment I bring to this race.”
The US-Israeli war on Iran promises fresh risks to Europe’s energy-intensive steel firms. Public ownership is a way of avoiding mass layoffs and stabilizing the supply of steel to sectors…
The Trump administration is asking Congress for $152 million to transform Alcatraz into a “state-of-the-art secure prison facility,” as part of its 2027 budget proposal.
That would cover just the first-year costs of the redevelopment, which has been roundly criticized as ill conceived and a poor use of federal funds.
“For years, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has housed violent criminals in…
“Total boomer luxury communism” is the Right’s latest attempt to convince younger Americans to slash their own future benefits under the guise of sticking it to older generations.…
The scale of the challenge that new NDP leader Avi Lewis faces in rebuilding the party is considerable. (Dominik Magdziak Photography / WireImage)
Over the weekend, Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP)…
Three-quarters of the ultrarich’s true economic income will never be subject to income taxes, even very progressive ones. That’s why a…
German ministers today routinely talk about making society ready for war and reintroducing military service. As Thursday’s school strike showed, the…
The State of the Union address is an opportunity for all branches of government to convene over the most pressing issues of the year. But Republicans treated Donald Trump’s sophomoric performance more like a rowdy sports game than a presidential appearance.
Practically the entire caucus participated in the rah-rah, jeering and chanting “U-S-A.” But the fanboying was especially true for Texas…
In early February, Axios reported that “Ezra Klein’s Abundance movement is getting some backup” in the form of a new group: Next American Era, headed by former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee head, Illinois congresswoman, and longtime Washington insider Cheri Bustos. Bustos’s group, per the report, would be committed to “‘pro-growth,’ deregulatory policies.” This is hardly surprising;…
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) stayed on Friday a trial by the court of an additional district judge in Lahore in a RS10 billion defamation suit filed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif against PTI founder Imran Khan.
In his suit _filed in 2017_, PM Shehbaz said Imran levelled baseless allegations against him. He sought a decree for the recovery of Rs10bn as compensation from the defendant for…
Donald Trump has gone on a posting binge following the death of civil rights activist and Democratic politician Jesse Jackson, even though Jackson opposed and criticized Trump.
Trump posted 12 photos of himself and Jackson from decades ago on his Truth Social account after he made a hollow tribute post to the late civil rights Tuesday morning, criticizing former President Barack Obama and…
_You can watch this episode of_ Right Now With Perry Bacon _above or by following this show onYouTube or Substack._
In his first month as New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani has endorsed candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America—and also centrist incumbent New York Governor Kathy Hochul. He reached a deal with Hochul to expand childcare but remains at loggerheads with her…
Progressive Analilia Mejia is on the verge of a huge upset win in a special election in New Jersey’s 11th congressional district to replace Mikie Sherill, elected governor of the state last year.
Meijia, who helped run Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, is leading Tom Malinowski in the Democratic primary by less than 500 votes as of this writing, upending a race in which the American…
President Donald Trump shared a wildly racist video of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes during a late-night posting spree on Truth Social.
In yet another erosion of America’s and Trump’s authority on the world stage, the president shared a video on Truth Social late Thursday that ended with a short clip of the Obamas’ laughing heads superimposed on the…