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Mike Sacks, the latest Democrat to join the crowded primary field for the seat of New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, launched his campaign Wednesday with a vow to “unf–k our country.”
“So what do Democrats do now?” Sacks asks in his introductory video. “We can’t do the same old thing with the same old people.”
Sacks is part of a larger effort among Democrats to reclaim viral spaces at a time when the party is grappling with low approval ratings and still working through its stinging 2024 losses.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling our country, piece by piece and so many Democrats seem content to just sit back and let them,’’ said Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive influencer running for a deep-blue seat in Illinois now held by 80-year-old Rep. Jan Schakowsky. Abughazaleh is producing a YouTube series on how to run for Congress and has more than 650,000 followers across various social media platforms.
This week, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin launched a new “war room” to aggressively take on President Donald Trump in the digital sphere. (The effort comes after some of the party’s earlier attempts to tap into social media drew widespread scorn.)
“Ninety percent of Americans have a smart phone, and corporate America and the entertainment industry understood this about 15 years ago. … So they started moving all their content to digital spaces,” Martin says in a video posted on social media. “Campaigns and elections took a long time to get there, yet the Republicans and the conservative movement beat us to it.”
In fact, the GOP success in tapping into TikTok played a key role in its 2024 victories.
But it’s not just powerful podcasters and social media stars who are shaping political opinion. Martin said Democrats need to win over “micro-influencers,” such as PTA moms or college athletes who may have smaller platforms but are “trusted messengers” in their communities.
“We have to do a much better job … mapping out our information ecosystem, so we have talkers in all those spaces,” he said, “putting out our message and not just responding to Trump and the Republicans.”
Starting gate
Tariff turbulence: Democrats say the tumultuous stock market and economic volatility brought on by Trump’s inconsistent trade policies will continue to inflict pain on Americans — and could have negative repercussions for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.
Budget check: The House adopted a budget resolution Thursday morning, taking a key step for Republicans to unlock the reconciliation process through which they plan to enact much of Trump’s agenda, Roll Call’s David Lerman reports. The vote prompted plenty of political spin, with Republicans saying that Democrats, who unanimously voted against the budget, were signaling support for higher taxes, while Democrats countered that Republicans were voting to cut Medicaid in order to give tax cuts to billionaires.
Charting his own course: New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez hasn’t sought social media fame pushing against the Trump administration. Instead, the swing-district Democrat has cultivated a lower profile, focusing on economic issues.
They’re running: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging longtime Sen. John Cornyn, setting up a competitive GOP primary that could still grow. Michigan Rep. John James announced his long-awaited gubernatorial campaign, opening up a competitive House seat that’s drawing plenty of Democratic interest. And in North Carolina, former Rep. Wiley Nickel made his challenge to GOP Sen. Thom Tillis official as Democrats also await a decision from former Gov. Roy Cooper on whether to run.
Midterms loading: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has an ambitious target list for next year’s midterm elections. Republicans in traditionally hard-fought swing districts are among their 35 targets, but so are incumbents in seats that Trump won by up to 18 points last fall, underscoring how strongly Democrats feel the political climate will favor them next year.
Lone Star State special: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to schedule the special election for a vacant deep-blue House seat for Nov. 4 drew swift condemnation from Democrats over the seven-month waiting period — and brought threats of legal action.
ICYMI
House campaign launches: In Pennsylvania’s 1st District, Bob Harvey, the Democratic chair of the Board of Bucks County Commissioners, is challenging Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, one of three House Republicans holding a seat that Kamala Harris carried last fall. In Nevada, Republican David Flippo, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, entered the race to challenge Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford in the 4th District. In Michigan, two more Democrats announced campaigns for the newly open 10th District: Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel and Christina Hines, who lost a bid last year for Macomb County prosecutor. And in New Hampshire, Maura Sullivan, a former Obama administration official, launched a bid to succeed Democrat Chris Pappas in the 1st District, a seat she also sought in 2018.
Not running: Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said he won’t run for Senate next year, a loss for Republicans who had hoped he would enter the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Trump had vowed to support Sununu had he run.
#VAGOV: The Virginia governor’s race between former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is officially set for November. Earle-Sears was the only Republican to qualify for the ballot after two other hopefuls came up short with their signature-gathering efforts.
More guv news: Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the onetime Atlanta mayor who became an adviser to former President Joe Biden, is preparing to enter the race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. In Massachusetts, Republican Mike Kennealy, who served in former Gov. Charlie Baker’s cabinet, announced his own gubernatorial bid to challenge Democratic incumbent Maura Healey. And in New Mexico, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman joined the gubernatorial race, setting up a Democratic primary against Deb Haaland, the former Interior secretary and congresswoman.
Welcome back: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik announced Wednesday that she had rejoined the House GOP leadership team about two weeks after Trump pulled her nomination to be his ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, who previously served as conference chair, takes on the role of chairwoman of House Republican leadership.
An old college try: The latest GOP-led attempt to switch the way Nebraska awards its Electoral College votes for president to a winner-take-all system stalled in the state Legislature this week. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that assign some electoral votes based on the winners of their congressional districts.
Stock trades: Pennsylvania Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr. has emerged as an active stock trader in his first few months in office, The New York Times reports, despite calling for an end to stock trading by members of Congress while campaigning last year. The freshman Republican is working on his own bill to address stock trading by lawmakers, according to a spokeswoman, who said a financial adviser oversees his trades.
Nathan’s notes
Republicans have to be careful in how they respond to Trump’s ever-changing tariff policies, especially considering they are now the party of lower-propensity voters and can’t risk turning off the president’s core backers, Roll Call elections analyst Nathan L. Gonzales writes.
What we’re reading
Stu says: Recent election results, combined with Trump’s uneven trade policies and recession fears, should give Republican strategists plenty to worry about, Roll Call political analyst Stu Rothenberg writes in his latest column.
Boomers turning out: They protested the Vietnam War, showed up for women’s rights and marched for the environment. Now the baby boom generation is at the leading edge of the anti-Trump resistance. Business Insider explored some of the reasons that boomers were overrepresented at last weekend’s protests, including their shrinking 401(k)s and concerns that the causes they supported in their youth are now being undone by Trump.
Ad spending: Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar spent $930,000 in taxpayer money last year on ads promoting himself, a review of congressional spending data by The Detroit News found. The spending came at a time when the Democrat faced primary challengers. Thanedar, who ranked first among all House members last year for advertising spending from his official budget, told the newspaper that the ads were “unrelated to his reelection campaign and instead intended to generate calls from constituents who need help from the federal government.”
Retirement reflections: CNN talked to three retiring Senate Democrats, who lamented that deal-making has gotten more difficult in the chamber.
Role reversal: Before he became an ardent critic of DEI initiatives, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was a financial executive who helped lead efforts to improve racial and gender diversity in his field, The New York Times reports.
The count: 9 points
That’s the average Republican margin of victory last year in the 35 House districts found in the DCCC’s initial target list.
Ahead of Trump’s first midterm election in 2018, House Democrats’ initial target list had 59 GOP-held districts, where the average Republican had won by 16.1 points in 2016. Democrats ended up winning 35 of those seats in 2018 as they regained control of the chamber they had lost during Barack Obama’s first midterm eight years earlier.
Among this cycle’s list of initial targets, 31 of the 35 districts were won by the Republican incumbents by 15 points or fewer last fall. In 2018, 28 Republican-held seats on the initial DCCC list fell within that range, and Democrats managed to win 20 of them (71 percent) in the midterms.
— By Roll Call’s Ryan Kelly
Coming up
Both the House and Senate have a two-week recess on tap, which could give members weighing their 2026 plans a chance to consider whether to run again or seek a different office next fall.
Photo finish
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“The Count” section of this report has been updated to reflect the correct time period for the results in the 35 GOP-held House districts targeted by the DCCC.
The post At the Races: TikTok-ing their way to victory appeared first on Roll Call.
