Incoming freshman senator Abdul El-Sayed says that he would support progressive Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) to replace Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) as Democratic leader in the Senate, advocating for a rejection of Schumer’s stalwart centrist mode of operation after Democrats’ massive blue wave. “I’ve been very clear. I think he’d be an amazing Senate majority leader. Of course, that’…
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Voters across the U.S. overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s war on Iran on Tuesday, putting their faith in Democrats who now wield enormous power to end the war — and to prevent future wars from being started unilaterally by a figure like Donald Trump ever again. The historically unpopular war and its economic consequences were among the top reasons for Republicans’ collapse.
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Earlier this year, longtime Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada unexpectedly announced his retirement, though his party wasn’t too concerned about holding on to the seat. Not only is this a congressional district that Donald Trump carried two years ago by 14 points, but voters in Nevada’s 2nd District have also quite literally never elected a Democrat.
That is, until now. The Nevada Independent reported:
Teresa Benitez-Thompson became the first Democrat ever to win Northern Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District as a nationwide blue wave slammed into Nevada.
The social worker, former pageant queen and former Assembly majority leader defeated small-business owner David Flippo (R) in a district President Donald Trump won by double digits.
With roughly 93% of the ballots tallied, Benitez-Thompson appears to have prevailed by a roughly 6-point margin, and MS NOW has called the race.
The results come a few weeks after Amodei, the outgoing congressman, reiterated that he would “absolutely not” vote for Flippo, his own party’s nominee.
Why not? As it turns out, Flippo has been accused of repeatedly exaggerating his military record — he’s said he received a Bronze Star for valor, for example, which did not happen — and falsely having claimed to have served during Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. (Flippo denied any wrongdoing and blamed his claims about his military record on clerical errors.)
Mother Jones also reported last month on Flippo having been fired as a financial adviser two years ago, after his employer accused him of “willful misrepresentations and/or omissions of material fact” (Flippo’s campaign did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment about his firing).
Amodei nevertheless called his own party’s nominee to
Michigan voters were clear in 2022 when they voted by a 13-point margin to codify the right to abortion care in the state constitution, and the state’s Republican US Senate candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers, claimed two years ago that he had no interest in “going back to Washington, DC to undo what the people of Michigan decided to do.” But a recent campaign contribution from the National…
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tenure has been scandalous for a great many reasons, but among the former Fox News host’s more controversial moves is the aggressive purge campaign he’s led. Just two months ago, The New York Times reported that Hegseth’s firings have been so dramatic that he’s left the U.S. Army “essentially rudderless” during an ongoing war in the Middle East.
Political scientist Caitlin Talmadge, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who specializes in foreign policy and military operations, noted via social media earlier this year, “Firing senior officers for cause is one thing. Firing them repeatedly on this scale and with no explanation is unprecedented in our nation’s history.”
The list is not short, though among the notable names is retired three-star Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who led the Navy Reserve and whose lengthy and decorated career came to an abrupt and unexpected end in August 2025, when Hegseth fired her without cause.
“I was one year into what is normally a four-year job [and] was notified that I was being relieved, effective immediately,” Lacore later told MS NOW’s Jen Psaki. “I struggled to figure out what was next for me. But the one thing I couldn’t shake was this feeling that I wasn’t done serving.”
Lacore added, “I can’t sit on the sidelines. I can serve differently.”
At that point, the retired Navy admiral took on a different kind of challenge: She decided to launch a Democratic congressional bid in an open South Carolina district. The odds were most definitely against her. Outgoing Republican Rep. Nancy Mace was re-elected by nearly 17 points in this same district two years earlier. Donald Trump
The world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, recently took another record: He is now the largest single political donor in modern American history, according to an analysis by The Washington Post, after pouring nearly half a billion dollars into backing Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. This has contributed to an enormous gap between Republican and Democratic political spending this…
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