With Democrats set to take control of both chambers of Congress in January, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders says he will not support Chuck Schumer for another term as the Democratic Senate leader, calling for the party to move in “a new and bold direction.” Michigan Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin has said she will not support Schumer unless he presents a plan to govern differently…
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In the closing weeks of the midterm election cycle, Donald Trump struggled to formulate a closing argument, but the president had plenty to say about Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Indeed, after the president ordered his administration to target the Minnesota congresswoman, federal agents seized the laptop, cellphone and passport of a sitting member of Congress based on highly dubious evidence. Soon after, Trump began falsely telling voters that “the Democrat [sic] Party has conceded her seat” and she will no longer be permitted to serve in Congress. In late October, he went so far as to claim she’d been expelled from the House.
None of this reflected reality in any way, and Omar, who’s long denied any wrongdoing, soon after won re-election by a 60-point margin in her Minneapolis-area district.
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the administration’s ongoing investigation into the congresswoman, but in the meantime, we’re continuing to learn more about the scope of Team Trump’s efforts. The New York Times reported:
Federal prosecutors filed a felony charge earlier this year against a man who briefly served as a bodyguard for Representative Ilhan Omar in what his lawyer described as an unusual gambit to obtain incriminating information about the lawmaker. […]
[Bruce Rivers, the lawyer for the bodyguard, Abdullahi Mohamed] said that prosecutors spent months trying to turn the bodyguard into an informant to bolster their case against Ms. Omar. In a move he described as shocking, Mr. Rivers said that prosecutors repeatedly told him and Mr. Mohamed that the investigation into Ms. Omar was “100 percent being run by 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,” the address of the White House.
Rivers, a veteran
The midterms delivered a stunning rebuke of Trump and the MAGA movement, but what will it take to turn electoral victories into lasting change? In this episode of “Movement Memos,” host Kelly Hayes talks with anti-authoritarian strategist Scot Nakagawa about the opportunities and dangers of this political moment, the enduring power of tech oligarchs, and how movements can build the solidarity and…
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In perhaps the most stunning upset of the 2026 midterm cycle, Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely contested Senate race.
Colom’s historic win marks the eighth Senate seat Democrats were able to flip from Republican control this cycle, giving the party a total of 55 seats in the chamber. If Democrats win the still-undecided Alaska Senate race, their majority will grow to 56-44.
Hyde-Smith called Colom to concede around 6 p.m. ET, two sources close to the Colom campaign told MS NOW. The GOP senator posted a video to X moments later, saying, “I respect the decision of Mississippi voters. I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”
He also received congratulatory phone calls Wednesday night from former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both of whom endorsed Colom, a campaign spokesman told MS NOW.
Colom will become Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction and the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the Southern GOP stronghold since 1982. His surprise victory underscores the seismic shift toward the Democratic Party, even in the Deep South.
Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, hailed the victory for Colom and for Black voters whose political power was curtailed by the Supreme Court and threatened by the Trump administration.
“Black voters once again demonstrated the power of civic engagement and the strength of our democracy,” Johnson said. “Even in the face of efforts to remove voters from the rolls, attempts to intimidate voters and election officials, and bids to create fear around the electoral process, Mississippi voters showed up.”
The
I tried to tell you all. In January, I said on “The Weeknight” that Scott Colom could be a convincing candidate for the U.S. Senate. In August, when our list of 12 Senate races to watch left Mississippi off, I told viewers to pay attention anyway. I believed he could win.
Wednesday night, it became official: Colom defeated Cindy Hyde-Smith, becoming the first Black senator elected by Mississippi voters and the first Democrat the state has sent to the Senate since 1982. The last Black senators chosen to represent Mississippi, Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, were selected during Reconstruction, a time when all U.S. senators were picked by state legislators and not voters.
In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer went to the courthouse in Indianola to try to register to vote. The plantation owner she worked for told her to withdraw her application. She refused and lost her job. Two years later, she went to the Democratic National Convention to challenge an all-white delegation that claimed to represent Mississippi. Hamer understood that representation depended on who had the power to choose and that building that power took work.
People keep asking me what I saw in this race.
People keep asking me what I saw in this race. I saw a candidate who knew how to compete in Mississippi, and years of nonpartisan organizing that helped build an electorate ready to hear him.
Start with Colom himself. He had already won election as district attorney in a majority-white district and been re-elected twice. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated him for a federal judgeship. Mississippi’s senior Republican senator, Roger Wicker, supported the nomination. Sen. Cindy
There are all sorts of reasons Democrats are thrilled to take back control of the Senate, but near the top of the list is the power over the confirmation process: From executive branch roles to judicial nominations, a Senate majority makes all the difference.
This isn’t lost on Donald Trump. “Very important for the U.S. Senate to confirm all of our pending 161 Nominations, including 25 Federal Judges,” the president wrote to his social media platform earlier this week. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The message did not go unnoticed on Capitol Hill. The Washington Sun reported:
President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans started a rush Tuesday to confirm as many judicial nominees as possible before they lose their majority in January, including the announcement of three new nominees.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance four judicial nominees to the Senate floor, teed up more committee votes on six other pending bench picks and held a confirmation hearing for another four.
The fact that this is happening is notable in its own right, though it’s also worth emphasizing how it’s happening: As HuffPost reported, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the outgoing chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “ditched a number of the panel’s standard practices” this week. From the report:
In the committee’s first hearing since the GOP’s drubbing in the midterm elections, Grassley signaled plans to hold nomination hearings this week and next week, violating the panel’s bipartisan practice of holding such hearings no closer than two weeks apart.
The Iowa Republican added two judicial nominees to next week’s hearing whose questionnaires were returned to the panel just 10 and 14