Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Democrats Score Strategic Wins Amid Redistricting Battles

News

Democrats Score Strategic Wins Amid Redistricting Battles

Democrat Donkey is winning arm wrestling match against Republican elephant

AI generated image

Democrats are quietly building momentum in the 2025 election cycle, notching two key legislative flips in special elections and gaining ground in early polling ahead of the 2026 midterms. While the victories are modest in number, they signal a potential shift in voter sentiment — and a brewing backlash against Republican-led redistricting efforts.

Out of 40 special elections held across the United States so far in 2025, only two seats have changed party control — both flipping from Republican to Democrat.


In Iowa Senate District 35, Democrat Mike Zimmer, president of the Central DeWitt School Board, defeated Republican Katie Whittington with 52% of the vote, flipping a district that Donald Trump carried by 21 points in 2024.

In Pennsylvania Senate District 36, Democrat James Andrew Malone, mayor of East Petersburg, narrowly edged out Republican County Commissioner Josh Parsons by less than 1%, marking the first time Lancaster County has sent a Democrat to the state Senate since 1879.

These wins, though numerically modest, signal potential voter backlash against GOP-led policies and redistricting efforts.

According to Bolts, August is the busiest month for competitive specials, with four districts in play where the 2024 presidential margin was within 15 points.

Viet Shelton, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Newsweek, “Democrats are confident they will re-take the majority powered by an aggressive message focused on fighting for lowering prices and holding Republicans and Trump accountable for their record of broken promises”.

In a rare mid-decade redistricting push, Texas Republicans are attempting to redraw the state’s congressional map to add five new GOP-leaning seats — a move widely criticized as a partisan power grab. The proposed map, approved by the Texas Senate on August 12, would significantly dilute the voting power of Black and Latino communities, with districts like Rep. Al Green’s in Houston seeing the Black voting-age population drop from 39% to just 11%.

“This mid-decade redistricting isn’t about fair representation—it’s about politicians picking their voters instead of voters choosing their leaders,” said the Senate Democratic Caucus in a statement. The controversy has sparked a national redistricting arms race, with states like California and Florida signaling plans to redraw their own maps in response.

California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to retaliate, telling MSN, “If Texas wants to rig the maps, California will make sure they pay a price. They want to steal five seats? We’ll match and secure more — and turn the tables on their entire strategy”.

This tit-for-tat redistricting war could reshape the congressional map before 2026, with both parties seeking to maximize safe seats. But the strategy risks alienating swing voters and escalating legal battles over gerrymandering and minority representation.

Recent national polls show Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot. A CNBC survey conducted in early August found Democrats ahead by 5 points — 49% to 44% — while a YouGov/Economist poll showed a 6-point lead.

“Democrats are outperforming where the average out-party has been at this point in the cycle over the last five midterms. If the election were held today, they’d be favored to win the House," wrote G. Elliott Morris, Strength In Numbers.

Still, analysts caution that midterms are historically unfavorable to the party in the White House. With President Trump’s approval ratings slipping, Democrats hope to replicate the 2018 “blue wave” — but redistricting could blunt their gains.

Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network.

Read More

Ingrassia Exit Highlights Rare GOP Pushback to Trump’s Personnel Picks

President Donald Trump speaks at a White House press briefing on Jan. 30, 2025.

Credit: Jonah Elkowitz/Medill News Service

Ingrassia Exit Highlights Rare GOP Pushback to Trump’s Personnel Picks

WASHINGTON — Paul Ingrassia withdrew his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel on Tuesday night after facing Republican pushback over past controversial statements.

While Ingrassia joins a growing list of President Donald Trump’s nominees who have withdrawn from consideration, many who have aired controversial beliefs or lack requisite qualifications have still been appointed or are still in the nomination process.

Keep ReadingShow less
A Revolution in Congressional Decision-Making
low light photography of armchairs in front of desk

A Revolution in Congressional Decision-Making

The dysfunction of today’s federal government is not simply the product of political division or individual leaders; it is rooted in the internal rules of Congress itself. The Founders, in one of their few major oversights, granted Congress the authority to make its own procedural rules (Article I, Section 5) without establishing any framework for how it should operate. Over time, this blank check has produced a legislative process built to serve partisan power, not public representation.

The result is a Congress that often rewards obstruction and gridlock over compromise and action. The Founders imagined representatives closely tied to their constituents—one member for every 30,000 to 50,000 citizens. Today, that ratio has ballooned to one for every 765,000 in the House, and in the Senate, each member can represent tens of millions (e.g., California). As the population has grown, representation has become distant and impersonal, while procedural rules have tightened the grip of party leadership. Major issues can no longer reach the floor unless the majority party permits it. The link between citizens and decisions has nearly vanished.

Keep ReadingShow less
Lasting peace requires accepting Israel’s right to exist

US President Donald Trump hailed a "tremendous day for the Middle East" as he and regional leaders signed a declaration on Oct. 13, 2025, meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages and prisoners. (TNS)

Lasting peace requires accepting Israel’s right to exist

President Trump took a rhetorical victory lap in front of the Israeli parliament Monday. Ignoring his patented departures from the teleprompter, which violated all sorts of valuable norms, it was a speech Trump deserved to give. The ending of the war — even if it’s just a ceasefire — and the release of Israel’s last living hostages is, by itself, a monumental diplomatic accomplishment, and Trump deserves to take a bow.

Much of Trump’s prepared text was forward-looking, calling for a new “golden age” for the Middle East to mirror the one allegedly unfolding here in America. I’m generally skeptical about “golden ages,” here or abroad, and especially leery about any talk about “everlasting peace” in a region that has known “peace” for only a handful of years since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Keep ReadingShow less
A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less