It’s about ‘kitchen-table populism’: focusing on Americans’ day-to-day economic struggles

This year’s Democratic primaries look and sound a lot more populist than usual. Brian Poindexter, a union iron worker running on a “workers first” message, won a House primary outside Cleveland. Sherrod Brown is mounting a Senate comeback in Ohio on the same “rigged system” message that has allowed him to outshine other Democrats in Ohio. Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who built his career fighting corporate landowners, is the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine. And Josh Turek, a self-described “prairie populist”, is on the Senate ballot in Iowa.

In fact, according to research we’ve conducted through the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), more than 70% of 2026 Democratic candidates now rely on populist rhetoric in their campaigns, laying the blame for our broken system on rich elites of one kind or another.

The senator’s remarks reflect a turning point in Democrats’ attacks on the president. What should we make of them?

Apparently, he likes to say her name with a French accent. “Na-tah-lee!” the president cries out, in that affected tone of faux-formality that one might use with a person they love but do not quite respect, and she comes running, her thin legs teetering on her heels.

Natalie Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old “executive assistant”, was an odd recurring character in the latest blockbuster Trump administration book, Regime Change, by the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. In the book, Harp features like a silent sentinel, ever present but eerily quiet as Trump rants and raves. It’s not exactly clear what the scope of her responsibilities are; though, as Jamelle Bouie points out, the fact that she evidently helps run the president’s social media accounts, which can sway markets and influence his foreign counterparts, makes her one of the most powerful people in the federal government.

Then House candidate joined Democratic Socialists of America in 2018 but didn’t renew membership after a year

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has rejoined the Democratic Socialists of America after not renewing her membership for seven years, amid speculation that she might run for president in 2028.

The 36-year-old New York representative and one of the country’s most prominent democratic socialists renewed her membership in the group’s national organization after reports emerged earlier this month that it had lapsed. Ocasio-Cortez initially joined the group in 2018.

‘We need some new leadership,’ says the Democratic nominee for governor in Iowa, Rob Sand

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The Democratic nominee for governor in Iowa bluntly answered a question that scores of national Democrats have thus far refused to respond to.

Asked by Politico whether the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, should run for president again, Rob Sand responded: “Nope.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Wesley Bell to join as Jared Moskowitz becomes ranking member on sub-committee

Three pro-Israel Democrats have been given key roles on a powerful congressional body overseeing US foreign policy in a move rounding sharply counter to popular sentiment within the party and likely to anger leftwing activists.

The appointments to the US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee follow a succession of wins in party primaries for progressive candidates who put criticism of Israel and its actions in Gaza at the core of their campaign messages.

They should ask the question Reagan asked at the end of his debate against Jimmy Carter: ‘Are you better off now than you were before this presidency?’

The midterm elections are already upon us, and every Democrat and independent running against a Republican should ask voters the question Ronald Reagan asked on 28 October 1980, at the end of his televised debate against Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off now than you were before this presidency?”

Unless you’re very, very rich, the answer is obviously: “No, I’m worse off.”

Energy bills have increased three times faster than the rate of inflation while Trump has been president. The national average monthly utility bill reached $280 in early 2026, a 12% increase since the end of 2024, just before the second Trump administration took office.

Democratic Senate candidate for Michigan distances himself from Twitch streamer and debates Fox News host

The Democratic candidate for Senate in the swing state of Michigan has spent the week trying to keep his affordability message front and center as scrutiny mounts from both ends of the political spectrum.

In the span of two days, Abdul El-Sayed distanced himself from leftwing streamer Hasan Piker, spoke out against rightwing hate directed at the Muslim community, and debated Fox News host Jesse Watters on taxing billionaires. The clip circulating most from the Fox interview, though, focused on circumcision - specifically, El-Sayed asking Watters whether he circumcised, in a retort to Watters’ question about gender-affirming care.

House minority leader is under attack from his own party for ‘affordability crisis’ meeting with president’s son-in-law

• Democrats incredulous over Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner meeting

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Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the US House of Representatives, has defended his meeting with Jared Kushner and claimed it was arranged at the request of Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Jeffries, who has come under attack from Democrats since the New York Times reported on Sunday that the two met privately to discuss common ground on issues like housing, immigration and the high cost of living, said he agreed to the meeting “to discuss the affordability crisis” in the US.

Wonder why they’re posting flirty photos and wearing tight T-shirts? It’s a thirst trap strategy in motion

Despite being a card-carrying member of the International Order of Confirmed Homosexuals, I have spent quite a lot of time lately thinking about Abdul El-Sayed’s biceps. I mean, have you seen them? The progressive Michigan senate nominee is jacked and he knows it. He almost always wears a tight black T-shirt to show off his muscles and incorporates a lot of fitness content in his campaign.

I’m not the only one who has noticed El-Sayed’s prominent muscles. They have had a lot of coverage, and are seen as part of a wider attempt to rebrand the Democratic party. Which, I don’t need to tell you, has a serious image problem; a poll in March found that the party is looked on even less favourably than the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. So, to make it look less like a party that is full of out-of-touch technocrats who sound as if they are reading from a 500-page PowerPoint presentation every time they try to explain anything, Democrats seem to be trying to up the sex appeal.

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Adam Hamilton, a liberal megachurch pastor, is challenging incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall in this year’s midterm election

In one of the first ads of his campaign to represent Kansas in the US Senate, the Democrat Adam Hamilton stands grilling steaks at a barbecue and attacks his opponent, Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican, for supporting “tariffs and war”.

If history is any guide, it is Hamilton who is set to get cooked. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, and more than half a century has passed since one of their nominees even came close. But he and his supporters believe circumstances have conspired to end this streak – and potentially deliver Democrats control of the Senate.

The newspaper often uses the word to describe elections with progressive contenders, implying a previous whole destroyed by the left

“El-Sayed and Stevens Project Party Unity After Divisive Race,” announced the New York Times on 5 August, the day the progressive Abdul El-Sayed beat out his centrist Democratic rival, Haley Stevens, in the Michigan senatorial primary. “Divisive” is now the Times’s favorite attack word, deployed repeatedly to disparage and try to undermine the astonishing recent advances by progressive candidates.

Four days after that first story, the Times again landed “divisive” under “Obama and El-Sayed Discuss Unity After Ugly Michigan Primary.” El-Sayed, it asserted, had “narrowly prevailed in a divisive primary after campaigning on a progressive and anti-establishment platform”.

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Donald Trump has threatened to increase tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel to 50% today, after trade negotiations between Washington and Ottowa broke down last week.

On Truth Social, the president blasted Canada, and said the new duties will go into effect on 1 January 2027.

The Democratic and the Republican candidate each blame the other for the bungled recovery effort after storm struck region

Two years after North Carolina suffered the worst natural disaster in its history when Hurricane Helene struck the state’s western half, life in the hardest-hit areas appears back to normal. Downtowns are lively, blocked roads have been reopened and rivers are flowing below their banks.

But the telltale evidence of the disaster’s expensive impacts can still be seen – from “for rent” signs in storefronts whose businesses never came back to debris from the storm still lurking in some waterways. And in the race for North Carolina’s US Senate seat, it’s almost as if the hurricane never left.

Critics include Senator Chris van Hollen, ex-aide to Obama Tommy Vietor and ex-Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger

Democrats and other Donald Trump critics reacted incredulously to a New York Times report on Sunday that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Jared Kushner, the president’s influential son-in-law, to discuss possible areas of collaboration.

The reported meeting comes months ahead of the November midterm elections in which Democrats are favored to retake the US House, a development that would make Jeffries speaker. If they are in the majority, Democrats are expected to use their oversight power to aggressively investigate the Trump administration, including self-enrichment by the president and his family.

Michigan Senate nominee and others have re-energized one-time Democratic voters who abandoned the party under Biden

Two years ago, Zainab Bibi Ahmed thought she had turned her back on the Democrats for good. Now, she is volunteering for the party’s US Senate nominee in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.

Ahmed was one of 100,000 people to vote uncommitted in the February 2024 Democratic Michigan primary, in a bid to send a message to then US president Joe Biden about his support for Israel, as people watched what Amnesty International later called a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza on their screens.

A Democrat’s remarks have resulted in impassioned defenses of the Trump aide. The right has discovered misogyny

Jon Ossoff is quite the miracle worker. Perhaps the Democratic senator can’t turn water into wine, but he has managed to turn whining conservatives into impassioned feminists.

During a rally last Sunday, the Georgia senator delivered a takedown of Donald Trump, which included a reference to his aide Natalie Harp. “He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said of the president. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

A call revealing Todd Blanche’s plans to crack down on mifepristone lays bare the danger

The abortion pill is a miracle. Mifepristone, then called RU-486, was synthesized by a French lab in the 1980s; in combination with misoprostol, commonly used as ulcer medication, it cuts off the body’s supply of progesterone, halts the development of a pregnancy, and incites contractions, which empty the uterus. The drug allows pregnancies to be terminated with a shocking degree of reliability and ease. Gone are the concoctions of ergot and Spanish Fly dispensed by 19th century midwives, which only sometimes worked to induce a miscarriage; gone are the backroom procedures of the pre-Roe US, when drunk, lascivious, incompetent or cruel providers wielded bent coat hangers in dirty rooms. The abortion pill is safe, effective and cheaper than ever. And since Dobbs, it’s everywhere: even if you live in a state with an abortion ban, you can get the pills shipped to your house in the mail. Since Roe was overturned, there has not been a return to the terror of mass death that marked the pre-Roe era of septic abortion wards, where women routinely found themselves maimed, sickened or killed. There’s exactly one reason why: because illegal abortions were largely unsafe without the pill, and they are extremely safe with it.

So of course, the Trump administration and their allies on the American right are trying to get rid of it. And this month, they gained a powerful new ally when Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and an anti-abortion zealot, was confirmed as attorney general.

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US Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican and a cattle rancher, has come out against a plan announced Friday by Donald Trump to allow for an increase in imported ground beef.

”I’ve advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them - most of whom are MAGA Republicans,” Sheehy wrote on X. “The President’s heart is in the right place on wanting lower prices for the American people, and beef prices have been impacted by the Mexican screwworm. But the reality is this action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people. And most importantly, this will harm our ranching families who feed the nation.”

Trump announced a plan on Truth Social to allow 300,000 metric tonnes of beef to be imported without tariffs over the next 90 days, to be sold for hamburger at a 25 percent discount to current prices. Trump offered this agreement with an unnamed source as measure to lower prices while “as we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers.”

The US beef cattle herd is near historic lows, and beef prices have skyrocketed over the last year. The average price of ground beef in American cities is around $7.12 a pound, an increase of 9.4 percent year-over-year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is a slap in the face to every war hero and every service member who has worn the uniform. It’s beyond comprehension for a president to want his own name on a Navy ship while our armed forces are living in deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. For generations, millions of Black women and men have proudly served in the United States military, defending freedoms that too often were not even afforded to them, their families, or their communities. Donald Trump is making a mockery of that legacy by treating military service as another opportunity for personal branding. Our brave service members signed up to defend the nation, not the fragile ego of one man. America deserves better than this.

State senator beats rival Melissa Hernandez and will replace US congressman who quit amid sexual misconduct claims

Progressive Aisha Wahab has been elected to Congress in a special election following a bitter intra-party battle over the seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April after facing sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell has denied the allegations.

Wahab, a state senator, was widely considered the frontrunner in the district in California’s East Bay and had the backing of the state Democratic party as well as Our Revolution, labor unions, local officials and the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.

The enormous US debt under Trump will hobble the next Democratic administration – just as the GOP planned

• Why is the Trump administration causing turmoil in the bond markets?

You could pin the US’s staggering $40tn in government debt to Donald Trump’s Keystone Cops-style governance. Tariffs he sold as a new source of revenue were struck down by the supreme court, forcing the government to return tens of billions of dollars to importers. Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), ostensibly created to stop wasteful government spending, decimated federal programs and probably killed millions of children, but did nothing to close the budget deficit. The burst of inflation following Trump’s misguided adventure in Iran sharply raised the cost of serving the government’s obligations.

Yet as the federal debt hits an all-time high, up from about $35tn when Trump took office less than two years ago, it is worth noting that the US’s gargantuan indebtedness is in fact the product of a longstanding Republican strategy that took shape well before Trump could even dream about gold-plating the White House. It was called “starve the beast”.

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An FBI team seized electronic devices from former US representative Eric Swalwell at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, then raided his home in Washington, DC, the next day, CNN reported Thursday.

The raid is part of a federal investigation into the sexual assault allegations which ultimately drove the Bay Area Democrat to resign from office in April, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department subsequently opened criminal investigations on Swalwell.

Americans are backing progressives not because they want socialism, but because they want candidates who will fight for the working class

Most discussions about the Democratic party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats, such as the Florida state representative Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who scored an upset win in the Democratic US Senate primary on Tuesday.

But an equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats.

‘They call us extreme, they call us radical,’ the progressive Senate candidate said. ‘But I think people see through that’

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It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

In conservative Florida, Alex Vindman – a retired army intelligence officer who blew this whistle on Donald Trump in his first term – appeared set to carry the Democratic establishment banner as the party staged a long-shot bid to topple a Republican US senator.

Elections in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming provide a sense of how voters are feeling ahead of November’s midterms

Primaries in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming held on Tuesday provided the latest view into how voters are feeling ahead of November’s US midterm elections.

One candidate aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) netted an extraordinary win while another was defeated handily. Donald Trump’s handpicked candidates received a mixed reception from voters. In Alaska, voters chose their fighters for one of the year’s marquee US Senate races, and in Florida, extremism remained alive and well among Republicans.

Some restraint on Trump’s excesses might be accomplished if November’s midterm elections give Democrats more power

Donald Trump is essentially unrestrained when it comes to enriching himself during his second term, with no sign of stopping. If anything, he’s ramping things up.

The numbers so far are astonishing. He amassed $2.2bn in 2025 revenues, the Guardian and other news outlets have reported.

Result tees up marquee race in US midterm elections, which could decide if Republicans or Democrats control Senate

Incumbent Dan S Sullivan, the US senator, advanced in Alaska’s non-partisan primary race for his seat on Tuesday alongside Mary Peltola, a former Democratic congresswoman.

With the top four candidates moving forward from Alaska’s open primaries to the general election, the Associated Press reported that Sullivan and Peltola had qualified for November’s general election.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s co-opting of conservative language to discuss a movement against state-sanctioned killings of Black people is damning

August has brought us a referendum on “Woke 1” – a term that reductively brands 2020’s social justice movement – as prominent liberal voices reflect on that time period with disappointing hindsight. During a recent appearance on ABC’s This Week, when asked about 2020-era demands to abolish prisons and police, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US congresswoman from New York, abandoned her previous support of the “defund the police” movement, and instead joked: “Woke 1 was crazyyyyy.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, implied that the still-resounding calls for municipalities to reduce police budgets and to divert aid to poor communities were worth advocating for during the 2020 uprising, but are now “crazyyyyy”. In 2020, she noted that “a lot of people cannot fathom what an abolitionist America looks like. Tell them it looks like a suburb. Affluent white communities already live in a world where they choose to fund youth, health, housing more than they fund police.” But she has since backtracked on that idea.

Poll after poll shows the same thing. The American people know that the current economic system is rigged

The media pundits have written article after article desperately trying to understand why progressive candidates, despite being heavily outspent, keep defeating establishment Democrats in primaries around the country. Well, the answer is not complicated.

Whether it is a corrupt campaign finance system, unprecedented income and wealth inequality, a broken and wildly expensive healthcare system, the enormous threats posed by AI or an immoral and destructive foreign policy, progressives are talking about the real issues facing working families. And they are providing real solutions. Establishment Democrats are not.

Nixon bested Alexander Vindman to win Democratic nomination and now faces Republican Ashley Moody in November

• Trump-backed Byron Donalds wins Republican primary in race to succeed Florida governor DeSantis

In an upset for the Democratic establishment, progressive Angie Nixon won the party’s US Senate primary in Florida, beating former army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman.

Nixon, a state representative and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had significantly less funding going into the primary – with $975,000 to Vindman’s $16.3m at the end of July, according to Florida Politics.

Congressman had pledged to implement president’s agenda if he gained governor’s seat

• Democratic socialist Angie Nixon clinches surprise primary win in Florida US Senate race

Byron Donalds, a congressman backed by Donald Trump, won the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday in the race to succeed Ron DeSantis.

Donalds, who has represented south-west Florida since 2021, trounced three reasonably prominent Republican rivals, including Jay Collins, DeSantis’s handpicked lieutenant governor.

Potential presidential hopeful running for re-election in Georgia intensifies White House feud after remarks about ‘Natalie’ drew ire of president and allies

The Democratic senator Jon Ossoff called Donald Trump a “draft-dodging, crook president” while defending the senator Mark Kelly as a hero during a Tuesday campaign appearance in Georgia, escalating his public feud with the US president.

“I don’t think anything illustrates the times more aptly than that the draft-dodging, crook president, who has plunged our nation recklessly into a war he knows not how to end or to win, tried to imprison this man, who embodies American heroism,” Ossoff said while appearing alongside Kelly and his wife, the former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

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President Donald Trump posted an image of a map of the strait of Hormuz on his social media platform Truth Social, with a circle around the strait and the words “New US Territory” as the title on Tuesday morning.

This follows comments made on Friday at a speech at a police academy on Long Island, New York, where Trump said “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States. … Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to.”

Politics that worked for Democratic candidates in New York, Minnesota, Michigan won’t cut it in red Florida, analysts say

If primary elections elsewhere this summer were tussles between progressives and moderates for the direction of the Democratic party’s political future, Tuesday’s contests in Florida could not be more different.

In a former swing state that has in recent years become reliably red, moderate Democratic candidates Alex Vindman and David Jolly are heavily favored to become the party’s nominees for November’s Senate and governor’s race, respectively.

Democratic senator Jon Ossoff attacked Donald Trump and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, over the Iran war, saying they lied 'the nation into a war'. Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia in November, made the comments while speaking at a rally in midtown Atlanta on Sunday afternoon

• Jon Ossoff calls Trump’s handling of Iran war ‘uniquely despicable’ in excoriating speech

Georgia Democratic senator has stoked speculation for 2028 presidency bid by delivering stinging attacks on Trump

Democratic senator Jon Ossoff has attacked Donald Trump’s “uniquely despicable” handling of the US-Israel war on Iran, accusing the US president of “re-rigging” a corrupt system for himself in an excoriating speech.

Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia in November, has repeatedly stoked speculation that he is laying the ground for a bid for the US presidency in 2028 by delivering a series of stinging attacks on Trump and his administration.

Senator Ruben Gallego calls carrier’s months-long deployment a ‘deep problem’ as wellbeing concerns mount

Democrats on Sunday intensified their demands for answers from the Trump administration over conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln as the aircraft carrier’s nearly nine-month deployment continued fueling concern over crew morale, mental health and living conditions.

Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator from Arizona, said on Sunday that problems onboard the Lincoln had kept mounting – and he blamed the carrier’s prolonged deployment on the unresolved war that Donald Trump started in February with Iran as well as lackluster leadership in general from the Republican president’s administration.

A broad group of diseases in the agricultural powerhouse is top of mind for the midterm elections

In Iowa, one of the key battleground states in November’s midterm elections, just about every political candidate agrees on one thing: something must be done about the state’s rising rates of cancer.

The midwestern state has the second-highest rate of cancer nationwide and, together with Utah and West Virginia, is one of only three states where incidents of the disease are rising, according to cancer rate monitoring from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Former VP sent fundraising appeal for Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign – with half of donations going to Harris’s organization

Alaska US Senate candidate Mary Peltola has rejected the support of Kamala Harris, her fellow Democrat, after the 2024 presidential candidate sent out a seemingly unsolicited fundraising appeal on Peltola’s behalf.

Harris, who lost Alaska – typically a Republican-voting state – by 13 points during her unsuccessful White House run, on Wednesday sent an email from her political organization to supporters of Peltola, a former US House member.

AOC’s remarks about past excesses have been ripped out of context. Progressives shouldn’t get roped into this sideshow

There is probably no word that has been more used and abused in the last decade than “woke”. It has been rendered completely meaningless, but it refuses to die. Indeed, it has now taken on new life: in the past week, there’s been a flurry of headlines about “Woke 1.0” or “Woke One”. If you haven’t seen the phrase pop up in your newsfeed yet, it will soon.

So what is this cursed phrase? There’s no official definition, but the term is largely being used to refer to the period between 2018 and 2021 when social justice language was at its peak in mainstream culture. Certain progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have started to use “Woke 1” disparagingly, as a way to distance themselves from that period and signal that they stand for a new form of left-leaning politics that is more palatable to centrist Democrats. “Woke 2”, I suppose.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

In Wisconsin, voters weigh candidates who backed cuts to Medicaid, and those who want to expand it

Going door to door in western Wisconsin multiple times per week, Bill Hogseth tells strangers about his seizure.

Hogseth, the co-executive director and lead organizer of the nonpartisan group GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin (Groww), tells them about waking up in an ambulance, and the impact of the seizure on his ability to drive and work. Usually standing on their doorsteps, he asks to hear their stories too – about ambulance rides, hospital bills, broken bones.

Recent comments by AOC have reignited a fiery debate about ‘wokeism’. But what are we really talking about?

Full confession: I am one of those who have come to think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can essentially do no wrong. At times when I most fear for the future of our country, I watch her videos and am consoled and cheered by her clarity, her honesty, her intelligence, her simple common sense. So I was a little surprised to hear that on a recent interview on ABC This Week, she quoted a political ally as having remarked: “Woke 1.0 was crazy.”

What surprised me was not that she called for some moderation of the radical positions – the call to defund the police and the military, for example – that have, at times, been an aspect of progressive politics. But I was frankly a little unnerved to hear her use the word “woke”.

Francine Prose is a former president of the PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her latest book is Five Weeks in the Country

Group backs Elijah Manley in primary election in bid to unseat veteran Democrat in newly drawn district

A progressive group has endorsed a 27-year-old substitute teacher who overcame childhood homelessness in his bid to unseat the veteran Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) said it was backing Elijah Manley in next week’s primary election in Florida’s newly drawn 20th congressional district, casting the race as a contest between a young economic populist and a stalwart of the Democratic party establishment.

The progressive candidate won a Democratic congressional primary after boldly staking positions on voting rights, datacenters and the US war machine

• Justin Pearson and Brent Taylor win primaries for key Tennessee House seat

Justin Pearson made national headlines as one of the “Tennessee Three” – the state lawmakers expelled from the capitol protesting for gun control after a deadly school shooting. Three years later, the state representative won a Democratic congressional primary after boldly staking positions on some of America’s most contentious fault lines: voting rights, datacenters and the American war machine.

“Republicans are responding to elected officials who stand up to billion-dollar datacenters, and the billionaires who own them. Democrats are responding to a vision of Medicare for All, ending genocide,” said Pearson. “The confluence that is happening between those issues, is [that] who profits off of war are the same people who are profiting off of polluting our communities and stealing our drinking water for their datacenters that replace our jobs.”

When Air Force One took off from Turkey after July’s Nato summit, almost everyone believed Donald Trump was on board … but he wasn’t. Jonathan Freedland talks to Tara Setmayer of the Seneca Project about why the White House felt the need to come up with such an elaborate lie to protect the president

When Air Force One took off from Turkey after July’s Nato summit, almost everyone believed Donald Trump was on board … but he wasn’t. Jonathan Freedland talks to Tara Setmayer of the Seneca Project about why the White House felt the need to come up with such an elaborate lie to protect the president

Oliver Larkin, a 34-year-old DSA candidate, is running for Congress in a newly drawn district in Florida. On Tuesday, voters will decide between him and a ‘DeSantis Democrat’

Doors don’t get knocked on much in this stretch of south Florida, where yard signs for Republican and Democratic candidates alternate from home to home. Oliver Larkin, the 34-year-old democratic socialist running for Congress here, knows this.

With a clipboard in hand five weeks before the state’s primary, Larkin and two canvassing volunteers walked down palm tree-lined streets with single-family homes to pitch residents on his plan for a better way of life. Surprisingly, many wanted to chat with the strangers at their door.

The congresswoman’s decision is an assertion of women’s freedom and dignity at a time when our status is rapidly eroding

“Don’t be weird about this,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star and rumored 2028 presidential contender, said on her live video broadcast as she raised her shirt to angle the syringe into her abdomen. Then, with resignation, “even though I know all of you will be.”

The New York Democrat is 36 years old, and this week she revealed that she is beginning the process of freezing her eggs during Congress’s August recess. In the video, Ocasio-Cortez said that she was seeking to destigmatize the realities of women’s lives as they navigate the conflicting demands of professional aspiration and family building; she explained to viewers the process of the hormonal injections she was administering to herself, showing them the drugs and injector she was using arrayed on a paper towel, beside a disinfecting towelette. The procedure, Ocasio-Cortez explained, was not covered by her insurance, and she would be paying “100% out of pocket”. She had been saving to afford it for some time. “This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” she said, going on to assert her hope that transparency about such questions will destigmatize women’s reproductive lives and promote their dignity.

Democratic socialist Francesca Hong fell just short as David Crowley strives for unity for the general election

Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, was on course to win the party’s nomination for Wisconsin governor on Wednesday by a clear margin, according to the polls – presaging the latest in an extraordinary wave of leftwing victories across the country, challenging the party’s establishment.

It was not to be. In a photo finish after a messy campaign, David Crowley eked out a win by a few thousand votes over Hong, raising questions over the limits of the progressive movement that has swept through Democratic contests in recent months.

A fairly overtly radical socialist winning about 40% of the vote in a primary like this was unthinkable even a few years ago

The left’s insurgency against the Democratic party establishment has hit its first serious bump in the road in Wisconsin. Democratic socialist Francesca Hong entered Tuesday up by big margins in the polls, the huge betting favorite. She left it just a few thousand votes short of the Democratic nomination. What happened, and how, offers extremely important lessons for both the left and the Democratic establishment.

The first is that the party still matters. Its institutions and leaders matter. We saw that power in Democratic primaries in 2020. After Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses and emerged as the frontrunner, party leaders rapidly consolidated around Joe Biden.

Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America

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Core inflation, which measures price changes without volatile goods like food and gas, rose by 0.2% in July, after not really changing in June compared to the month prior.

While the latest data shows there has been a 2.9% drop in gas prices from June to July, there has been a 25% hike compared to this time last year.