In a surprising and positive change of political winds, a labor union that put its forces behind then-Democratic nominee and incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy with an endorsement of his reelection campaign four years ago has now endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican who ran against him in the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial race, in the election this November.
What does that mean, beyond a few glowing words for marketing gurus to splash across Garden State TV screen in political ads? Quite a lot more than you might think, local publication The New Jersey Globe reports: [emphasis added]
The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825 has endorsed Jack Ciattarelli for governor of New Jersey, giving the Republican nominee the support of one of the state’s most politically potent labor unions.
The 8,000-member union can provide Ciattarelli with boots on the ground during his campaign, and the potential to spend a significant amount of money through independent expenditures to help him win.
Despite facing a proverbial “perfect storm” with recession fears, stock market volatility, and talk of tariffs — all multiplied by constant media attacks — recent polling data shows that more Americans view the Republican Party as being better equipped to handle the economy compared to the Democratic Party.
The public as a whole sees the GOP as relatively effective.
It’s true that for decades, Democrats were widely seen as the party of the middle class. In 1989, they held a significant 23-point advantage on the question of which party best represented middle-class interests. But that has all changed.
A May 2025 CNN/SSRS poll shows Republicans with a 7-point lead when people are asked which party is closer to their economic views. In a different poll, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, asking which party has the better economic plan, the GOP lead grew from +9 in May 2024 to +12 in May 2025, signaling increased confidence in Trump’s economic leadership during his second term.
Unless you’re still at home hiding from COVID under a blanket and isolated from the real world, this shouldn’t be a surprise. And yet, CNN hosts were completely baffled when reporting on the issue — another sign that today’s Democratic Party is completely disconnected from the average American.
It seems quiet. If you just look around day to day in the United States, it would appear that life is moving along and the American people are tolerating the second presidency of Donald Trump.
There is no unrest in the streets of America’s cities and small towns. There is no violence. In fact, what we were told before the election could happen, that society would instantly disintegrate, hasn’t happened.
Many in the media who ran Biden off of the Democratic ticket and then bent the knee to Trump looked around at what must be disappointment.
The media, like Trump, were banking on chaos and fear to bring eyeballs back and revive their business after four years of struggle under Joe Biden.
Donald Trump needed chaos and fear to serve as a pretext for the consolidation of power within the executive branch. The media needed chaos and fear to get their audience back.
Hours after the shooting of two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, prominent conservative influencers spun unsubstantiated theories that the suspect was a left-wing extremist who targeted the Democratic-aligned leaders for voting against party lines, and did so with the blessing of the state’s top Democrat, Gov. Tim Walz.
Authorities said a man posing as an officer shot state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette in their home early June 14, and then shot and killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a former Democratic speaker, and her husband Mark in their home a few miles away.
Authorities soon identified the shooting suspect as 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter of Green Isle, Minn. And conservative influencers, including Benny Johnson, Rogan O’Handley and Mike Cernovich pounced — surfacing what they floated as an incriminating connection between Boelter and the governor.
Walz, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee, reappointed Boelter in 2019 to a state board focused on Minnesota’s workforce. But we found no evidence that Walz and Boelter were closely acquainted nor any evidence that Walz was in any way linked to the shootings, which he described as an “unspeakable tragedy” and “targeted political violence.”
As President Donald Trump rallied the troops to Washington, DC on June 14—the date of the US Army’s 250th anniversary, Flag Day, and his birthday—millions of his constituents joined in the nationwide “No Kings” march.
It was a conflicting, polar day in America. In one city, a parade costing tens of millions of dollars was complete with robot military dogs walking down the street, the president being serenaded by a crowd singing Happy Birthday, and thousands of Army service members marching in rows. In a city just North of DC, at the flagship No Kings rally in Philadelphia, an estimated 80,000 people called out chants that have become familiar since 2016, like “Hey-hey! Ho-ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” and ones befitting the protest, like “Let freedom ring! We don’t want a king!”
Nearly 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles, police shot stun grenades and rubber bullets, and used tear gas, on a group of demonstrators protesting the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities. The offensive from police who claimed they were attempting to disperse the crowd came hours before the 8 o’clock curfew that part of downtown was placed under by Mayor Karen Bass.
A North Carolina state representative faced extreme criticism and calls for her resignation after posting an image on social media depicting a beheaded President Trump.
“No Kings Protest in Raleigh. Amazing turnout all across the Triangle today, including this event at the Capitol hosted by @wakedems and @ncdemocrats,” the now-deleted post from state Rep. Julie von Haefen read.
Wow this is sick. North Carolina State Rep Julie von Haefen (D) posted a photo from the “no kings” protest which calls for Trump to be beheaded @FBIpic.twitter.com/ETn7O6e8cu
“Yesterday, I posted a video on social media containing crowd photos from the No Kings protest in Raleigh. One of the images of a protestor holding a sign was inappropriate, and I later edited the video to remove the photo,” von Haefen said on Facebook.
“Let me be clear: I condemn political violence in all forms. My focus remains on bringing people together and fighting for the values that matter to North Carolinians. Like so many, I was horrified by the violence in Minnesota. There is no place for that kind of extremism in our democracy, no matter the target, no matter the party,” she added.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) suggested “imbalanced” people are reading “hateful rhetoric” that is making them violent.
Klobuchar appeared Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe after Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot. Minnesota Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also seriously injured by gunshots from the same suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, who was taken into police custody on Sunday. Klobuchar agreed with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to increase security for Congress members after the targeted attacks.
“When I was chair of the Rules Committee, I worked really hard to get more security for members’ homes and offices. And that is because of the facts: In 2016, there were about 1,700 threats against members of Congress. Now, in the last year, there were over 9,000 threats,” Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar compared Boelter to David DePape, the man sentenced to life in prison without parole after he attacked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband. Klobuchar noted that similar threats have also been made against judges.
“They read things online, they believe them, they start acting them out, they already are imbalanced themselves, and they actually go do what they’re reading online,” Klobuchar said. “So that has been a contributor, as well as, of course, a lot of hateful rhetoric, and there are a lot of politicians that should be looking in the mirror and bringing their rhetoric down.”
As Townhall covered, two Minnesota state legislators were targeted in shootings in their homes late last week. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife survived. Hortman and her husband were murdered.
In the interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Klobuchar claimed that suspect Vance Boelter, 57, had a list of targets. This included “prominent pro-choice individuals in Minnesota,” an official who has seen the list confirmed to The Hill.
“It was politically motivated, and there clearly was some through line with abortion because of the groups that were on the list, and other things that I’ve heard were in this manifesto. So that was one of his motivations,” Klobuchar said.
However, hours before being killed, Hortman was caught on video breaking down in tears after she sided with Republicans on cutting funding for illegal aliens.
According to the survey, 58 percent of Americans believe the court is not politically neutral.
The majority of Americans do not view the Supreme Court as a politically neutral institution, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.
According to the survey, only 20 percent of respondents said they believe the court is politically neutral. A majority, 58 percent, said it is not, while the remainder either did not know or declined to answer. Among Democrats, 74 percent said the court is not politically neutral, while 54 percent of Republicans said the same.
The poll, conducted last week among 1,136 adults, comes as the Supreme Court has made a number of controversial rulings in recent memory. Over the past few years, the court has handed down decisions that have generated sharp reactions across the political spectrum, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade, expanding Second Amendment protections, rejecting the use of race in college admissions, and blocking some Trump administration efforts on immigration enforcement.
Public favorability toward the Supreme Court has also declined. The poll found that 44 percent of respondents currently view the court favorably. Among Republicans, that number stands at 67 percent, compared to just 26 percent of Democrats. In late 2021, 57 percent of Americans held a favorable view of the court, but that figure dropped to 43 percent by June 2022, shortly after the court struck down Roe v. Wade.
A 57-year-old man is in custody and charged with both murder and attempted murder after he allegedly shot two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, prompting a statewide manhunt over the weekend.
The story is still developing and has yielded plenty of unanswered questions about Vance Boelter’s background, living situation, and apparent re-appointment to a workforce development board by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The consensus so far, however, is that his motives for allegedly assassinating at least one Democrat legislator and her husband, as well as targeting another Democrat and his wife were no doubt radical and most likely political.
Corporate media and Democrats alike were quick to amplify the narrative that Boelter voted for Trump. In a sick twist, some of them even appeared to relish that the suspect, according to his alleged pizza delivery roommate, would “be offended if people called him a Democrat.”
The roommate of Minnesota lawmaker shooting suspect Vance Boelter spoke to CBS News’ @lilialuciano about rumors circulating online about the suspect’s politics: “He’s not a Democrat. He would be offended if people called him a Democrat,” he said, adding that Boelter “was a Trump… pic.twitter.com/qm5uqsO79f
Lombardo vetoed a bill earlier in the session that expanded ballot drop boxes. Assembly Speaker Steve Yager, a Democrat, sponsored Assembly Bill 499 as a compromise.
Nevada is one of 14 states that do not require photo ID for in-person voting. Since 2021, multiple states passed election reforms expanded some form of ID requirement to mail-in voting.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) trails Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) by 22 points in the state’s Republican Senate primary, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.
The survey, which was conducted by pollster Robert Blizzard on behalf of the Educational Freedom Institute and first obtained by Punchbowl News, showed Paxton leading Cornyn 50 percent to 28 percent among Republican primary voters.
Paxton expanded his lead among voters described as “very conservative GOP primary voters,” leading Cornyn 60 percent to 22 percent. Among voters described as “high propensity 3/3 GOP primary voters,” Paxton leads Cornyn by 30 points. The poll also showed Paxton leading Cornyn by 35 points among “MAGA voters” and by 12 points among senior voters.
The poll is the latest in a string of data points showing the incumbent senator trailing the conservative primary challenger. Last week, a poll from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center at Texas Southern University showed Paxton leading in a hypothetical two-way contest with 43 percent to Cornyn’s 34 percent, and 23 percent unsure.
A new poll is showing that support for same-sex marriage has dropped to a 10-year low among Republicans but spiked to a record high among Democrats.
According to Gallup, 68% of Americans overall support same-sex marriage, barely down from 69% last year. However, that “steady” level of support—approval for same-sex marriage has hovered between 67% and 71% over the past five years and has not fallen below 50% since 2011—belies a stark and rapidly growing political division.
Gallup reports that support for same-sex marriage among Republicans has fallen to 41%, down from an all-time high of 55% in 2021 and 2022 and the lowest point since May of 2016, when support stood at 40%.
Among Democrats, however, support for same-sex marriage has peaked at 88%, the highest point recorded by Gallup among any faction. That’s up from 83% last year. Support for same-sex marriage has not fallen below 70% among Democrats since 2013, when it stood at 69%.
Independent voters generally track more closely with Democrats on the issue but are still lagging 12 points behind at 76%, up from 74% last year but down from an all-time high of 77% in 2023. Support for same-sex marriage has not fallen below 50% among independents since 2010, when it stood at 49%.
Despite statistics on support for same-sex marriage, fewer Americans of all political stripes consider same-sex relationships morally acceptable. According to Gallup, only 38% of Republicans consider same-sex relationships morally acceptable, compared to 69% of independent voters and 86% among Democrats.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the 2024 election was seeing how heavily men of all races swung to Trump and Republicans. It’s such a serious issue for Democrats that they’re planning to spend upwards of $20 million to ‘study’ men and find out where they went wrong.
Poll analyst Nate Silver apparently got into this topic in a recent post on his Substack. It’s behind a paywall, but here are a few interesting points. The divide is due in part to mental health issues. The right is winning that battle.
Nate Silver’s latest blog post notes that conservatives are up 31 points among those with self-described excellent mental health, and down 26 among those with poor mental health.
Democrats have turned themselves into the party of the neurotic, the unstable, and the miserable.… pic.twitter.com/n4evL19F33
Democrats aren’t even pretending anymore. If they retake the House, they’re coming for Trump—again. On Sunday, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) openly admitted she would “absolutely” launch an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump if given the gavel on the House Oversight Committee. No pretense, no evidence—just raw political vengeance. From Elon Musk’s role in cutting government waste to Trump’s legal fights with Harvard and high-powered law firms, Crockett is already laying the groundwork to turn routine policy and legal disputes into impeachable offenses. Her comments make one thing unmistakably clear: Democrats are gearing up to use the power of Congress not for oversight, but for retaliation.
I’m still not convinced that this “We still super-duper hate Trump!” approach is a winner for bringing the Democrats back to any semblance of political relevance. Sure, it gets the coastal and Illinois Democrats frothing even more than usual, but it can’t have much — if any — play at all with the traditional voters that they have been losing.
As far as long-term planning goes, the 24/7 Trump Derangement Syndrome shtick is really going to leave their tank empty come January of 2029. They’ll try to brand JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, or whomever emerges as the GOP frontrunner as the next Satan, but it’s not going have that same zing for their base that “ORANGE MAN BAD!” does.