WASHINGTON — Large crowds took to the streets Saturday in the nation’s capital for the third No Kings protest, rallying with others across the United States against what organizers say is an unprecedented expansion of power by President Donald Trump.

Thousands of people carrying signs and playing music began the day at Memorial Circle below Arlington National Cemetery. Crowds exiting the cemetery Metro stop clogged exit gates as they flowed toward Arlington Memorial Bridge into the district.

A dense crowd already was packed around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by late Saturday morning. Hundreds moved to the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol by late afternoon for a separate Remove the Regime rally, where numerous speakers, including former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, urged Congress to impeach the president. Dunn, who is running for Congress in Maryland in 2026, was on duty during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.

No Kings day in Washington, D.C. (Video by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

No Kings day national organizers anticipated more than 3,000 demonstrations across the United States, in every congressional district, and worldwide marches were organized on six continents, according to Logan Keith, a No Kings day organizer and national communications coordinator for the advocacy group 50501. Organizers said Saturday night at least 8 million people participated  

No notable instances of violence or conflict with counter-protesters were reported by late Saturday afternoon, though a bomb threat at the Hawaii Capitol disrupted the Honolulu rally, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The previous national No Kings demonstration in October drew millions of Americans to the streets, and Saturday’s protests were expected to as well. States Newsroom’s live blog from Saturday includes reports and photos from across the nation.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, site of the nation’s flagship event, tens of thousands were gathering around the state Capitol, the Minnesota Reformer reported. Streets were clogged, buses packed and parking scarce well more than a mile away as throngs — dressed in layers and carrying homemade signs with messages like “No War” and “1776” — streamed toward the Capitol.

Headliners and speakers were expected, such as Bruce Springsteen — who will sing his new song “Streets of Minneapolis” — as well as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers, Jane Fonda, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and more.

In the months since the previous No Kings rallies, the Trump administration sent thousands of federal agents into Minneapolis, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, on Jan. 7. 

Just over two weeks later, Customs and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, also 37 and a U.S. citizen. 

Robin Eller, who is from Minneapolis but was protesting in New York City, said it was necessary for her to be part of the demonstration.

“We’ve seen two of our neighbors shot and killed for no reason other than trying to do what’s right for other humans in our community,’’ she said. “So we just feel like whenever we have the chance to be part of, numbers that help bring accountability, that’s what we want to do.’’

In recent months, many high-profile violent encounters between federal law enforcement and the public circulated widely on social media and in news reports. One notable video captured ICE agents violently pulling Bangladeshi American Aliyah Rahman from her vehicle as she told the officers she was disabled, according to her testimony before lawmakers on Capitol Hill in February. 

Other high-profile arrests have occurred across the country, including in Nashville, Tennessee, where ICE agents arrested the 35-year-old journalist, Estefany Rodriguez Florez, despite her pending asylum application. Florez and her husband, a U.S. citizen, had just dropped their 7-year-old child at school before the arrest. 

Bigger crowds 

Crowds at the Washington, D.C., No Kings march noticeably were larger compared to October’s march. Rallygoers carried signs protesting Trump’s mass deportation campaign, increases in health care costs and the administration’s heavy redactions of the Epstein files.

A speaker rallying the crowd at the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge urged participants to vote in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

“Let’s get our march on, let’s fight,” he said.

Across the country, messages against Trump’s monthlong war in Iran also featured prominently. The president launched joint operations with Israel on Feb. 28 that has since spread across the Middle East and caused an oil shortage crisis worldwide. 

So far 13 American service members have died, and more than 300 have been injured, including 15 wounded Friday after an attack on a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia.

In the Washington, D.C. march, Robyn Abshire Sims, 52, of Virginia, carried a sign reading “Impeach. Remove. Convict. 25th Amendment Now.”

“I am here to be in solidarity with the masses. They have no idea how many of us there are,” she said. “Donald Trump needs to be removed, right now.”

Ezra Bermudaz, who is in his 40s and lives in northern Virginia, said the administration is “unprofessional” and that it is alienating Americans from their government.

“A real good politician, make us feel like we’re part of it. Right now, it feels like we’re not part of it,” he said. “…  I don’t activate, I’m not a protester, but it really does suck.”

David Landolfi attended the D.C. march dressed in his U.S. Marine fatigues bearing his name. The retired veteran of 26 years deployed with the 2nd Marine Division to Vietnam at the end of the war, and later to Lebanon.

“I wanted all the other people here to know that I was in the military, and the military do support a lot of things that I’m supporting today,” said Landolfi, 72, of Annapolis, Maryland.

“Most military men and women are not in support of war. And that was a promise that (Trump) made, that we wouldn’t be in any more wars. And, well, that’s not happening,” he said.

IN THE CITIES

Beyond the district, protests in other big cities drew large crowds Saturday.

In Chicago, Saturday’s demonstration was larger than previous rounds, which were responses to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Chicago and other Democratic-led cities. Some first-time protesters Saturday said they were motivated by the war in Iran, rising prices and persistent unaffordability, and the current government shutdown that hamstrung airline employees and travelers. 

Many people blamed Trump for their feelings of anxiety and a sense of the country backsliding.

“Never in my 70 years did I think I would still be out here fighting for basic human rights. Or that I’d be fighting to not be ruled by a king,” said Valerie Butler-Newbern, 70.

In New York City, crowds packed Times Square.

Giuseppe Palazzolo said he is a former MAGA supporter who became disillusioned with the Trump administration because of the war with Iran. He said he thinks that it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars and not what the American public wants. The Staten Island man said Trump broke campaign promises that he would not start wars and would bring peace to the Middle East.

 

The White House released a statement ahead of Saturday’s rally criticizing the event and the media. President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday. According to the traveling press, he visited his golf club nearby but made no public statements.

“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in the written statement to media Friday.

IN THE STATES

Minnesota

The Twin Cities rally that included A-list performers was expected to draw 100,000, the Minnesota Reformer reported.

The Minnesota event was a nationwide focus after the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. Minnesota was the site of a plethora of documented violations of civil and constitutional rights, including the deaths of Good and Pretti.

Arkansas

In more rural, Republican-leaning areas, the demonstrations gave some protesters a sense of community.

“It feels almost unreal when you live in a community that is so red, and then you see everyone come together like this,” first-time protester Nadia Washburn of Stuttgart, Arkansas, told the Arkansas Advocate. “It makes you feel like your feelings are valid.”

Michigan

Democratic elected officials took part in several events, including U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib in Detroit. Her emotionally charged speech criticized not only the actions of Trump and ICE but also Democrats who have not done enough to protect the community, the Michigan Advance reported.

Indiana

A rally at the Indiana Capitol attracted lifelong Democrats, former Republicans and independent voters who are disaffected with the two-party system in general and Trump in particular, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

Tennessee

In Nashville, which was the center of an ICE operation last year, several organizers spoke and mostly delivered strong messages against the immigration enforcement agency, the Tennessee Lookout reported.

Kansas

A demonstration in the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County stretched 6 miles down a thoroughfare, the Kansas Reflector reported.

Pennsylvania

In addition to massive rallies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, dozens of smaller demonstrations took place across the commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported.

Several hundred Pennsylvanians gathered in Reading, where ICE is planning to establish a 1,500-bed detention facility.

Nebraska

Many protesters in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, held anti-Trump signs or American flags, while others wore costumes, the Nebraska Examiner reported. Volunteers from different groups gathered signatures for ballot initiatives and at least one candidate.

New Hampshire

Crowds across the Granite State protested the administration and the war in Iran, the New Hampshire Bulletin reported.

Janet Adams, a former middle school science teacher from Woodstock, New Hampshire, said she attended her first rally Saturday because of concern for the young people in her life. At 74, she was frustrated with what she saw as a lack of progress, and cited the Iran war and “hate” in national politics as part of what made her concerned for the futures of her 10 grandchildren.

Iowa

Thousands of Iowans gathered at the state Capitol, protesting against Trump and Iowa Republicans for issues like the war in Iran, ICE action and discrimination against transgender Americans, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

Maine

Many attendees at the Portland, Maine, protest expressed anger at Trump’s ongoing war on Iran, and his deportation efforts — which became much more real for many in Maine during a weeks-long surge in January — as well as the lack of action from Congress to deter him, the Maine Morning Star reported.

South Dakota

About 200 people showed up in South Dakota’s capital city of Pierre, one of a dozen rallies in the small, Republican-led state, including places such as Aberdeen, Vermillion and even White River, a town of just over 500 people, South Dakota Searchlight reported.

Idaho

Many speakers at the protest in Boise localized their frustrations with the Republican-dominated state Legislature over the latest in a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills and years of not changing the state’s strict abortion ban, even as doctors have left the state, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

North Carolina

Opposition to the Trump administration’s use of military force in Iran and Venezuela and threats against Cuba and Greenland dominated the protest, which lasted around three hours and blocked off traffic in downtown Durham, North Carolina, for much of the morning, NC Newsline reported.

West Virginia

A sea of protesters holding signs and American flags filled the space in front of the state Capitol in Charleston. They lined both sides of the street and chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.” Some drivers honked their support as they passed by, West Virginia Watch reported. 

Illinois

A month after the death of prominent Chicagoan and civil right leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, a rainbow coalition of protesters — angered by the Trump administration’s policies and actions — flooded into Chicago’s Grant Park.

Kathy Tholin, chair of Indivisible Chicago, a progressive group that has been one of the chief organizers of the Chicago events, said the energy at the demonstrations needs to translate to votes at the midterms.

“The midterms are not just critically important to sending a message to those in power. But it’s one of the ways that we can actually get something done,” Tholin said. “We’re all building to that and voters are seeing that. There’s an election going on almost every month, and those elections show that people are coming out and tuning in.”

But not everyone who was in Grant Park Saturday is at odds with the Trump administration. Paul Chavez of Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he is a proud lifelong Democrat who “no matter what” he supports the president.

Chavez, a 57-year-old TSA employee, said people should unite around the unpaid airport workers at jam-packed hubs across the country. Funding TSA is the most nonpartisan thing that people can advocate for at the rallies, he said.

South Carolina

At the top of protesters’ minds in Columbia, South Carolina, were the war in Iran, the files released detailing the activities of Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges, and voting rights, especially with the proposal of the SAVE Act, which would create photo ID requirements nationwide for voters to prove they’re citizens, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore, who is being sued by the Trump administration for refusing to turn over the state’s voter rolls, defended that move to a crowd of about 20,000 in Providence, the Rhode Island Current reported.

Oregon

An estimated 30,000 people — down from the 40,000 who turned out in Portland for the second No Kings protest in October — were in downtown Portland on Saturday. More protests, not affiliated with No Kings, were expected later in the evening near the ICE facility south of downtown, the Oregon Capital Chronicle  reported.

Florida

No Kings marches attracted crowds even in conservative areas of the Sunshine State, the Florida Phoenix reported. The crowds appeared in cities with strong military presences like Pensacola and Jacksonville, and even deep-red Polk County, where Trump won by 21 points in the 2024 presidential election, saw an enthusiastic crowd of at least 2,000 people at Freedom Park in downtown Lakeland.

Montana 

Following weeks of uncertainty as to whether the state would allow another large No Kings rally on the Montana Capitol steps, more than 1,000 people stood on the lawn as they protested what they said is creeping authoritarianism in the United States, the Daily Montanan reported. Event organizers scrambled as the state Department of Administration went back-and-forth on a blanket ban of weekend events at the Capitol that was eventually nixed after pressure from legislators and the public.

Alabama

Many protesters in cities and towns throughout Alabama cited Trump’s immigration policies and ICE’s detaining and deporting large numbers of people, the Alabama Reflector reported. Others expressed concerns about cuts to social safety net programs that were codified under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed last year. The legislation imposed about $186 billion in funding cuts over the next decade to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program meant to aid people by providing food.

Washington

Many of the thousands gathered in Olympia, Washington, waved signs touting a number of criticisms against the Trump administration: unlawful immigration enforcement, the war with Iran, the president’s appearance in the Epstein files, the death of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of immigration agents and anti-trans legislation, the Washington State Standard reported. 

Fewer than 100 gathered at a counterprotest against Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson and a new income tax on those who earn more than $1 million.

New York

Smokey Sims of the Bronx said the protest “proves that America is tired of Trump’s stuff.”

Palazzolo, the former MAGA supporter from Staten Island, who became disillusioned with the Trump administration because of the war with Iran, said Trump had had gotten the country “knee-deep in this illegal war.”

He hasn’t found the congressional approval,” he said. “We’re further from peace and closer to catastrophe than ever before. I feel so betrayed.”

New Jersey

Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill appeared briefly at a rally in Princeton, N.J., the New Jersey Monitor reported. Trump’s immigration crackdown was top of mind for many protesters, with Saturday’s demonstrations coming just three days after Sherrill signed three new laws to strengthen protections for immigrants in the state and six weeks after she limited immigration enforcement operations on state property.

Kentucky

Jefferson County, Kentucky, Clerk David Yates, a Democrat who in March intervened in a federal lawsuit in hopes of blocking the U.S. Department of Justice from gaining access to Kentuckians’ sensitive voter data, told a Louisville crowd: “I will not be bullied; I will not be intimidated,” the Kentucky Lantern reported. 

Stateline reporters Robbie Sequeira and Shalina Chatlani contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators debated Wednesday whether the federal government should change how Americans register to vote and cast a ballot, with Republicans maintaining alterations are necessary to safeguard elections and Democrats arguing a new law would add unnecessary obstacles.

Tensions over the issue were on full display when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said GOP lawmakers describing the bill as a simple voter identification requirement is “bullshit,” shortly before Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee contended it would be “a suicidal move” for his party’s leaders not to find a way forward. 

The legislation, dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, is unlikely to become law without bipartisan backing from at least 60 senators, who would be needed to move past a procedural vote. 

Democrats are not expected to help Republicans with that, especially after Schumer called the legislation “Jim Crow 2.0” and “evil” during a morning press conference with voting rights advocates. 

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said during that event GOP lawmakers are acting out of concern they will lose control of Congress following the November midterm elections, due to President Donald Trump’s actions during his second term.  

“The American people have had it with him and with his policies,” Warnock said. “He ran as someone who was going to lower costs, who was going to stay out of endless wars in the Middle East and he is failing. But instead of changing his policies, he’s trying to change the shape of the electorate.”

Problems with lack of birth certificate

New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján said if the bill becomes law, it would create difficulties for anyone who doesn’t have access to their birth certificate or a passport, to prove U.S. citizenship when they try to register to vote. 

“What about my Native American brothers and sisters?” he said. “All my brothers and sisters from the First Nations that I’m proud to represent across New Mexico, who may have been born in their home generationally with other family members. They didn’t have a birth certificate.”

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said GOP lawmakers trying to change the voting process during an election year creates a pattern when combined with several Republican state legislatures redrawing U.S. House maps to benefit their candidates. 

“We see this being about having politicians choose the voters instead of voters choosing the politicians,” he said. 

Several Democratic state legislatures have responded to GOP redistricting efforts by redrawing their maps as well. 

Schumer, D-N.Y., said it’s unacceptable that Republicans want every state in the country to submit a list of registered voters to the Department of Homeland Security to run through a database, which he believes is flawed. 

“They’re trying to dupe America. They say, ‘Oh, this is just a voter ID law.’ Bullshit. It is not a voter ID law,” Schumer said. “It is a law that will kick millions of Americans off the voting rolls.”

‘Debate this as long as it takes to get it done’

Utah’s Lee said Republican leaders shouldn’t schedule the procedural vote that requires at least 60 senators to end debate on the bill until they have found some way to move past that step.  

“I think it would be a suicidal move for us as Senate Republicans, for Republicans in general, if we don’t put everything we’ve got into this,” he said. “I think we need to debate this as long as it takes to get it done. And if we’re not there yet, we need to continue debating.”

Lee contended that prolonged debate on the bill would give Republicans time to sway holdouts to their side. 

“This is going to become popular enough that a lot of our colleagues who currently oppose it, I believe, will start to get on board,” he said. 

Every Senate Democrat, along with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, voted against formally beginning debate on Tuesday. North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis didn’t vote.

Trump wants national limits on voting by mail

Senate debate on the bill dragging out in the days or possibly weeks ahead won’t be confined to what’s currently in the legislation, which the House passed last month.

Trump has asked senators to make three alterations, which they will attempt to incorporate through amendments. 

Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said he plans to call for a vote to add nationwide restrictions on mail-in voting instead of leaving the issue to state governments. 

“If you have a hardship because of a disability, or an illness, or because of travel, or you’re a caregiver, or some other hardship the state can identify, you can vote by absentee,” he said. “You have to request it. Then you can vote by absentee.”

Schmitt said the carve-out would also include members of the military. 

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn said she plans to call up an amendment that could create a nationwide prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth. 

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, she said, would push for an amendment to block transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

Public concern about rising costs is fueling hopes for a blue wave in the November midterm elections, as well as Democratic wins in Wisconsin that could deliver trifecta control of the Legislature, governor’s mansion and state Supreme Court.

But even if the would-be autocrat in the White House does not find a way to disrupt the midterms, the rise of affordability as the dominant public issue is a both blessing and a trap. The intense focus on micro (household) economics neglects a bigger battle Democrats must fight. 

It’s dangerous to make too narrow a response to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian threat. Democracy is menaced on two fronts: first the immediate attack on its institutional bedrocks — fair elections, equal justice, constitutional checks and balances — and second by the underlying cause of the civic emergency: a profound crisis in legitimacy arising from a chronic failure of government to deliver on the most pressing problems affecting peoples’ lives and futures. 

The long-term failures of the U.S. government to promote and protect a decent life for most people have  produced combustible political kindling, exploited by an authoritarian movement and its charismatic leader, to seize power  and ignite the most profound crisis in democracy since the darkest days of the Great Depression.

Thousands of our neighbors in Minnesota and Illinois, thrust into the first front of the struggle, are responding with courage and discipline. They are demonstrating the power of organized people and civil society groups with active members, aided by the elected officials they inspire to action, to hold the line for democracy. Grassroots defenders of democracy must continue to peacefully resist every authoritarian offensive, but if we fail to also address the underlying drivers of the crisis, victory will be fleeting.

Wisconsin’s crucial role

As a state that will determine the outcome of the 2028 presidential election, Wisconsin may be fated to play its most important role on the second front: the challenge of demonstrating that democracy is up to the task of meeting the challenges of 21st century life. To meet this charge we must come to terms with the depth of public discontent that has opened millions to the scapegoating rhetoric of authoritarian demagogues while demoralizing and disengaging still more who have come to believe, through embittering experience, they have no stake in democracy.

The affordability crisis is not transitory, it is a symptom of a long-term decoupling of the general economy, and democratic government itself, from the bread-and-butter worries of working people. The widespread realization that the economy is stacked against most people casts a pall over American politics. According to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, two-thirds of respondents believe the middle class is beyond the reach of most Americans. 

Until the late 1970s, majorities of voters could believe that a thriving economy would benefit them personally, and that most had a pathway to the middle class. There were glaring inequalities along racial, gender and geographic lines, yet for millions of working class people, including immigrants from around the globe and Black refugees from the Jim Crow South, macro and micro economics were conjoined.

After 50 years of economic rigging orchestrated by the ultra wealthy, the most rapacious corporations, and pliant politicians from both parties, this faith has been dashed. While lacking the suddenness of the 1929 crash, the cumulative effect is like a slow motion slide towards depression for the working and middle classes. In the richest country on Earth a stunning 60% of Americans worry about affording the basics of life, while in Wisconsin 35% of all households, and 60% of Black households, make less than a survival income.

This is no accident. As Harold Meyerson details in The American Prospect, through a half century of deliberate policy choices most of the benefits of growth have been funneled to the privileged few, resulting in a $79 trillion shift in assets to the top. If national income were distributed now as equally as in 1975, each wage earner would make an astounding $28,000 more per year on average. Combined with the deliberate encouragement of massive corporate monopolies with the power to jack up prices, this immiseration is pushing people to  a breaking point, making affording health care, housing, energy, food and education more and more challenging for the less than rich.

Despite its effectiveness in abetting the largest wealth transfer in history, government at all levels has been rendered stunningly inept when it comes to public works, social policy, and almost everything else that benefits the working and middle classes. 

A parallel crisis in the 1930s

In the New Deal economic order, there seemed to be nothing the government could not accomplish, from the work programs of the 1930s, to the economic mobilization against fascism, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the moon mission. Now everything from high speed rail to rural broadband, affordable housing, health care, child care, public education and cheap, renewable energy is tied up in knots.

While much of the blame can be placed on  the deliberate sabotage of government by an unholy alliance of grasping billionaires, big corporations, and right wing ideologues, a growing chorus of social critics also point the finger at a major shift in liberalism in the 1960s and 1970s. Recent books by Paul Sabin, Marc Dunkelman, Richard Kahenberg, Yoni Appelbaum, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and to significant degrees Bill McKibben and Gary Gerstle, make parts of a compelling case that the reaction against abuses of administrative power provoked liberals to overcorrect by creating so many regulatory and legal hurdles that government struggles to get anything big done that benefits the working and middle classes.

Further tarnishing public trust, this impotence does not apply to oligarchic power. The only force with the political and economic resources to cut through all the landmines and bottlenecks to bold action are the giant corporate monopolies, as we are seeing with the reckless buildout of highly unpopular AI data centers without guardrails to protect the public interest in affordable energy, clean air, and the stability of the climate on which we all depend.

The most useful historical analogy to our perilous situation is what Franklin Roosevelt confronted after Herbert Hoover’s futility in responding to the calamity brought on by that era’s economic royalists. Jonathan Alter and Eric Rauchway show that top opinion leaders of the era such as Walter Lippmann and William Randolph Hearst believed democracy too paralyzed to succeed, and openly advocated for Roosevelt to suspend Congress and assume dictatorial powers. 

Roosevelt was reportedly quite taken with the movie Gabriel Over the White House, a Hearst-funded production about a president seizing dictatorial power and curing the Great Depression. Ultimately, Roosevelt refused to take this path, although he fretted that failure would make him the last president. Democracy’s last near death experience in the 1930s has passed from collective memory only because Roosevelt did not fail. 

Drawing on reforms developed over three decades of progressive and labor organizing, Roosevelt amassed sufficient power to take radical action within the constitutional order to restructure and democratize the economy. Despite atrocious racial discrimination baked in by segregationist Democrats, the reforms tangibly improved material circumstances enough to restore the public’s belief that democracy could deliver. Despite receiving only half a loaf, even Black voters defected from the GOP in droves.

A difference between 1933 and 2026 is that authoritarians had not yet seized power, and despite sharp policy disagreements, Hoover and Roosevelt were committed to democratic norms. Today’s political crisis, like the crisis of the 1930s, is driven by economic elites capturing public policy and destroying democracy’s capacity to deliver what people need to thrive.

Divided Democrats

Within the big tent of the current pro-democracy coalition there is a comparable division to that of Roosevelt’s time on the necessity of structural reform. The division is even more dangerous now, in the face of an actual authoritarian takeover. This fissure is exemplified by the vast gulf between two of the most successful “blue wave” candidates of 2025: New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani, and Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who gave the Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union. 

Spanberger’s affordability agenda focuses on the cost of health care, housing, and utilities. Although strongly messaged, substantively she offers a series of opaque technocratic fixes and small bore policies that will not shift pricing power away from monopolies, nor raise the incomes of workers. For example, she nibbles around the edges of health care, yet keeps the foxes in the henhouse, leaving hospital monopolies, big insurance and Big Pharma in control of setting grossly inflated prices.

This contrasts sharply with Mamdani, who offers remarkably clear and understandable solutions — a rent freeze, fast free buses, a $30 minimum wage, free universal child care, paid for with a wealth tax — which would make one of the world’s most expensive cities more affordable for working and middle class New Yorkers. While Mamdani’s agenda is challenging to achieve in a system stacked against bold action, in contrast to Spanberger’s suite of solution-ettes, its clarity means voters can fulfil their democratic role by holding either the mayor or those who block his agenda accountable.

This divide among Democrats does not necessarily map on a left to center axis but on whether the affordability crisis requires small adjustments to an otherwise healthy system or structural reform that democratizes power and tangibly improves material circumstances. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), the co-chair of the centrist Blue Dog Democrats, declares: “You do not save democracy by running around, yelling about saving democracy. You do it by demonstrating that democracy and Democratic values deliver better quality of life for normal people.”

Springing the affordability trap

Donald Trump is feeling the brunt of public outrage for his false sales pitches on affordability. If he actually had a program to lower prices and raise wages he would have built greater support for his authoritarian project. We may not be so fortunate if a more effective autocrat is elected in 2028.

This is why affordability is a trap for Democrats: winning elections on empty promises will only deepen the crisis in democracy, setting the table for future authoritarians. Josh Bivens writes for In These Times that creating a more equal and affordable economy requires a “sharp change” in the “policy path” of the last half century.

The only solution to the ails of democracy is deeper and more robust democracy. As I wrote in the Wisconsin Examiner after Gov. Evers ignored public pressure to fight for a better state budget, the future of multiracial democracy does not depend on elected officials alone. It depends on more people organizing effectively to push them towards compelling and forceful action. Movements make leaders, not the other way around. 

We have already seen this happen on the first front of the fight to save democracy. Democratic leadership in Congress is fighting harder and using the power they have to more assertively check Trump’s lawless usurpations only because of immense pressure from organized people and everyday Americans. We must now apply this same pressure to demand that candidates and electeds fight to transform the rigged economy and ossified governing structures stacked against effective action. 

Because of Wisconsin’s enormous influence in presidential elections, we have a special obligation to light a fire under Democratic candidates for the Legislature and governor in a crowded primary field. We need more people to push the candidates, and more to join with organizing groups that are working to impel them to fight for bold and impactful reforms that a beleaguered and disillusioned people will feel in their daily lives. How Wisconsin Democrats run in 2026, and especially how they govern in 2027, will have a tremendous influence on how presidential contenders run in 2028, a year that could be democracy’s last best hope.

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WASHINGTON — Some congressional Democrats boycotted President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, opting to attend counter-programming to protest the administration’s actions.

Lawmakers took to alternative stages in Washington, D.C., in rebukes of what they see as Trump’s lack of regard for constitutional norms, immigration enforcement tactics and response to the affordability crisis hitting American families.  

“Our democracy is wilting under ceaseless attack from a president who wants to be a despot,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut at the “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall.

“Millions of Americans are losing their health care because the president has chosen corruption to pad the pockets of his billionaire friends instead of helping average Americans,” said Murphy, who serves as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. 

The rally, hosted by progressive media company MeidasTouch and progressive advocacy group MoveOn, countered the president’s address to Congress. Lawmakers brought their own guests to the event, who rebuffed ongoing actions by the administration. 

Tuesday night also featured the “State of the Swamp” at the National Press Club, hosted by DEFIANCE.org, a resistance effort against Trump; the Portland Frog Brigade, a coalition of “artist-activists” and COURIER, an advocacy media network. 

The “State of the Swamp” event brought in several Democratic lawmakers, former Trump administration officials, current and former Democratic state leaders, as well as leading voices against the administration. 

‘A lawless president’

Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, described the State of the Union as a “state of denial” during the event on the National Mall. 

“What’s going to happen under that Capitol is a bunch of lies — lies that Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to tell us about how great this country is doing right now,” he said. “But what is true, what is happening right now, is that Donald Trump and the Republicans have made this country sicker, poorer and less secure.”

Democratic lawmakers continued to blast the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Those criticisms grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis. 

The Department of Homeland Security is shut down as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“Now we know the state of our union,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat. “We know it is under attack from a lawless president who is shredding our Constitution and who is attacking our democracy — a president whose private (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) army executes Americans and then calls the victims domestic terrorists.” 

Epstein files

Democrats also lambasted the administration’s handling of the files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which faced criticism for its piecemeal rollout of the files and heavy redactions. 

Several Democratic lawmakers invited survivors of Epstein as their guests to Trump’s State of the Union address. 

“We should be crystal clear about right now what is happening in our country,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, during the rally on the National Mall. 

“We have a president who is leading the single largest government cover-up in modern history — we have the single largest sex trafficking ring in modern history right now being covered up by Donald Trump and (Attorney General) Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice,” Garcia said. 

Trump, who has appeared in several of the files, had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, but has maintained he had a falling-out with the disgraced financier and was never involved in any alleged crimes.

U.S. Sen Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat, will register a protest of President Donald Trump’s attempt to exert more control over election infrastructure by bringing her state’s secretary of state, Steve Hobbs, as her guest to the State of the Union Tuesday evening.

Trump has pressured senators to approve a House-passed bill that would require the public to produce a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, involve the federal Department of Homeland Security in elections and disallow universal vote-by-mail that is popular in Washington, Oregon and other states.

Members of Congress often bring guests to the State of the Union to spotlight particular issues and Democrats this year are raising a host of objections to the president’s tariffs program and his immigration crackdown — including a weekslong operation in Minneapolis that resulted in two U.S. citizens’ deaths at the hands of immigration agents — and other issues.

Cantwell told States Newsroom in a phone interview hours before Trump’s address was set to begin that changing election infrastructure could have more long term effects on U.S. democracy than other Trump policies.

“I’m not saying that the tariff issue didn’t have an impact,” Cantwell said. “I’m not saying it’s not horrific that you killed two American citizens who were just trying to express their rights to free speech. But you could upend a lot by changing our election system overnight. I don’t know how you recover from that immediately.”

The Republican bill would amount to nationalizing elections, a contradiction of the Constitution’s provision that states administer elections, Cantwell and Hobbs said.

The framers of the Constitution gave that power to states to protect against the executive branch overreaching, Hobbs said.

The bill would violate that idea, Cantwell said.

“We would be basically saying, ‘It’s okay for a federal leader … and their agency, Homeland Security, to mess around and determine who’s eligible to vote,” Cantwell said. “The reason the separation of powers exist is … so that you didn’t have that federal control, so that people did have faith that they weren’t being manipulated by the federal power.”

The GOP’s championing of the bill follows President Donald Trump’s comments advocating to nationalize elections, a mid-decade campaign to redraw state congressional districts in Republicans’ favor and more than two dozen Department of Justice lawsuits demanding Democratic-led states turn over unredacted voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security.

Senate rules at risk?

Cantwell’s worries about the bill, known as the SAVE Act, have grown after seeing Trump’s pressure campaign on Republicans, as well as a recent sign of support for the bill from moderate Republican Susan Collins of Maine and comments from the bill’s Senate sponsor, Mike Lee of Utah, about adjusting the chamber’s rules to ensure the bill’s passage.

And Cantwell said she expects Trump to mention the issue during Tuesday’s address.

Under Senate rules and tradition, 60 of the 100 senators must approve a procedural vote to move to final passage of nearly all legislation. With Republicans holding 53 seats, that means bills must have bipartisan support to pass the chamber. 

Lee has said he wanted to tweak Senate rules so that opponents of a bill would have to continuously speak on the floor to block consideration of a bill that would otherwise have the support to pass.

Cantwell said she and Hobbs would seek out opportunities Tuesday evening to bring Republicans to their side of the issue.

“He and I got a busy night tonight,” she said. “We gotta go buttonhole a bunch of Republican senators.”

Noncitizens and voting

Republican supporters of the bill say it will enhance election security and ensure that noncitizens do not vote in U.S. elections.

But noncitizens are already barred from federal elections and instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare, even in studies by conservative groups.

And the bill presents several provisions that could reduce voter participation, Cantwell and Hobbs said. 

Many Americans do not have a passport or easy access to their birth certificate. Nearly 70 million married women have changed their names, creating an additional barrier to voter registration.

“I don’t think they’re thinking about these things,” Hobbs said.

The bill would also imperil Washington’s universal vote-by-mail system in which every voter is sent a ballot that can be returned through the mail. 

Vote by mail “has nothing to do with partisanship,” Hobbs said. “It’s about convenience of the voter to be able to take the time to choose the people they want to choose. It’s about security, it’s about transparency, it’s not partisanship.”

The system, which for years was popular among Republicans and Democrats for its convenience, became a partisan issue when Trump partially blamed his 2020 election loss on the mail-in voting increase put in place during that COVID-era election.

“We’re here to evangelize that this system has enfranchised people to vote more and have a higher turnout, which is what our goal should be,” Cantwell said Tuesday. “That’s why the League of Women Voters are on our side in this debate and against the SAVE Act, because the whole goal is to have a more participatory government and vote by mail is delivering that.”

WASHINGTON — Five days after federal immigration enforcement agents killed the second of his constituents, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a message for his peers: Speak out.

“Mayors, we do not back down to bullies. We stand up for democracy,” Frey said in a speech last month in Washington, D.C., at a gathering of hundreds of mayors from around the country.

Frey left the U.S. Conference of Mayors and rode to Capitol Hill to meet members of Congress, and five days after that, President Donald Trump said that he’d pull 700 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of Minneapolis. Some 2,300 would remain.

Frey, a liberal mayor governing a predominantly liberal city, illustrated his way of responding to Trump’s increasing encroachment into city limits and city business, and he urged that way — public, loud, strong — for others too.

But his path isn’t the right one for all mayors, who hold mostly nonpartisan jobs in an increasingly hyper-partisan political environment. Their jobs are primarily to pick up trash, fill potholes and keep people safe. While some view confrontation with the White House as the right approach, others are opting for accommodation — or just keeping their heads down.

Cities rely on federal money, and Trump has made it clear that more ICE agents and fewer federal dollars will flow to cities that don’t respond to his requests.

Plainfield, New Jersey, Mayor Adrian Mapp, the son of immigrants, said in an interview at the conference that some disagreements with the federal government, such as those over immigration raids, can feel like a personal and political battle. Residents expect their mayor to fight for them, he said, especially against unpopular policies or federal overreach.

“There is a sense in our community that this is what people want from their mayor — to know we’re standing up, putting resources together and doing everything we can to support those who are affected,” Mapp said.

Boots on the ground

Chris Jensen, a two-term mayor of Noblesville, Indiana, told Stateline that city leaders are often insulated from Washington’s partisan battles, and that unless those issues get local, they’re not worth engaging in.

“Mayors don’t get to go on cable news and just repeat talking points,” Jensen said. “We have to do the work every single day. Snow has to be plowed. Roads have to be built. Trash has to be picked up. That’s not partisan, that’s just governing.”

A registered Republican who used to work for former Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, Jensen said mayors must embrace bipartisanship so they can get resources for their constituents. And federal leaders, he added, could better utilize mayors by asking them for on-the-ground data and feedback from their constituents.

“We’re the boots on the ground,” Jensen said. “If you want to talk about housing, we know how many permits we pulled. If you want to talk about mental health, we know how many crisis calls we ran. Rely on us and get out of the way when we need to move faster.”

At last month’s conference, several mayors described tensions with the Trump administration — often not naming the president directly — as having intensified in recent months, particularly around immigration enforcement, federal deployment of National Guard troops and threats of revoked federal funding.

Much of Trump’s ire, they pointed out, has been aimed at big cities with large Democratic populations. The African American Mayors Association has noted that the cities Trump has decried as lawless and in need of National Guard troops — Chicago; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tennessee; Oakland, California; and Washington — are all led by Black mayors. All have seen significant declines in violent crime.

Trump has also threatened to send troops to New Orleans, despite its falling crime rate. Mayor Helena Moreno, who took office in January, was among the mayors visiting Washington. She told constituents in an Instagram message that she grabbed a moment with Trump at another event — and worked to shift his attention to other city needs.

“I thought it was very important for the president to hear directly from me on what the city of New Orleans actually needs from the federal government,” she said in the video. The city’s homicide rate is at its lowest in 50 years, she said, and she told Trump of the city’s infrastructure needs.

“I think he was receptive,” Moreno told constituents. “I’ve always said this: That even though I might not be politically aligned with someone, that if they are in a position of power, and have the ability to help the city of New Orleans, then I want to make sure that our needs are being told … so that we can figure out if there’s a path to being able to work together.”

Pushing back

Trump had told mayors that if they didn’t agree to drop sanctuary status, which bars local police agencies from working with ICE on immigration enforcement, their federal dollars would be cut off Feb. 1.

When the funding threats from the president didn’t materialize, newly sworn-in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration “will continue to stand up for the city” against efforts to restrict federal funding for cities based on politics and ideology.

But Mamdani, like other mayors, has looked for ways to connect with the president, meeting with Trump in the Oval Office shortly after his election last fall.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Browser, who finishes her third term next year, has said that whoever succeeds her in office will have an especially tricky job, because of the city’s unique circumstances — the federal government can overrule local laws.

Bowser pushed back strongly against Trump in his first term, but has been more pragmatic in his second term — looking for common ground over his National Guard deployment, accelerating homeless encampment sweeps and erasing a block-long “Black Lives Matter” mural that had been painted onto the street as protest in front of the White House. At the same time, Bowser has warned that such measures could limit city autonomy.

Similarly, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie persuaded Trump in a phone call last fall to hold off on surging immigration agents to the city, telling the president that the city was doing well. Trump told reporters he was giving San Francisco a chance.

But sustained pushback may have been what led to the scaling back of ICE operations in Minneapolis.

Portland, Oregon, Mayor Keith Wilson has been hoping for a similar reduction in immigration enforcement in his city as he calls for ICE officers to leave the city.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who noted at the conference that mayors are facing “headwinds” at the federal level when it comes to funding, recently joined regional mayors to announce a slew of accountability measures for ICE officers.

Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor James Solomon are both advocating for state lawmakers to pass legislation limiting how much state officials and local police can cooperate with ICE agents.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order to expand the city’s investigation into possible misconduct by ICE officers.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said during a panel session at the mayors conference that the administration’s use of partisan politics — and the scope of the federal government’s powers — has profoundly changed the job for mayors.

“It’s absolutely affecting trust at every level,” he said.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

FBI agents load boxes of election documents onto trucks at an elections warehouse in Fulton County, Ga. State and local election officials are bracing for the prospect of federal action after President Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

President Donald Trump’s calls this week to “nationalize” elections capped a year of efforts by his administration to exercise authority over state-run elections. The demands now have some state and local election officials fearing — and preparing for — a tumultuous year ahead.

“I don’t think we can put anything past this administration,” Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read told Stateline in an interview. “I think they’re increasingly desperate, increasingly scared about what’s going to happen when they are held accountable by American voters. So we have to be prepared for everything.”

Ever since Trump signed an executive order last March that attempted to impose a requirement that voters prove their citizenship in federal elections, the federal government has engaged in a wide-ranging effort to influence how elections are run. Under the U.S. Constitution, that responsibility belongs to the states.

Then came Trump’s remarks on a podcast Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections and take over voting in at least 15 places, though he didn’t specify where. In the Oval Office the next day, the president reaffirmed his view that states are “agents” of the federal government in elections.

“I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, despite the Constitution’s clear delegation of that job to states.

Across the country, election officials are watching recent developments and, in some instances, grappling with how the Trump administration’s moves could affect their preparations for November’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. Local election officials say they are considering how they would respond to the presence of federal law enforcement near polling places and what steps they need to take to ensure voting proceeds smoothly.

Several Democratic election officials, and some Republicans, have spoken out. Placing voting under control of the federal government would represent a fundamental violation of the Constitution, they note.

The U.S. Constitution authorizes states to set the time, place and manner of elections for Congress but also allows Congress to change those regulations. The elections themselves are run by the states.

“Oh, hell no,” Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a video statement posted to social media about federalizing elections. Bellows, who is running for governor, said she would mail the White House a pocket Constitution, “because it seems they’ve lost their copy.”

The U.S. Department of Justice already has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia to obtain unredacted voter rolls that include sensitive personal information that it says is needed to search for noncitizen voters. The Department of Homeland Security wants states to run their voter rolls through a powerful citizenship verification tool. Those opposed to the demand say sharing the data risks the privacy of millions of voters. Many fear the administration could use the information to disqualify eligible voters, challenge the legitimacy of a victory in a closely contested midterm election, or use the information to target political enemies.

In recent weeks, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the presence of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in part to Minnesota’s refusal to turn over its voter rolls. And the FBI seized ballots from an elections warehouse Fulton County, Georgia — a state that was a central focus of Trump’s push to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“I think it does affect our planning as far as, what if there is some sort of federal law enforcement presence on Election Day or before or after? So that definitely factors into our planning,” said Scott McDonell, the Democratic clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, which includes Madison.

Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat running for secretary of state, said she and other election administrators conduct tabletop exercises and keep emergency plans for numerous scenarios. Those used to focus on floods, power outages and cyberattacks.

“Now, unfortunately, it’s turning into the president of the United States meddling in elections,” Byrum said. “We will be prepared. Voters will hopefully not see anything different at their polling locations. … But we need to be diligent.”

Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the election security nonprofit Verified Voting, said election officials and their lawyers need to study up on laws and regulations, including chain-of-custody requirements for ballots.

David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, which operates the Election Official Legal Defense Network, said more than 10,000 lawyers have been recruited who are ready to provide pro bono legal assistance or advice to election officials.

Trump doubles down on calling for the feds to take over state elections

When Stateline asked Read whether he anticipates Oregon facing federal pressure over its voter rolls, the secretary of state said he was set to meet this week with county clerks in the Portland metro area “to talk about that very question.” Read’s office later confirmed the meeting took place.

Oregon’s largest city, Portland, has been a focus of the Trump administration. Last year, Trump deployed federalized Oregon National Guard members to the city after protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. And federal agents last month shot two people in a hospital parking lot. Portland is a self-described sanctuary city that does not aid the federal government in immigration enforcement.

The concern in Oregon comes after Bondi on Jan. 24 sent a letter to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz after federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in separate shootings in Minneapolis that were captured on video.

Bondi’s letter outlined three “common sense solutions” that would help end the “chaos” in Minnesota, she wrote. One of those solutions called for the state to provide the Justice Department with its full, unredacted voter rolls.

Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon has called Bondi’s letter an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota” into handing over the data. Simon hasn’t provided the voter list, but White House border czar Tom Homan is pulling 700 immigration agents from Minnesota amid outrage over their presence. Roughly 2,300 agents will remain in the state.

In North Carolina, Durham County Director of Elections Derek Bowens called Trump’s rhetoric and recent federal actions concerning. Bowens, a nonpartisan official appointed by the Durham County Board of Elections, said that as long as the rule of law persists, a “constitutional guard” will protect election administration.

Still, Bowens, who oversees elections in a largely Democratic area in a presidential swing state, said he and other local officials are preparing to prevent potential “intrusion” into the process.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge what that would be in terms of security protocols, but that’s definitely in the forefronts of our minds,” Bowens said in an interview, adding that he would be working with local emergency services officials “to make sure we’re positioned to ensure everyone that is eligible has unfettered access to the ballot box.”

Trump wants federal control

Trump appears to be crossing a line from urging Congress to set additional election requirements into wanting the federal government’s hands on states’ election administration infrastructure, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Elections Research Center at the university.

“That would be brand new,” Burden said.

After Trump called for nationalizing elections during Monday’s appearance on the podcast of Dan Bongino, a right-wing media personality who was previously a top FBI official, the White House said Tuesday that the president had been referring to legislation in Congress that would require individuals to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The bill has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate.

But Trump late Tuesday doubled down on his original comments during an unrelated bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office. He suggested the federal government should take a role in vote counting.

“The federal government should get involved,” Trump said. “These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Even before Trump’s nationalization comments, Democratic state chief election officials and some Republicans had refused to turn over copies of voter rolls containing driver’s license numbers, date of birth and full or partial Social Security numbers after the Justice Department began demanding the data last spring.

Federal judges in California and Oregon have ruled those states don’t have to provide the data; numerous other lawsuits against other states are ongoing.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Trump-supporting Republican who campaigned for office on calls to hand-count ballots, told a Missouri House committee on Tuesday that he wouldn’t provide the state’s full voter list without a court order. He said his office had only shared a public version of the voter rolls; Missouri hasn’t been sued by the Justice Department.

The Trump administration has previously confirmed it is sharing records with Homeland Security, which operates an online program that it uses to verify citizenship. The Justice Department has also offered some states a confidential agreement to search their voter lists.

“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a statement to Stateline.

“The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

But U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a Jan. 15 decision that the voter roll demands risk a chilling effect on Americans who may opt not to register to vote over concerns about how their information could be used. He dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking California’s voter rolls.

“The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left. The case before the Court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans,” Carter wrote in a 33-page decision.

Some Republicans oppose nationalization

Amid Trump’s call for nationalizing elections, some Republican election officials have broken with the president even as they have avoided criticizing him directly. State control has long been a central tenant of conservatism, though Trump has challenged elements of Republican orthodoxy over the past decade.

Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, told state lawmakers on Tuesday, “I personally don’t believe we should nationalize elections.”

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a news release on Monday urged lawmakers to focus on strengthening state administration of elections. He said that was better than “moving to federalize a core function of state government.”

Raffensperger, who is running for governor this year, was famously targeted by Trump following the 2020 election to overturn his loss in Georgia. In a phone call, Trump told Raffensperger he wanted to “find 11,780 votes” — the size of his loss in the state. Raffensperger refused to aid Trump.

Five years later, Raffensperger now faces pressure from Georgia state lawmakers to provide the state’s unredacted voter list to the Justice Department. The Georgia Senate on Monday passed a resolution calling on the secretary of state to fully comply with the department’s request.

Georgia Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson, the resolution’s lead sponsor, said during a state Senate committee hearing last month that federal law supersedes limits on data sharing in Georgia law. He didn’t respond to an interview request.

In a statement to Stateline, Raffensperger said that state law is “very clear” that officials aren’t allowed to turn over the information. “I will always follow the law and the Constitution,” Raffensperger wrote.

The Georgia Senate vote came less than a week after the FBI searched the Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots. Fulton County, which includes much of the Atlanta metro area, was where Trump was indicted on charges of conspiracy and racketeering related to his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. The case was dismissed last year.

The Justice Department didn’t answer a question from Stateline about whether it plans to seek search warrants for other election offices.

On Wednesday, Fulton County filed a motion in federal court demanding the return of the seized ballots and other materials, Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts, a Democrat, said at a news conference. The motion also asks for the unsealing of the affidavit used by the FBI to support its search warrant application.

“We will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections,” Pitts said. “Our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight.”

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.