They helped Democrats win back the House in 2018. Now they’re taking on a new mission
CNN
In 2018, Democrats won back the House with the help of dozens of candidates with national security backgrounds who vowed to serve as a check against the first Trump administration. This year two of those candidates – Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill – are taking on a new challenge following President Donald Trump’s return to power: running for governor.
In 2018, Democrats won back the House — ending eight years of Republican control — with the help of dozens of candidates with national security backgrounds who vowed to serve as a check against the first Trump administration. This year, two of those successful candidates — Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill — are taking on a new challenge following President Donald Trump’s return to power: running for governor. As Democrats grapple with how best to improve their diminished standing with voters, the upcoming races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey will serve as crucial tests for the party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s campaigns could offer critical clues to next year’s candidates as they seek to understand the mood of the electorate a year after Trump’s 2024 victory. The two candidates — and former Capitol Hill roommates — are facing vastly different races. Sherrill is one of half a dozen candidates seeking to portray themselves as the Democratic fighter best positioned to take on the eventual Republican nominee and the Trump administration ahead of a June 10 primary. One recent Sherrill ad warns that Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Trump this month, will bring the president’s “MAGA agenda” to the state. The spot highlights Sherrill’s record as a Navy pilot and federal prosecutor and describes her as the Democrat “Republicans fear.” Spanberger — who, like her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, is running unopposed — is directing much of her focus toward criticizing the record of outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The former CIA intelligence officer has hammered Earle-Sears and Youngkin over their response to the Department of Government Efficiency as the Elon Musk-led effort aims to shrink the size of the federal workforce that employs more than 300,000 Virginians.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.