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Column: Bye, bye Eric. Swalwell needs to go
Swalwell needs to drop out of the governor's race and resign from Congress.
Fix, heal and rebuild: Wiener’s plan for Congress
The State Senator asks voters to look at his record when making a choice about who will be their next U.S. Representative.
Christmas Vacation and Congress: 'We're all in misery' amid the ongoing DHS shutdown
Fox News' Chad Pergram discusses Congress' prolonged DHS shutdown and the risky tactics associated with it as political divisions threaten deeper government funding crises.
How we reported on KY's 4th Congressional District, Massie, and Trump
How The Enquirer reported on the Massie-Gallrein race throughout the congressional district.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Ted Yoho backs Paul Renner for Governor
A former Congressman from North Florida backs a former House Speaker in the Governor's race.
For aging Supreme Court justices, the politics of retirement looms large
Discussion among experts about a possible Supreme Court vacancy has increased as two men draw closer to the average age of retirement for Supreme Court justices since 2000 and with the November congressional elections looming.
Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise face a long, difficult to-do list as Congress returns
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise return to Capitol Hill Monday afternoon after a two-week Easter break with a long list of “must
A longshot, upset bid and a few quick takes
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Texas House committee slaps Democrats with nearly $422K in penalties for 2025 quorum break
The Committee on House Administration voted along party lines to fine 50-plus Democratic members more than $8,000 apiece for fleeing the state to try to block a GOP-led congressional redistricting plan.
How Congress’s bipartisan high point led to our era of political rancor
36 years ago, a Republican president and Democratic lawmakers produced monumental laws. Now, a broken Congress has enabled Trump to undo key parts of that legacy.
Exclusive: Four women describe sexual misconduct by Rep. Eric Swalwell, including a former staffer who says he raped her
A former staffer of Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, says that the congressman raped her when she was heavily intoxicated, an allegation Swalwell strongly denies.
Accusation of sexual assault threatens Swalwell governor bid
The Democrat running for governor categorically denied any misconduct involving congressional staffers. Then the San Francisco Chronicle published an article quoting an alleged victim.
Candidates for California governor call on Swalwell to drop out after allegations of sexual assault
The Democratic congressmember came under pressure after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a former staffer alleged the congressmember sexually assaulted her.
Efforts to establish social media guardrails for children stall in Congress
Experts say one factor is lobbying by Big Tech, which spent over $100 million last year
Former Bronx and Westchester Rep. Eliot Engel dies at 79
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Burned Before, Democrats Abruptly Revive the Idea of Impeaching Trump
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Homeland Security Workers Get Paid, but the Next Check Is Uncertain
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Why many Trump-supporting business owners hope Democrats win the midterms
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Letters to the Editor: Anyone with political aspirations should be fighting to stop Trump
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Two Carolina juniors named 2026 Goldwater scholars - College of Arts and Sciences
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Democrats blast coming congressional redistricting session: ‘This is illegal’
For now, Republicans are pushing forward.
Former members of Congress visit Rice to discuss politics, public service and civil dialogue
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Government Comes After Costco, Walmart, and Sam’s Club’s Business Model
Congress should think long and hard before moving S. 4147 forward.
KAMIKURA: Weaponization of religion in U.S. politics
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In this era of political violence, candidate security costs are higher, new report says
Security spending for congressional and presidential campaigns has jumped fivefold over the past decade as an increasingly hostile political environment has led to escalating threats against public officials, ranging from doxing to assassination plots, according to a report released Thursday.
Automatic military draft registration takes effect in December. Here’s how it would work
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‘A clear and present danger to the country": Democratic Congresswoman on calls for Pres. Trump to be removed from office
Republicans block effort to halt Trump's war with Iran after 'civilization' threat
House Democrats tried to force a vote on a war powers resolution during recess. Senate Democrats will launch a more serious attempt to rein in Trump when Congress returns next week.
Abortion Pill’s Safety Called into Question in Congressional Actions Based on Misleading Data — The Monitor
False claims about the safety of mifepristone are driving legislative and investigative action in Congress, even as major medical organizations and decades of clinical evidence support the drug’s safety. And competing interpretations of what censorship and free speech mean are impacting how health misinformation is moderated.
Coös County health center CEO says new rural health funds not enough to counteract Medicaid cuts
Edward Shanshala, CEO of Ammonoosuc Community Health Services, said when Congress passed its massive tax cuts and spending law last year, he and his colleagues made the difficult decision to shut down the organization’s clinic in Franconia in anticipation of the law’s impacts. Shanshala doesn’t think a new tranche of federal funding will be enough […]
Hector Mujica: Why I'm taking the fight to Florida's 28th Congressional District
Senate bid ends as campaign shifts focus to winnable House race
Health Subcommittee: Healthier America: Legislative Proposals to Improve Public Health
The Committee on Energy and Commerce is the oldest standing legislative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and is vested with the broadest jurisdiction of any congressional authorizing committee.
Sen. Graham seeks congressional review of any peace deal with Iran
Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a post on X that he looks forward to the architects of the proposal, including Vice President JD Vance, coming to Congress and explaining how the deal meets America’s national security objectives.
Chris Collins puts more than $900K toward CD 19 campaign
The former New York Congressman put substantial skin the game.
The importance of NCAR: voices from science, congress and film
NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is a trusted and esteemed scientific institution, and it’s in the heart of the Boulder community. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget has announced plans to dismantle NCAR, citing it as a source of “climate alarmism.” KGNU’s ...
Dunlap fields questions from voters during Bangor town hall
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Half of US States Are Now in Revolt Over Money in Politics
Idaho became the 25th state Wednesday to formally urge Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that allows federal and state legislative bodies to have greater authority over the flow of money in US politics.
Preserving access for vulnerable communities should be a top priority in Congress
By Tony Henderson As both a minister and as president of the NAACP Denver, I believe access to high-quality, accessible health care is a right that should be afforded to each and every one of us. To that end, Medicare Advantage has become a critical component of our health system, helping secure access to care […]
Republican wins runoff to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress
Republican Clay Fuller, a former prosecutor endorsed by President Donald Trump, on Tuesday won a runoff election in Georgia to replace conservative firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republican wins runoff to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress
Clay Fuller, a district attorney backed by President Donald Trump, defeated Shawn Harris in the deeply red district vacated by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin sits down with Trump voters in Iowa while campaigning for Democrats
Michigan U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin is in Iowa to support Democratic congressional candidates and gather insights on how Democrats could win over President Donald Trump’s supporters
Cook Political Report's New York U.S. House race ratings unchanged from January
Cook still only labels one race a true "tossup" — Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in the 17th Congressional District.
Broadening the Trump Administration’s America First Global Health Engagement In South and Central Asia - United States Department of State
On April 6, the United States signed a bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Republic of Tajikistan under the Trump Administration’s America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS). This breakthrough MOU marks the first bilateral health cooperation signed in the South and Central Asia region and aims to protect Americans from infectious disease threats while strengthening U.S.-Tajikistan relations. Through the MOU worth $78 million and working with Congress, the […]
Swalwell campaign denies online claims that congressman behaved inappropriately with staffers
A spokesman for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, on Tuesday denounced online claims that the congressman had inappropriate relationships with young congressional staffers.
Live Results: Georgia special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene
Republican Clay Fuller will try to close the deal with Georgia voters on Tuesday to succeed Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress, while Democrat Shawn Harris seeks an upset.
Yarbrough speaks with Lone Star Politics after opponent in TX-32 ends campaign for GOP nomination
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Dallas State Senator Nathan Johnson talks about his run for Texas Attorney General
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Supreme Court clears path to wipe Bannon conviction
The former presidential adviser was convicted of defying a congressional subpoena
Georgia congressional election pits Fuller against Harris
The winner would need to run again in separate primaries and a general election later this year to keep the seat
Richard Lamondin pivots from congressional run to SD 38 challenge, drawing early party support
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Three Ways Trump’s Iran Deadline Could Play Out Tonight
Plus, Steve Bannon’s conviction for contempt of Congress is poised for dismissal.
Georgia Runoff Puts Trump Influence to the Test in MAGA Stronghold
By Nathan Layne April 7 (Reuters) - Voters in northwest Georgia go to the polls on Tuesday in a congressional race between a moderate Democrat and a Republican backed by President Donald Trump, in a test of Trump's sway over his base and a possible barometer for the November midterms. The two-way ...
Government shutdown enters eighth week as Johnson faces GOP revolt over DHS funding deal
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Voters may see unfamiliar names on their primary ballots. Here's why
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Democrats hope to increase liberal control of battleground Wisconsin's Supreme Court
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Georgia congressional election pits Trump-backed Clay Fuller against Shawn Harris
Republican Clay Fuller faces Democrat Shawn Harris in a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress
Columbia stands to lose tens of millions as White House reopens push to cut science funding
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San Diego Politics Show: CA-48 candidate Marni von Wilpert
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Trump's next budget once again calls for massive cuts to science
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Texas Congressman Accused of Pursuing a Second Subordinate With Lewd Texts
A news report linked Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, who has admitted to an affair with an aide, to another series of sexual texts with a different aide, raising a dilemma for the House G.O.P.
MS Lawmakers Deliver Wins for Small Business, But More Work Remains
This year's session ended on Sunday, April 5.
Gene Editing Institute Receives $500K Federal Grant to Expand CRISPR Learning Lab
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What to expect in Georgia's special congressional runoff to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene
Democrat Shawn Harris and Republican Clay Fuller were the top two vote-getters in the March 10 special election, but neither candidate received the vote majority needed to avoid Tuesday's runoff.
Gov. DeSantis says Samuel Alito writing opinion in case that will drive congressional redistricting
The outcome is allegedly beyond doubt, even as timing is a question mark.
Bannon wins Supreme Court order that could void contempt of Congress conviction
Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him in 2022
Supreme Court Clears the Way for Dismissal of Bannon Conviction
Stephen K. Bannon, a former close aide to President Trump, was convicted for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack.
Steve Bannon wins Supreme Court order likely to lead to dismissal of contempt of Congress conviction
Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon has won a Supreme Court order that’s expected to lead to the dismissal of his criminal conviction for refusing to testify to Congress
Supreme Court paves way for Steve Bannon contempt case to be dismissed
Bannon, a Trump ally and podcaster, already served a four-month prison sentence for defying congressional subpoenas to testify about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Democrats are eager to flip Issa’s seat. But his Republican successor is a ‘formidable opponent’
Leading Democrats are throwing personal jabs to distinguish themselves in a crowded primary for the competitive district that could tilt who controls Congress.
Amid Trump support, prediction markets face political headwinds
Concerns about illegal gambling have prompted lawmakers to introduce proposals in Congress and the California Legislature to crack down on prediction markets, which are growing in popularity.
America’s Diplomat Shortage Is a Self-Inflicted Wound
The White House’s struggles to negotiate an off-ramp in Iran are a reminder of how crucial skilled diplomacy can be. Yet the State Department appears intent on purging and politicizing the ranks of the nation’s top envoys. Congress has a duty to push back.
Philly’s competitive U.S. House race narrows — but big questions loom
With about six weeks to go until Election Day, these are the big questions as three top candidates vie for the congressional seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans.
Inside Jim Jordan’s quiet preparations for a GOP leadership void
The Ohio Republican will be well-situated if Republicans lose the House majority.
Threats inside and out loom for Colorado’s Republicans
Colorado Republicans made strides in 2024 despite an insidious state chairman who tried to defeat successful Republican candidates. Newly elected U.S. Reps. Gabe Evans, Jeff Hurd and Jeff Crank fought off unethical opposition from their own state party chairman, making the Colorado congressional delegation a 4-4 partisan split. Strong state legislative leadership resulted in the […]
Sen. Tim Kaine says Congress will 'have a hard time' reviewing Trump's military budget request
The Virginia senator told "Meet the Press" he and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee would be "taking a look" at the request over the next few weeks.
Opinion: Trumpification of American Politik has spawned incivility
Trump's Cabinet members treat every Congressional hearing as an audition before their watchful performance director.
No experience needed? Novices, newcomers dominate field in SC’s open coastal seat in US Congress.
SC’s 1st Congressional District race is packed with outsiders — just five candidates have ever held elected office. Mark Sanford’s surprise entry is reshaping an already crowded primary and making the path tougher for lesser-known hopefuls.
Democrats eye 2028 for bigger health care push
WASHINGTON – As Democrats vie to take control of Congress in the midterms this fall, their main message on health care policy is fairly straightforward: undo Republicans’ Medicaid cuts and restore the health care subsidies that lapsed at the end of last year.
This Week in Politics: Early voting starts this week in New Jersey's special congressional election | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News
The political world is paying close attention to a race to fill Governor Sherrill's vacated congressional seat.
Can Kennedy lineage and hype over 'Love Story' help send JFK's grandson to Congress?
As a Kennedy scion, Jack Schlossberg had a lot of hype behind him when he launched his congressional campaign in New York City late last year
Trump endorsed this MAGA congressman's twin. Will he make history?
Trever Nehls could replace his twin brother Rep. Troy Nehls, a loyalist to President Donald Trump. Can the MAGA heir apparent make history?
Congress gave money for global HIV work. The Trump administration isn't spending it
U.S. work combatting HIV/AIDS has saved millions of lives globally. Under the Trump administration, funding has been slow in coming and unpredictable, wreaking havoc on people trying to do the work.
In Alaska's U.S. Senate race, Peltola takes aim at 'crooked' political elites
If you follow Mary Peltola on social media, maybe you’ve noticed that the former Alaska congresswoman is talking about more than fish, family and freedom as she runs for U.S. Senate.
Power 4 college sports conferences react to Trump's latest executive order
Leaders of the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 support Trump's executive order on college sports and are pushing Congress to pass the SCORE Act quickly.
NIH would get $5 billion cut under Trump’s 2027 budget, but Congress unlikely to go along
The White House is asking Congress to cut $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health and downsize the number of institutes and centers from 27 to 22
Politics Friday: 3 congressional candidates vying for their party's endorsement
Friday at noon, a check-in on the only Minnesota congressional race guaranteed to send a new person to Washington. MPR News politics editor Brian Bakst speaks with three candidates seeking to represent the 2nd Congressional District.
Trump Budget Seeks to Fund NASA’s Lunar Base, Cut Total Spending
The White House is once again asking Congress to cut NASA’s science budget nearly in half, mimicking an effort last year that was rejected by lawmakers.
White House proposes 12% cut to federal health agencies in 2027 budget request
Congress largely ignored President Trump's previous budget proposal, instead boosting federal health spending.
Trump's 2027 budget asks Congress for $1.5 trillion in defense spending, with 10% cuts elsewhere
Trump asks Congress to supersize military budget, slash domestic programs
The president’s fiscal 2027 budget request calls for Republicans to use a partisan process for enacting billions for the Pentagon.
Poll: Virginia voters narrowly support redistricting to favor Democrats
A slight majority of Virginia voters supports giving Democrats a temporary edge in congressional maps, but opponents are more motivated in new Post-Schar School poll.
Congressmembers give surprise visit to Otay Mesa Detention Center for health inspection
Two members of San Diego’s Congressional delegation visited the Otay Mesa Detention Center Thursday to follow up on months of complaints from people held inside.
Republicans in Congress announce plan to end DHS shutdown, but political battle continues
Kat Abughazaleh expands political network, keeps campaign office open as mutual aid hub after primary loss
On Thursday, Abughazaleh announced in a video that she will help campaigns "integrate mutual aid and direct action into their races," and she plans to help races across the country, "especially in the Midwest."
Democrats sue to block Trump's executive order targeting mail ballots
Democrats sued Wednesday to block President Donald Trump's latest executive order restricting mail voting, arguing that the U.S. Constitution empowers states and Congress, not the president, to determine who is eligible to vote by mail. The lawsuit marks the second round of battles over the president's power to control elections. Trump's opponents handily won the first round last year, blocking his initial executive order intended to reshape election procedures by convincing multiple federal judges that
Bypassing Congress, Trump says he'll sign order to resume pay for Homeland Security
The DHS funding lapse had seemed likely to stretch into next week as the House is contemplating passing a Senate plan it had previously rejected to fund the bulk of the agency, but not its immigration enforcement operations.
Jeffries: Americans would ‘furiously react’ to cutting health care to pay for Iran war
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Americans would “furiously react” if Congress cut federal health care funds in order to fulfill a pricey Pentagon budget request amid the U.S.’s …
Poll: Congressional redistricting popular among Republicans, underwater with everyone else
Legislators are expected to convene later this month for a rare mid-decade reapportionment.
Wave of retirements and politics promise spending panel makeover
The House Appropriations Committee is set to undergo a major shake-up following the midterm elections, especially among its Republicans. With four members retiring, two running for Senate and four others in potentially tight reelection contests, nearly a third of the committee’s Republicans may not return in the next Congress. Democrats are looking at a lower […]