Politics

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — A day after Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration’s endeavor to combat fraud in government programs would not be political or partisan, he touted the effort in a campaign-style stop in Maine while promoting a Republican candidate as a fraud fighter and portraying Democrats as enablers of scammers.

Vance, dubbed the “fraud czar” by President Donald Trump, made an appearance in the state’s politically competitive 2nd Congressional District to stump for former Gov. Paul LePage, a Trump ally who is vying to flip the U.S. House seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden.

He compared LePage to the current governor, Democrat Janet Mills, who has sparred with the Trump administration over the issue of transgender athletes in high school sports. Mills is prevented by term limit laws from running again and recently dropped out of a heated Democratic primary race for the Senate seat held by Republican Susan Collins, one of the most vulnerable candidates in the chamber.

“Let’s kick Janet Mills to the curb and let’s send Paul LePage to Washington to help us fight the fraudsters and protect all of you,” Vance told the crowd of a few hundred people at Bangor International Airport.

While Vance has mentioned the anti-fraud efforts in his stops around the country in recent weeks on behalf of Republican candidates, Thursday’s visit was the first expressly billed as a stop to talk about the fraud-fighting efforts rather than the economic-focused message he’s delivered in other visits.

The event showcased how the vice president is leveraging his high-profile role leading Trump’s anti-fraud task force for Republicans as they face crucial midterm elections this year, especially as the administration’s economic message has been clouded by rising costs from the Iran war. Early voting is already underway in Maine for the state’s June 9 primary elections for offices including governor, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.

The state has supported Democratic presidential candidates in consecutive elections going back to 1992, though Trump carried Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the last three elections, capturing one of the state’s four electoral votes.

Vance’s message also provided a preview of how the vice president, seen as a likely 2028 GOP presidential candidate, could use the fraud crackdown as a central piece of his own political message in a future campaign.

“You are the first victim of fraud,” Vance told attendees as signs hung nearby that read “PROTECTING TAXPAYER DOLLARS” and “FIGHTING FRAUDSTERS.”

Vance went on and added a few minutes later, “My friends, this has gone on for far too long. You have been fleeced by your own government for far too long, and we are stopping it every single day.”

Mills said in a statement that Vance’s attacks were an attempt to distract from surging costs and the unpopular Iran war.

“Maine people deserved to hear about how the Trump Administration is making their lives better by lowering costs, improving health care, building housing, and fixing child care — but we got none of that because the President and Vice President don’t actually care about these issues or the hardships they are causing our state and people,” Mills said.

The visit to Maine came after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said earlier in the year that he was calling for corrective action on alleged fraud in government health programs in Maine, a request characterized by Mills as a “political attack.”

Mills recently dropped out of the Democratic primary race to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, effectively ceding the nomination to progressive activist and oyster farmer Graham Platner. The seat is critical to Democratic hopes of reclaiming control of the chamber in this year’s midterms.

Vance, however, didn’t mention Platner and instead focused much of his attention on Mills and LePage, the sole Republican vying for the nomination in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.

Republicans are bullish about their chances of the seat, which encompasses Bangor and which backed Trump for president in the last three elections even as the state itself supported the Democratic presidential candidate.

Vance portrayed LePage as a partner-in-arms with his anti-fraud effort and told the crowd Thursday: “Fraud has festered in Maine because this guy is no longer the governor of Maine.”

While Collins is not always a reliable vote for the Trump administration, Vance took pains to praise the longtime senator for her independence and lack of partisanship.

“Sometimes I get frustrated with Susan Collins. I almost wish she was more partisan,” Vance said. “If she was as partisan as I wish she was, she would not be a good fit for the people of Maine.”

Collins was in Washington on Thursday and not among the candidates who joined Vance for the trip.

Before Vance arrived, LePage told the crowd that if elected to represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, he would work with the Trump administration to crack down on fraud in social safety programs, which he characterized as rampant in his state.

“The American people are done being taken for a ride. It’s time for the Maine people and the Maine taxpayer to be put front and center,” he told the crowd.

Maine Center for Economic Policy, a left-leaning policy group that advocates for low- and middle-income residents, said in a statement that the Trump administration’s characterizations of fraud and social programs in the state were inaccurate.

“Fraud should always be investigated and stopped. But Mainers deserve facts, not political fearmongering designed to undermine health care for hundreds of thousands of people,” the statement said.

In the governor’s race, seven Republicans and five Democrats are vying to replace Mills. Vance noted that some of the candidates were in attendance at the rally but declined to endorse any of them when a reporter asked whether he would.

A few dozen demonstrators stood across the street from the airport holding signs denouncing Vance and the Trump administration. One held a giant caricature of the vice president’s head that has become a popular meme.

Nirav Shah, the former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director who is running for governor, said in an email to supporters and the media that Vance is visiting Maine as the costs of necessities such as heating oil and gas surge in the state.

“That is the record JD Vance is bringing to Maine on Thursday. That is the record the Maine Republicans hosting him are ‘honored’ to celebrate,” Shah said.

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Price reported from Washington.

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the latest Democratic-led effort to end the Iran war until it is authorized by Congress, but the measure edged closer to passage as a third Republican voted to advance the bill.

The Senate voted 50-49 not to advance the war powers resolution, nearly along party lines. Three Republicans joined every Democrat but one in backing the measure sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

It was the seventh time this year that President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the Senate had blocked similar resolutions.

Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of moving ahead, while Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted with Republicans to block it.

The vote was the first in the Senate since the conflict hit a 60-day deadline on May 1 for Trump to come to Congress about the war. Trump declared then that a ceasefire had “terminated” hostilities against Iran.

Under a 1973 U.S. war powers law passed in response to the Vietnam War, a U.S. president can wage military action for only 60 days before ending it, asking Congress for ​authorization or seeking a 30-day extension due to “unavoidable military necessity regarding the safety of United States Armed Forces” while withdrawing forces.

Democrats disputed Trump’s assertion that the deadline did not apply because of a ceasefire, saying the conflict is ongoing.

“There’s not a cessation of war hostilities,” Merkley told reporters before the vote, citing the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and strikes on Iranian ships and Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on U.S. ships and tankers.

“Both sides are still engaged in hostilities, and so I don’t accept that the 60-day clock is suspended,” he said.

Merkley and other Senate Democrats said they planned to bring up another war powers resolution next week, and every week until the war ends or Trump comes to lawmakers for authorization.

Democrats in the House have also introduced war powers resolutions, also blocked by Republicans.

Democrats have called on Trump ​to come to Congress for authorization to use military force, noting that the U.S. Constitution says that Congress, ​not the president, can declare war. They have warned that Trump may have pulled the country into a long conflict without setting out a clear strategy.

Republicans – and the White House – say Trump’s actions are legal and within his rights as commander-in-chief to protect the U.S. by ordering limited military operations.

Some congressional Republicans have accused Democrats of filing the war powers resolutions only because of their partisan opposition to Trump.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle in WashingtonEditing by Bill Berkrot)

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Denise Powell won the Democratic primary in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District on Wednesday in a contest focused on the state’s “blue dot” status in presidential elections.

The Omaha-area district, where Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon is retiring, is one of Democrats’ biggest targets this midterm season. It’s also a national focus every four years in presidential contests because Nebraska is one of just two states that splits its electoral votes. The 2nd District has gone to Democratic presidential candidates three out of five times since 2008 — a “blue dot” in an otherwise sea of red.

Powell, a political activist, defeated state Sen. John Cavanaugh and several other candidates in the Democratic primary. She and Cavanaugh were in a tight race that could not be called Tuesday.

Powell will face Brinker Harding, an Omaha City Council member endorsed by President Donald Trump. He ran unopposed in Tuesday’s GOP primary.

“This country and Nebraska are worth fighting for — and I’m ready to spend the next six months working for every vote and sharing my vision for Nebraska so we can finally have a representative in Congress who will serve us,” Powell said in a statement. “It’s time to be brave.”

Powell led Cavanaugh by 2.1 percentage points, or 1,080 votes, out of more than 51,000 votes counted.

AP called the race after Douglas County election officials said there were only 5,125 outstanding mail-in ballots in the Democratic primary, and a total of 830 provisional ballots from all political parties. Even if all those ballots are counted in the Democratic primary, Cavanaugh would have to win them by about 18 percentage points over Powell to close the gap, a margin he didn’t come close to achieving in any of the five vote updates provided by Douglas County so far. Cavanaugh trailed in all three counties in the district, though Douglas accounted for about 93% of the votes.

The matchup between Powell and Harding is expected to be among this fall’s most competitive House races, as Democrats try to win control of the chamber for the second half of Trump’s term.

The 2nd District is one of just three districts in the country that supported Democrat Kamala Harris for president in 2024 while also electing a Republican representative. Trump won the district in 2016, and the retiring Bacon, who has clashed with Trump, has held the House seat for five terms.

The Nebraska GOP said in a statement Wednesday that Republicans are ready to fight back against a “radical left” that has poured money into the state.

“The left wants Nebraska, and we are going to make sure they don’t get it,” said NEGOP Chairman Mary Jane Truemper.

Powell, who is Latina, co-founded Women Who Run Nebraska, a political action committee that supports progressive female candidates, and she has a decade of Democratic political activism. She had the backing of EMILY’s List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ campaign operation.

Powell has never held office but said her deep connections have helped her with independents and third-party voters, who make up nearly 30% of the district’s electorate.

Some Democratic critics argued that a Cavanaugh primary victory would have jeopardized the district’s “blue dot” status because he’d be leaving his valuable state legislative seat, making it easier for Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature to change the law that allows the state to split its electoral votes.

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Peoples reported from New York.

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COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Rep. Thomas Massie was stuck in Washington for a vote on Capitol Hill, so one of his supporters made the pitch for his campaign in a banquet hall packed with Republicans in northern Kentucky.

The audience had just heard Ed Gallrein, who was drafted by President Donald Trump to run against Massie in next Tuesday’s primary, describe the congressman as suffering from “a severe case of Trump derangement syndrome.”

Then Gex Williams, a state senator backing Massie, told the audience at the Lincoln Day Dinner not to worry about all that.

“If you are thinking that you can’t be for President Trump and for Thomas Massie, you certainly can be,” Williams said.

Whether voters agree will determine if Massie’s political career survives Trump’s most aggressive attempt to purge the Republican Party of dissenters. The president already succeeded last week in dislodging several Indiana state senators who opposed his redistricting plan, and he’s supporting a primary challenge against U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana on Saturday.

But nothing compares to the vitriol against Massie, who Trump has called a “moron” and a “nut job” who “will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman.” Trump made an unusual trip to Kentucky to campaign against Massie, and some of the president’s top advisers are working to help Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL.

Massie angered Trump by voting against his signature tax legislation over concerns of adding to the national debt, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing his decision to go to war with Iran. His positions, Massie insists, reflect the America First promises Trump initially made on the campaign trail.

In a Kentucky district where the president won by 35 points two years ago, Massie told The Associated Press that the upcoming primary is “by far the most challenging reelection I’ve ever faced.”

The race is playing out across Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, which sweeps northeast from the outskirts of Louisville along the Ohio River, through the suburbs south of Cincinnati and over to the lush foothills and old coal towns of Appalachia.

Voters here have sent Massie back to Congress ever since his first election in 2012, embracing his stalwart independence and jaunty personality. Back in 2020, they brushed off Trump’s social media demand to “throw Massie out of Republican Party” because he was a “third rate Grandstander.”

Now, Republican voters are debating whether they will do the same thing again.

“If all we’re doing is pulling in yes men, then how do you grow from that? How do you have the best end product if everyone just says, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great idea,’” said Tonya Young, an attendee of the Lincoln Day Dinner who is leaning toward Massie but still undecided.

“However, I do feel like it’s important to stay loyal. That’s where, I’m like, I’m a hot mess,” said the 57-year-old special education teacher. “Sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and compromise on things.”

Young said she will plumb through the Republican-backed bills that Massie voted against before she makes up her mind. What isn’t a major part of her calculation is Trump’s endorsement of Gallrein or his epithets against Massie.

Young still supports Trump, rating his second term at a “B to a C+” relative to his campaign promises. During Trump’s first term, Young said, she’d “probably put more stock in” his endorsement.

At the Lincoln Day Dinner in Covington, well-dressed Republicans sat at circular tables, ate dinner and listened attentively as candidates gave speeches.

Steve Jarvis, a 77-year-old retired law enforcement officer, who stood near the late night coffee station, has decided to vote against Massie for the very first time.

“Made me sad, truly it does,” said Jarvis, wearing a bespoke American flag bow tie made of feathers, “I like Massie.”

When Massie first ran for Congress, Jarvis bought a Massie campaign sign, sized for a freeway overpass, and planted it outside his home, a few doors down from which lived Massie’s opponent.

But some of Massie’s departures from the party, he said, “made me nuts. I can’t do it anymore.”

One was Trump’s flagship Big Beautiful Bill, which Massie voted against citing the consequent budget deficit and increased inflation.

“I understand voting your principle once or twice,” said Jarvis, “but at some point in time when it becomes crucial, I think they have to get in line.”

Gallrein, he said, would get in line.

Jana Kathman came to a different conclusion.

“I’m going to vote for Massie even though he makes me mad,” she said while shopping for bagels at a local farmers market outside Covington.

The 56-year-old registered nurse said, “I just like him as a person, I like how he lives his life, and I know he stands very strong with his convictions.”

Though she still likes Trump, his endorsement and attacks don’t impress her.

“I don’t like when Trump plays the little games as soon as someone opposes him, but we know that’s how Trump lashes out,” Kathman said.

Gallrein mounted the stage at the Lincoln Day Dinner with a prepared speech. He grew up on a family farm, was inspired by President Ronald Reagan to join the Navy SEALS and was recently asked by Trump to serve his country again in Congress.

He hyped up Trump — “Do you know he doesn’t take a salary?” — and launched into a list of Trump-backed policies Massie had voted against, lumping him in with the “radical Democrats.”

Gallrein declined an interview request, and he’s declined to attend candidate forums and debates with Massie.

Several voters said they were grateful for Gallrein’s service, but still don’t have a grasp of his platform, aside from his fidelity to Trump.

Massie argues that’s why Kentucky should stick with him, using what has become a go-to refrain.

“Politicians promise during the campaign, and then they go to D.C. to go along to get along,” he said. “My opponent is promising to go along to get along.”

Massie is hopeful that Trump’s anger will blow over once he wins the primary.

“Once this race is over, I don’t think there’s any benefit to him attacking me, I’ll have the antibodies from a natural infection,” Massie said chuckling.

After years of being considered a conservative gadfly in Congress, he said, maybe he has some of those antibodies already.

“This will be the booster shot,” he said.

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – U.S. civil rights group NAACP said on Wednesday the new congressional map approved last week by Tennessee Republicans intentionally discriminated on the basis of race against Black voters.

• The United States’ largest civil rights group said it filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

• The lawsuit alleges Tennessee lawmakers “intentionally redrew Congressional District 9 – a district anchored in Memphis for more than 50 years – to crack the majority-Black district across multiple districts, with the intent of eliminating Black voting power and depriving them of a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” the NAACP said.

• Tennessee Republicans approved a new congressional map last week, as several other Southern states seek to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court decision from late April that severely weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act.

• The redistricting plan “violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by intentionally discriminating on the basis of race,” NAACP said.

• Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and the state Election Commission had no immediate comment on the suit in which their offices were named as defendants.

• Republican President Donald Trump launched a national ​mid-decade redistricting battle⁠ between Democrats and Republicans last year ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

• The Republican Party is aiming in the elections to retain its current thin majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

• Republican-led states are moving to test new limits of minority-vote protections following the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision.

• Civil rights groups have sued to challenge the redrawing of districts that have a significant population of communities of color.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; additional reporting by Bianca Flowers; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives petition to force a floor vote on providing security aid to Ukraine and imposing new sanctions on Russia reached the 218-signature threshold to move ahead on Wednesday, the latest successful bid by lawmakers to defy the chamber’s Republican leadership.

California Representative Kevin Kiley, who switched his party affiliation to independent from Republican in March, signed the “discharge petition” on Wednesday, giving it enough signatures to force a vote in the House, likely in early June.

While many members of Congress from both parties have strongly supported Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, many of President Donald Trump’s closest Republican allies – including some House and Senate leaders – have grown cooler since he returned to the White House in January 2025 and aid to the Kyiv government has slowed down.

Russia and Ukraine have been pummelling each other ⁠with missiles, drones and artillery, with no end to the war in sight. Peace talks are stalled, with Ukraine rejecting Putin’s demand that it surrender territory it has successfully defended since 2022.

A discharge petition allows 218 or more representatives to force House votes, even if the legislation is opposed by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who sets the agenda in the chamber.

Two Republican House members, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Don Bacon of Nebraska, had signed the petition before Kiley did so on Wednesday.

Introduced in April 2025 by Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Ukraine Support Act is divided into three sections.

The first affirms support for Ukraine and NATO and includes measures to help Ukraine rebuild, including creating the position of a special coordinator for Ukraine reconstruction.

The second would authorize more than $1 billion in security assistance for Kyiv and up to $8 billion more in support via direct loans, and the third would impose stiff sanctions and export controls on Russia, including on financial institutions, oil and mining and Russian officials.

Discharge petitions were once a rarely used procedural tool in the House. But with Johnson’s Republicans’ narrow majorities in the chamber – there are currently 217 Republicans, 212 Democrats, one independent and five vacancies – they recently have been more successful.

In April, the House voted to extend temporary protections for 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S. after a successful discharge petition. Last year, enough House members signed a discharge petition to force a vote directing the Justice Department to release filed related to deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Republican senators in Louisiana advanced a plan Wednesday to eliminate one of two majority-Black, Democratic-held congressional seats following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s U.S. House map as an illegal racial gerrymander.

The early morning Senate committee vote came after hours of impassioned testimony from Black residents and Democrats opposed to the move. Republicans opted not to pursue a more aggressive approach, which could have targeted both Democratic seats for elimination.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling weakening federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities has prompted Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats. Tennessee and Alabama already have acted to implement different House maps that could help Republicans win an additional seat. A similar effort fizzled Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.

The redistricting efforts to undo minority districts are the latest variation in a 10-month-long national redistricting battle that already has involved about one-third of the states. It gained steam when President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw House districts in an attempt to win more seats in the midterm elections. Democrats in California responded with their own new districts. Numerous Republican states have redistricted since then.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats so far from new House maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

The Louisiana Senate could vote Thursday on the new House map advanced by a committee tasked with redistricting.

The plan keeps a New Orleans-based, majority-Black district represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter. But it significantly reshapes the 6th District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, which currently snakes northwest from Baton Rouge to Shreveport to create a second majority-Black district.

State Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican who sponsored the revised map, said the new districts are very similar to those used in 2022 that resulted in five Republicans and one Democrat winning election.

A federal judge struck down the 2022 map for violating the Voting Rights Act. Then in 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama had to create its own second largely Black congressional district.

In light of the Alabama ruling, the Louisiana Legislature passed a revised map, creating a second majority-Black district that was used in the 2024 elections. That map also was challenged, leading to last month’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Louisiana’s districts had relied too heavily on race. The Supreme Court followed that with a decision also overturning a judicial order mandating that Alabama use a House map with two largely Black congressional districts.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has postponed Louisiana’s U.S. House primaries, scheduled for Saturday, to allow time for new districts to be put in place.

During committee testimony, many Democrats and Black residents suggested that Louisiana could revise its districts in response to the high court ruling in a way that could preserve two Democratic-leaning seats that give Black voters an opportunity to elect the candidates of their choice. They argued that it was a matter of fairness.

As the hearing stretched into Tuesday night, Josiah Hardy, a high school sophomore, told lawmakers his great-grandfather fought for civil rights and equal representation in Louisiana when Black voters were disenfranchised.

“Why are we still fighting the same fight decades later?” Hardy questioned. “My great-grandfather believed democracy is stronger when more people are included, not excluded. Further generations should not have to keep fighting the same battles for fairness and voting rights that leaders before us have already fought.”

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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Senate Democrats plan to force several votes on the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a maneuver aimed at making vulnerable Republicans take politically difficult votes in an election year.

The plan to hold the votes Wednesday, shared exclusively with The Associated Press, is tied to rule changes or regulatory rollbacks by the CFPB since the Republican administration took over the bureau in February 2025. The bureau has rescinded 67 policies under its acting director, Russell Vought, who is also President Donald Trump’s budget director. Vought has publicly said that his goal is to effectively dismantle the agency. The series of votes is meant to highlight the dozens of rules and regulations that have been impacted by Vought and the White House.

Under the Congressional Review Act, senators can file what are known as Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to overturn recently finalized federal regulations. While none of the resolutions is expected to pass, Democrats are using the votes to highlight their election year message on the economy.

Democrats are expected to propose 20 resolutions that target policy changes involving debt collection, buy now-pay later firms, overdraft fees and other consumer finance issues.

The move is being led by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. Warren proposed the creation of the CFPB in 2007, when she was a professor at Harvard Law School, and she is considered Congress’ biggest advocate for it.

“Today, we are going to hear from 20 senators about how the Trump administration has hurt American families by rolling back commonsense CFPB rules — and how Congress can make them right,” Warren will say in a planned speech on the Senate floor Wednesday.

The Congressional Review Act allows Congress an opportunity to overturn rules issued by federal agencies once those rules are finalized. The 1996 law was used sparingly in its first two decades, but its use increased during Trump’s first term, when a Republican-controlled Congress overturned more than a dozen rules finalized during President Barack Obama’s Democratic administration. Democrats, in turn, used the law in 2021 to overturn several Trump-era policies.

In an election year, those votes could be used as ammunition against vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection, including Susan Collins of Maine, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and John Cornyn of Texas.

“I urge my Republican colleagues to listen with open ears and cast their votes on behalf of the consumers they were elected to represent,” Warren says.

The CFPB has been largely inoperable in Trump’s second term. The bulk of the bureau’s staff remains under orders not to work, and much of the CFPB’s business these days is to unwind previous work the bureau did under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and in Trump’s first term. The bureau’s operating budget is expected to shrink as well after Trump’s big tax and spending cuts law reduced the amount of money the bureau receives from the Federal Reserve.

Congress created the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, designed to operate as an independent financial regulator with broad enforcement authority over consumer financial products and services. The bureau estimated in 2024 that it had returned $17.5 billion to American consumers and had imposed $4 billion in fines and penalties against financial companies.

Polling over the years has shown consistent bipartisan support from voters for the CFPB and its mission. A March survey conducted by the bipartisan polling firms Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting found that more than 8 in 10 Americans — including majorities of Republicans — said they supported the agency’s role in regulating banks and other financial services companies.

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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report from Washington.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law requiring nonpartisan elections for most local officials in the five most populous counties in the Atlanta area, leading Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and another Democratic prosecutor to threaten to sue over the bill’s constitutionality.

Kemp signed the bill privately Tuesday, the final day after Georgia’s 2026 legislative session for the governor to sign or veto bills.

Republicans have repeatedly targeted Willis because of her prosecution of Republican President Donald Trump after he pushed to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Georgia in 2020.

Willis and DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said the bill violates the Georgia Constitution and promised a lawsuit.

“This is a blatant attempt by Republicans to give their candidates an edge in Democratic counties by hiding their party affiliation from voters,” the two Democrats said in a statement Tuesday.

State Sen. John Albers, a Republican from the Atlanta suburb of Roswell who pushed the bill, said during the legislative session that he believed it will promote public safety. The counties’ elected sheriffs will continue to be elected under party labels when it goes into effect in 2028.

The move comes as Democrats have steadily been wiping out Republican officials in the core Atlanta counties of swing-state Georgia. It will move elections for all affected officials except district attorneys to May, when voters choose nonpartisan judges. That means a smaller electorate than in November, with turnout mostly driven by primaries for partisan offices that are held at the same time. If no candidate wins a majority, nonpartisan runoffs would be held in June.

The measure applies in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, as well as the suburbs of Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties. Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties are the three most important Democratic jurisdictions in the state. Cobb and Gwinnett, once the suburban heartlands of Georgia Republicans, have increasingly voted for Democrats since 2016.

Democrats have said Republicans are trying to make it so GOP members running without party labels have a better chance to win in Democratic jurisdictions. Critics say that if it’s such good policy for urban Atlanta then it should apply to all 159 of Georgia’s counties.

Willis and Boston suggested Republicans were also targeting the counties because each has elected a Black woman as district attorney.

Republicans have passed multiple bills in recent years targeting district attorneys, particularly Willis. The association representing district attorneys has argued the law can’t change the partisan status of district attorneys because they aren’t county officers, but instead state judicial branch officers.

The association argued that a state constitutional amendment is needed instead. Democrats could block such a change because it requires a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly to propose such a measure to go before Georgia voters.

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By Joseph Ax and Tim Reid

May 13 (Reuters) – Republicans have won the Great Redistricting War of 2026, but that may not be enough for President Donald Trump’s party to maintain its hold on the U.S. House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.

Republicans are positioned to gain up to a dozen House seats currently held by Democrats through redistricting, the redrawing of the boundaries of electoral districts. But that advantage may be offset by Trump’s low public approval ratings and the historical trend that a president’s party typically loses seats in midterms, according to independent analysts.

The upshot: Many analysts still believe Democrats have the upper hand in the elections for the House, where Republicans currently hold a slim majority.

‘THE UNDERLYING POLITICS’

“It is incontrovertible that Republican chances in the House have increased,” said Jacob Rubashkin, who analyzes House races for the electoral forecaster Inside Elections. “But none of the underlying politics has changed.”

Republican redistricting efforts, set in motion by Trump last year, were given a boost in recent weeks, after a pair of judicial decisions – one from the U.S. Supreme Court and another from Virginia’s top court – created new opportunities to secure House districts favorable to candidates from Trump’s party.

Republicans won a House majority in the 2024 U.S. elections by only three seats in the 435-seat chamber. But they now have reshaped 14 districts across six states in their favor, and Republican state legislators are pursuing three or four more in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina. Democrats have managed to gain five seats in California, as well as a new Democratic district in Utah, thanks to a court ruling.

Each House seat represents an individual contest. But with the various redrawn state electoral maps, Democrats likely must win the national popular vote in House races by 3 to 4 percentage points to capture a majority in the chamber, depending on how redistricting plays out in those three Southern states, according to Kyle Kondik, an analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Most published opinion polls show Democrats exceeding that margin, at least as of right now. 

A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday showed 41% of registered voters said they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district if the election were held today, compared to 35% who said they would vote Republican.

That gap of 6 percentage points on the “generic ballot” would appear to be enough in November to overcome the advantage that Republican redistricting has built.

In the 2018 midterm elections – two years into Trump’s first term as president – Democrats rode a wave of dissatisfaction with his job performance to gain 41 House seats, comfortably winning a majority. 

In the 2022 midterms – two years into Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency – Republicans managed only a nine-seat gain in the House in the aftermath of a ruling by the conservative-majority Supreme Court rolling back abortion rights.

“The current Democratic lead in the generic ballot, that would probably do it – but if they have a situation like 2022, it’s more of a tossup,” Kondik said.

For now, Republicans are facing headwinds, including the unpopular Iran war that Trump launched and the attendant rise in inflation and energy costs. Only 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, compared with 63% who disapprove, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll published.

‘A WINNING MESSAGE’

Republicans dismissed the idea that Democrats are favored to win the House.

“House Republicans are on offense because we have the strong candidates, an historic fundraising advantage, a winning message and favorable map to defy history and grow the majority,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the Republican national House campaign arm. 

Just two weeks ago, Democrats seemed confident that they had largely blunted Trump’s push for Republican states to draw more favorable congressional voting maps. Voters in California and Virginia had approved new Democratic-backed maps, answering Republican-led states such as Texas, North Carolina and Missouri.

Then Florida joined the mix, with statehouse Republicans approving a map on April 29 aimed at flipping four Democratic seats. On the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court’s voting rights decision opened the door for states to eliminate majority-Black districts that historically favor Democrats. Republican lawmakers in Southern states rushed to take advantage.

The Virginia Supreme Court on May 8 threw out a new map drawn by Democrats and approved by voters that had targeted four Republican-held House seats in the state.

Virginia Democrats have filed an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the Virginia court’s decision. Lawsuits are pending in Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and elsewhere seeking to block Republican efforts.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, vowed on Monday in a letter to colleagues that his party would still win in November before launching a “massive redistricting counteroffensive” ahead of the 2028 elections.

Some Democrats said the adverse court rulings could mobilize their voters to turn out in November.

‘PALPABLE FRUSTRATION’

Rodney Willett, a Democratic state delegate in Virginia who played a central role in getting the now-invalidated electoral map passed by voters in a referendum last month, said he has been receiving constant texts, phone calls and Facebook messages from angry constituents since the state Supreme Court’s ruling.

“There has been huge disappointment and palpable frustration,” Willett said before meeting with Democrats in his county. “My message this evening will be to tell people to channel that energy and elect folks we know can do a better job.”

U.S. Representative Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat who has kept her seat even after Republicans redrew her district in 2022 to be more Republican-friendly, said that politically motivated redistricting helped turn out supporters.

Davids told Reuters that Democrats should argue to voters that Trump and his fellow Republicans are trying to “rig the system to maintain political power.”

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Tim Reid in Washington; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Will Dunham)

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