JFK’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, announces 2026 run for Nadler’s seat in Congress
Jack Schlossberg, grandson of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, speaks on stage during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 20, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, announced late Tuesday that he would run for Congress in 2026.
Schlossberg, 32, said he would seek a seat representing New York’s 12th congressional district, which is held by Rep. Jerry Nadler, who announced in September that he wouldn’t run for reelection.
Schlossberg positioned his run as a response in part to the economic agenda put forth by Republicans and President Donald Trump, including Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Schlossberg said had led to a “cost of living crisis” with historic “cuts to social programs working families rely on. Health care, education, child care.”
“We deserve better, and we can do better, and it starts with the Democratic Party winning back control of the House of Representatives,” Schlossberg, whose full name is John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, said on Instagram as he announced his run.
He added, “With control of Congress, there’s nothing we can’t do. Without it, we’re helpless to a third term.”
The president in late October appeared to acknowledge that he cannot run for a third term, after previously declining to rule out the possibility.
The political heir, a Yale and Harvard alumnus who is running as a Democrat, in a press release also sought to burnish his status as a member of that party.
The release noted that he had “has spoken across the country as a surrogate for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris,” as well as speaking a the most recent Democratic National Convention.
(NEW YORK) — One year out from the 2026 midterms, major Democratic Party names have been taking the show on the road, saying that they’re helping the party lay the groundwork to battle for the U.S. House.
They also might be preparing to run for president.
ABC News has tracked at least 24 visits by Democratic presidential hopefuls to the campaign trail in the key 2025 elections that Democrats swept — New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races, New York City’s mayoral election, and California’s redistricting ballot proposition election.
Separately, ABC News has tracked at least 43 visits or planned visits so far in 2025 and 2026 by Democratic presidential hopefuls to key early or battleground presidential election states. Some of those states are also expected to be key House battlegrounds in 2026.
The early and battleground state count excludes if the state is their home state and does not count multiple visits by the same candidate.
“Anybody who’s looking at the 2028 cycle is starting to head out on the road … Putting an emphasis on states that could determine control of the House is your best bet, and probably should be your only focus between now and the midterms,” Sawyer Hackett, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro, told ABC News.
2025 election states: New Jersey, Virginia, California, New York City
In New Jersey, Democratic candidate and U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill received support on the trail from a crowd of presidential hopefuls, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, California Rep. Ro Khanna, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
And in Virginia, Democratic candidate and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger had the support of Beshear, Buttigieg, Emanuel, Gallego, Kelly, Khanna, Moore, Shapiro, and Whitmer.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Klobuchar separately stumped for “Proposition 50” in California, while Khanna and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stumped for Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York City.
Key early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina
Some of the presidential hopefuls have flocked to states with early nominating contests. The Democratic Party is currently reevaluating its calendar for when those early contests will occur, but Hackett said Democrats hoping to run are still covering their bases.
Iowa, which usually boasts first-in-the-nation caucuses, will host a closely watched Senate race next year. The state also has some competitive House seats.
Iowa hosted former Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in March and Buttigieg for a town hall in May, while Gallego visited in August and Emanuel came by in September. Kelly is set to visit in November, while Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen spoke to Iowa Democrats in September.
New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first presidential primaries and will hold a contested U.S. Senate race in 2026 for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, has hosted several lawmakers. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear visited earlier this month; Gallego and Khanna stopped by in August; Klobuchar was there in July and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker will visit in November.
When Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker visited in April, he painted a dire picture for his party.
“Fellow Democrats, for far too long, we’ve been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell you that America’s house is not on fire, even as the flames were licking their faces,” Pritzker said.
South Carolina, meanwhile, also has an early presidential primary. This year, it saw visits from Beshear, Khanna and Newsom in July — who told rural residents “what we’re experiencing is America in reverse.”
Kelly visited in September, while Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Walz visited in late May for South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn’s “Fish Fry” event, which has often been fertile waters for would-be Pennsylvania Avenue hopefuls.
Both Walz and Moore have told ABC News previously they are not “running” for president or have no plans to run.
Battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
Several 2028 presidential hopefuls have also made their way around the seven battleground states, which have been considered winnable by either party and have an outsized influence on where campaigns place their resources.
A few potential candidates have or plan to pay visits to Arizona, including Ocasio-Cortez, who visited in March as part of the Fighting Oligarchy tour run by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Whitmer visited in March, while Booker visited in April and Buttigieg visited in October. Harris, who recently said she’ll “possibly” run for president again, will be speaking there in April 2026.
Arizona has two congressional seats currently held by Republicans viewed as competitive, according to the Cook Political Report.
Georgia is often the site of both a close presidential race and critical down-ballot races. Khanna visited in August, while Harris made a stop there on her book tour in October.
Further north, Moore and Khanna have paid visits this year to the battleground state of Michigan, where both President Donald Trump and Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin won in 2024.
Wisconsin, which had the closest margin between Trump and Harris in 2024 of the battleground states, saw visits from Klobuchar in March, Khanna in May, Walz in March and September and Whitmer in October.
Nevada, which also often figures early in the presidential primary calendar, saw visits this year from Ocasio-Cortez in March, Pritzker and Khanna in August, and Gallego and Kelly in September.
North Carolina saw visits from Pritzker in July and Buttigieg in September. Harris visited for her book tour there in October, while fellow Californian Khanna will drop by in November.
Pennsylvania is also a key battleground state. Moore delivered a commencement address at Lincoln University in Gettysburg in May, the same month Gallego and Khanna paid their own visits. Notably, two Republicans in Pennsylvania, Reps. Scott Perry and Ryan Mackenzie, are expecting to face fierce fights to hold onto their seats.
Khanna recently said the party’s focus is to win back control of the House, which has a Republican majority.
“We have already a number of great candidates for 2028 that’ll emerge, but right now the focus has to be to take back the House in terms of political priority,” Khanna told public media organization WHYY.
Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) – One of 2025’s major elections could have major reverberations for the 2026 midterms.
Californians are voting on a ballot initiative, “Proposition 50,” to determine if the state will adopt a new congressional map that redraws five districts to be more Democratic-leaning, potentially allowing Democrats to flip them in the midterms.
Supporters of Proposition 50 — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former President Barack Obama — have pushed for the new map.
Texas Republicans, encouraged by President Donald Trump, revised their maps in a rare mid-decade redistricting move that could allow Republicans to gain five seats in 2026 — and insulate the GOP from the historic midterm headwinds a president’s party can face.
“We have a chance at least to create a level playing field in the upcoming midterm elections,” Obama said during a recent call with supporters of the campaign to vote “yes”.
Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for Yes on 50, the political committee supported by Newsom, told ABC News that the group has been working with over 230 community organizations on the ground.
National Democrats have largely supported the initiative, hoping it will be the first of other Democratic efforts to push back on Republican-led redistricting in Texas, Missouri, and other states.
But Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California Republican whose district would be reshaped and made significantly more Democratic-leaning, told ABC News partisan gerrymandering is a “plague on democracy,” and has unsuccessfully pushed House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up a bill banning the practice.
“I think it takes power away from voters, undermines the fairness of elections and degrades representative government,” he said.
Spokespeople for two of the political committees opposing Proposition 50, which are supported by megadonor Charles T. Munger Jr. and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, respectively, told ABC News they were focused in the final weeks before the election on reaching persuadable voters and to emphasizing arguments about allowing voters to choose their politicians, not the other way around.
Actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported independent redistricting as governor, has also spoken out against the proposition. He said in September, “If you vote yes on that, you’re going backwards.”
“Prop 50 will have a big impact on the midterms … the U.S. House margin right now is so narrow that every seat in every state could make a difference for which party controls Congress,” Christian Grose, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California, told ABC News.
If the proposition passes, Grose added, a large margin of support could signal to Democratic donors that there’s enthusiasm for the party — and could impact whether other blue or red states decide to redraw their congressional maps as well.
Grose said Democrats are likely more fired up in part because campaigning towards Democratic voters is how to win with ballot propositions in California, Grose said, but also because of what they see as national stakes: “Democrats, maybe nationally, are viewing things as an existential threat; are viewing Trump as an existential threat. So anything that pushes back against Trump, anything that helps Democrats, is resonating.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill on October 6, 2025 in Washington, DC. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday failed to advance Sen. Ron Johnson’s bill that would have provided pay to some federal workers during the shutdown.
The “Shutdown Fairness Act” — put forward by Johnson — failed by a vote of 55-45. It would have needed 60 votes to advance.
Democratic Sens. John Fetterman, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock voted with all Republicans to advance the bill. All other Democrats voted against it, effectively blocking it from advancing.
While the bill would not have ended the shutdown, it would allow some federal employees to get paid.
Johnson’s bill would have provided appropriations to pay the troops and “excepted employees” of federal agencies being affected by the shutdown. That includes employees determined by the Office of Personnel Management to be performing emergency work, or for contractors who provide support to those employees.
Democrats were reluctant to provide votes out of concerns that Johnson’s bill gives the administration and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought too broad of authority to determine which employees would get paid and which wouldn’t.
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen offered an alternative bill to Johnson’s that would pay all federal employees. Johnson blocked that proposal — along with another similar option from Democrats. Democrats attempted to pass both of these bills unanimously, so Johnson’s objection alone was enough to block them.
Johnson noted that the proposals Democrats offered are “95%” similar. But he noted that the Democrat proposal is different because it only lasts through this fiscal year, includes furloughed employees and limits reduction in force.
The reduction in force issue was a challenge for Johnson, but he said he was open to negotiation on it.
“I don’t think we should limit the chief executive’s ability to properly manage the federal government and make the tough decision sometimes to reduce the workforce,” Johnson said. “That’s something we can talk about.”
Johnson said he blocked the bills in part because he wants Democrats to allow for debate on his legislation so a solution can actually be reached. The best way to work toward a solution for federal employees, Johnson said, was to begin debate on a bill rather than trying to pass one unanimously as Democrats did.
Federal employees, he said, need that.
“To see that they get their paycheck, so they don’t have to work Door Dash, so they don’t have to go to food banks, so they’re not under that stress — I am asking in good faith, let’s figure out how to get that done,” Johnson said.
The vote on the bill came as federal workers will miss their first full paycheck on Friday.
The legislation put Democrats in an interesting spot, as Republicans work to brand votes against this bill as votes against paying federal workers.
Van Hollen attacked Johnson’s bill, saying it would “essentially weaponize the government shutdown to allow President Trump to decide who works and gets paid and who doesn’t work and doesn’t get paid.”
“Our belief is that no federal employee, no one should bear the burden or be punished for a shutdown they have nothing to do with. So our view is that we want to make sure everybody gets paid at the end of the day.”
When pressed on why he would not, therefore, support the clean bill Republican’s have put forward 11 times, Van Hollen said it’s important to both pay Americans and protect health care.
“Of course we want to open the government. That’s the best way to address this issue. We also need to address these other big issues,” Van Hollen said.
No vote is expected for Thursday on the clean short-term funding bill. With senators leaving town for the weekend, the shutdown will drag on to Monday.
