In early October, Abiy Ahmed began a new five-year term as Ethiopia’s prime minister by returning to a demand that his landlocked country must secure access to the Red Sea. He framed the objective as a matter of national security and promised to pursue it through give-and-take. The demand came shortly after the Egypt-sponsored El-Alamein Joint Declaration that seeks to leave Red Sea governance exclusively to its littoral states. It complicates Abiy’s strategy and ambitions because Addis Ababa is
Varsovia, 31 ago (Prensa Latina) Lo que comenzó como un conflicto legal entre poderes, deviene hoy crisis institucional en Polonia tras la suspensión del presidente del Tribunal Constitucional por el mandatario Karol Nawrocki.
Caracas, 31 oct (Prensa Latina) El avance en las postulaciones para integrar el Poder Judicial y la designación de un nuevo canciller y otros funcionarios del Ministerio para Relaciones Exteriores y Comercio Internacional, distinguieron en Venezuela la semana que concluye hoy.
Marc Elias is back. The notorious Democratic lawyer who played a critical role in the 2016 Russia hoax is again in the news. His law firm has been identified by the New York Times as part of the expanding scandal involving Democratic effort to confuse voters in Alaska with a decoy candidate named Daniel J.…
Marc Elias is back. The notorious Democratic lawyer who played a critical role in the 2016 Russia hoax is again in the news. His law firm has been identified by the New York Times as part of the expanding scandal involving Democratic effort to confuse voters in Alaska with a decoy candidate named Daniel J.…
Cuando el cardenal estadounidense Robert Prevost fue elegido Papa en mayo de 2025 no pocos católicos —y no católicos— auguraron un pontificado de carácter menos rompedor, al menos en los gestos, que el protagonizado por su predecesor argentino, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. No parece que vaya a ser así. El anuncio oficial emitido ayer por el Vaticano de que el Papa ha votado por correo en las elecciones legislativas parciales estadounidenses que se celebran el martes no solo constituye un inédito hecho histórico, sino que reviste un hondo significado político en tiempos de deslegitimación de los procesos electorales y de desafección ciudadana de la política.
With less than one week until the midterms, many have projected that Democrats could win in a 2018-style "blue wave," when they won 41 House seats, due to their almost 9-point lead in the generic congressional ballot and a national environment that has tilted drastically in their favor.
That is the wrong term for what is occurring.
Indeed, what we are looking at now is a red retreat, a red collapse, and a potential red defeat, not an overwhelming victory for Democrats or their policies.
Make no mistake, to the extent that we can determine the eventual outcome, Democrats are almost certain to take the House and have nearly a two-thirds chance to take the Senate.
At the same time, early voting numbers favor Democrats, as does the enthusiasm gap, which shows Democrats are more motivated to vote than Republicans.
This has shown up in primaries as well. In the twenty-two states that held competitive primaries this year, seventeen saw increases in Democratic voter turnout. In Texas alone, whereas in 2022, Republicans cast 900,000 more votes than Democrats, this year, Democrats cast 150,000 more – a 1.5 million vote swing.
Likewise, President Trump’s approval, averaging just 38%, is contributing to growing pessimism. When asked whether the country is on the right track or headed in the wrong direction, 32% now say the country is headed in the right direction, versus 63% who say it is on the wrong track, a net-negative 31 points.
In March 2025, that was just under a net-negative 9 points, underscoring the decline that has occurred and just how much Americans have soured on this administration.
To be sure, if a red retreat turns into a red collapse, Democrats will win the Senate.
However, the data also make clear that the shift in national sentiment can, in no way, be read as an endorsement of Democrats’ policies, to the extent that they have offered an agenda.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries came closest in the New York Times last weekend, outlining priorities on costs, health care, and checking the administration. But that was more a case against Republican rule than a governing blueprint with broad public support.
Indeed, if Democrats win the Senate, it will primarily be a product of frustration with the administration, inflation, and the war in Iran – not because voters endorse a sweeping Democratic agenda.
Currently, just under 40% of Americans have a favorable view of the Democratic Party. That is statistically tied with President Trump as well as the Republican Party.
Democrats should therefore resist treating victory as a license to move sharply left. Troy Jackson (Maine), Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan), and James Talarico (Texas) are running in different states and may win for different reasons, but no faction can claim ownership of the national result.
The test will be whether Democrats turn public anger into a disciplined agenda: lowering costs, restoring stability, checking executive overreach, and attracting support beyond their base. If, instead, they spend two years relitigating ideological fights, their majority will be short-lived.
In fact, in a recent ABC survey, democratic socialism was deeply unpopular, with ratings bordering on Trump’s. Less than 4 in 10 (37%) of Americans had a favorable view, while 59% did not.
In that same vein, even Democratic voters are not sold. When asked whether they prefer the Democratic Party to move further to the political center or the political left, 48% of Democrats preferred the center, versus 27% who preferred moving to the left, according to New York Times polling.
Among independents, arguably the most critical bloc, the findings are even more stark. More than 7 in 10 (72 percent) of independents want Democrats to move to the center, whereas just 11% want the party to go further left.
Even if Democrats do sweep both chambers of Congress, they will have won on a rejection of Trump and Republican governance – not a blank check to govern from the left. Victory would create an opportunity to provide competent, practical leadership, not a mandate.
All of this will matter for Democrats because the 2028 elections will unofficially start next Wednesday.
Democrats still lack a single recognized leader and remain divided between the far left and establishment wings, and the midterms will not resolve that fight. Their immediate task is proving they can govern competently, appeal to independents, and improve Americans' daily lives.
Ultimately, these midterms will be a referendum on President Trump and Republicans. Voters will cast their ballots with gas prices, mortgage rates, and other costs foremost in their minds, not with what it means for 2028.
A red retreat may deliver Democrats power. But if they mistake backlash for ideological conversion, they will squander the opening. Governing from the pragmatic center-left – focused on affordability, stability, and results – is how they rebuild trust.
Carly Cooperman is CEO of Schoen Cooperman Research.
Watching the broadcast news networks report on campaigns makes you think they’re not creating news as much as they’re trying to make the political weather. On every day, in every way, they labor to place the blackest clouds over the heads of President Donald Trump and the Republicans. Good news is not news.
There is no balance of good and bad. Any hint of neutrality is despised as "normalizing" Trump. Nonpartisanship somehow becomes partisanship. So, resistance against Trump is the norm. A Media Research Center study of the 2024 campaign from July 21 through Oct. 25 found ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts punished Trump with 85% negative coverage. Meanwhile, the Democrat nominee, Kamala Harris, received 78% positive coverage. One choice sounded like doom, and the other was painted as hope and joy and "vibes."
With that kind of stark difference in tone, does that sound like news, or campaign advertising?
Leading the themes two years ago was the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was rigged – 47 minutes of coverage. Another 30 minutes was spent amplifying claims that Trump is a "danger to democracy" and/or a "fascist."
It's happening again in 2026. The Media Research Center just found ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from Sept. 28 to Oct. 26 gave Trump and the Republicans almost 57 minutes of negative coverage on the evening news, while the Democrats received almost 19 minutes of negative coverage – a three-to-one ratio. That math could be a little misleading, since the bad scandal news for Democrats, like the immigration agents raiding the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., came wrapped in framing against the Trump administration for doing this in the closing weeks of an election. (These results came before the new eruption over "Decoy Dan" Sullivan in Alaska.)
It was the same pattern on the formerly taxpayer-funded "PBS News Hour." From Sept. 1 to Sept. 30, the GOP received 94% negative spin, to 6% positive. The Democrats received far more balanced coverage – 53% negative, 47% positive.
No one would say the network news should avoid negative news. Consumers inherently don’t trust happy news any more than they trust gushy positive campaign commercials. Stubbornly high gas prices and a lack of a decisive victory in the Iran war aren’t positive stories. But the overwhelming tone of news coverage should force viewers to understand these broadcast network stars aren’t neutral referees, calling balls and strikes. They’re throwing beanballs at the Republicans.
Inside the broadcast network news bubble, democracy is mentally associated with the Democrats, autocracy with the Grand Old Party. If the Republicans show party unity, that’s a failing. They are weakening democracy by not weakening Trump. When the Democrats show party unity, that’s not controversial at all.
In fact, the elitist media help enforce party unity. Republicans dissenting from Trump quickly draw positive media attention. "Lifelong Republicans" who endorse Democrats get promoted as the zeitgeist. Democrat dissenters would be ignored and gain no advantage.
The growing radicalism of the Democrat party and its Democratic Socialists of America faction, and what they plan to do if they gain a majority in one or both houses of Congress, have not been serious topics. If the voters are casting ballots for Democrats because of the economy, do the Democrats have an actual solution? The networks weren’t focused on what happens next.
Anyone perusing social media can see the Democrats salivating at more impeachments of Trump, and maybe an impeachment for Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., not to mention some very aggressive hearings into how the Trump family is personally prospering in Trump’s second term.
During President Joe Biden’s presidency, the broadcast networks obsessed over the House’s Jan. 6 hearings, including incessant live coverage, even in prime time hours. In the last two years, House oversight hearings into subjects like Biden’s use of the autopen and his declining mental fitness, were largely ignored. Republican hearings aren’t news. Democrat hearings will surely be big news – again.
The networks have focused most of their attention on Trump’s rallies, often noting that when he campaigns in red states, it’s a sign that Republicans are anxious about losing in states they should be winning. If former President Barack Obama campaigns in a blue state, like appearing with radical Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, that’s not painted as desperation.
PBS reporter Liz Landers oozed on Oct. 26: "Former President Barack Obama brought his own firepower to the trail, rallying Democratic voters in two Midwestern battlegrounds on Saturday, telling crowds in Michigan and Ohio that Trump was responsible for rising costs because of the war with Iran."
Trump canceling rallies in the closing days of the race is drawing negative coverage. When he rallies, it’s negative. When he moves to "tele-rallies" from Mar-a-Lago for a larger audience, that’s also negative. ABC’s Jonathan Karl warned, "Trump lashed out at a reporter who asked if he was sick of traveling." Most Republicans are sick of the network news manufacturing nightmares for their party on a daily basis.
Montevideo, 31 oct (Prensa Latina) La aprobación en la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas de una resolución que pide el cese inmediato del bloqueo de Estados Unidos contra Cuba provocó celebraciones en Uruguay y llamados a redoblar la solidaridad con la isla caribeña.
In late October, I fell into a conversation with Susie Tho after an appearance by Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman at the Mid-Wilshire restaurant Gritz N Wafflez. Tho, a mom and an entrepreneur, told me she voted for former reality show star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, in the city’s June primary. She attended the Raman event, she said, because she’s still undecided on who to support in the upcoming election.
Tho’s indecision highlights the unsettled state of the mayoral race in America’s second-largest city. Polls show that the race is tightening — and that many voters still appear less than enthusiastic about their choices. Do they go with unpopular incumbent Karen Bass, who swears she has really, really learned her lesson since the 2025 Palisades fire? Or do they pull a lever for Raman, the younger, left-wing challenger aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, who radiates earnestness but is often verbally flat-footed and struggles to get along with her fellow City Council members.
It’s hard to know where the trouble with Los Angeles starts, or how it will be fixed.
It’s no small irony that in this famously liberal city, the answer will come down to Pratt voters like Tho. The candidate continues to maintain an outsize presence in the race, still rage-posting about the Palisades fire, where he — along with thousands of other city residents — lost his home. He seems to despise both Bass and Raman; “Dumb and Dumber” is one of the more polite ways he has described his former rivals.
But Pratt has also given voice to a long unspoken anger almost all Angelenos, no matter their political leanings, feel with the city’s direction — or, more properly, perhaps, lack of direction. Tho, for instance, cites a growing rat problem in her Koreatown neighborhood. And the pest issue is just the tip of the iceberg. “Sanitation’s horrible, homelessness is horrible. Businesses are closing and the community is kind of tired of it,” she said.
Basic maintenance is lacking: Water mains break constantly; street repaving, in this city of drivers, is all but nonexistent. The people mover at Los Angeles International Airport, originally scheduled for completion in 2023, is more than $1 billion over budget and still MIA — unless, that is, you count the endless test runs of an empty train.
Cronyism, questionable dealings and incompetence are all but endemic.The local zoo, the last major U.S. zoo run by a city government, is mired in scandal and near collapse.
Even the city’s famously lovely weather has failed to cooperate. This year’s “super” El Nino has brought unprecedented humidity and mosquitos — the latter a true menace in a region where, until the past few years, mosquitoes were so rare many homes had no screens on their windows. The heat wave, in turn, resulted in epic power bills, which are hitting mailboxes now.
Raman, who moved to Los Angeles in 2013, sometimes shows a remarkable unfamiliarity with the city she now wants to lead.
Residents find themselves wondering how it all went wrong. Comedian Heidi Prazloff voted for Bass in 2022, but is now casting her ballot and knocking on doors for her opponent. “LA could be the coolest city in the world, but it feels like nothing is changing and some change would be really good,” she told me when I ran into her at an Eagle Rock pastry shop as she was taking a break from canvassing for Raman. “Karen Bass has been given her chance.”
Bass appeared all but oblivious to the growing fury and despair — until, that is, Pratt attracted a following and Raman entered the race. It took her more than two years to appoint a film liaison for the city, during a period when two Hollywood guilds went on strike and film shoots fell off a cliff. She announced a plan to help expedite restaurant permitting this week; as one X user asked, “Did she just remember she was the mayor?”
Raman is campaigning on increased accountability and an Elizabeth Warren-esque enthusiasm for plans: to make film-shoot permits easier to obtain, and to make it easier to open and operate restaurants and to build housing. These plans impressed me enough that I made a donation to her campaign during the primary.
It’s also worth noting that not one of Raman’s colleagues on the council has endorsed her, including the other three members aligned with the DSA. Then again, at least in my experience, the typical Angeleno appears to think of their City Council member as someone who isn’t there for them, so this may well turn out to be a selling point for Raman.
The DSA itself also has become something of a wild card in the equation. The national organization is threatening to rescind the Los Angeles chapter’s endorsement of Raman over the fact it believes she needs to more explicitly endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The local chapter continues to support her — hardly a surprise in a city where voters say their top concerns are quality of life, affordability and getting a grip on the seemingly intractable homelessness problem.
Ultimately, many Los Angeles voters appear to be weighing a less-than-pleasant choice: Do they stick with the known quantity in the ineffectual Bass, or do they vote for Raman, even if they disagree with her left-leaning politics, in the hopes she can make positive change? The only thing that seems certain is that no matter the outcome, Pratt will remain a virtual thorn in the winner’s side.
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