Pro-ICE Democrat Is Getting a Primary
And Florida Dems may have struck gold?
Welcome to a Sunday evening edition of Progress Report.
The newsletter’s election year revamp continues, and over the next few weeks, I’ll be rolling out more interviews with Democratic candidates running insurgent primary campaigns against establishment politicians in DC. We had Assemblyman Michael Blake, who is primarying Rep. Ritchie Torres, on the live stream earlier this month, and there are many more to come. I’ll also be diving into a whole host of ultra-tight legislative elections, which could change the balance of power in key states ahead of the 2028 election.
For tonight, we’re running down the news!
Note: I’m not going to lie, I lost not an insignificant number of paid subscribers while I was out undergoing and then recovering from my sixth open-heart surgery this winter. I’m also hoping that folks can help me make up those numbers now that I’m back at it, running this newsletter and our growing live streams.
The news has never been crazier or scarier, so I’ve put aside a longer recovery to push hard this year. I’ve got a lot planned for 2026, but I can really only do these things if I have the resources to pursue them, so your subscription or contribution would be immensely helpful.
Thank you to our latest crowd-funding donors: Theodore, William, Bruce, and Karen!
Fascism: The Trump administration continues to make not-so-veiled threats about the 2026 elections and promising to overreach its authority to enact mass disenfranchisement.
On Friday, Donald Trump promised to issue an executive order to impose a national voter ID requirement (something he can’t do); on the same day, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem boasted that she’s got broad powers to ensure that elections are “run correctly” and “make sure that we have the right people voting” (she has no such powers).
Virginia: Now that the state Supreme Court is allowing the special referendum to go forward in April, national Democrats say they will go all-in on convincing Virginians to green light a new Congressional map. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday promised to do “whatever it takes” to win the election, including spending tens of millions of dollars.
While Jeffries has yet to actually deliver on his pledges of bold action, the fact that the proposed new map could net Democrats four new seats and secure him the Speaker’s gavel is the kind of incentive that is likely to inspire follow-through.
Utah: Republicans say they will turn in more than enough signed petitions to qualify their pro-gerrymandering ballot referendum on Sunday, but there is plenty of reason for skepticism.
Foiled in efforts to reinstate a gerrymandered Congressional map in court, the GOP has focused its efforts on a ballot referendum to repeal of the fair redistricting amendment passed by voters in 2018. They were struggling for most of the collection period, and last week, the state Supreme Court denied the GOP’s request for an extension.
Around the same time, Turning Point USA sent in a brigade of organizers to try to get the petition over the line, with volunteers fanning out across Utah to collect names. Whether those names are valid, or even stay on the petitions, is another story, as the GOP effort has been dogged by mass allegations of misleading conduct in order to coax people to provide their signatures. Already, more than 2300 Utahns have requested that their signatures be removed from the petitions, a record that only figures to grow.
“This is the first time in Salt Lake County that we’ve seen such a large demand to actually have people’s names taken off of the petition packets,” the county clerk told a local TV news reporter.
Arkansas: More GOP voter suppression failure in the Razorback State, where a Pulaski County Judge put the kibosh on a new law that would have made qualifying a ballot initiative virtually impossible. Act 236 of 2023 required petitioners to collect a minimum number of signatures from 50 counties, up from the far more reasonable and achievable 15 counties. Republicans say they will appeal, though their voter suppression efforts have largely failed over the last few years.
Illinois: A bipartisan effort to restrict partisanship in legislative redistricting has once again fallen short in the Land of Lincoln, where a number of retired politicians just no longer have the juice or relevance to get it done in political wartime.
Admittedly, broadly speaking at least, I am all for the reforms that they want to enact, which include an independent redistricting commission that cannot factor partisanship into drawing lines. That’s the painful thing about the gerrymandering wars: gerrymandering is bad!
But as I said, we’re in the midst of political wartime, and Democrats have for fought with one arm tied behind their backs for too long. I pushed hard for reform at the national level in 2022, the last time Democrats had a trifecta in DC, and I’ll resume that fight when that moment arrives again.
New York: After providing one of seven Democratic votes to fund ICE last month, Long Island Rep. Laura Gillen is getting a primary challenge. Former Assembly member Tanya Darling says that a number of community organizations and leaders reached out to her after that vote, asking her to run.
Gillen also spent most of 2025 trashing NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, which probably may not help her in a Democratic primary this year. Even after he won the primary a landslide, Gillen was out there trashing her party’s new young star.
“Saying things like ‘we’re going to give away free everything’ is not realistic, and it’s not the direction the Democratic Party should go in,” she told TIME Magazine. “They should find ways to make people’s lives affordable in tangible ways, and say we will reach across the aisle to do that.”
She wouldn’t stop, proactively attacking a mayor who would not govern any of her constituents. It was clear that she was listening to donors and establishment consultants, who have the political instincts of lemmings and can’t see more than five minutes into the future.
In seeking to protect herself, she resorted to perpetuating stereotypes and fueling right-wing attacks on the party, which would only likely hurt her, anyway. Short-sighted pandering to the right never works, and now Gillen is getting a strong primary from a well-liked legislator.
Florida: The scuttlebutt around Miami is that Democrats may finally have a legitimate challenger for GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar, who has won blowout elections the last two cycles in FL-27. The party is actively recruiting newly retired CBS News anchor Eliott Rodriguez, an icon in the region with nearly universal name recognition.
Actually, it’s not just scuttlebutt, because Rodriguez has admitted that he’s considering jumping into the race: “The reason I would do it is because I have a choice between being angry all the time and cursing at the TV or doing something positive, concrete,” he recently said. “And I think we can flip this seat blue.”
This was a seat held by Rep. Donna Shalala as recently as 2022, but like the rest of Florida, it has shifted to the right fairly significantly over the past few cycles. If there’s ever a year to reverse that, it’s 2026.
Florida, again: Rep. Randy Fine is also getting a primary challenge. An outspoken racist and strong contender for least likable person in public life, Fine won a closer-than-anticipated special election to replace former Rep. Mike Waltz, requiring a push from the national GOP, including Trump himself.
Even Ron DeSantis thinks this guy is an irritating loser, blaming Fine’s underperformance on the fact that “he repels people,” and now fellow Republican Aaron Baker is hoping to deny Fine renomination, arguing that he’s disgusting, corrupt, and gives Democrats a shot at taking a very red seat.
I mean, this piece of shit tweeted this today:
Piece of shit is probably too generous, to be honest.
North Carolina: Early voting has begun in primary elections across the state, ahead of a March 3rd election date. Here’s where the candidates stand on the issues.
Arizona: Democrats are aiming to control the Arizona legislature blue for the first time in more than three decades. They only need to flip a few districts in both the state House and Senate to gain majorities, and the state party is planning to focus its resources largely on seven districts, which each represent one Senate and two House seats.
Abolish: ICE spent two months terrorizing the people of the Twin Cities, and as the agency winds down its violent occupation, there is no numerical assessment that could fully capture the damage caused by the federal takeover. Even so, the hard numbers we do have are ugly: two people murdered, over 4,000 people arrested, and $10 million to house the 3,000 agents shipped into the region.
But that economic activity hardly makes up for the fiscal damage caused by the brutal crackdown. According to Minneapolis officials, ICE and CBP’s occupation caused the city more than $203 million in economic damage, while some 20% of the city’s residents now need food assistance. Businesses were shuttered, workers could not risk going into their jobs, and families were left without childcare. It will take years for Minneapolis to recover, and it’s looking to the state to help foot the bill to expedite assistance for its shellshocked residents.
Solidarity: Sex workers at Sheri’s Ranch, an iconic brother in Nevada, are seeking to unionize. The newly formed United Brothel Workers are looking for the first collective bargaining agreement in their field, which is legal only in Nevada. A majority of the workers there are in favor of the union, citing coercive contract terms, low pay, and lack of protections.
Sheri’s has allegedly been engaged in union-busting, having fired two highly regarded sex workers after they asked the brother to recognize the unit. United Brothel Workers is a new branch of the Communications Workers of America, which technically makes them my union siblings.
More solidarity: If you work at a world-famous chocolate shop and want to maximize the exposure and financial cost of your strike, there’s no better day to do it than Valentine’s Day. On that note, congratulations to the workers at Ghirardelli in San Francisco, who spent Saturday on the picket line, a strategic escalation after months of bitter contract negotiations. Talks between Unite Here and the iconic chocolatier resume again next month.
Wait, Before You Leave!
Progress Report has raised over $7 million dollars for progressive candidates and causes, breaks national stories about corrupt politicians, and delivers incisive analysis, and goes deep into the grassroots.
None of the money we’ve raised for candidates and causes goes to producing this newsletter or all of the related projects we put out. In fact, it costs me money to do this. So, I need your help.
For just $5 a month, you can buy a premium subscription that includes:
Premium member-only newsletters with original reporting
Financing new projects and paying new reporters
Access to upcoming chats and live notes
You can also make a one-time donation to Progress Report’s GoFundMe campaign!
Take good care of yourself Jordan. It's been a while since I commented on your newsletter. It's becoming seriously solid since you first started putting it together. You cover a lot of ground.