gavin newsom
Peter Hamby March 12, 2025
The California governor’s progressive-spurning, slightly-too-solicitous podcast debut with Charlie Kirk, featuring Newsom’s very public reversal on the issue of trans women in sports, is being closely watched by Democratic operatives as the party tests new mediums, new media strategies, and the bounds of its post-election repositioning.
Volodymyr Zelensky
Julia Ioffe March 3, 2025
While Democrats rush to express support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following his Oval Office thrashing, even some supporters are whispering that he “stepped in it.”
Michael LaRosa
Tara Palmeri February 28, 2025
Michael LaRosa, longtime press secretary for first lady Jill Biden, opens up about how aides hid the president from the press and ignored bad polls, as well as the “cover-up” allegations at the center of the great 2024 blame game.
Elon Musk
Peter Hamby February 26, 2025
New focus groups of swing state voters found reserves of goodwill for Trump—perceived as a man of action compared to “feckless” Democrats—but deep distrust toward Musk, widely viewed as “weird,” “radical,” and “selfish.” Mostly, however, they just wanted to talk about the astounding price of eggs.


bernie sanders
Leigh Ann Caldwell February 23, 2025
A month after the inauguration, rival Democratic factions are coalescing around the potency of an anti-billionaire messaging. On the topic of pretty much everything else, however, they are aligned in agreeing to disagree.
Kamala Harris
Peter Hamby February 19, 2025
Revealing new poll numbers on the next (celebrity?) iteration of counter-Trump politics, and what Democrats want for Harris’s future.
Adam Smith
Leigh Ann Caldwell February 16, 2025
Hill Democrats aren’t just depressed about their lack of political power and direction. Privately, they wonder aloud how they’ve been swept up in a McCarthy-esque cultural purge. Rep. Adam Smith offers a slightly more constructive view.