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YONKERS — In the first episode of the HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero,” Yonkers City Council member Nick Wasicsko plots his campaign against the city’s longtime incumbent mayor. He mulls over attacking his opponent for patronage posts and “tax breaks to fat cat developers.”

That was 1987, in the series based on a nonfiction book about the landmark federal court ruling that forced the city to construct public housing in the largely white section of Yonkers’ east side.

Nearly 40 years later, there is much about the state’s third-largest city that’s unchanged.

The boss-driven political machine maintains a stranglehold on local politics even though Yonkers is part of progressive firebrand Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s district and neighbors that of fellow Squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

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Democrats are still smarting from the 2022 redistricting process, which contributed to the narrow loss of their House majority. To win it back, they’re angling for a redo in several states.

The Supreme Court handed them a major victory last week when it struck down Alabama’s congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander — a ruling that could ultimately cost Republicans a handful of seats across the South. Democrats are now asking new liberal court majorities in New York and Wisconsin to reconsider their 2022 decisions to implement GOP-friendly congressional maps.

They’re adopting a work-the-refs strategy that Republicans have deployed in the past; Democrats previously excoriated GOP operatives for plans to seek new maps in North Carolina and Ohio after a shift in the balance of power in the high courts of both states.

Democrats often employ high-minded rhetoric about democracy in these cases, but they are keenly aware that even a small advantage could determine who controls the chamber in 2025. Republicans’ four-seat majority in the House means both sides are prepared to exhaust every option.

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Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, a high-profile election official who has faced heavy scrutiny and harassment in one of the country’s largest counties over the last two cycles, is stepping down at the end of his term.

Gates, an Arizona Republican, announced his intention on Thursday to not run for reelection in 2024, saying in a statement that he intends to “pursue other interests and opportunities.” His decision was first reported by The Washington Post.

A spokesperson for Gates pointed POLITICO to Gates’ statement when asked for further comment.

Gates, who, along with his family, has been the target of threats and attacks during his tenure from those trumpeting false election claims, previously said that he suffers from PTSD. He is just one of many election administrators choosing not to run again following years of harassment from conspiracy theorists and a widespread lack of support for their work.

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A former GOP candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives has been indicted for his alleged role in a series of drive-by shootings targeting the homes of four elected officials in the state.

Following his failed bid for the seat in New Mexico’s 14th District during the 2022 midterm elections, Solomon Peña orchestrated shootings at the homes of two Bernalillo County commissioners and two New Mexico state legislators between Dec. 3, 2022, and Jan. 3, according to the Justice Department's indictment, which was unsealed Wednesday.

Before planning the shooting spree, Peña visited the homes of at least three Bernalillo County commissioners, the DOJ said, in an effort to get them not to certify the results of the election, which he claimed had been “rigged” against him.

Peña allegedly worked with two accomplices — Demetrio Trujillo and Jose Trujillo — to carry out the shootings, and carried out one on his own, according to the indictment. Family members of the officials, including children, were in the homes during at least three of the shootings, though no one was wounded or killed in any of the shootings.

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JR Majewski, a pro-Trump Republican accused of misrepresenting his military record, is ending his comeback bid.

It marks a dramatic end for the Republican candidate who lost a competitive Ohio congressional seat in 2022 after his campaign became plagued by reports that he had lied about serving in Afghanistan, despite no military records that reflect such a deployment. Majewski has denied lying about his record.

Majewski, an Air Force veteran who launched a second run against veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in April, sent an email to supporters on Tuesday announcing his decision to withdraw from the race, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO. He explained that his mother had to undergo triple bypass surgery later this month and that he wanted time to help with her recovery, especially because he lost his father during the last campaign cycle.

“Yes. I plan on withdrawing because of my mothers (sic) health,” Majewski confirmed to POLITICO, adding that "my family is top priority."

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Voter confidence is ticking back up after the 2022 midterms, even as a deep partisan divide remains, according to a new survey released this week.

Overall, 69 percent of registered voters said they were either very or somewhat confident that votes at a nationwide level were counted as intended, a prominent measure of voter trust in election integrity. The results come from a new survey from the MIT Election  Data + Science Lab, a nonpartisan research group at the eponymous college.

That is up from 61 percent in MIT's 2020 version of the same survey.

That growth comes almost entirely from Republicans, even as a dramatic partisan gap remains. Democrats’ confidence in the nationwide count was virtually unchanged — 93 percent in 2020 to 92 percent in 2022. Republicans grew 20 points — to 42 percent — in 2022, still short of a majority.

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Democrats avoided an electoral wipeout in the 2022 midterms. One way they did so was by reassembling a history-defying coalition of young voters who turned out at rates more commonly seen in presidential elections, according to a new study of voter-file data according to a new study of voter file data.

The Democratic data firm Catalist found that these voters bested 2018 turnout levels in states with the most competitive races for governor or Senate — and they overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates, even if the overall political environment swung to the right.

Like other studies of the 2022 electorate — which mostly rely on surveys of voters on or around Election Day — the Catalist report finds that Democrats increased their support among women voters over 2020. Abortion is cited as a key factor in that shift: Polls and registration data show that Democratic women were more motivated to vote after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

The Catalist report does offer some warning signs for the party, particularly a drop in turnout among Black voters. But it mostly suggests that close, high-turnout elections continue to be the norm since Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Both sides are highly activated to participate in both presidential elections and years in between. That means we could be headed to another year of record or near-record voter turnout in 2024, even if both candidates wind up being unpopular.

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Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis will announce this summer whether or not former President Donald Trump and his allies will be charged with crimes in relation to the investigation into their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Willis said Monday, according to The Associated Press. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first to report on the announcement.

Willis told the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office to prepare for “heightened security” in the event that her announcement provokes “a significant public reaction.” She said she would announce charging decisions, including possible criminal indictments of Trump and his allies, between July 11 and Sept. 1.

“Please accept this correspondence as notice to allow you sufficient time to prepare the Sheriff’s Office and coordinate with local, state and federal agencies to ensure that our law enforcement community is ready to protect the public,” Willis wrote in the hand-delivered letter addressed to Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat.

Willis’s office sent similar letters to Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum and the director of the Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, Matthew Kallmyer, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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The abortion rights movement is split over how to restore access to the procedure as it prepares for a series of political fights across the country.

While a string of victories in red and purple states in the 2022 midterms convinced supporters that ballot initiatives are among their most powerful tools, internal divisions over what limits, if any, to keep on abortion is splitting the movement as efforts kick off in Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota to put it to a popular vote this year and next.

The measures advancing in those states aim to restore the protections under Roe, which still allowed states to restrict abortions later in pregnancy, usually after the fetus could survive outside the womb. But some say undoing the Supreme Court’s June ruling isn’t enough, and want ballot measures that bar any restrictions on abortion.

“We would never advocate for a false or politically determined limit on abortion,” said Pamela Merritt, the Missouri-based executive director of Medical Students for Choice. “Viability is an arbitrary line. It’s a legacy of Roe that we don’t need to resurrect. And we know the language of viability can be manipulated by state legislatures, just as they are already trying to redefine what a child is or what rape is.”

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PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court has declined to hear most of Republican Kari Lake’s appeal in a challenge of her defeat in the governor’s race, but revived a claim that was dismissed by a trial court.

In an order Wednesday, the state’s highest court said a lower-court had erroneously dismissed Lake’s claim challenging the application of signature verification procedures on early ballots in Maricopa County. The court sent the claim back to a trial court to consider.

Lake, who lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republican candidates promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake did not.

In her challenge, the former TV anchor focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters.

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The red wave never came to pass in 2022 — but there was a noticeable shift among Latino voters in the midterms, who still tilted toward Democrats overall but reached higher levels of Republican support, too.

Yet a new analysis from Voto Latino, a political organization focused on Latino turnout, shows how Hispanic voters helped Democrats maintain the Senate majority, how larger Latino turnout was a key ingredient for Democrats in several races with razor-thin margins — and why expanding that base of voters in 2024 is still key for Democrats as they also compete to win a growing cohort of Latino swing voters.

The group analyzed precinct data from the past decade up until the 2022 midterms across Arizona and Nevada, two increasingly important battleground states where Latinos have made up more than 15 percent of the electorate for almost a decade. Their findings show that, even amid broader Republican gains, Democratic performance increased in areas with high proportions of Latino voters — regions of both states that are only growing their Hispanic vote share.

Despite having a Latina candidate in the race in Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Democrats’ Senate overall vote share in Nevada fell to 62 percent among Latinos, compared to fellow Sen. Jacky Rosen’s 67 percent among the demographic in 2018, according to exit polls.

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MAITLAND, Fla. — Florida Democrats on Saturday elected Nikki Fried to what many Democrats consider the worst job in state politics.

Democrats picked Fried, the state’s former agriculture commissioner who also ran for governor last year, to be the party’s chair, replacing Manny Diaz, who stepped down in January. Diaz abruptly resigned following midterm elections that saw an across-the-board thumping by Republicans.

Fried overcame a somewhat divisive and spirited battle against former state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Miami-area Democrat who ran for governor as well as Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.)’s congressional seat in 2022. Fried also faced animosity from some progressive elements of the party who went so far as to call Fried a “Republican operative” because she previously helped and donated money to GOP candidates.

In her remarks following her victory, Fried vowed to unite the party, and work to deny the White House to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run for president.

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PHOENIX — Election officials don’t normally draw standing-room-only crowds in basement music halls. But the noise around elections in Arizona is anything but normal right now.

Roughly 120 people crammed into Valley Bar — entering through the back alley, down a flight of stairs into a dimly-lit venue stuffed with rows of folding chairs — in early February to hear recently-elected Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, debate proposals to change how the state votes and counts its ballots. Recent close elections in the state have seen top-of-the-ticket races uncalled for days, an issue they’re eager to address.

Even more surprising than Fontes and Richer drawing a crowd to discuss election administration amid local Super Bowl festivities and a major golf tournament is the fact the two men were sharing a stage at all.

It’s been little more than two years since they faced off in a bitter, acrimonious election, with Richer ultimately unseating then-Maricopa Recorder Fontes in November 2020 to become the chief election official for the country’s fourth-largest county. Richer was sharply critical of how Fontes was running the county office, alleging he was overextending the role beyond that of a neutral administrator.

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NEW YORK — One of Rep. George Santos’ first-known forays into politics was an attempt to raise $20,000 for a pro-Trump rally in 2019 in Buffalo, N.Y. that never happened.

The five-figure fundraising goal drew questions from members of the small New York state-based group United for Trump. Santos — who was the group's president at the time — claimed he needed $750 to hire an accountant, $2,500 to keep a lawyer on retainer and thousands more for a keynote speaker.

The plans were “over-the-top,” group member Lisa Bennett Joseph said in an interview. Santos wanted to raise too much money, she said. “You have to start small and local.”

Santos was defensive about the unusually high price tag for a local event.

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Few Democratic candidates suffered more heartbreak on election night than Mandela Barnes. The Wisconsin Democrat, having been largely left for dead politically, came within 1 percentage point of ousting Sen. Ron Johnson.

But for Barnes’ aides, it was something more than a missed opportunity — it was a painful example of how candidates of color continue to face questions about their ability to win. Had the campaign gotten just a wee bit more air cover from super PACs at the race’s critical closing juncture, they reasoned, Barnes would have won.

“There's no question in my mind,” said Kory Kozloski, Barnes’ campaign manager. “If we were able to communicate at the same levels as Ron Johnson, Mandela Barnes would be in the United States Senate today.”

The postmortems that Barnes’ aides undertook were similar to the ones that advisers to other high-profile Black Senate candidates conducted after an election in which Democrats fared well, but those contenders fell short. While there are numerous reasons why none of the Black candidates trying to flip seats won, they’ve gravitated to a common theme, one that’s more personal than a typical after-action campaign report: Black candidates needed more trust — and, with it, funding — from the Democratic Party’s infrastructure.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. —

Gov. Josh Shapiro made headlines for taking the oath of office last week on a stack of scripture that included a Hebrew bible from Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, site of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.

Yet while Shapiro invoked his Jewish faith in his inaugural address, more memorable on a brisk-but-not-bitter day outside Pennsylvania’s grand capitol was what happened when the St. Thomas Gospel Choir from Philadelphia performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing”: Shapiro sang along with them, mouthing the lyrics to the Black National Anthem from heart while unabashedly rocking back and forth on both legs.

The next day, outside Maryland’s history-drenched State House in Annapolis, it was Oprah Winfrey who left many attendees (and perhaps even a few local pols) starstruck. Winfrey introduced Gov. Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor and only the third-ever elected African-American governor.

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An early showdown destined to shape the 2024 election cycle is happening this week inside a luxury waterfront hotel in Orange County, Calif., where weeks of shadow-boxing between incumbent Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel and her foremost challenger, conservative lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, will transition into a high-stakes political brawl.

McDaniel is seeking a fourth two-year term, counseling stability atop the RNC ahead of the coming presidential election, while Dhillon is waging an insurgent campaign to unseat her, arguing that change is needed following the GOP’s abysmal midterm performance.

The sparring has grown intense, with the two camps trading accusations of mismanagement, intimidation, and other misdeeds. And in interviews with POLITICO this week, neither candidate showed any sign of easing up ahead of this week’s RNC winter meeting in Dana Point.

“We just can’t afford to take our foot off the gas,” McDaniel said, projecting confidence she would prevail over Dhillon.

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Swing state voters broadly rejected candidates in last year’s midterms who questioned the results of the 2020 elections. But unfounded accusations of fraud and other malfeasance continue to tear at the machinery of U.S. elections.

The latest example comes from Alabama and its newly elected secretary of state, Wes Allen. His first official act upon taking office earlier this month was unusual: The Republican fulfilled a campaign promise by withdrawing Alabama from an obscure interstate compact that helps states maintain voter rolls, citing data security concerns.

That consortium — known as Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC — has been a genuine bipartisan success story, finding buy-in from red states like Florida and Texas and blue states like Colorado and Connecticut to help them remove duplicate voter registrations and catch potential instances of double voting.

But conservative conspiracy sites like The Gateway Pundit and the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit that filed lawsuits that unsuccessfully sought to overturn the 2020 election, have attacked ERIC as part of a liberal plot to control the underpinnings of American elections.

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