Politics
Pittsburgh congressional race could be early test for progressives who criticize Israel's handling of war
An election this month in Pittsburgh and some of its suburbs is emerging as an early test of whether Israel’s war with Hamas poses political threats to progressive Democrats in Congress who have criticized how the conflict has been handled.
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a first-term lawmaker who has aligned herself with “the squad,” is facing a primary challenge from Bhavini Patel and the war has become a flashpoint in the race.
Patel frames Lee’s criticism of Israel as part of a broader pattern of left-wing politics that are extreme for the district and potentially damaging to Democratic President Joe Biden in a state crucial to his reelection bid against Republican Donald Trump. Lee counters that she has helped move calls for a cease-fire in Gaza more into the mainstream of the Democratic Party.
SIX HOUSE SEATS THAT COULD FLIP FROM BLUE TO RED IN 2024, POTENTIALLY GIVING GOP A BIGGER MAJORITY
The war has scrambled Democratic politics across the United States. It’s dividing traditionally progressive groups, including Pittsburgh’s sizable Jewish community, in ways that don’t always fall neatly along ethnic or cultural lines. But it’s an especially potent issue in Lee’s district, which is home to the synagogue where a gunman in 2018 killed 11 congregants in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
The April 23 primary could shed light on whether the war alone is enough to turn a critical mass of Democrats against Lee.
“It clearly is big enough with a certain group in this district,” said Sam Hens-Greco, the party chair in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. “Whether it is big enough for the entire populace, we’re going to find out.”
Bhavini Patel, Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, answers a question during the Barbara Daily Danko Political Forum on Jan. 28, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (Lucy Schaly/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
If Lee is defeated, she would be the first Democratic incumbent in Congress to lose a primary this year. Other progressive Democrats, including Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, face primary challengers this summer.
Lee has raised far more money than Patel and has backing from Pennsylvania’s Democratic establishment, including Sen. Bob Casey, and a constellation of progressive groups that include both Jewish and Muslim organizations.
The first Black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania, the 36-year-old Lee is a Howard University law school graduate and community activist who began her political career in 2018 with a successful challenge from the left to an entrenched Pittsburgh-area state lawmaker.
In this year’s campaign, Lee has promoted herself as a hardworking representative who delivers for constituents and speaks in Congress for marginalized communities on issues from fighting inequality to climate change and bigotry, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.
On the Israel-Hamas war, Lee has condemned Hamas’ attack, but has also accused Israel of committing “war crimes” in Gaza, demanded an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and called for a cease-fire within days of the war starting as the best way to end the cycle of violence and work toward peace.
That set her apart from Biden’s stance and that of most House Democrats, although now dozens more have joined her in calling for a cease-fire. At Biden’s State of the Union speech, Lee donned a kaffiyeh, a checkered scarf that has come to symbolize solidarity with Palestinians.
Patel, 30, a small-town municipal councilwoman who worked in former Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s administration, declared her candidacy a few days before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Patel, who is Hindu and of Indian heritage, has cultivated the Jewish community, opening a campaign office in the Jewish enclave in Squirrel Hill, attended post-Oct. 7 vigils and bussed with community members to a pro-Israel rally in Washington in November.
Most recently, Patel has hammered Lee for being aligned with backers of the “uncommitted” campaign that is encouraging Democrats to protest Biden’s handling of the war by voting “uncommitted” in primaries.
That, Patel suggested, is dangerous.
“I would say that every Democrat in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District should take notice that my opponent is equivocating on her support for President Biden and failed to denounce the ‘uncommitted’ movement,” Patel said in an interview. “I think that is the issue that is a big concern for Democrats in this district.”
Lee defended the “uncommitted” movement, saying it’s wrong to discourage people from voting and potentially lose a crucial part of the electorate that Democrats want to persuade to support Biden in November’s presidential contest. Biden recognizes that, as well, Lee said.
Lee said she has met with people on all sides of the war, including families of hostages and families of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza, and that her calls for a cease-fire reflect the district’s majority.
Lee also accused Patel of aligning herself more with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than with Biden.
“Joe Biden is now coming more into alignment with us, which means that, no, we were not wrong to come out early and to come out strong, because as we’re seeing now this was always where we needed to get,” Lee said in an interview. “This was always the only pathway to peace.”
For now, the sharpest questions about the war have largely been limited to debate exchanges between Lee and Patel.
The issue has barely registered on the airwaves, and pro-Israel groups that spent heavily to try to defeat Lee in the 2022 primary — Democratic Majority for Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs committee, better known as AIPAC — haven’t waded into the race.
In Pennsylvania, one potential boost for Lee could come from college students who, unlike in 2022’s primary, will be on campus this time. At the University of Pittsburgh, the war has had a “commanding presence” on campus, with most students for a cease-fire, said Will Allison, president of Pitt’s College Democrats.
The group endorsed Lee unanimously, despite the war causing some division among members, and the College Democrats are campaigning for Lee.
In one possible sign of shifting politics around the war, the 14th Ward Independent Democratic Club, a nonparty organization based around Squirrel Hill, voted to endorse Patel after backing Lee in 2022.
Sue Berman Kress, a Patel supporter who is Jewish, said she knows some Jewish Democrats who won’t vote for Lee again. They feel she’s abandoned the Jewish community and that her politics could open the door to a Trump victory and a surge in antisemitism.
“Those things feel very divisive in a way that’s very scary,” Kress said.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election in November, but fewer than a tenth of those races are likely to be competitive. And that number has been dwindling.
One culprit? The nationwide redistricting battles, in which Republicans and Democrats across the country have resorted to creative cartography to draw as many safe seats as possible as they fight for control of Congress.
Based on 2024 presidential vote margin
Competitive districts lost with recent redistricting
Competitive districts — where a candidate leads a challenger by fewer than 10 percentage points — are increasingly rare. That is partly because many voters choose to live in communities with like-minded people, making many areas more politically homogenous and less competitive. And it is partly because parties are able to draw gerrymandered House maps, whittling down the number of swing districts even further.
“It’s a mutually reinforcing process,” said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at U.C. Berkeley.
Presidential candidates won about 28 percent of congressional districts with fewer than 10 percentage points in 2008. In 2024, that decreased to 20 percent.
Four swing districts vanished after Florida’s latest round of redistricting in April. Republicans redrew the state’s congressional maps. The new map retained only one district that would have been considered competitive in the 2024 presidential election.
Nearly 20 years ago, Florida had 14 competitive districts.
Florida
2024 presidential vote margin
2024 districts: 5 competitive
New districts: 1 competitive
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump
+10–20
+20 or more Trump
Texas’ new maps shifted seats in favor of Republicans and in the process wiped out the only two districts that would have been considered competitive in 2024.
2024 presidential vote margin
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump
+10–20 +20 or more Trump
Texas
2024 districts: 2 competitive
New districts: 0 competitive
Democrats have taken a similar route. Three swing districts disappeared in California when lawmakers redrew its map so Democrats could pick up seats.
2024 presidential vote margin
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris Less than +10 Trump
+10–20
+20 or more Trump
California
2024 districts: 14 competitive
New districts: 11 competitive
Using presidential election results to analyze House races is far from a perfect forecast for the 2026 midterms. For one, voters don’t always cast ballots along party lines. And while voters overwhelmingly turned out for Republican candidates in 2024, the political environment in this year’s midterms is expected to favor Democrats.
But presidential results are a useful lens because of their high turnout and ability to offer a clearer view of partisan trends than congressional elections, which can be highly influenced by incumbency.
The lack of competition is bad for democracy, experts say. Voters have less of a reason to participate if races are not close, and they have fewer ways to force out leaders with whom they are unhappy.
“If you do away with competitive seats, you’re just going to get much less of a response when voters are dissatisfied,” Mr. Shickler said.
House members who occupy safe seats have fewer incentives to compromise or work across the aisle. Many can win by appealing to their party’s base, who are often more likely to vote in primaries.
That increases polarization and can lead to gridlock in Congress, according to experts. “We see that pretty well in our politics already,” said Asher Hildebrand, a professor of public policy at Duke University. “And we’re only going to see more of that as swing districts disappear.”
Mr. Hildebrand points to his home state of North Carolina, which went through two rounds of mid-decade redistricting within two years. Its legislature passed new maps in 2023 that left just two competitive districts. The latest map passed in October shifts one of those districts, currently represented by Don Davis, a Democrat, from one which Mr. Trump won by three percentage points in 2024 to one that he would have won by 12.
2024 presidential vote margin
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump +10–20
+20 or more Trump
North Carolina
2024 districts: 2 competitive
New districts: 1 competitive
About half of voters in North Carolina voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. But only about a quarter of the state’s delegates are Democrats.
After the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, and with encouragement from the Trump administration, Republicans in several Southern states — Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina — have moved quickly to redraw maps in their favor. Democrats have threatened to do the same in blue states.
Use the dropdown below to explore how districts’ 2024 presidential election results have shifted in each state that has passed new maps.
+20 or more Harris +10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump
+10–20
+20 or more Trump
Note: A court has not yet approved Alabama’s use of a new map.
2024 districts: 1 competitive
New districts: 0 competitive
Politics
Dem who welcomed socialist mayor’s ‘change’ now sounding alarm over billionaire exodus: ‘Gravely concerned’
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A Democratic city council member who once welcomed the “change” from socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is now admitting he is “gravely concerned” about the business exodus affecting the major American city.
This comes as blue states like Washington and New York face a business exodus in favor of more market-friendly red states. Starbucks, a major player in Seattle’s business scene, recently announced a major expansion into Nashville while simultaneously cutting Seattle-based corporate jobs, a move that has intensified concerns about Seattle’s business climate and economic competitiveness.
Wilson, a self-proclaimed socialist, recently went viral for laughing off the exodus of billionaires and business leaders from her city, saying, “I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are super overblown,” and adding, “the ones that leave? Like, bye.”
Now, less than five months into Wilson’s term, Seattle Democratic Councilmember Rob Saka admitted to the New York Times, “I am gravely concerned,” telling the outlet, “This is real.”
BISHOP BARRON SLAMS ‘BORDERLINE COMMUNISTS’ SANDERS, MAMDANI AHEAD OF TRUMP PRAYER EVENT: ‘ECONOMY THAT KILLS’
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson declared last year at a barista picket line, “I am not buying Starbucks, and you should not either.’” (David Ryder/Reuters)
Saka previously welcomed Wilson after she defeated incumbent Bruce Harrell, saying in a statement, “The voters have spoken, calling for change and a renewed focus on affordability, community, and fighting back against a resurgent Trump agenda.”
He praised the “energy she brings to leadership,” and said he was “look[ing] forward to partnering with her to build a thriving, inclusive Seattle that uplifts working families, expands universal preschool for all, ends food deserts, and creates safer, more connected neighborhoods across our city.”
Starbucks recently announced it will shift 2,000 corporate jobs, primarily in IT and supply chain management, to a new regional headquarters in Nashville. Last week, KOMO News reported Starbucks laid off an additional 61 employees as part of a reorganization of its technology department at its corporate headquarters.
State leaders in Washington have also faced criticism for recently passing the “millionaires tax,” which Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson signed on March 30. The measure has been described as the state’s first-ever income tax, backed by progressives and socialists and opposed by conservatives.
The new tax will impose a 9.9% income tax on households earning more than $1 million each year.
WHY STARBUCKS PICKED NASHVILLE OVER SEATTLE FOR EXPANSION, ACCORDING TO LOCAL BUSINESS REPORTER
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said the Seattle Police Department will be required to investigate, verify, and document any reports of immigration enforcement activity. (Katie Wilson for Seattle)
Starbucks is not the only business impacted by the state’s economic policies. The Columbia Tower Club, an iconic business club atop Seattle’s tallest skyscraper, closed last month after more than four decades. Long considered a hub for executives, developers and civic leaders, the club cited declining office traffic and downtown business activity tied to remote work and high vacancy rates. Critics quickly pointed to the closure as another sign of weakening business confidence in Seattle.
On Monday, the Washington State Republican Party ripped into both Wilson and the city council, posting on X, “Marxist @MayorofSeattle Katie Wilson is more concerned about toilet ribbon-cutting photo opps than massive capital flight in downtown #Seattle all the while @SeattleCouncil stands idle as a once iconic city crumbles.”
The jab refers to a recent Wilson event promoting new downtown public restrooms, which critics mocked amid concerns about Seattle’s economy and business climate.
Though Wilson’s now-infamous “like, bye” line drew laughs and applause from her audience, it immediately sparked backlash on social media from conservatives criticizing her economic policy.
“Seattle’s Socialist Mayor responds to exodus of wealth from Washington State by saying ‘BYE’… then laughing. We’re doomed,” wrote Brandi Kruse.
SOCIALIST MAYOR’S BLUNT 1-WORD MESSAGE TO FLEEING MILLIONAIRES SPARKS OUTRAGE: ‘WE’RE DOOMED’
The Space Needle stands over the Seattle skyline with Mt. Rainier visible in the background in Seattle, Wash., on March 13, 2022. The observation tower was built in 1962 for the World’s Fair and remains a popular tourist attraction despite recent challenges with homelessness and crime in the city. (John Moore/Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“This clip will live in infamy,” the Washington State Republican Party posted on X. “@MayorofSeattle Katie Wilson is not only unfit to be mayor, she lacks grace and gratitude. Perhaps, she’s the one who should leave #Seattle.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Saka and Wilson for additional comment.
Fox News Digital’s Rachel del Guidice, Joshua Q. Nelson and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
Politics
Trump DOJ creates $1.7-billion fund for victims of legal ‘weaponization,’ prompting outrage
WASHINGTON — Shortly after attorneys for President Trump moved Monday to dismiss his $10-billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over claims it had leaked his personal tax returns, the Justice Department announced that a settlement in the case would be used to create a $1.776-billion fund for other victims of “weaponization and lawfare.”
“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Trump has long claimed that the federal government under President Biden went after him and his political allies without justification and in violation of the law.
He has pardoned all of his supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, along with other political allies, while pressuring the Justice Department to bring cases against his political opponents.
His lawsuit against the IRS had been challenged by Democratic lawmakers, former IRS and Justice Department officials and outside progressive organizations as a blatantly unlawful move by a deeply conflicted president.
It raised questions from the federal judge overseeing it — who had demanded answers this week on whether Trump and his own government were essentially colluding to reach a mutually beneficial agreement in a case in which Trump stood on both sides.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, called the potential deal “a stunning act of corruption. … If he follows through, it will be the most brazen theft and abuse of taxpayer dollars by any president in American history.”
Blanche defended the settlement Monday as similar to one reached during the Obama administration to address claims that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had systematically discriminated against Native American ranchers and farmers for decades.
However, experts said the creation of a fund for Trump’s political allies, as part of a deal to settle a lawsuit he had personally brought against his own government, was completely unprecedented — and concerning.
“Essentially the president is on both sides of the ‘vs.’ [in the lawsuit], and has control over the very agency that is responsible for offering the funds, in settlement of a lawsuit that he has brought in his own personal capacity, along with members of this family,” said Bhattacharyya, legal director at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law. “That has never, ever, ever happened before. No former president of the United States would have been so brazen.”
The lawsuit is one of numerous legal attacks by Trump and his administration against a wide range of the president’s perceived enemies, including universities, media outlets and law firms. A number of those cases were settled with promised payments to a future Trump presidential library, funds sent to the federal government, cash for workforce development programs and free legal work.
The Justice Department said the new “weaponization” fund will be paid for out of the federal Judgment Fund, which is a permanent appropriation by Congress and administered by the U.S. Treasury. It was created to ensure that settlements by and judgments against the government could be paid out without individual appropriations being made each time.
The Justice Department said the fund will cease processing claims no later than Dec. 1, 2028 — shortly before Trump is set to leave office — and that the fund will consist of five members appointed by the attorney general, with the president having removal power.
In a separate court filing Monday in the case, 93 Democrat House members also blasted the potential IRS deal.
“Should this lawsuit achieve Plaintiffs’ desired ends, it would result in the improper and unconstitutional transfer of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the President, his family, and his allies,” the filing reads.
The initial complaint, brought by Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization, focused on leaks by a former IRS contractor, Charles Littlejohn, to the New York Times and ProPublica of tax information for Trump and other wealthy individuals.
Littlejohn pleaded guilty to the unauthorized disclosure of tax information and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024.
Progressive legal organizations and former IRS and Justice Department officials have also spoken out against the president’s lawsuit and the looming settlement.
The progressive legal organization Democracy Forward had previously filed a brief in court challenging Trump’s lawsuit as raising serious legal concerns. The February brief was filed on behalf of two other groups — Common Cause and the Project on Government Oversight — as well as four former federal officials, including former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
The brief argued that the lawsuit was significantly flawed and barred by a statute of limitation, but also raised “serious concerns about collusive litigation tactics,” and that the court “should exercise its inherent authority to proactively manage” it.
“This case is extraordinary because the President controls both sides of the litigation, which raises the prospect of collusive litigation tactics. Collusive litigation threatens the integrity of the judicial process by risking the Court’s entanglement in an illegitimate proceeding,” the filing said.
The complaint “was filed too late, against the wrong party, and for an unsupported and excessive sum of damages,” the filing said.
Last week, Brandon DeBot, a senior attorney advisor and policy director at the Tax Law Center at New York University Law, and Dave Hubbert, a senior fellow at the center, wrote that the lawsuit was “absurd,” and that a settlement — particularly one in which the IRS would agree to drop any audits of Trump, his family and their businesses — would be “deeply concerning.”
They wrote that the Justice Department has no authority to negotiate any such terms, and that “negotiations involving the President and White House officials to end audits of the President, his family, and his businesses risk violating laws protecting against political interference in tax administration.”
They noted that Congress had “strengthened the tax code’s protections against political interference on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis following public revelation of President Nixon’s failed attempts to use the IRS to target political enemies,” and that any moves by anyone in the White House to “directly or indirectly” request an audit of the president be suspended would violate the law.
Bhattacharyya, who previously oversaw complex settlement cases at the Justice Department, said the “mechanism” by which any such settlement could be used to facilitate payments directly to Trump’s allies would seem to “deviate” from guidelines for the disbursement of settlements to third parties not part of the initial litigation.
Bhattacharyya said such third-party disbursements were banned under Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions during Trump’s first term, allowed under very narrow circumstances in environmental and pollution cases under Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland during the Biden administration, and then barred again by Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in Trump’s second term, before her recent ouster.
A settlement in Trump’s IRS case being distributed to his supporters “would seem to deviate from all of those guidelines,” she said. “It would violate all of them.”
Trump’s legal maneuverings against the IRS come amid wider concerns about mismanagement at the agency and a wider battle over its providing the sensitive data of other taxpayers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at the Trump administration’s direction.
Trump removed IRS Commissioner Billy Long in August 2025, allowed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to serve as acting commissioner for a time and then created the new position of IRS “CEO,” which congressional Democrats have railed against as a “fake” position designed to avoid congressional oversight while the agency falls into “chaos.”
Congressional Democrats have also demanded answers about the release of taxpayer data to ICE, ostensibly for the purposes of deporting taxpayers who lack proper documentation to be in the country as part of Trump’s massive deportation campaign.
“The IRS now admits that this system led to exactly the kinds of grave mistakes our taxpayer privacy laws were designed to prevent,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and several other senators wrote in February.
-
Minnesota29 seconds agoICE agent charged in north Minneapolis shooting that injured man
-
Mississippi6 minutes agoJudge lets NAACP Jackson ARPA water funding lawsuit move forward
-
Missouri12 minutes ago
Missouri election clerks caught in limbo over disputed congressional map
-
Montana19 minutes agoMontana FWP seeks public comment on proposed Sisken Island fishing access site
-
Nebraska24 minutes agoIs Nebraska a lock to host an NCAA baseball regional?
-
Nevada30 minutes agoNevada Governor GOP primary: 6 longshot candidates taking on incumbent Joe Lombardo
-
New Hampshire36 minutes agoMeet Portsmouth’s Beloved Psychic Medium With Decades Of Local Lore
-
New Jersey42 minutes agoFor FIFA World Cup, New Jersey encourages towns to extend alcohol sales at bars, restaurants
