Democrats Flip Key Seat in District Trump Won by Double Digits

In 2024, Donald Trump won Iowa’s first state Senate District handily, by 11 points. In a Tuesday special election, Democratic candidate Catelin Drey won an upset 10-point victory, as the district swung blue by 21 points since the presidential election.

Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch, filling a vacancy left by late Republican state Senator Rocky De Witt. The last time the seat was up for election, in 2022, De Witt beat a Democratic incumbent by about 10 points.

Drey’s victory breaks a supermajority that Iowa Senate Republicans have enjoyed since 2022. This means Republican senators will have to reach across party lines and recruit at least one Democrat to confirm the nominees of Republican Governor Kim Reynolds.

The election was the fourth Iowa special election this year, all of which bode poorly for the GOP’s standing in the Hawkeye state. Two of the elections that took place before Tuesday also went to Democrats, one of whom ousted an incumbent Republican 52–48. All three also saw Democratic overperformances from 2024—by 24, 25, and 26 points.

Looking beyond state lines, according to The Downballot, Democratic candidates in special elections nationwide have overperformed the party’s 2024 presidential election results by around 16 points.

Republican Senator Susan Collins’s ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday turned into a public shaming as more than 200 protestors gathered to jeer the centrist from Maine.

This was Collins’s first public, press conference-style event in her home state in nearly a decade. Video shows the room erupting in boos as she approached the front of the room to cut the ribbon for a new Main Street in Seaport, Maine. The boos eventually turned into chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

Collins smiled and cut the ribbon as if her angry constituents weren’t even there. The crowd continued to shout her down.

“I’m so disgusted with the cuts the Republican Party has made to this Big Ugly Bill.... Get outta here!” one constituent yelled at Collins while she was at the podium.

“So now, if you would let me celebrate—,” Collins responded, alluding to the Main Street grand opening.

“Oh please, there’s no celebration for a genocide!” another constituent shouted, causing the crowd to erupt once again.

“Could you please just listen for one—”

“We’d like you to listen!”

“You don’t ever listen to us!”

“Your votes destroyed our Supreme Court!”

“You refuse to have town halls with us!”

“Why are you funding genocide?”

“I have a suggestion,” Collins said when she was able to get a word in. “Could you listen to the suggestion?”

“Vote Graham Platner!” another attendee shouted.

“Here is my suggestion,” said Collins. “I would like the town of Seaport, which has worked so hard with state, local, and me, to bring today about. To be able to celebrate—”

Collins was again shouted down, this time over her votes to continue funding and arming Israel in its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

This all comes as progressive populist Democrat Graham Platner announced his bid to unseat Collins last week in a now viral video. His candidacy serves as a foil to Collins on almost every issue, and Maine residents are starting to notice.

“My name is Graham Platner and I’m running for U.S. Senate to defeat Susan Collins and topple the oligarchy that’s destroying our country,” he said in his campaign video. “I’m a veteran, oysterman, and working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people. And that makes me deeply angry.”

Platner, a Marine veteran, has pledged to end “endless wars” and refuse to take money from AIPAC.

“What is happening in Gaza is a genocide. I refuse to take money from AIPAC or any group that supports the genocide in Gaza,” he told Jewish Insider. Collins has long been AIPAC-backed and voted for President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Collins’s chances of winning have been precarious for some time now. Her dedication to a spineless centrist conservatism has frustrated Maine voters, especially in a state won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 general election. That, combined with Collins’s icy reception at her own event, and Platner’s current surge, should make the longtime senator very worried.

President Donald Trump sounded like a tyrannical toddler Tuesday as he declared that he has “the right to do anything” he wants.

Trump is feuding with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker over Trump’s plot to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, and in a Cabinet meeting he took a turn into downright despotic territory.

“I would have much more respect for Pritzker if he’d call me up and say, ‘I have a problem, can you help me fix it?’ I would be so happy to do it,” Trump ranted. “I don’t love—not that I don’t have... I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it. No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they’d call and they’d say, ‘Would you do it?’”

It’s no surprise that the president, who has systematically undermined the country’s checks and balances, feels this way. He even (jokingly) declared himself king. Trump’s tactic of undermining statistics and lying about crime rates as a means to justify law enforcement crackdowns in Democrat-led cities is the latest in a long line of autocratic acts to punish his opposition and seize more power.

The president shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for an invite to Chicago. During a press conference Monday, Pritzker warned that Trump should keep his distance. “You are neither wanted here, nor needed here,” he said. “Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties, and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.”

As the Trump administration contemplates further incursions into the private sector following its Intel deal, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the defense industry could be in the administration’s sights.

When the administration acquired a 10 percent stake in the tech company Intel last week—a move that began with the president attempting to get its CEO fired, alleging problematic China ties—Donald Trump vowed to do more “deals like that.” This week, a top Trump economic adviser said businesses beyond just the tech sector can expect such interventions going forward.

On CNBC Tuesday, Howard Lutnick defended the move, saying it’s “fair” for the U.S. government to take stake in a business if it’s “adding fundamental value” to it.

Host Andrew Ross Sorkin chimed in with a follow-up: “What about defense companies though, secretary?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t the U.S. government say, ‘You know what, we use Palantir services. We would like a piece of Palantir. We use Boeing services. We would like a piece of Boeing.’”

“There are a lot of businesses that do business with the U.S. government that benefit by doing business with the U.S. government,” Sorkin added. “Again, I guess the question is: Where’s the line?”

Lutnick replied that there is a “monstrous discussion” to be had about potentially taking stakes in defense companies. “Lockheed Martin makes 97 percent of their revenue from the U.S. government. They are basically an arm of the U.S. government,” he added.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, he continued, are “thinking about” taking stakes in military contractors.

A high profile conservative lawyer is calling Donald Trump’s political strategy what it is: “authoritarianism.”

George Conway, the ex-husband of Trump’s first term adviser Kellyanne Conway, warned that Americans need to “wake up” to the Trump administration’s dangerous maneuverings, citing recent targets of Trump’s retribution campaign as evidence that the country’s typical backstops were caving to the president.

“You know, people don’t want to reach this conclusion: This is authoritarianism,” Conway told CNN Tuesday. “We have never seen anything like this in America.”

The well known attorney pointed to the FBI’s laser focus on John Bolton as an example. Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser turned vocal Trump critic, had his Maryland home raided last week by the federal bureau in what was described as a “national security investigation in search of classified records.”

Conway compared the raid to actions taken by authoritarian regimes throughout history, including the reign of Adolf Hitler in Germany and former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

“This is how it’s done,” Conway said. “And it may seem alarmist to Americans who enjoy … our lives here, a beautiful country, with so many things to do and so many ways to entertain ourselves.”

“It’s time for Americans to wake up,” he continued. “This is serious. Donald Trump … people may laugh at him because … he appears to be such a clown, but he’s profoundly dangerous because he has the power of prosecution. And every time he says something like this, Americans should take note.”

Bolton has repeatedly pissed off the MAGA leader since their time working together abruptly came to a close.

Over the last several years, the former national security adviser released a book about the inner machinations of Trump’s first term, claimed that Trump had become Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet, described the right-wing figurehead as a “fascist,” and claimed in March 2024 that Trump “hasn’t got the brains” to be a dictator.