SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Four family members of a Republican running for governor in Illinois were killed in a Montana helicopter crash, his campaign said Thursday. Killed in the crash Wednesday were the son and daughter-in-law of former state Sen. Darren Bailey, a Republican who lost the 2022 gubernatorial election in Illinois and is seeking his party’s nomination again in next year’s race.

Some of Washington’s biggest lobbying firms raked in unprecedented amounts of cash last quarter. But it’s the upstart firms with ties to President Donald Trump or his administration that have been drowning in lobbying fees, lapping their more established rivals on K Street as Trump’s second term continues to scramble the hierarchy of the influence industry. Ballard Partners led the charge with more than $25 million in lobbying revenues in the third quarter, shattering the firm’s previous record of $20.7 million the previous quarter.

Indiana Senate Republicans say they do not have votes to pass mid-cycle redistricting despite a pressure campaign from the White House, according to a spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray. “The votes aren’t there for redistricting,” said Molly Swigart, Bray’s spokesperson. The news comes just days after President Donald Trump held a phone call with reluctant members of the caucus, according to two people close to the sensitive talks.

Republicans have recruited a Sununu to run for Senate in New Hampshire after all. Former Sen. John E. Sununu said Wednesday that he is running to reclaim the seat he held for a single term before Democrat Jeanne Shaheen ousted him in 2008. Shaheen is retiring next year. “Maybe you’re surprised to hear that I’m running for the Senate again. I’m a bit surprised myself.

A person drove a vehicle into a gate outside the White House on Tuesday night, according to the Secret Service. “At approximately 10:37 p.m., an individual drove a vehicle into the Secret Service vehicle gate located at 17th & E St, NW,” the Secret Service said on X. The law enforcement agency, which is responsible for protecting the president, added the driver was “arrested & the vehicle was assessed and deemed safe.”

Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner expressed regret over getting a tattoo that appears similar to a Nazi symbol nearly two decades ago and plans to have it removed, his latest mea culpa after a week of damning headlines over resurfaced social media posts. Platner’s campaign sought to front-run opposition research about his tattoo — which resembles a Nazi skull and crossbones — during an appearance on the liberal podcast Pod Save America on Monday, with his campaign…

Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO. Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to the chat.

Run For Something, a progressive candidate recruitment organization, is pitching major donors on a $50 million, five-year effort to expand Democrats’ footprint in battleground and red states outside the Blue Wall — an ambitious plan for a party that’s lost ground with voters across the country. In a donor memo shared first with POLITICO, the organization paints a dire picture for Democrats if they don’t invest in red-leaning states, and details plans to support independent candidates for the first time next year.

A trove of bigoted messages between members of the Young Republicans is deepening a sharp rift among state groups across the country, further fracturing an organization that has been beset with internal discord and infighting for years. Young Republicans chapters across the country were divided on how to respond to the texts — with some groups staying silent and others immediately denouncing the…

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker turned heads this week when his campaign disclosed he won $1.4 million gambling last year. Though the billionaire Democrat doesn’t frequent Las Vegas casinos as much as he once did, the windfall is a reminder of his high-stakes past. Pritzker has been a blackjack player for more than two decades, long before he entered public office.

The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement is back for round two — and after avoiding Washington during the summer, protesters are expected to descend on the nation’s capital Saturday amid an 18-day government shutdown that has no end in sight. The demonstrations are part of the second national day of action, organized by dozens of liberal advocacy groups to protest what they call “authoritarian power grabs” on the part of President Donald Trump.

Graham Platner is trying to move on from the divisive online posts that threaten to derail his insurgent candidacy for Senate. The Maine business owner seeking the seat now held by GOP Rep. Susan Collins released a video Friday offering a lengthy explanation and expressing regret for Reddit comments that endorsed political violence, minimized rape in the military and disparaged police.

NEW YORK — The Vermont state senator involved in the hate-filled Young Republican group chat uncovered by POLITICO announced his resignation Friday. Sam Douglass, a state lawmaker who represented an area near the Canadian border, said in a statement that “if my Governor asks me to do something, I will act, because I believe in what he’s trying to do,” referring to Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott’s…

President Donald Trump phoned into a private Indiana Senate Republican caucus meeting Friday, pressing reluctant Hoosier lawmakers to undertake mid-cycle redistricting, according to two people briefed on the call who were granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation. The call — which was Trump’s first-known call with rank-and-file Indiana state lawmakers on the matter following an August Oval Office meeting with state House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray — punctuated an intense period of national lobbying on redistricting.

Ken Martin has been almost everywhere since he became the chair of the Democratic National Committee, attempting to put out fires for a party in the wilderness as he has hopscotched some 33 states over the last eight months. Just this week, Martin quietly shuttled from Indianapolis, where Indiana Republicans are weighing mid-cycle redistricting at the demand of President Donald Trump, to Washington for the Supreme Court’s oral arguments of Louisiana v.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Jacqui Heinrich | The Conversation lead image

Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani smiled his way through a two-hour debate where Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa tried to land punches on the frontrunner. Few of those hits had much of an impact against Mamdani, who effectively pressed his affordability platform without making any significant mistakes. Cuomo needed a moment that he didn’t get. Mamdani had a largely pain-free night.

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

Graham Platner, who is running as an insurgent Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, once suggested in online posts that violence is a necessary means to achieving social change – comments now drawing scrutiny in an era of increased political violence. Platner, 41, a former Marine and combat veteran who now raises oysters, made the statements on Reddit in 2018, long before he emerged as a serious candidate to take on Republican Sen.

RICHMOND, Virginia — Jay Jones, the Democratic Virginia attorney general hopeful whose violence-themed text messages triggered a nationwide GOP backlash, said during a Thursday debate that his messages should not disqualify him from being elected as the state’s top law enforcement official. “I'm ashamed, I'm embarrassed and I'm sorry,” Jones said Thursday in what will be the only televised debate with incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, who he characterized as a “willing cheerleader” of President Donald Trump.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the state’s National Guard to Austin ahead of this weekend’s planned No Kings rally in the Texas capital, he announced Thursday, as top Republicans around the country vilify the protests as Antifa-linked and led by the radical flank of the Democratic Party. “Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas," Abbott said in a statement Thursday.

Conservative influencer Candace Owens has been denied entry into Australia after the country’s High Court on Wednesday sided with the government and ruled she could "incite discord” among communities. While the Australian Constitution does not explicitly protect free speech, High Court Justices Stephen Gageler, Michelle Gordon and Robert Beech-Jones jointly ruled that implied freedom of political communication “is not a ‘personal right,’ is not unlimited and is not absolute.”

NEW YORK — Two more members of a Young Republican group chat strewn with racist epithets and hateful jokes stepped down from their jobs Tuesday after POLITICO published an exclusive report on the Telegram exchanges. Peter Giunta’s time working with New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly “has ended,” the Republican lawmaker said. Giunta served as chair of the New York State Young Republicans when the chat took place.

Gov. Janet Mills’ entrance into the Maine Senate primary on Tuesday reignited the familiar progressive-versus-establishment battle lines. A three-way clash in Michigan has exposed the ongoing divisions within the party over Israel-Gaza. And a wave of generational challenges to elderly House members have flared across the country. Democratic primaries — already crowded, often messy and frequently retreading well-worn ideological fault lines within the party — are finally taking shape as top candidates jump in and filing deadlines approach.

NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway. They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.