Progressives are pushing Medicare for All in some of the Democratic Party's most competitive Senate primaries next year, threatening the unity the party has found on attacking Republicans over expiring Obamacare subsidies.

In Maine, Graham Platner said he’s making Medicare for All a “core part” of his platform in his race against Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment pick who’s called for a universal health care program. In Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly are both championing the concept — and calling out rival Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi for not fully embracing it.

In Minnesota, Medicare for All has emerged as a key distinction between progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and moderate Rep. Angie Craig, who supports adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act rather than Medicare for All. Flanagan said she “absolutely” expects the policy to define the primary because “it doesn’t matter if I’m in the urban core, the suburbs or greater Minnesota — when I say I’m a supporter of Medicare for All, the room erupts.”

And it’s become a flashpoint in Michigan, where physician Abdul El-Sayed, who wrote a book called Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide, is using his signature issue to draw a contrast with Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who favor other approaches.

Medicare for All — government-funded health coverage for every American — is “where we need to point to,” El-Sayed said in an interview. “And I think you can galvanize a winning coalition around this issue.”

But some more moderate Democrats worry that progressives' renewed push for Medicare for All would undermine the party’s recent united front in fighting for an extension of the Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, leading to a significant spike in insurance costs for millions of Americans. Their effort initially failed in the Senate, but with the help of four vulnerable Republicans who crossed party lines this week, Democrats have now secured a House vote on an extension in January.

"We have a singular message, which is: ‘Don’t let these tax credits go.’ We have Republicans on the ropes,” said a national Democratic strategist who works on Senate races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I don’t think introducing ‘we need MFA’ is the right strategy right now. I think it would be unhelpful."

Several Democratic consultants pointed to recent public polling showing Americans like having individual insurance coverage, despite being dissatisfied with health care companies. An NBC News poll found 82 percent of Americans were satisfied with their plans, both private and government-sponsored. Based on that data, these consultants said allowing Americans to buy into a government-offered plan, known as a “public option,” is more politically palatable.

Centrists have long dismissed Medicare for All as both a policy pipedream and political albatross for their party — a rallying cry for the left that serves as catnip for Republican admakers looking to broad brush Democrats as socialists. They argue that surveys often fail to present voters with the full picture of how Medicare for All would work, and therefore fail to capture its electoral toxicity.

“What we need to accept is there’s a deeply held skepticism among Americans about going zero to 60 that’s entirely government run, even though they don’t love the current system,” said Adam Jentleson, a Democratic strategist and president of the Searchlight Institute. “In isolation, this thing does okay. But it’s not how it plays out in real life, and the totality will crush us.”

The once-fringe policy that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) mainstreamed during his presidential campaigns has become a rallying cry for his favored candidates and other progressives across battleground primaries, as Democrats work to make health care costs central to next year’s midterms and as the party base clamors for fighters willing to disrupt the status quo. The push for Medicare for All, which receded during the more moderate Biden era, comes as Democrats have otherwise been unified on their health care messaging, forcing Republicans onto defense over their refusal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

“Do I think every single swing-seat candidate is going to come out for Medicare for All? No,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, a Democratic strategist and board member for the nonprofit Care in Action. “But if you want to signal that you’re unafraid and bold right now, and you want to say you’re not beholden to the status quo, it’s a perfect position for that.”

Progressives are emboldened by partisan and independent polling that shows most Democrats and a majority of independents support Medicare for All. A recent survey commissioned by Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-Wash.) leadership PAC and first reported by POLITICO showed 90 percent of Democrats back Medicare for All and found most independents and one in five Republicans back a “government-provided system.”

Jayapal, the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, plans to push her colleagues to start promoting Medicare for All again in the new year. She predicted in an interview that support for the system will be a “defining factor” in the party’s primaries next year and an electoral winner in battleground House seats.

But proponents of Medicare for All argue that a government-provided system would lessen the pinch of rising health care costs. They say pushing to extend the ACA subsidies and promoting Medicare for All as an end goal are not mutually exclusive. And they point to several 2018 candidates who won tough seats while supporting the measure, including former Rep. Katie Porter in California to retiring Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.

“You can know that there are short-term stopgaps that must be taken to protect working people while also thinking that long term, we need a better system,” said Platner, who is vying against Mills to unseat GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.

Platner has been extolling Medicare for All from the start of his campaign and said it gets the “most raucous” response at his events across Maine, where a recent Pan Atlantic Research poll found 63 percent support for the system (and Platner trailing Mills by 10 points).

He argued in an interview that Mills isn’t as steadfast in her support for the concept because she “doesn’t talk about it all that often” and uses “vague language” when she does. Mills has said “it is time” for universal health care and that she’s “committed to finding a way to get there” if elected. Her campaign echoed that sentiment in response to a request for comment for this story, and cited her efforts to expand Mainers access to Medicaid.

In Minnesota, Flanagan said embracing Medicare for All has been a “journey” during her Senate campaign, as she heard from Minnesotans that the “cost of health care is the thing that comes over and over and over again.” Of Craig’s support for a public option, Flanagan said voters don’t want a nominee who “nibbles around the edges” instead of being “bold and audacious.”

Craig calls the public option a “big, bold reform,” but emphasizes that it’s a policy “we could actually accomplish in this country in a fairly short time period,” she said in a video this week.

In Illinois, Stratton and Kelly, two of the three leading Democrats vying to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, are jockeying for position as Medicare for All’s biggest champion in the race while their campaigns knock Krishnamoorthi for couching his support for the system. Krishnamoorthi said in a statement that while it’s “a noble goal, and I’m fighting to get us to universal coverage” his focus is on extending the ACA subsidies and reversing Republicans’ cuts to Medicaid.

And in Michigan, El-Sayed has slammed McMorrow’s call for universal health care with a public option as “incoherent” and ill-informed as the two compete for the same slice of progressive voters. McMorrow has knocked the idea of a single-payer system run by President Donald Trump and his controversial health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And she’s promoted a public option so people who like their private insurance can keep it. Stevens’ campaign says she supports strengthening Obamacare, including through a public option, without endorsing Medicare for All.

The issue is also becoming a flashpoint in Democratic primaries for some of the most competitive House seats in the country, driven in part by Sanders-backed candidates running from California’s Central Valley to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.

“There’s immense hostility and anger toward the way the insurance industry functions, doubled up with health care itself being one of the biggest affordability issues,” said Mark Longabaugh, a progressive strategist who worked on Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. “Progressives are smart to push the case.”

PHOENIX — After three straight days of MAGA infighting here at Turning Point’s AmericaFest, top Republicans — including Vice President JD Vance — tried to find agreement on Sunday afternoon, shifting their focus to countering the opposition.

“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” Vance told the crowd to loud applause, adding later: “We have far more important work to do than canceling each other."

In his speech, Vance ripped into “far left” Democrats, casting their policies as toxic to Americans and blaming them for Charlie Kirk's September killing, which has loomed large over the gathering. He touted the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, vaccines and transgender issues, while calling for the crowd to engage ahead of next year’s midterms.

“If you miss Charlie Kirk, do you promise to fight what he died for? Do you promise to take the country back from the people who took his life?” Vance asked the crowd.

His speech at the Phoenix Convention Center is the culmination of a weekend-long festival for 30,000 of President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. But until Sunday, much of the weekend was clouded by an intra-party schism that kicked off during night one on Thursday, when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro ripped into a number of fellow MAGA-verse influencers, especially Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Steve Bannon.

“The conservative movement is in serious danger,” Shapiro said, especially from some “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”

Those themes carried through on Friday and Saturday, with presidential-hopeful turned Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy casting the moment as “a time for choosing in the conservative movement.”

Like Shapiro, Ramasawamy focused significant time on Carlson and his interview with far-right influencer and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, listing some of his most inflammatory remarks and saying they “have no place in this movement.”

Then, Bannon hit the stage and reversed course, comparing Shapiro to a “a cancer, and that cancer spreads.”

“Ben Shapiro is the farthest thing from MAGA,” Bannon told the crowd.

The sold-out annual meeting is the group’s first since founder Charlie Kirk was gunned down in September. It has featured a broad array of figures from within the conservative movement, including top commentators, elected officials, candidates and religious leaders, culminating with Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday.

Johnson called the weekend an “epic and faithful battle that truly will determine the future of our great republic” while stressing the importance of keeping control of the House ahead of next year’s midterms.

Vance also spent much of his speech talking about the midterms, bashing Democratic Senate candidates Graham Platner of Maine and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who are both running in competitive primaries.

“We are gonna kick their ass next November,” Vance said of Democrats as the crowd immediately burst into “USA” chants. Outside of Johnson and Vance, a number of other speakers on Sunday sought to bridge the divisions that emerged in the prior days.

"I choose to build a movement, be part of a movement, that stands on principle, on strength, that loves the people in the movement, even sometimes when they piss you off,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who is running for governor. "You can't form a winning unit if you can't stay focused on the mission at hand.”

Donald Trump Jr. also sought to shift the focus to Democrats.

“The real enemy? It’s not Steve Bannon or Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro, it’s the radical left that murdered Charlie and celebrated it on a daily basis,” Trump Jr. told the crowd.

The political beliefs of alleged Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson, who is facing multiple charges including aggravated murder, aren’t easily defined.

President Donald Trump endorsed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in the New York gubernatorial race, a day after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) ended her bid.

“Bruce is MAGA all the way, and has been with me from the very beginning,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Saturday. “Bruce Blakeman is a FANTASTIC guy, will win the big November Election and, without hesitation, has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Governor of the ONCE GREAT STATE OF NEW YORK (IT CAN BE GREAT AGAIN!). BRUCE BLAKEMAN WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Stefanik was long seen as the favorite in the Republican primary to face off against incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2026, months after Trump nudged fellow governor hopeful Rep. Mike Lawler into running for reelection to his competitive House seat by endorsing him to remain in Congress.

But Blakeman jumping into the race earlier this month complicated things for Stefanik, and Trump had publicly praised both Republicans as “fantastic people.”

Hochul still holds a double-digit lead over Blakeman in a potential head-to-head matchup, according to a Siena Poll of New York released earlier this week.

Stefanik, a once powerful voice inside Congress, has had a tumultuous year, as the president pulled her nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations over concerns about what her departure would mean for the slim GOP House majority.

But Trump also declined to endorse the Upstate New York congressmember for governor. In her announcement bowing out of the race, she said she would not run for reelection.

Blakeman attended a Hanukkah reception at the White House with the president earlier this week.

In a post on X following Trump’s endorsement, Blakeman said he was “grateful and blessed” to have the president’s support.

The Trump administration, initially wary over the Justice Department’s release of Jeffrey Epstein documents, pounced on go-to villain Bill Clinton’s appearance in Friday’s trove of pictures, emails and interviews.

“I wonder why the Biden DOJ refused to release the files…,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin posted from his personal X account, alongside one partially-redacted photo of Clinton in a pool with an unidentified woman. Another swimming pool photo Gilmartin posted shows Clinton with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime co-conspirator who was convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021.

Trump and the DOJ also resisted releasing the files until Congress passed a bill to do so. Trump signed the bill last month.

Clinton has long been linked with Epstein, contributing to his status as MAGA’s favored boogeyman. Some high-profile members of the movement cited him in pushing for the release of the files, and continued that message after the DOJ made public a trove of documents from the government’s investigation into Epstein.

“Slick Willy! @BillClinton just chillin, without a care in the world. Little did he know…” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted to X.

“Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors. Time for the media to start asking real questions,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson posted to her personal X account.

The act also allowed the DOJ to redact material related to active investigations.

It’s unclear when the previously unreleased photo was taken and where the pool is located.

Clinton appears in photos posing with Epstein in coordinating shirts, interacting with a dancer, sitting with a redacted woman on his lap on what looks like an airplane and with someone who appears to be the late pop icon Michael Jackson. The music legend faced his own child sex abuse allegations as early as 1993, though he was never convicted of any crimes.

The former president is also seen at a dinner sitting next to rock star Mick Jagger, alongside Maxwell and Epstein.

Epstein faced state and federal charges over two decades related to the sexual abuse and trafficking of dozens of underage girls as young as 14. He pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges in 2008, one of which was for soliciting prostitution from someone under 18. He was awaiting trial on federal child trafficking charges when he died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019. His connections to the wealthy and powerful, and efforts to keep information related to him from becoming public, has become part of the national political narrative – intensifying bipartisan sniping and deepening fractures in Trump’s base.

The files were heavily redacted. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said earlier Friday that the first dissemination would be partial, with as many as hundreds of thousands of more documents to follow in the coming weeks.

A spokesperson for Clinton said the Friday afternoon timing of the document release is “about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever.”

“So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Angel Ureña, deputy chief of staff for Clinton, posted in a statement on X. “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”

Clinton and Epstein have been linked since the early 1990s, having run in the same social circles. They have been photographed together several times. Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane in the early 2000s, taking trips to Europe, Asia and Africa. Ureña said those trips included stops for work connected to the Clinton Foundation.

The former president has never been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein, and said he was not aware of Epstein’s crimes, something a Clinton spokesperson reiterated in a social media post six years ago.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee this month released additional photos from Epstein’s estate that feature Clinton.

Trump has long suggested that Clinton repeatedly visited Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the location of alleged sex trafficking and abuse where the financier hosted high-profile friends. But White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in a Vanity Fair interview published this week that Trump was “wrong” to tie Clinton to Epstein’s criminal activity.

Trump and Epstein were longtime friends before Trump said they had a falling out several years ago. The president has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that he took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation.

Brakkton Booker contributed to this report.

ALBANY, New York — Rep. Elise Stefanik is expected to drop her bid for New York governor, according to three people with knowledge of her decision.

Stefanik entered the race to challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul in November — months after President Donald Trump cleared the field by endorsing moderate GOP Rep. Mike Lawler’s reelection in his swing House seat.

But her bid became complicated this month by the entrance of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman into the race for governor. Both Stefanik and Blakeman are Trump allies and the president has publicly praised both candidates as “great.” Blakeman’s campaign on Thursday announced it would begin airing ads during the week of Christmas in West Palm Beach — the location of the president’s Florida residence.

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.