LOS ANGELES — In many World Cup host cities, competing teams also find themselves jostling for soft-power supremacy around their matches. But before its first match tomorrow in Los Angeles, New Zealand has had the diplomatic landscape all to itself.

New Zealand is scheduled to face Iran, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with the United States since 1980. Even as President Donald Trump claims an end to the countries’ monthslong war is at hand, Iran will be competing in the World Cup under severe travel restrictions. The team has been forced from its original Tucson training camp to Tijuana, and is being forced to effectively commute to its matches in the U.S. without a full government delegation.

That has left New Zealand alone in pressing its off-field agenda in Los Angeles. On Sunday evening, New Zealand consul-general Katja Ackerley opened her Brentwood mansion to a “New Zealand on the World Stage” networking reception sponsored by the government agencies overseeing the country's trade, sport and foreign-investment portfolios.

“It’s all about soft power, it’s all about person-to-person,” said Peter Miskimmin, the government’s head of sports diplomacy. “We are building relations through sport rather than bringing up arms against one another.”

The country’s Los Angeles diplomatic outpost typically focuses on promoting exports of wine and lamb, expediting visas for Hollywood personnel traveling for location shoots and addressing the perpetual crisis of “Kiwis losing their passports in Las Vegas,” as one previous inhabitant of the office put it.

A delegation of New Zealand officials was preparing for their first World Cup appearance since 2010 uncertain whether any of their opposite numbers from Iran would attend, and how that might affect the standard match-day pageantry.

“This is our first World Cup in 16 years so we can’t tell what’s different,” said James Wear, a general manager of the New Zealand Football Association. “We don’t have anything to compare.”

No European country has infuriated Donald Trump more than Spain. Now it’s desperate to win his World Cup.

Teenage superstar Lamine Yamal, Rodri and co. enter the tournament as joint favorites alongside France. With the U.S. president apparently intent on making this a World Cup that projects his personal influence and America’s soft power, victory would be sweet for Spanish soccer fans — but especially so for their prime minister.

Outspoken socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, a supporter of Atlético Madrid, has clashed spectacularly with Trump over the Iran war, but also regarding NATO spending and Israel’s assault in Gaza. Meanwhile their policies on issues from energy to immigration could hardly be further apart.

Read the full story about the failing Washington-Madrid relationship here.

Around a hundred Samurai Blue superfans crowded the Old Ambassador’s Residence at the Japanese embassy in Washington, on Sunday for a watch party marking its World Cup opener against the Netherlands.

The supporters — a motley group including erstwhile English teachers in Japan, state department workers and embassy staffers — lounged around a projector set in the building’s front room, plates piled high with nigiri. Drinking Kirin Ichiban lager and Asahi Super Dry, they winced when the Dutch team had the ball in the opposing third and burst into cheers and sang “Vamos Nippon” when Daichi Kamada’s header tied the game in the 89th minute.

“The World Cup itself is a competition,” said Masatsugu Odaira, the embassy’s minister of public affairs, at the watch party. “But from the perspective of policy and diplomacy, it’s a very good chance to connect people across borders.”

At the event, POLITICO spoke to soccer fans who are already excited about Japan’s growing diplomatic footprint and soft power projection. And they hope the World Cup will buoy that cultural momentum, stimulating tourism — one of the nation’s most lucrative sectors — and drawing eyes to Japan.

The World Cup is “just a visceral way to connect people who have not yet had the opportunity to travel to Japan to be swept up in the enthusiasm of an international competition,” said Andrew Wylegala, president of the National Association of Japan-America Societies.

Japan is already “at the top of its game” in terms of soft power projection, Wylegala added — and “soccer now fits in with that.”

Embassy staff wore pink shirts with the American and Japanese flags on the back. “Together We Bloom,” they read.

The end result, a 2-2 draw against the Dutch, the world’s eighth ranked international side, only added to their enthusiasm.

The women’s team has a far more prolific record. Fans still hark back to their 2011 World Cup final victory over the U.S., months after a massive earthquake and tsunami slammed the country.

But the men’s team has won just seven World Cup games in its history. Japan’s best-ever finish: The round of 16, where they’ve fallen four separate times.

But there’s hope that, this year, the underdogs could pull off an upset. From Ajax’s Takehiro Tomiyasu to Kamada, a Crystal Palace midfielder, the Samurai Blue have more than enough talent to compete with the sport’s upper crust.

Odaira’s hope for this year? “Oh, becoming a champion,” he said.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s rancorous GOP gubernatorial runoff, aligning the popular governor with President Donald Trump on their preferred candidate.

Kemp’s last-minute public blessing of Jones on Sunday night comes just days before the Tuesday election and marks his clearest effort yet to shape the race to succeed him in the governor’s mansion, after months of staying on the sidelines of one of Georgia’s highest-profile political contests.

It’s also a new point of agreement between Kemp and Trump, who just hours earlier sided against the governor’s handpicked candidate in the Georgia Senate runoff.

The endorsement could boost Jones as he faces off against Rick Jackson, who has poured millions of his own money into the race, making it among the most expensive gubernatorial primaries on record.

Kemp said Jones “has been a strong, trusted ally in those victories for the people of our state” in a post on X. “Burt knows how to get things done as governor because that’s what he has done as a state senator and as your Lt. Governor,” he wrote.

Kemp did not mention Jackson in his endorsement post, but he took aim at the Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has faced questions over her rocky tenure as Atlanta’s mayor but ultimately clinched a resounding victory in the May Democratic primary.

The governor was the subject of ads from both Jones and Jackson in the final days of the GOP runoff. An ad implying Jackson had Kemp's endorsement "definitely didn't help Rick," one person familiar with the governor's thinking said.

Tuesday’s runoff between Jones and Jackson has become a test of Trump — and now Kemp’s — political influence in the perennial battleground, fueled by an unprecedented influx of campaign spending. Jackson has spent $100 million of his own money, and has seen a rise in the polls. A recent Cygnal Political analysis showed Jackson with a 12-point lead, while a recent CivicLens Research survey found Jones ahead by roughly 10 points, foreshadowing a close battle to the finish.

Jones finished first in the primary last month with 38 percent, while Jackson earned 32 percent of the vote.

Arriving in the U.S. from Belgium to cover the World Cup, one overarching controversy stood out from the Iran war, visas and commercial exploitation: Should POLITICO call the sport football or soccer?

Our style guide entry — “The worldwide sport should be referred to as football in Europe and soccer in the U.S. In European copy, refer to American football for the different U.S. sport played in the NFL” — didn’t end the debate.

Ultimately, America won the internal argument (quelle surprise!) and we’ll be calling it soccer for the next five weeks, despite FIFA’s name literally having the word football in it.

Lucky, really, that it’s not the Fédération Internationale de “Soccer“ Association — as that would have sparked some confusion about which FISA exactly we were talking about in the newsroom this summer. Surveillance, section 702 and Bill Pulte? Or the low block, gegenpressing and Gianni Infantino?

DALLAS — Andrew Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s point person on the 2026 World Cup, said allowing Iran’s national team to enter the U.S. a day before its matches is an example of the administration being nice.

“We want them to be able to compete,” Giuliani said in an interview Sunday in Dallas. “Even just coming in the day before the match, I think is another example of the goodwill gesture to the team.” He said 31 Iranian players and the team’s coaches have received visas and that the arrangements “should not affect the integrity of the team.”

The comments come after Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, told POLITICO that Iran's presence in the U.S. for the World Cup should be read as a positive gesture from his country, as Tehran and Washington inch toward an agreement on ending the war that began in late February.

The Iranian team is traveling to the U.S. today from Tijuana, Mexico, where it moved its pre-tournament training camp from Tucson, Arizona, in light of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Giuliani described the move as the “best solution for all parties involved,” noting that Tijuana remains a short flight from host cities including Los Angeles and Seattle, where Iran will play its group stage matches.

“That was a discussion from the top of [the] U.S. government, and with FIFA as well,” Giuliani said.The possibility of a politically charged matchup remains on the horizon: If the U.S. and Iran both place second in their respective groups, they will play each other on July 3 in the round of 32 in Dallas.

While defending Trump’s recent military actions against Iran, Giuliani also framed the tournament as a potential opportunity for sports diplomacy.

“This is a great moment, I think, for freedom-loving Iranians [and] freedom-loving Iranian Americans to be able to celebrate their soccer team coming to the United States and enjoy that, and look for the freedoms that can exist in Iran, right?” Giuliani said. “This can be one of those moments when you talk about sports diplomacy.”

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — During the World Cup, FIFA officials, law enforcement agencies and transit planners across New York and New Jersey will be keeping an eye on things from a constellation of command centers and control rooms.

The sites — spread from Miami to Trenton, New Jersey to Brooklyn — will house a small army of public officials ready to respond to whatever pops up during eight matches being played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The number of distinct command or operations centers that will be in use is almost comical: The New Jersey State Police, the New York Police Department, multiple transit and transportation agencies in New York and New Jersey, Amtrak and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey all have their own spot on the map to work out of. Some these are permanent control rooms where officials are used to working in front of huge screens to monitor video and data feeds. Others are temporary or specific to the tournament: There's an operations center near the entrance to MetLife Stadium that the host committee and others are using and FIFA has an operations center in Miami.

But each has a distinct function and some will be staffed by officials from other agencies to help with coordination. During the World Cup, a command center in Trenton is the big dog.

“At the end of the day, though, they all report in to the larger command center, which is the ACC, the area command center, which looks at the overall region, the impacts to the region for any events, the asset allocation at different sites,” said Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz, the deputy superintendent of the New Jersey State Police and World Cup incident commander.

Before the first match here on Saturday, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill paid a visit to officials at an operations center on an elevated platform in the MetLife parking lot. After Brazil and Morocco battled to a draw and the sun had set, one of her top transit advisers could still be seen looking out over winnowing crowds boarding buses and trains to go home.

And for at least part of the summer there will be yet another command center: Over July 4 weekend, when President Donald Trump is expected in town for a massive parade of warships and a military airshow, there will be a popup command center run by the federal government at Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan.

DALLAS — The Trump administration has elevated dozens of more complex World Cup visa decisions to senior leadership as officials try to balance FIFA commitments with national security concerns.

In an interview Sunday, White House World Cup task force Executive Director Andrew Giuliani said many high-profile or complicated visa cases have ultimately reached his desk for a final determination.

"Dozens, I would say dozens," Giuliani said when asked how many edge cases had required senior-level review. He also suggested that some applicants who might otherwise face difficulties entering the country have received additional consideration because of U.S. commitments tied to hosting the World Cup.

"That's part of the contract the U.S. government signed with FIFA," Giuliani said.

In light of President Donald Trump’s tough border policies, these details provide a glimpse into the administration's process of reviewing visas ahead of the largest World Cup tournament in history — a task that’s involved the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and the White House World Cup task force to keep the process moving.

Giuliani defended the decision to deny entry to Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, saying it was made by Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

While declining to discuss specific intelligence, he said Artan had been communicating with "bad actors" shortly before he was scheduled to travel to the U.S.

Giuliani had conversations with FIFA about Artan’s case because the Somali is one of the organization's referees.

"We talked about it, obviously, right? I mean, it's one of their referees," Giuliani said.

"There are some things we can't talk about," Giuliani said. "We want all those players and coaches to come to the United States of America, and officials and referees, as long as they're not communicating and coordinating with bad actors."

Giuliani emphasized that the overwhelming majority of players, coaches, referees and officials have received visas without issue.

Still, Giuliani said the administration's red line remains national security. Referencing broader concerns about individuals linked to terrorist organizations, he said the World Cup would not serve as a justification for admitting people deemed security risks.

"The first thing that is so key to this tournament being successful is the national security of the country," Giuliani said. "We're not going to let the World Cup be the excuse."

John Malkovich, NBA champion Toni Kukoč and the Croatian men’s soccer legend Luka Modrić walk into a bar.

It’s not the start of a joke, that was the scene at the AKA Hotel in Alexandria, Va., Saturday evening.

The Croatian National Tourist Board hosted a boozy reception for its country’s soccer team as it competes in the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer, drawing a mix of athletes, business leaders, diplomats and Croatian-American community members to the glitzy rooftop of the hotel just outside Washington.

For Croatia, which reached the final in 2018 and semifinals in 2022, the tournament is about more than soccer. It is one of the country’s most effective soft power tools, a chance for a nation of fewer than four million people to project its brand to a global audience and translate sporting success into tourism, investment and cultural influence.

“This opportunity is a huge push forward for a promotion of our country,” said Kristjan Staničić, director of the Croatian National Tourist Board, in an interview.

Staničić said the U.S. has become one of Croatia's most important tourism markets, with American visitors continuing to rise since the pandemic. American travelers, he said, are increasingly discovering Croatia as a year-round destination rather than simply a shimmering summer stop along the Adriatic coast.

“The FIFA World Cup is the most popular sport[ing] event in the world," Staničić said. “This will for sure make Croatia much, much more visible these days, and in these next few months. We're open for everybody, especially for American tourists.”

Croatian officials also spent part of the evening highlighting the country's growing roster of celebrity boosters. Tourism and Sports Minister Tonči Glavina touted what he described as an all-star lineup of ambassadors for Croatian tourism, name-checking athletes like LeBron James, Rafael Nadal and Kyle Kuzma as prominent supporters helping raise the country's profile abroad.

The celebrity connections continued on stage.

Malkovich, who was granted his Croatian passport at the event, appeared alongside director Pete Radovich, a longtime CBS Sports executive, to promote an upcoming project with the Croatian National Tourist Board.

Radovich recounted helping secure Croatian citizenship for football coach Bill Belichick before telling a story about a dinner with former NFL player Jason Kelce.

After Radovich told Kelce he was from Croatia, the former NFL star initially guessed his family's roots were from “Romania, Hungary, somewhere around there.” The next day, Radovich said, Kelce texted him: “Thanks for last night. Great conversation. By the way, I talked to my mom, we're Croatian.” Radovich said he immediately had a follow-up question: Why not apply for citizenship, too? (No word yet if Kelce has taken Radovich up on his offer.)

As for Croatia's chances on the field — they’re slated to face England on Wednesday in Arlington, Texas — Staničić wasn't lacking confidence.

“I hope there aren't any injuries,” he said. “I think they're the best. They're going to the final.”

Haiti has the highest level of perceived corruption of any country taking part in the World Cup, with Norway and New Zealand scoring lowest (something New Zealand might have to get used to!). These figures came from Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

It’s not just football versus soccer. Britain and America share a language and deep historical ties, but their political systems are an ocean apart.

That could be good news for President Donald Trump.

As Republicans in the United States search for clues about the political mood ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections, a parliamentary by-election in Makerfield, England, is demanding attention. It’s not just that the special election could kick off a chain of events ending in Keir Starmer being ousted as prime minister — the contest itself serves as an early test of whether the anti-incumbent anger that upended Western democracies in 2024 remains a potent force.

But a new analysis of POLITICO Poll results suggests British and American voters respond to that political frustration in different ways. While cynicism about politics is widespread and persistent in both countries, British voters, with an array of political parties across the ideological spectrum, are willing to abandon their party in search of an alternative.

American voters, by contrast, remain largely constrained by the two-party system — limiting just how far they can go in channeling their frustrations.

In the U.K., just half of those who voted for Starmer’s center-left Labour Party in 2024 plan to vote the same way in the next election, according to the survey conducted by Public First from May 8 to May 11.

Meanwhile, strong majorities of Americans — including 75 percent of Trump 2024 voters and 86 percent of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris — plan to stick with their party, underscoring just how little voter movement there tends to be in the U.S.

“We have a far, far more fluid system, I think, even than in the U.S., so people will switch parties,” said Mark Shanahan, an associate professor of political engagement at University of Surrey in Guildford, England.

That could be a saving grace for Trump and the GOP as they brace for a midterm landscape more difficult than initially expected, a change fueled in large part by voters’ persistent economic anxieties. It’s easier for the British voters who elected Starmer in 2024 to move to a different party in the country’s multiparty system, but disaffected Trump voters have no real choice.

Trump’s rise to the White House in 2016 was powered by a coalition that included independents, disengaged voters and Americans who felt alienated from the political establishment. They helped him again in 2024.

Republicans trying to stave off a difficult midterms have since warned that the biggest danger for the party in November is not that those voters suddenly defect, but that they become disillusioned enough to simply not vote. It’s a turnout election, strategists and candidates from both parties keep saying, that will likely come down to whether Trump voters show up for the party even when he’s not on the ballot.

What they’re less worried about is Democrats finding a way to move large numbers of persuadable, frustrated Republican voters back into the fold, or to pick up steadfast partisans. That’s true even as voters keep making clear that they’re looking for change.

The POLITICO Poll reveals just how deep the sense of cynicism and pessimism runs among voters in both countries. In the U.S., 71 percent of adults say politicians only look out for themselves, including 79 percent of those who backed Harris in 2024 and 71 percent who voted for Trump.

There are similar frustrations in the U.K., where majorities of voters blame the politicians — not the system — for the country’s current political problems. In a poll conducted earlier this month by London-based Public First, a 45 percent plurality of U.K. adults say that the country keeps changing prime ministers because none of them are any good.

But the analysis from Public First finds an important distinction in how voters in the two countries channel their frustration at the ballot box. British voters appear much more willing to cross party lines.

In the U.K., the Labour Party rode to power in part by tapping into the support from cynical voters. But two years later, the Labour Party is hemorrhaging supporters. Fewer than half — 49 percent — of those who voted with the Labour Party in 2024 plan to do so again, while 13 percent plan to vote for the Green Party to its left and 13 percent for leading hard-right party Reform U.K., while the rest are divided among other parties or unsure according to The POLITICO Poll.

“What we are seeing, particularly since Brexit over in the U.K., is a dissatisfaction in what was never formally a two-party system, but had been a de facto two-party system pretty much since 1916,” said Shanahan.

The Conservative Party — the Tories, the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher that battled with Labour for a century — has fallen out of favor, losing support to Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party. That break is similar to the MAGA vs. traditional Republican split in the United States — but the two-party American system forces the GOP to stay together in an at-times tense coalition on the right, while British voters can simply switch from Conservative to Reform.

That also spells trouble on the left for Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted and who is eager to quash an internal revolt that could eventually lead to his ouster. The Makerfield by-election on Thursday will determine whether Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and Starmer’s chief internal rival, is elected as Labour’s representative in Parliament, giving him the chance to challenge Starmer for the party leadership and potentially replace him as prime minister.

"As the electoral politics of the U.K. fragments, it can only take a few thousand cynical voters in each of a few hundred constituencies to switch a majority to a devastating defeat,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, POLITICO’s polling partner. “This is how, in 2024, Labour got into government with fewer votes than it got in 2019, and why most election modelling would now say they've lost that majority as quickly as they gained it.”

The POLITICO Poll in June found 64 percent of U.K. adults say they don’t trust Starmer and, in a separate question, 62 percent say he is not someone who keeps his promises. Labour suffered massive losses in last month’s elections, prompting the calls from Starmer’s own MPs for him to be replaced.

But as Starmer stares down that threat — fueled by some of the very voters who elected him into office in the first place — the challenges before Trump and the GOP are much different.

In the U.S., even the most cynical and disaffected voters still tend to stick with their party identities. Even among non-MAGA Republicans — the conservatives least loyal to the president, who do not self-identify with his MAGA movement and ideology — highly cynical voters are just as likely to stick with the GOP in the midterms as less cynical voters are, according to Public First.

"In the U.K., voters who are dissatisfied with the main party tend to have a third or even fourth option. In the U.S., they have one alternative, or the option to not show up,” Wride said.

Poll after poll shows early signs of Trump’s 2024 coalition fracturing, on issues including the cost of living and the Iran war, but when faced with the prospect of choosing between one main party on the left and one on the right, voters tend to hold their noses and pick the same one they have before.

A record number of groups are exploiting a gap in campaign finance law to flood this year's primary elections with money — without disclosing their donors until long after the race is over.

More than $48 million has already been spent on House and Senate primaries this year by super PACs that did not have to reveal their donors before elections took place, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. That is more than double the total at this time in the 2024 cycle, and 10 times higher than in 2018.

The groups are taking advantage of the campaign finance calendar. A super PAC formed after the last pre-election FEC deadline can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in the crucial final days of an election without disclosing its donors until afterward. The practice has been used for years, but never to the degree of this year’s midterms.

Roughly 1 in 10 dollars in outside spending that has flowed into primaries so far this year has been through these secretive groups.

In some cases, the pop-up super PAC spending has the characteristics of one political party meddling in another’s primary to help boost a candidate seen as more beatable in November, which is what happened in competitive races in Texas’ 35th District, Maine’s 2nd District and most recently New York’s 17th District. In other cases, groups sought to hide their connection to controversial sources, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“It's certainly a very strategic effort to avoid providing transparency for voters,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center. “So even if they're acting within the letter of the law, they are ultimately undermining in spirit. Because disclosure requirements exist so that voters — when they're deciding who to cast their ballot for — have the information about who has spent money backing these candidates.”

The path for secretive spending on primaries is relatively straightforward. New groups launch after a monthly or quarterly FEC deadline. They spend millions of dollars to support their preferred candidates, bombarding voters in the final days when they are most engaged with an election. And by the time they have to report their money, weeks after the end of the month or quarter, the election they were aiming to influence is already over.

The tactic is more common in primaries than general elections because outside groups have to file pre-general reports in mid-October, leaving only a relatively small window before the November election where they would be able to launch and spend without disclosing financial information.

The efforts to hide sources of funding have happened across the country this cycle and to support and oppose candidates of widely varying ideologies. More money has been spent in Democratic primaries than Republican ones so far.

Since the beginning of May, two super PACs widely suspected of being tied to Republicans — Lead Left and Real Change — have spent $4.3 million across Democratic primaries in five competitive House districts to boost progressive candidates that are seen as weaker in the general election. Neither group will have to reveal their donors until mid-July.

In Kentucky’s 4th District, where GOP Rep. Thomas Massie was seeking reelection after President Donald Trump endorsed his challenger Ed Gallrein, a newly created super PAC spent a whopping $6.7 million to attack Gallrein. The PAC shut itself down shortly after the primary, revealing only then that most of its funds came from a Texas-based firm. (The PAC is now facing an FEC complaint alleging it was a straw donor scheme.)

In Illinois’ March primaries, three newly created groups tied to AIPAC spent $16 million on House races. While news reports linked AIPAC to the groups throughout the primaries, it wasn’t revealed until afterward that United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s main super PAC, was the leading funder. That allowed AIPAC — which has become politically controversial in Democratic primaries — to attempt to influence the elections without officially declaring its involvement as ballots were being cast.

In the special primary election to replace the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) last year, a newly launched super PAC called Fight for Virginia’s Future backed Connolly’s former chief of staff, James Walkinshaw. After the election, which Walkinshaw won, it was revealed that the group’s funding was transferred from Connolly’s campaign account.

Not every newly launched super PAC is inherently secretive. In some cases, new groups are clear about their affiliations even if they don’t immediately report their donors to the FEC.

And there are other ways for super PACs to hide their sources of funding beyond taking advantage of the FEC’s timing. Many get transfers from 501(c)(4) nonprofits, which face far fewer disclosure requirements.

As the practice of pop-up super PACs has become more common, it’s also become more sophisticated.

In past cycles, new super PACs that hid their sources of funding were sometimes linked to existing interests through the little information they do have to share when they are formed or spend money: their vendors, address and treasurer name and contact info. But many groups have developed workarounds and now use unknown treasurers or new vendors that also popped up around the same time as the PACs themselves.

In a handful of Democratic primaries in competitive districts this year, pop-up super PACs that have been linked to Republicans through PO boxes and website metadata have run ads that closely mimic the logos and official materials of Democratic campaigns in the race.

In one case last month, the Republican-linked Lead Left PAC spent nearly $1 million backing Democrat Maureen Galindo over Johnny Garcia in Texas’ 35th District. Galindo had been widely condemned by her own party for calls to turn a local ICE detention center into a “prison for American Zionists.”

The spending on her behalf led to the moderate Blue Dog PAC leading a rescue mission for Garcia: It spent more than $1 million to boost the former Bexar County sheriff’s deputy.

Neither Real Change or Lead Left responded to requests for comment sent to the emails listed on FEC filings. Other groups, including Fight for Virginia’s Future, Kentucky 4th PAC and UDP also didn’t respond to requests for comment. Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to House GOP leadership that is widely speculated to be behind some of the pop-up PACs, did not respond to a request for comment.

Phil Gardner, a senior adviser to the Blue Dog PAC, said the Lead Left ads were “literally trying to impersonate other campaigns.”

Garcia — who ultimately won his race by more than 20 points — said in an interview that news reports linking Lead Left to Republicans helped show voters the importance of the race.

“It showed just how scared they were of our campaign, that they were willing to invest in a candidate that was clearly antisemitic that they knew they would defeat very easily in the general election,” Garcia said.

A similar pop-up PAC also spent heavily for progressive Matt Dunlap over state Sen. Joe Baldacci in Maine’s battleground 2nd District, which Trump won in 2024 and is open this cycle because moderate Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) opted not to seek reelection.

Ian Russell, a national Democratic strategist who is working on Baldacci’s race, said the GOP-linked ads could trick voters who don’t realize they aren’t coming from Dunlap’s campaign.

“They're literally running a positive ad for Matt Dunlap,” Russell said. “They're using his campaign logo. They're using B-roll off of his YouTube page.”

That race is still uncalled as it goes to a ranked-choice count this week.

In recent years, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have pushed for tightening campaign finance law, saying sources of funding should be more readily disclosed. But there have not been meaningful advances in campaign finance legislation.

Just last week, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) introduced a bill that would require super PACs to disclose every large donation they receive in the final 20 days of an election — which would make it harder for pop-up PACs to hide their sources of funding.

“All this dark spending money is just skyrocketing,” Crow said in an interview. “Super PACs, corporate donations, pop-up PACs. It's out of control and it's getting worse every cycle.”

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Those in charge of SoFi Stadium have two days to clean out SoFi Stadium between the United States’ thumping of Paraguay on Friday and a face-off on Monday between Iran and New Zealand. They can count on the L.A. County Department of Health to help with the grossest part.

County health officials are already removing wastewater from the stadium before, during and after every match played at SoFi Stadium, to test for the presence of various viruses. The county health department — which is responsible for the well-being of ten million residents — developed its syndromic-surveillance capacity during the Covid pandemic, but is now deploying it for the first time it at a sports facility.

You can read more in a fascinating report from POLITICO health-care reporters from coast to coast, led by my Sacramento-based colleague Rachel Bluth, about how public-health authorities have prepared for a World Cup unfolding amid an Ebola outbreak, rising measles cases in the United States, and continued fears of hantavirus.

Click here for the whole story.

ARLINGTON, Texas – In the run-up to the 2026 World Cup, politicians around the country have complained they’re being asked to foot the bill for transportation and security, while sky-high ticket prices make it impossible for locals to attend the matches.

You won’t hear that argument from Jim Ross, the mayor of Arlington, Texas. His city has spent hundreds of millions on professional sports stadiums over the last three decades — including the NFL venue that’s been renamed Dallas Stadium as it prepares for the World Cup's busiest schedule.

Voters have approved the spending three times, twice for baseball stadiums and once for the football stadium.

The community of 400,000 has hosted a World Series, a Super Bowl, the final four of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and a Taylor Swift concert. If that’s not enough, there’s a Six Flags theme park and a water park near the stadiums.

Ross, a former Arlington police officer, spent part of his career providing security at baseball games. He later went to law school and was elected mayor in 2021 and 2026 as an independent (municipal elections in most of Texas are technically non-partisan). Ross said he became a soccer fan when his youngest daughter played the sport, watching FC Dallas in Major League Soccer.

He comes down squarely in favor of professional sports — and the hundreds of millions that the city has spent to subsidize them — arguing that AT&T Stadium alone provides $324 million in annual economic benefits to local businesses. And he’s not worried about the $8.5 million in World Cup-related expenses Arlington has racked up – he expects the state and federal governments will reimburse the city.

There are still critics. Game-day traffic around the stadiums can be a nightmare, and some residents question whether the city really really benefits from the public spending on sports venues.

And for fans, getting to the stadium can be a challenge. And Arlington is the largest city in the U.S. without a mass transit system, although the city sponsors a ride-share system.

The transportation agencies that serve Dallas and Fort Worth don’t extend into Arlington, but local officials cobbled together a system that will ferry fans to the stadium using a combination of a regional commuter rail and buses.

Driving to the games? Expect to pay hundreds of dollars for parking.

The first of six group-stage matches kicks off Sunday, with the Netherlands taking on Japan. Argentina, the defending World Cup champions, will play Austria on June 22 and Jordan on June 27.

Ross talked with POLITICO about pros and cons of hosting professional sports, high ticket prices, transportation and other issues, along with his plans for the cup.

Does it irk you at all to have the stadium renamed for Dallas?

A: Listen, I love Dallas, they are great neighbors, but Arlington is my city, and we're very proud of what we've done here in Arlington. Did I have a number of communications with FIFA about the naming of the stadium, and, and what it should be called, and shouldn't be called – yeah.

The President of Mexico famously gave away her free ticket as a protest, the mayor of New York whooped and hollered about ticket prices, until FIFA put some relatively cheap tickets up for sale. Is that a concern for you, that regular folks are being priced out of the games?

It's a concern for me that regular people are being priced out of games on all fronts. I mean, I'll be candid, you, whether you go to a UFC fight, whether you go to a football game, baseball games, and all that stuff, it's difficult.

I don't set ticket prices for anything, anywhere. I certainly want everybody to have an opportunity to enjoy the games and to be a part of it, and I think there's a number of avenues by which they can do that. (FIFA is giving away free tickets to veterans and first responders, and local charities have access to some tickets.)

Would you take the kind of risk that Mayor Monda Mamdani did — you know, jawboning and seeing if you could get lower price tickets for the fans here?

We've had discussions like that, with FIFA, not just ticket pricing.

If I had a city the size of New York, maybe we can get more people to listen to us on things. But we don't, you know … we're a smaller big city.

One of the other complaints that's popped up around the country is, FIFA didn't do cost sharing for security and other expenses this year. Has that been a problem for you?

We expect significant reimbursement from our federal and state partners on this, and there's been money set aside to do just that. In fact, I was at the governor's mansion last Monday with the mayor of Dallas, and when I was leaving there, Governor Abbott reassured me again. He was like, "Mayor, you call me if you need anything else from a public safety perspective, during the games.”

The other thing that's popped up, you know, whether it's the Olympics or the World Cup, and so forth, is whether big sporting events are a benefit for the host cities. Is it worth the city’s expense to have these stadiums out here and do these big events?

I'll give you an example of just having AT&T (AT&T Stadium, the NFL venue where the Cup games will be held). AT&T gives an economic benefit to the city of Arlington of $324 million a year. That's not the city of Arlington's cash register ringing, that's every small business around, their cash register ringing.

Another thing that’s been a problem around the country is transportation to the stadiums. Arlington is, famously, the biggest city in the country without a mass transit system.

A: Arlington doesn't have a transit problem as much as North Texas has a transit problem.The problem is the transit authorities were developed to address transportation within certain regions, but not necessarily throughout the (whole) North Texas region.

The Dallas system moves people in and out of downtown Dallas, and the Fort Worth system moves them in and out of downtown Fort Worth?

Exactly right.

You worked the stadiums as a police officer – what did you learn about crowd control from that experience?

Crowds feed off of each other. Yeah, you know, if you take a small issue … and you handle it in a horrifically aggressive manner, you can spark a much bigger issue.

I think understanding crowds and the controlling of crowds is an art and a skill that takes highly trained people. I would argue that Arlington PD probably does it better than most, because we have more experience in it than almost any city around.

The Rangers won the World Series (in 2023), and we had over 700,000 people hit the streets in Arlington, and about 10 arrests were made with 700,000 people on the streets. I think that speaks volumes for how our PD handled the crowds.

Does having an international crowd change the dynamics at all?

The Netherlands have a tradition of doing a fan march, and that's where they bring tens of 1000s of fans, and they march to the stadium. Not all of those fans will necessarily have tickets to get in, but that's part of their tradition and their celebration, and all that.

So we've had to coordinate with the Netherlands and work with them on doing the fan march, talking to them about what is involved in that, and helping them understand here's what the laws are here in Texas.

I'm probably going to go out there for the Netherlands fan march and participate with it, because culturally speaking, this is so important for Arlington.

And will they be waiving the open container laws during the fan march?

Ah, don't get me lying.

The Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, is in luck this World Cup: He has not one, not two, but three countries to root for,.

For the first time, the Dutch are not the only country from what is today the Kingdom of the Netherlands to qualify for football’s biggest tournament. Curaçao’s squad will represent its population of 158,000 in North America, having qualified late last year.

The island, situated just north of Venezuela, is a former Dutch colony and once served as a major trade hub for the Dutch West India Company. In the mid 1800s, it was one of six Caribbean islands placed under joint colonial administration based in the country’s capital Willemstad. In 1954, the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands was signed and the islands formally became known as the “Netherlands Antilles.”

That arrangement was dissolved and by 2010, Curaçao, Aruba and St. Maarten were all autonomous constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Sun-drenched Curaçao wasted little time establishing itself on the international football scene. It appeared on FIFA’s member list in March 2011, inheriting the Netherlands Antilles’ FIFA membership, records and ranking. Curaçao will play its first-ever World Cup match today, against Germany in Houston.

King Willem-Alexander remains Curaçao’s head of state, while the country has its own government and handles most internal affairs itself, including education, health care, and tourism. The Kingdom of the Netherlands retains overarching responsibility for foreign relations and defense.

Now, as if Willem-Alexander didn’t have his hands full enough, he will likely also be, at least ostensibly, showing support for Argentina to keep the peace within the royal household. In 2002, he married Máxima Zorreguieta, who is Argentine by birth, after the pair met in Seville in southern Spain.

With three half-Argentine and bilingual daughters, the royal family have plenty of reasons to keep an eye on La Albiceleste. The Netherlands and Argentina have played some of the most iconic games in World Cup history: a tense 1978 final, won by Argentina, in front of military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, in Buenos Aires; a sweltering Marseille quarterfinal in 1998; and a very bad-tempered scrap at the same stage at Qatar 2022.

A spokesperson for the Dutch royal family told POLITICO that, "King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima and Princess Ariane will be traveling to Houston and Kansas to cheer on the football teams of the Netherlands and Curaçao when they play against respectively Sweden and Ecuador."

Time will tell if the Dutch monarch will be raising a glass of Heineken, Curaçao liqueur or Malbec this summer.

A delightful encounter between Morocco and Brazil just wrapped up at the Meadowlands, just a short train ride from downtown Manhattan. Back across the Hudson River, a potentially decisive Game 5 of the NBA Finals will tip off soon. The World Cup final will take place back here in less than six weeks.

All of a sudden, New York seems like the center of the sports world. And the city has a mayor who is taking full advantage.

Zohran Mamdani has been an ever-present face at Knicks games and at World Cup-related events, including today’s match, opining on both sports and often sporting an Arsenal or a Knicks jersey to boot. In doing so, the avowed socialist mayor is modeling for politicians around the world a new version of lefty sports fandom.

His good fortune on this front is undeniable. Mamdani is a hardcore soccer fan and player; his basketball knowledge is somewhat less developed, but he’s able to talk about the Knicks and sound like an authentic supporter. He has avoided pitfalls like the one that tripped up New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul when she recently said she would “ask [President Donald Trump] to name the starting lineup of the 1993 championship team and see how he does.”

(It was an almost unforgivable gaffe — the 1993 Knicks famously lost in heartbreaking fashion to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and failed to reach the NBA Finals.)

“He doesn’t sound like he’s speaking a second language like so many Democrats do when they talk about sports,” said a source close to Mamdani, granted anonymity to candidly discuss Democratic Party messaging strategy. “He’s not putting on — with other Democrats, you run into an issue where they don’t know who [Knicks star] Jalen Brunson is. They don’t know who KAT is. They don’t have Linsanity memories.”

Mamdani laces his World Cup press conferences with soccer references, so much so that Hochul has begun to call him a “super fan.”

In an April event the two pols did together on Staten Island, the mayor recalled going to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and said his fondest memories from that tournament included playing beach soccer in Durban.

At a midtown press conference last week laying out the city’s public transportation plans, Mamdani said the city would not “park the bus,” a joke about a derided defensive strategy that is familiar to soccer fans but that he had to explain to the American press corps.

When Mamdani earlier this week announced a massive World Cup watch party in Central Park, he did so alongside George Weah, the former Liberian president and soccer star who is also father of American forward Tim Weah.

“When I was a child growing up in East Africa, there were towering figures, and then there was George Weah, the first African player to ever win the Ballon d’Or,” he said. “If you had told seven-year-old me that I would one day go into the same line of work as this man, I would be extremely disappointed to understand that you meant politics.” Then he got in a subtle dig at Weah for playing for Chelsea — a rival to Mamdani’s Arsenal, whose uniform the mayor turned into a custom kurta during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in May.

But he has also treated his commentary on sports as almost separate from his broader political agenda. While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (still angry about the Brooklyn Dodgers’ owner moving them to Los Angeles in his youth) calls MLB team owners “baseball oligarchs,” Mamdani has assiduously avoided comments on Knicks owner James Dolan’s controversial invite to Trump to watch the finals, aside from noting that he would be in a much cheaper part of Madison Square Garden, with a standing-room-only ticket.

“Engaging with the sphere of sports for politicians can be more politically effective by being less explicitly political,” said Jules Boykoff, a former professional soccer player who is a professor at Pacific University and has written multiple books on sports and politics.

Mamdani’s sports-focused mayoralty hasn’t been all sunshine. After he attended a New York Mets game earlier this year and the baseball team went on a long losing streak, the New York Post dubbed it the “curse of the Mambino.” Any politician who dares to be a public sports fan exposes themselves to the vicissitudes of a game they cannot control — no matter how powerful any lucky jersey is.

But flexing sports fandom can work to advance a political agenda as well. If sports are often a reflection of society, and the World Cup is the globe’s most important sporting event, it stands to reason that a politician who can confidently talk about sports has a chance to benefit. Working with FIFA, which is frequently excoriated by the global left, Mamdani secured 1,000 tickets for just $50 to see World Cup games that are otherwise selling for thousands of dollars. That’s a very public way to advance his democratic socialist agenda.

“I think it could be effective politically, moving through the sport of soccer to make political arguments without actually talking about politics directly,” said Boykoff. “Just getting people tickets, making sure the working class is involved — I do see that as very much a path forward.”

After months of planning, some griping and a few tit-for-tats, the three top Democrats from New York and New Jersey showed up to watch the World Cup — together.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are all attending this evening’s Brazil–Morocco match.

The TV broadcast captured the two New Yorkers sitting together. Sherrill also joined them during the match.

Before heading into the stadium, Sherrill stepped off a New Jersey Transit train carrying fans from both teams just before 4 p.m. to hold a quick press conference with her top transit advisers.

“This is the easiest, fastest way to get in and out of the stadium,” she said.

New Jersey Transit generated international headlines for its high ticket prices — $150 at first, then lowered to $98.

Sherrill said about 21,000 people booked tickets on the New Jersey Transit system to get to the match. New Jersey Transit planned to carry up to 40,000 to each match.

Where is the World Cup being played again?

In the northeastern United States, eight World Cup games, including the final, will be played in what FIFA calls "New York New Jersey." But elected leaders from this portmanteau place are jostling over where exactly it is.

The state of New Jersey and New York City bid for and won the right to be a host city, but New York state officials have become increasingly involved. So politicians on both sides of the river are just bursting with border-state rivalry that can be lighthearted and serious all at once.

The matches, for the record, are at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. But that hasn't stopped New York Gov. Kathy Hochul from repeatedly declaring that "New York is not just hosting the World Cup, New York is the World Cup."

There's some truth to it — most of the fans are expected to stay in and visit New York between matches. But New Jersey doesn't shrug off such slights because they reinforce long-running dynamics of New York as the bigger sibling and the Garden State's struggle for recognition.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) made avenging this wrong a dayslong cause célèbre and taunted Hochul with social media posts such as: “If you’re planning to watch a FIFA match in New York, you’ll be SOL.”

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill pushed to get one of the temporary signs hung at MetLife changed to read "New Jersey New York" instead of "New York New Jersey." On Friday, she posted a six-second video from outside the sign. "For those keeping score at home, the World Cup is in New Jersey. And now the sign reflects that."

The New York-New Jersey combo isn't new.

“I never liked it,” said former U.S. national team goalkeeper Tony Meola, a native of nearby Kearny, New Jersey, who was subjected to the indignity of playing under a neighboring state’s banner during his years with the New York/New Jersey Metrostars, since renamed Red Bull New York.

“I grew up there, I played there — it’s New Jersey,” said Meola. “That's just my opinion.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino is working on his third World Cup, which spreads across North America this weekend. His first tournaments were held in autocratic countries with governments willing to splash cash and use the games to sportswash their tarnished image on the global stage.

In America, where 78 of the 104 matches will be played, he’s dealing with something dramatically different — democratically elected leaders spread across 11 host communities.

Infantino at first seemed to approach North America largely the same way he did Russia and Qatar: Win over the head of state and go from there. He went so far as to court President Donald Trump by giving him a peace prize before he started a war with Iran.

State and local politicians, however, had their own priorities.

In America, Infantino has found himself foiled not only by democracy but the country’s federalism — the separation of national and state power that gives local officials unique power. He can blame Thomas Jefferson for that.

“I think that’s just a big difference, even compared to other western democracies, our federalism is a huge difference,” said Alex Lasry, the CEO of the New York New Jersey Host Committee.

As a result, FIFA’s national partners in Mexico and Canada have more say over how the World Cup is playing out in their countries than the White House does in America, a country that does not even have a sports minister.

In practice, this has meant that even as FIFA presented itself as the world government of the globe’s most beloved sport, local officials in America started standing in its way.

A senior FIFA official earlier this year said it was exaggerated to say one person in Qatar or Russia snapped their fingers and things got done, but the official did describe America as more decentralized.

Back in 2023, one of Infantino’s longtime advisers spoke at length about the FIFA president’s public image. “This whole idea of shoulder-rubbing with dictators? It’s not real. Sometimes the U.S. president is Joe Biden, sometimes it’s Donald Trump. Gianni can’t change that,” the adviser told Tim Röhn of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO. “He’s not interested in politics — only in football.”

But those politics have been creating roadblocks for months, leading up to the first American game on Friday in Los Angeles.

There was a five-member special board in Massachusetts that had to sign off on a license to allow FIFA to play seven matches there, a power it used to extract concessions from the local host committee.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill — one of the newly elected politicians who didn’t bid for the World Cup but now has to pay to put it on, despite having other priorities — got in a public scrape with FIFA over transportation costs. FIFA didn’t budge, but the fight was ugly.

When it tried to ban water bottles from stadiums, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attacked and FIFA backed down.

On the legal front, a quartet of attorneys general — three from blue states and one from red Texas — are now investigating the soccer body’s ticketing practices.

Alas, there isn’t one person Infantino can call to smooth things over. He isn’t the first European to puzzle over America’s decentralized governance, but this 21st-century Alexis de Tocqueville seems to be learning the hard way.

Kylian Mbappé and the French national soccer team are dreaming of winning the World Cup for the third time.

For France’s lame-duck president, Emmanuel Macron, it’ll be one final chance to draft off soccer success in a way he’s so far failed to achieve.

“When it comes to football, the president absolutely doesn’t have to force it, he can talk about it for hours,” said Karl Olive, a lawmaker who is close to Macron. “There are few opportunities to unite the population. … It would be nice to have a moment where, opinions aside, we can celebrate.”

The 47-year-old president’s tenure has coincided with one of the most successful periods in the history of men’s soccer in France.

Yet despite repeated attempts to associate himself with the team’s performances — from the rain-soaked, triumphant podium in Moscow in 2018 to the dejected Doha locker room in 2022 — Macron has struggled to convert either soccer glory or any other French sporting success into political rocket fuel.

The 2018 World Cup win was quickly overshadowed by a scandal involving his deputy chief of staff who had assaulted protesters while posing as a police officer weeks earlier, and then the massive Yellow Jackets protests that kicked off that fall. Macron also failed to net a visible popularity boost from the successful 2024 Paris Olympics, which took place while the country was still reeling from his ill-fated decision to dissolve parliament.

A successful 2026 World Cup run for France — it kicks off Tuesday against Senegal in New Jersey — may be Macron’s last opportunity for a mandate-defining positive national moment.

Read Victor Goury-Laffont's full report from Paris on what soccer means for the president.