Seventy Years of Political Action 1953 - 2023
A former member of Congress, who pulled off a rare win for a Democrat in Utah, is drawing early support from an influential national political action committee as new political boundaries offer an unexpected chance to pick up a seat in the deep-red state.
Former Rep. Ben McAdams is being touted by Welcome PAC, which backs more moderate candidates over progressives, for what is expected to be a newly created district, according to an email obtained by POLITICO.
“Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. But it’s usually the best clue we’ve got,” says the fundraising email, which was expected to be distributed to Democrats nationwide on Friday. “Ben McAdams is a superstar.”
The email offers the early contours of a race that could help Democrats as they try to retake the House in the midterms — an effort that has been complicated by a nationwide redistricting war set in motion by President Donald Trump’s push to have Texas draw new congressional boundaries.
Democrats could pick up one or two seats under newly drawn lines in Utah under a redistricting fight that was underway before Trump pressured Texas and set off a wave of gerrymandering in states led by Republicans and Democrats, including Indiana and California.
The court-ordered map in Utah would provide Democrats with a somewhat improved chance of victory in the state: A Salt Lake Tribune analysis pegs the most competitive redrawn districts at R +6 and R+11, well below the 23+ point margins Democrats faced in federal races in 2024.
In 2018, McAdams unseated the late Rep. Mia Love, who won her previous election in the district by 12 points. In 2020, he lost by 1 percentage point to Republican Burgess Owens.
McAdams has not launched a campaign, but filed a statement of candidacy earlier this month with the FEC, allowing him to begin raising money. He is expected to announce a bid once a map is finalized, according to two people with direct knowledge of his thinking. The former lawmaker declined to comment.
“He’s clearly the strongest candidate Dems have had anywhere in nearly a decade,” said Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome PAC. “We want to take this bigger platform we have and clearly say that he should run — and that people who are listening to our view of the party should show that encouragement by contributing to his campaign account.”
McAdams isn’t the only name in the mix. The slate of potential primary candidates includes 2024 Senate candidate Caroline Gleich, state Sens. Kathleen Riebe and Nate Blouin, and 2022 Senate candidate Kael Weston. None have formally entered the race.
Welcome PAC has been making waves in center-left politics since Trump's reelection. Their WelcomeFest conference in June featured swing state and district Democrats like Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Maine Rep. Jared Golden. Earlier this week, they issued an expansive report on how Democrats can rebuild after their 2024 failures.
“People read the report and are like, ‘What should we do?’ And it’s like ‘well, shit, here’s a clear example,’” Kerr told POLITICO, about supporting McAdams.
As a member of Congress, McAdams was part of the Blue Dogs — the PAC and coalition now helmed by Golden and Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, both Democrats serving in districts Trump won — and the New Democrats caucus. Before Congress, he was mayor of Salt Lake County.
Utah’s new congressional map is not yet final. In August, a district judge ruled the current map — which divides blue Salt Lake County between four districts — ignored the intention of a 2018 ballot initiative calling for an independent commission to draw the boundaries. The GOP-controlled state legislature drew a new map that favors Republicans — but still gives Democrats a better shot than the current map.
A district judge has until Nov. 10 to approve the new map for it to be in place for 2026.
“Right now, Democrats are focused on winning,” said a Utah Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak openly. “We realize this is a huge opportunity to get serious.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ripped the Heritage Foundation on Friday, as conservatives clash over the organization’s continued embrace of Tucker Carlson in the wake of his friendly interview this week with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
“Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats,” McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, wrote in a post on X. “But maybe I just don’t know what time it is…”
In the interview, Carlson said Republican supporters of Israel have been “seized by this brain virus.” And Fuentes told Carlson that “organized Jewry” poses the main obstacle to keeping the country together.
But Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation’s president, defended Carlson in a video posted to X Thursday, and even spoke out against deplatforming Fuentes while adding he disagrees with and abhors “things that Nick Fuentes says.”
The real enemy force, Roberts contended, is “the vile ideas of the left.”
McConnell, who has spent the past several months sinceleaving leadership working to safeguard his foreign policy and ideological worldviews within the Republican Party, panned the conservative think tank’s stance.
“The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends,” he said.
The Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But McConnell isn’t the only Republican senator taking aim at Carlson for his interview.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also went after the former Fox News host while speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit Thursday in Las Vegas. Cruz has long clashed with Carlson over Israel, including on an episode of Carlson’s podcast in July.
"If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit in that evil," said Cruz.
Republicans say funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits — formerly known as food stamps — will run out on Nov. 1 due to the federal government shutdown, and there’s nothing they can do about it. Democrats say there’s a contingency fund that could and should continue to fund regular SNAP benefits.
And, in fact, that was the Republican plan up until at least a few weeks ago. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, says it can’t legally tap the contingency fund for that purpose.
“There has to be a preexisting appropriation for the contingency fund to be used, and Democrats blocked that appropriation when they rejected the clean continuing resolution,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference on Oct. 27. “The best way for SNAP benefits to be paid on time is for the Democrats to end their shutdown.”
We can’t say whether the USDA is barred from tapping the contingency funds for regular SNAP benefits — ultimately that may be a decision for the courts — but the USDA position that Johnson cited has apparently changed in the past month. When the Trump administration’s USDA issued a “Lapse of Funding Plan” on Sept. 30, it stated that the contingency fund, estimated to be more than $5 billion, can and should be used to fund SNAP payments in the event of a shutdown.
“In addition, Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown,” the document states. “These multi-year contingency funds are also available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.”
That document has since been scrubbed from the USDA website, but it’s still available via the Wayback Machine archives.
“It’s also important to note that the money currently exists within the Trump administration, including $5 billion in a contingency fund, specifically, for this kind of circumstance, to continue providing SNAP benefits to the American people, including 16 million children who might otherwise go hungry, if Donald Trump successfully withholds these SNAP benefits,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN on Oct. 29. “The Trump administration doesn’t need Congress to act in order to continue providing nutritional and food assistance to everyday Americans.”
What’s at Stake?Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a stalemate over efforts to extend federal government funding. Democrats have insisted legislation should include an extension of the more generous Affordable Care Act subsidies, which were first enacted in 2021, and a repeal of some health care measures affecting Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Republicans have balked at those demands, and have offered only a “clean” bill to temporarily extend current federal government funding levels. As a result, the government shut down on Oct. 1.
Photo by jetcityimage / stock.adobe.com.Funding of SNAP benefits continued through October, however, because, as the since-deleted “Lapse of Funding Plan” explained, the Office of Management and Budget’s general counsel advised obligating fiscal 2025 funds to cover SNAP benefits in October in the event of a government shutdown at the start of the fiscal year (Oct. 1). But the USDA now says it has no way to continue funding SNAP benefits beyond October, jeopardizing food assistance used by nearly 42 million Americans each month.
A banner at the top of the USDA Food & Nutrition website now states, “Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.”
(The votes cited in that message were votes on Republican funding bills that didn’t include the Democrats’ demands on health care funding changes.)
Democratic leaders say the Trump administration could continue funding, but has chosen not to as a form of leverage in the shutdown standoff.
Contingency FundThe SNAP program is funded through annual appropriations, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, allocated about $122 billion to fund food and nutrition programs (mostly SNAP benefits), in addition to $3 billion in reserve “for use only in such amounts and at such times as may become necessary to carry out program operations” through the end of September 2026. The reserve fund is good for two years, and together with funding from the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2025, the contingency reserve totaled about $6 billion prior to the shutdown.
The amount is now likely between $5 billion and $6 billion, as some of the reserve was tapped to pay administrative costs in October, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
As we said, up until earlier this month, the USDA’s “Lapse of Funding Plan” envisioned tapping that reserve to pay regular SNAP benefits in the event of a shutdown. That has been the understanding guiding past administrations, as well.
For example, the USDA’s 2021 contingency plan — cited in the run-up to a 2023 shutdown — assured that SNAP benefits would be paid during a shutdown, in part by tapping “multi-year carry over funds” and “contingency reserves.”
That was also the guidance during Trump’s first presidential term, according to CBPP.
During a shutdown in early 2019, the USDA assured that SNAP benefits would continue to be paid even “without an additional appropriation from Congress.”
“At President Trump’s direction, we have been working with the Administration on this solution. It works and is legally sound. And we want to assure states, and SNAP recipients, that the benefits for February will be provided,” Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in a press release at the time. “Our motto here at USDA has been to ‘Do Right and Feed Everyone.’ With this solution, we’ve got the ‘Feed Everyone’ part handled. And I believe that the plan we’ve constructed takes care of the ‘Do Right’ part as well.”
As CBPP documented, guidance issued by the USDA in 2019 stated that in the event of an extended shutdown, there were contingency reserve funds available to help continue to make SNAP benefit payments.
USDA’s New PositionThe USDA, however, now says it cannot use the reserve to pay regular SNAP benefits.
A USDA memo provided to NPR says, “Contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.”
“SNAP contingency funds are only available to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover, benefits,” the memo states. “The contingency fund is not available to support FY 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists.
“Instead, the contingency fund is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program, which provides food purchasing benefits for individuals in disaster areas, including natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice. For example, Hurricane Melissa is currently swirling in the Caribbean and could reach Florida. Having funds readily available allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to mobilize quickly in the days and weeks following a disaster.”
The memo also says transfers from the contingency fund would “pull away funding for school meals and infant formula.”
And, it says, states can’t cover the cost either: “Despite their willingness, States cannot cover the cost of benefits and be reimbursed. Unlike other reimbursable programs, SNAP allotments are fully Federally funded. States are responsible for determining household benefits, and the movement of dollars through to the processors and ultimately to the retailers. There is no provision or allowance under current law for States to cover the cost of benefits and be reimbursed.”
“I got a summary of the whole legal analysis, and it certainly looks legitimate to me,” Johnson said at his press conference on Oct. 27. “The contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now. The reason is because it’s a finite source of funds. It was appropriated by Congress and if they transfer funds from these other sources, it pulls it away immediately from school meals and infant formula, so it’s a trade-off.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer isn’t buying it.
“Don’t give me the lie that this can’t be done legally,” Schumer said from the Senate floor on Oct. 29.
“Just weeks ago, Trump’s own U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed in writing that contingency funds — about $6 billion in emergency reserves — were ‘available to fund participant benefits,'” Schumer said. “That’s not Democrats saying that. That’s the Republican-appointed U.S. Department of Agriculture saying, again, $6 billion in emergency reserves were ‘available to fund participant benefits.'”
It should be noted that the cost to fund SNAP benefits through the entire month of November (about $8 billion) is more than the amount in the contingency fund (between $5 billion and $6 billion).
According to CBPP, in addition to tapping the contingency fund, “the Administration could use its legal transfer authority … to supplement the contingency reserves, which alone are not enough to fund families’ full benefits for November.”
Said Schumer: “Never before in American history — not once under a Democratic president or a Republican president — has SNAP funding lapsed during a shutdown. Not even in 2019, during Trump’s last shutdown. In fact, Trump himself funded SNAP throughout that shutdown. So, this argument that he can’t do it and that he doesn’t have the money and that it’s not legal is just bull.”
Democratic attorneys general and governors from more than 20 states filed a federal lawsuit claiming the suspension of SNAP benefits “is both contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.”
According to the lawsuit, “USDA suspended SNAP benefits even though, on information and belief, it has funds available to it that are sufficient to fund all, or at least a substantial portion, of November SNAP benefits.”
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill, the “Keep SNAP Funded Act,” on Oct. 21 that seeks to ensure SNAP benefits are paid during the shutdown. It has 14 Republican co-sponsors.
In an op-ed, Hawley said, “There is no reason any of these residents of my state — or any other American who qualifies for food assistance — should go hungry. We can afford to provide the help.”
At least one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, who co-sponsored Hawley’s bill, questioned the administration’s interpretation that it does not have the authority to use the contingency fund to continue to pay SNAP benefits.
“It is a novel interpretation for the department to claim that it cannot use that $5 billion in contingency money to help with SNAP benefits,” Collins said. “I don’t think this was a USDA opinion. I really think it was imposed by OMB and we’ve been having discussions with OMB’s attorneys.”
In an interview aboard Air Force One on Oct. 28, Trump was asked if SNAP payments would stop on Nov. 1.
“Well, we’re going to get it done,” Trump said. “The Democrats have caused the problem on food stamps. Of course, all they have to do is sign.”
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The finance director for Graham Platner’s Senate campaign announced his resignation on Friday, the latest in a series of personnel departures for the Maine hopeful’s high-profile bid that has been marred by controversies over old social media posts and his tattoo with Nazi connotations.
Ronald Holmes, who had served as Platner’s national finance director since August, announced in a post on LinkedIn that he’s leaving the operation. He follows campaign manager Kevin Brown, who stepped down after less than a week on the job citing family reasons, and political director Genevieve McDonald, who resigned in a fiery fashion earlier this month, saying she could not look past some of Platner’s previous Reddit posts, where he self-identified as a communist and downplayed sexual assault in the military.
“I joined this campaign because I believed in building something different — a campaign of fresh energy, integrity, and reform-minded thinking in a political system that often resists exactly those things,” said Holmes in his post on Friday. “Somewhere along the way, I began to feel that my professional standards as a campaign professional no longer fully aligned with those of the campaign.”
Holmes did not immediately respond to messages Friday morning. His previous work included the campaigns of Michigan Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Chris Swanson and Rep. Josh Riley.
Platner’s campaign was off to a hot fundraising start, raising more than $3.2 million in his first six weeks as a candidate, largely from small-dollar donors.
In a statement, a campaign spokesperson pointed to the campaign’s focus on those small donors and said fundraising efforts will continue.
“Ron helped the campaign reach out to big dollar donors, and we appreciated his efforts. But the reality is our campaign's fundraising success has come largely from small dollar donors,” said the spokesperson. “Nearly 90 percent of what we've raised has come from small dollar donations and online donors, which has been and [continues] to be run by our digital fundraising director.”
Platner, who went from an unknown oysterman to a high-profile Senate candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in just a few weeks, apologized for his controversial Reddit posts and covered up his tattoo, saying he only learned after launching his campaign that it could be a Nazi symbol.
He has continued to campaign in recent weeks despite the controversies, holding town halls across the state. His campaign launched an ad this week urging voters to reject a voter-identification measure on Maine’s ballot this November.
Recent polls, though wildly different from one another, have shown Platner as a strong candidate in the Democratic primary that also includes Gov. Janet Mills — who is national Democrats’ preferred candidate in the race — along with a handful of other contenders including former congressional staffer Jordan Wood.
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