Democrat Josh Cowen is launching a bid by highlighting education and affordability issues in what is already becoming a crowded primary in a tossup Michigan district.

Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, singled out the school choice and voucher programs pushed by Michigan Republicans like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as part of what inspired him to run for Michigan's 7th Congressional District in the central part of the state.

“I'm a teacher, and I have been fighting Betsy DeVos across the country on a specific issue, and that's privatizing public schools,” Cowen said in an interview. “She's been trying to disinvest, defund commitments to kids and families all over the place, and that's actually the same fight as everything that's going on right now — trying to protect investing in health care through Medicaid and other systems — protect jobs.”

Several Democrats have already announced bids against Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), who flipped the seat last cycle after Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) vacated it to run for Senate. He could be a tough incumbent for Democrats to dislodge and reported raising over $1 million last quarter.

Still, Democrats see the narrowly divided seat as a top pickup opportunity next year, with former Ukraine Ambassador Bridget Brink and retired Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam among the field of candidates running. Cowen brushed off concerns about a contested primary, saying, “They're going to run their campaigns. I'm going to run mine.”

“I am going to be running really hard on the fact that I am in this community. I've been here for 12 years. My kids went to public schools here. My youngest is still there,” he added.

Elon Musk declared the launch of his new political party on Saturday, a project he has repeatedly floated in the weeks since his explosive breakup with President Donald Trump — but provided no details as to how he planned to jump through the hoops necessary to establish a viable alternative.

The billionaire entrepreneur and onetime Republican megadonor — who mere months ago appeared as the president’s right-hand man in the Oval Office after pouring millions into his campaign — has for weeks publicly contemplated starting a new third party to disrupt the current system.

Musk on Saturday appeared to confirm his intention to launch his “America Party,” after posting a poll to his X account the prior day asking followers whether or not he should create the new party.

“By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it! When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” he wrote. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

Musk’s third-party musings began in earnest after last month’s massive meltdown between the president and his former adviser over the “big beautiful bill,” which the former DOGE head has decried as wasteful.

As Trump on Thursday flaunted his successful push to muscle the Republican megabill through Congress this week, Musk sought to drum up support for his potential third party launch, positing that his new party would target a handful of vulnerable swing seats to leverage political power.

“Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people,” he wrote.

While Musk may have the millions to pour into backing certain candidates — which he has already promised to do, pledging to support Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) reelection campaign amid targeting from Trump — establishing a third party involves a series of thorny obstacles including navigating complex state laws, ballot access regulations and other legal hoops.

So far, the billionaire would-be party founder has yet to outline a concrete plan forward. Just two months ago, Musk had vowed to cut back on political spending, saying he had “done enough.”

Democrats believe President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spend megabill gives them a heavy cudgel ahead of the 2026 midterms. Now they have to effectively wield it as they try to reclaim the House.

Ad-makers have quickly prepped attack ads to air as soon as the holiday weekend is over, including in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. House Democrats are plotting to turn the August recess into the opening salvo of the midterms, including through town halls and organizing programs.

And Democrats see an opportunity to expand the battleground, going on offense into red areas across the country. The bill that passed Thursday has already triggered a spike in candidate interest deep into Trump territory, House Majority PAC said. Separately, Democrats are digging into a round of candidate recruitment targeting a half-dozen House districts Trump won by high single or double digits, according to a person directly familiar with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s plan and granted anonymity to describe private conversations. They’re recruiting Democrats to challenge Reps. Ann Wagner of Missouri, Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Kevin Kiley of California, Nick LaLota of New York and Jeff Crank of Colorado

“There's almost nothing about this bill that I'm going [to] have a hard time explaining to the district,” said Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who represents a district Trump won by 9 points. “This is a giant tax giveaway to wealthy people. Everyone fucking knows it.”

Democrats’ renewed bravado comes after months in the political wilderness, following sweeping losses across the country last year. And it’s not just the megabill’s consequences that give them electoral hope.

Leading to Thursday’s vote was a series of moves they believe portend success: North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who criticized the bill for its steep Medicaid cuts before voting against it, announced his plans to not seek reelection last weekend. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents one of the three GOP-held districts that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, also announced his plans to not run for reelection. That opened up two top midterm battleground races in one weekend.

Democrats have also been far more in sync with their pushback in recent days after months of struggling to unify around a coherent message during Trump’s second term. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ record-setting speech on the House floor Thursday morning mirrored those of several Democratic candidates who mentioned Medicaid cuts in their campaign launches this week.

Next they have to spread the message farther, as polling shows many Americans aren’t yet aware of the megabill and its $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs. And Democrats privately acknowledge that as voters learn more, the party needs to stretch its House battlefield to chart a path back to power.

“No Democrat is going to nationally define this bill in six weeks, so we have to build a drumbeat. You do that by having 70 to 75 campaigns, because then you’re localizing the attack across the country,” the person directly familiar with the DCCC’s plans said. “We don’t have that yet. In reality, there are maybe 24 to 30 districts with good campaigns going right now.”

Tina Shah, a doctor who launched her bid against Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.) this week, attacked Republicans for “gut[ting] Medicaid,” and Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL who is challenging Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), said “the price of healthcare is gonna go up … all to line the pocketbooks of billionaires.”

Some Democratic strategists are urging the party to capitalize on this momentum even more aggressively.

“We need to be doing early, paid communications on this — not just the same old cable buys, token digital buys in swing districts and press conferences,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant who served as the DCCC’s political director in 2014 and 2016. “Democrats need to take some risks here, mobilize early, spend money they may not have because voters' views harden over time, and this is when we can shape it.”

In 2024, Democrats failed to break through with their message after President Joe Biden dug the party into a hole with voters on the economy. Trump successfully cast himself as focused on bringing down costs while painting Kamala Harris as overly obsessed with social issues like protecting transgender people. Harris, for her part, ran a scatter-shot, three-month messaging blitz that jumped from cost-of-living to abortion rights to Trump’s threats to democracy, which ultimately didn’t move voters.

Republicans, for their part, plan to emphasize the megabill’s tax cuts, especially those on tips and overtime, and increased funding for border security. On Medicaid cuts, they hope to neutralize Democrats’ attacks by casting them as reforms: tightened work requirements and efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, a pair of Medicaid-related changes that generally polls well among voters.

“This vote cemented House Democrats’ image as elitist, disconnected, snobby, unconcerned with the problems Americans face in their daily lives, and most of all — out of touch,” said NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella in a statement. “House Republicans will be relentless in making this vote the defining issue of 2026, and we will use every tool to show voters that Republicans stood with them while House Democrats sold them out.”

But as Republicans look to sell their bill, public polling on it is bleak. Most Americans disapprove of it, in some polls by a two-to-one margin, according to surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Washington Post, Pew Research and Fox News.

Meanwhile a pair of Democratic groups, Priorities USA and Navigator Research, released surveys this week showing majorities of voters aren’t fully aware of the megabill. Nearly half of Americans said they hadn’t heard anything about the bill, according to Priorities USA, a major Democratic super PAC. Of those who had heard about it, only 8 percent said they knew Medicaid cuts were included in the legislation.

Two-thirds of survey respondents who self-identified as passive or avoidant news consumers, the kinds of tuned out and low-information voters Democrats failed to win in 2024, said they knew nothing about the bill.

“We have a lot more work to do as a party to communicate the impacts of this bill to voters who are tuning out politics,” said Danielle Butterfield, Priorities USA executive director.

Butterfield urged Democrats to “get beyond the stats” and “start collecting storytellers.” Then, start putting ads online, particularly on YouTube, not just traditional TV ads.

“We need to put a face on this as soon as possible,” she said.

Among those potential faces is Nathan Sage, a first-time candidate and Iraq War veteran who is challenging Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Sage grew up occasionally relying on food assistance, another program that will be cut in the GOP bill, and has said he’s already hearing from Iowans who “feel that they were duped into believing the Republican agenda when it first came out, because they were talking about no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime. That's things that working class people want.”

“Until they start hearing [how it] is actually going to affect them, when they do hear that, that's when the outrage happens,” Sage said in an interview.

Iowa, once a perennial battleground, is now solidly red, as Democrats have consistently lost white, working class voters there. Sage and Democratic pollster Brian Stryker argued the megabill opens a path to winning them back

The Medicaid cuts “enable us to have an issue that’s salient, substantive that’s on the side of working class people,” Stryker said. In 2024, 49 percent of Medicaid recipients voted for Trump, while 47 percent backed Harris, according to polling from Morning Consult.

“I hope that this does wake up the working class, does wake up people to understand — listen, they don't care about us,” Sage said, “and the only way that we are ever going to get out of the situation is to elect working class candidates to represent us, to fight for us, because they are us.”

Andrew Howard contributed reporting.

Brian Fitzpatrick’s survival mechanism as a battleground House Republican entails occasionally distancing himself from his own MAGA-controlled party.

On Thursday he took that to the next level by voting against President Donald Trump’s megabill amid an unrelenting pressure campaign from the White House.

The head-turning move made Fitzpatrick one of just two House Republicans to buck the party on the president’s signature domestic policy legislation that some in the GOP fear is worsening their political outlook ahead of the 2026 midterms. Over the past few days, two congressional Republicans in swing seats announced they were not running for reelection. Fitzpatrick belongs to a GOP trio representing districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris captured, and Democrats are once again eyeing him as a top target next year when they try to reclaim the House.

Fitzpatrick’s break with Trump over his key legislation also carries major risks of intra-party backlash. On Thursday, some MAGA influencers were already threatening a primary challenge.

“He has now gained the ability to say, ‘I am not a rubber stamp to Trump. I will vote against his agenda when I believe it’s the right thing to do,” said Mike Conallen, Fitzpatrick’s former chief of staff. “But given the inclination of the president and his supporters to basically go after anybody who doesn’t support them, you’ve now become potentially the lighting rod for all those MAGA individuals and the president himself.”

Fitzpatrick attributed his vote to changes made by the Senate, which deepened the cuts included in initial bill language he had backed.

“I voted to strengthen Medicaid protections, to permanently extend middle-class tax cuts, for enhanced small business tax relief, and for historic investments in our border security and our military,” he said in a statement. “However, it was the Senate’s amendments to Medicaid, in addition to several other Senate provisions, that altered the analysis.”

It was a shocking move even for Fitzpatrick.

First elected in 2016, he has cultivated a brand as a moderate Republican who supported former President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package, won the endorsement of a major gun-control group, and regularly visited mosques in his district. He has at times even downplayed his affiliation with the Republican Party, calling himself “a fiercely independent voice.” His X header reads, “Defend Democracy. Vote Bipartisan.”

Still, many Republicans were shocked Wednesday night when he broke with the party on a procedural vote to move the legislation to a final vote, particularly because he had backed the earlier version of it weeks prior. They said he had not explained his opposition to them, even as other initially resistant Republicans went public with their concerns.

“I was surprised,” Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) said. “And I do not know what his objection was.”

Some speculated his stance might be related to a letter he wrote to Trump this week opposing the administration’s halt of some weapons to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Fitzpatrick’s curveball briefly set off a scramble to find him, with the congressman reportedly bolting from the chamber and House Speaker Mike Johnson appearing to tell Fox News he was looking for him. Even some of Fitzpatrick’s fellow members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation were taken aback by his decision.

“You’ll have to ask him,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), who is eyeing a gubernatorial run, said in response to a question about the vote.

A Democrat hasn’t held Fitzpatrick’s prized Bucks County-based seat since his late brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, reclaimed it from then-Rep. Patrick Murphy in 2010. In the past, Democrats have fielded candidates who lacked electoral experience or were an otherwise imperfect fit to take on this durable incumbent. But they believe they have finally recruited a top contender to run against Fitzpatrick in a county commissioner named Bob Harvie, who has shown the ability to win the battleground county, which comprises most of the district.

“They’re scared. They know this bill is unpopular,” Harvie said of Republicans, arguing Fitzpatrick’s vote was “too little, too late” and “the only reason it got to the Senate is because he voted for it.”

A pro-Fitzpatrick super PAC, Defending America PAC, quickly released a statement Thursday casting the vote as proof of his bipartisan leanings and touting his record of “winning a seat for Republicans in a district carried by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton,” and slamming Harvie for "bitching and moaning with no solutions of his own."

Even for Fitzpatrick, though, his vote was particularly a lonely one.

Only he and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a longtime gadfly for Trump, voted against the megabill on Thursday. And Fitzpatrick was the sole Republican who did not support clearing Wednesday night’s procedural hurdle to advance the bill and didn’t back down under pressure. A handful of other Republicans initially cast votes against it, but switched them at the last minute.

Fitzpatrick’s allies said he’s proven adept at navigating the complicated political cross-currents in his swing district. And sometimes, they said, that means upsetting his party.

“Working with Brian over the years, he’s very aware of his district,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.). “And he’s very aware of where he should be when he’s representing them.”

Kelly said Thursday he has not spoken with Fitzpatrick about his vote but has “no problem” with it.

Some MAGA activists weren’t as forgiving.

Conservative influencer Nick Sortor posted on the social media platform X on Wednesday, “ATTENTION PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA’S 1ST DISTRICT: Your Congressman @RepBrianFitz SOLD YOU OUT.”

Pro-Trump activist Scott Presler likewise wrote on X, “Yes, I am aware that Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA01) voted NO to the Big Beautiful Bill. Message received. CC: Bucks County.”

Democrats would be delighted if Fitzpatrick faced a messy, expensive primary.

Fitzpatrick has easily fended off challenges from Republicans running to his right. But they have lacked institutional support — namely Trump’s endorsement. Trump and his operation backing a primary opponent would present a new challenge for Fitzpatrick.

For weeks Trump has attacked Massie and promised to try to oust him, while his team launched a super PAC to unseat him.

The criticism from the White House was relatively tame in the hours after Fitzpatrick’s dissent. Trump told reporters that he was “disappointed” by the lawmaker's vote, but declined to immediately call for a primary challenge. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

And Republican House leaders appear to be sticking by Fitzpatrick. After eventually finding him, Johnson told reporters he had spoken with him “at length” and “he just has convictions about certain provisions of the bill — he’s entitled to that.”

But Fitzpatrick’s opposition extends beyond his usual maneuvers, thus presenting a test for the modern-day GOP: Can a party that demands total loyalty to Trump stomach someone who occasionally defies the president in order to keep their congressional majority?

More often than not in recent years, the answer to that question has been no.

Rep. Don Bacon, a frequent Trump critic who represents another Harris district in Nebraska, announced this week that he would not run for reelection. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also said Sunday he'd step down after Trump vowed to back a primary challenger against him because he opposed the megabill.