Mills’ muddle
Maine Gov. Janet Mills delivered her final State of the State address this week. The speech came at a delicate time, coming amid Mills’ tight Senate primary race and signals from the Trump administration that it was considering new immigration operations in the state. The address reflected that reality, functioning as part farewell, part anti-Trump missive, and part stump speech, something the Republicans in the chamber seemed to understand. At one point, one state representative even interrupted the governor, accusing her of delivering a campaign speech.
The national focus was clearly on Mills’ mind: when she wasn’t declaring that “healthcare is a human right” or denouncing ICE tactics, she spent much of her time ticking through her record as governor. Notably, she developed an interesting tic of telling the audience “you’re welcome” after each purported achievement, something she repeated over half a dozen times. The lines were not in her prepared remarks, and it seems likely Mills was motivated by the antics of the Republicans in the chamber, most of whom walked out over the course of the speech. That context, however, was lost on camera, and the effect was less than desirable for a politician in a still-struggling state. More significant for Mills’s Senate campaign in my view was how plainly the governor’s age (at 78, she would be the oldest freshman senator ever elected) shone through.
One moment of levity did come midway through the speech. Calling cell phones “disruptive,” Mills announced her support for a bell-to-bell cellphone ban in schools — another state joins the trend! — only for the camera to pan to a legislator...playing on her own phone during the speech.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green — who close readers will know has previously hinted at running for president — delivered his own SOTS this week. The speech was incredibly local in nature — perhaps the most of any I’ve seen this year, from members of either party — and heavily focused on climate resiliency and wildfire recovery.
Notably, the governor did propose that the state cover the cost of enhanced ACA subsidies, which expired in December. The move could be popular, but there’s a reason that Green, unlike other governors, can offer it: it costs way less to do than other states. Per the Kaiser Family Foundation, Hawaii ranks dead last out of all fifty states in the number of residents receiving enhanced exchange tax credits.
Insights from Shapiro’s book tour
PA Gov. Josh Shapiro’s memoir “Where We Keep the Light” was released this week, and he did a full-court press promotional tour. Three things stuck out for me:
He planted his flag firmly with ICE critics, telling CBS News that “this mission is broken. It must be terminated.” As Democrats began to discuss conditioning ICE funding on agency reforms, he also told Stephen Colbert that Congress should “stop funding ICE and terminate this mission.” It was all especially strong language for someone that both the progressive and centrist wings of the party are eager to slot as a “moderate.”
He spoke a great deal about the anti-Semitic arson attack on the governor’s mansion, movingly describing its impact on his family. He also mentioned several times that President Trump called him afterwards, only to steer the conversation into other things, including “strange musings” about the dangers of being president, which he urged Shapiro not to run for due to security concerns. The way he presented it felt like part of a broader strategy by Shapiro to hit Trump’s mental acuity; talking to Katie Couric, he said Trump “seems confused” more and more recently. Perhaps some context: Shapiro is notably a decade younger than Kamala Harris and three decades younger than Joe Biden.
He went after the Biden administration’s record on efficiency on the Raging Moderates podcast, saying it “didn’t provide those things that people could specifically see or feel.” Shapiro specifically singled out the administration’s failure to execute the rural broadband program that was included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill (billions were devoted to the plan, but close to nothing has been done). Shapiro, of course, won plaudits for his quick response to a bridge collapse early in his term, and seems eager to lean into the Mr. Fix-It reputation.
Speaking of 2028 publishing news, CT Sen. Chris Murphy announced this week that his book “Crisis of the Common Good” is coming out in June. He joins a growing group of potential 2028 Democratic contenders who have published or announced books thus far, including Shapiro, Kamala Harris, John Fetterman, Gavin Newsom, Cory Booker, and Raphael Warnock.
The immigration movement gets real
The week was full of more evidence of Democrats' rapid shift on immigration, which is beginning to manifest in real policy changes at the state level. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order further limiting ICE access in the Bay State, banning state agencies from entering into 287(g) agreements — which, as I wrote on Wednesday, are crucial to the Trump administration’s deportation goals.
Two other states are on the brink of ending the agreements fully. In Maryland, several bills are quickly advancing through the legislature. And in New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham officially endorsed an effort to ban them on Thursday,
Polls across the board are now finding immigration is becoming a political liability for the president — with one big caveat. Surveys that ask people about both “immigration” and “border security” continue to find that Americans approve (albeit narrowly) of Trump’s handling of the latter. That again showed up in a Fox News survey this week.
Source: Fox News
It’s a noteworthy warning sign for Democrats. A couple of party figures seemed to have the dynamic in mind this week, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. Appearing on The Press Box podcast, Moore went out of his way to first establish his bona fides on border security before denouncing ICE: “Do we need to have a secure border? Absolutely, and we for a long period of time did not have that, and there needs to be a measure of honesty about that.”
And one last thing
I’ve written a lot over the past few weeks about Democrats’ rapid shift on immigration. This week, we got a real-time example. Sen. Amy Klobuchar officially announced her campaign for Minnesota governor on Thursday, rolling out a well-produced video. Having done many an audio pickup in my day, I immediately noticed two lines that were inserted afterwards. One, at 0:12, adds in a description of Alex Pretti’s killing, which clearly came after the video was shot. The other comes at 2:16, saying that Klobuchar is running to help get “ICE and its abusive tactics out of the state we love.”
Klobuchar announcement video
A politician like Klobuchar, who hails from the firm middle of the Democratic Party, deciding it was both necessary and politically safe to insert such a stridently anti-ICE statement into her announcement video is as close to a microcosm of the shifting political climate as you could get.
That’s all for this week, folks — enjoy your weekend.
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