New Jersey motorists are set to endure substantial increases for their traveling needs as Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed a bill on Tuesday enacting an almost ten cents per gallon rise in the state’s gas tax over the next five years. The bill also imposes a novel registration fee on electric vehicles.
Advocated predominately as a step to replenish the state’s rapidly depleting Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), legislators stand behind the tax hike. The New Jersey Senate and Assembly gave the bill the green light last week, culminating in Murphy’s approval on Tuesday.
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Murphy asserts that the revamped gas tax and new EV fee could generate approximately $6.7 billion annually for the TTF, meant to finance maintenance and upgrades for New Jersey’s transportation infrastructure. The tax increase and EV fee become applicable from July 1.
The taxes on gas and diesel in New Jersey are already considered among the nation’s highest, where drivers pay 42.3 cents per gallon of gas and 49.3 cents for diesel. These charges are aligned with state revenue targets and can decrease with surplus or spike amidst a shortage. The approved law also forces EV drivers to contribute $250 annually to the TTF, which will increase by $10 per year until it hits $290 per driver in 2028.
While the legislation proceeded along party lines, lawmakers from both sides expressed concerns about the potential adverse impacts on the state’s motorists.
The tax increase comes as drivers are already struggling with skyrocketing gas prices resulting from the Biden regime’s mishandling of the economy. The average price of a gallon of gas has exceeded $3 for 974 days in a row — or nearly three years — under Biden’s stewardship.
By Popular Demand.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked Washington state officials to set aside more than 400 ballots cast by suspected noncitizens to confirm their eligibility, roughly a week before the midterm elections.
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Context.
In the run-up to the midterm elections, which are scheduled for November 3, the Trump administration has been cracking down on noncitizen voting.
Earlier this month, the federal government asked California election officials to set aside ballots from approximately 20,000 suspected noncitizens until their citizenship is verified. Specifically, the Trump administration has argued that California’s decision to count the alleged noncitizen ballots violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, as federal law states that only U.S. citizens can vote, and this takes precedence over state management of federal elections.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration sued Alaska to prevent certification of its Senate election if Republican Senator Dan Sullivan loses, citing potential confusion caused by the inclusion of another candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan.
As such, the recent request should be viewed as another front in the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign to strengthen election integrity.
The DOJ’s Request.
The DOJ has asked Washington election officials to set aside 405 ballots suspected to have been cast by noncitizens. Specifically, the DOJ has asked state officials to separate any ballots these potential noncitizens submit in the upcoming midterms until they can confirm their citizenship and eligibility.
Federal prosecutors have claimed that the DOJ’s investigation has uncovered approximately 1,500 votes cast by noncitizens in previous elections, and that several have been identified as lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders, who can live and work in the United States but cannot legally vote.
As with federal investigations in other states, the suspected noncitizen voters were identified by comparing federal immigration information with voter records. However, federal prosecutors have emphasized that determining whether the suspected noncitizens actually voted illegally requires access to Washington’s election records. The DOJ has asked for addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers.
“Because of limitations the state has placed on our investigation, we’ve only been able to uncover a fraction of the total number,” said Charles Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.
Washington state officials have not agreed to automatically set aside the ballots. In response to the DOJ request, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs questioned both the timing and implications of the request.
“The timing of this request—one week before the General Election—is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results,” said Hobbs in response to the federal government’s request.
Washington officials have also expressed concern that federal data can produce inaccurate matches. For example, people who were once noncitizens may subsequently have become naturalized U.S. citizens.
Nevertheless, the Washington Secretary of State has confirmed that his office is reviewing the federal government’s information and will determine how to respond under state and federal law.
Looking Forward.
If Washington ultimately accepts the DOJ’s request, election officials would have to separate ballots cast by people on the federal list until their citizenship and voting eligibility could be established.
While there is no indication that there are enough noncitizen votes to swing the state-wide outcome, the decision may impact competitive races within Washington itself. For example, Washington’s 3rd Congressional District is among the country’s most competitive House contests, meaning a small number of disputed ballots could attract intense political and legal scrutiny.
The outcome of the dispute could result in federal officials playing a more direct role in managing state elections, potentially leading to similar federal challenges in other states, especially where the result is close.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked Washington state officials to set aside more than 400 ballots cast by suspected noncitizens to confirm their eligibility, roughly a week before the midterm elections.
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By Popular Demand.
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Two European NATO members sharing borders with Russia have broken with the European Union, opening direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war in Ukraine continues to devastate the country and tensions escalate across the Baltic region.
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Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke directly with Putin on Tuesday, calling on the Russian leader to negotiate an end to the conflict. Their intervention represents a major departure from the diplomatic isolation pursued by most European Union governments since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The two leaders emphasized that their countries’ proximity to Russia gives them a particular interest in preventing further escalation. Finland shares an approximately 830-mile border with Russia, while Norway shares a roughly 120-mile frontier in the High North. “Ending the war requires direct discussions,” Stubb said following the conversation.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen criticized the decision to engage Putin independently, questioning what the Norwegian and Finnish leaders hoped to accomplish and insisting that European governments must maintain a united position.
The disagreement comes as Russian forces continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine, Moscow targets Ukrainian infrastructure, and tensions surrounding Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad raise fears of a wider confrontation.
Russia Pounds Ukrainian Infrastructure.
On October 27, Russia launched 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones against targets across 11 Ukrainian regions, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The attacks killed civilians in Kiev and Kharkov despite a separate, localized humanitarian ceasefire in southern Ukraine.
Days earlier, Russian missiles struck Kiev, damaging subway infrastructure on the Southern Bridge over the Dnieper River and disrupting traffic. Russian drones also targeted energy infrastructure near Kremenchuk, an important industrial center in central Ukraine.
The attacks show Russia’s strategy is to cripple Ukraine’s ability to sustain the war by damaging electricity supplies, transportation infrastructure, and industrial facilities, as well as possibly provoke another refugee crisis as many flee cities in winter if no reliable power is available to heat their homes.
Ukraine has also continued striking Russian territory, including oil infrastructure, as both sides seek to increase the economic and military costs of the conflict, which has another effect of keeping international energy prices high.
Battlefield Developments.
The Russians continue to demand control over the entirety of Donbas, encompassing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as Ukraine still has footholds in both territories. The fighting around Dobropillia, a strategically important town northwest of Pokrovsk, has become the latest key battle for the region.
Russian forces have intensified operations in the area, attempting to penetrate Ukrainian defenses and threaten transportation routes supporting Ukrainian positions farther north.
Moscow has claimed to have taken Dobropillia, while Ukrainian officials dispute the claims. An assessment by the Institute for the Study of War reported intensified Russian infiltration operations but claimed that these did not necessarily mean that Russian forces controlled the town. The assessment also highlighted Russian efforts to advance along routes supporting operations toward Dobropillia, with the longer-term objective of threatening Ukraine’s defensive positions around Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the last major strongholds under Ukrainian control in the Donbas.
Putin reiterated during the Nordic leaders’ diplomatic outreach that Russia would not compromise on its objective of securing the entire Donbas.
Kaliningrad.
While fighting continues in Ukraine, another potential confrontation is developing around Kaliningrad, Russia’s heavily militarized Baltic exclave situated between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad houses the headquarters of Russia’s Baltic Fleet and is an important military position, surrounded by NATO members.
The territory is also strategically sensitive because of its proximity to the Suwałki Gap, the narrow corridor connecting Poland and Lithuania that separates Kaliningrad from Belarus. Any military confrontation involving the exclave could quickly draw both NATO and Russia into direct conflict.
Earlier this month, Putin warned that Moscow could employ nuclear weapons if NATO attacked or attempted to isolate Kaliningrad. The warning followed Russian concerns over the possibility of NATO restricting access to the territory. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte responded by emphasizing the alliance’s defensive character and rejecting the usefulness of nuclear threats.
Military encounters in the Baltic have meanwhile continued. According to Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defence, NATO aircraft conducted multiple interceptions during October 12–18, including encounters with Russian military aircraft traveling between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad.
Some Russian aircraft operated without active transponders, filed flight plans, or radio communication, increasing the risk of dangerous incidents in the air.
The Baltics Are Resisting Peace Talks.
The willingness of the Norwegian and Finnish leaders to speak directly with Putin is directly contrasted by their neighbors in the Baltics, such as former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who now serves as the European Commission Vice President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Kallas has emerged as one of Europe’s most outspoken advocates of maintaining economic and military pressure on Moscow. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have consistently supported extensive sanctions against Russia, increased military assistance to Ukraine, and a stronger NATO presence along the alliance’s eastern frontier.
Kallas has also defended Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, telling Euronews earlier this month that such operations constitute legitimate self-defense because Russian energy revenues help finance the war.
Finland and Norway, meanwhile, appear increasingly convinced that direct communication with Moscow is necessary alongside sanctions, deterrence, and military assistance.
Trump Forces Europe to Reconsider Its Position.
President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly pursued negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict since the start of his second term, but has been frustrated by both sides, who refuse to agree to terms.
Recent diplomatic efforts included meetings involving U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Ukrainian officials, and Russian representatives, with another round of negotiations expected in Abu Dhabi in November.
Finland and Norway’s intervention follows an important October 20 meeting in Oslo, after which President Zelensky stated for the first time that he may be willing to end the war along the current line of conflict, with Russia continuing to occupy around 25 percent of pre-2022 Ukraine.
The two Nordic leaders challenging the status quo in Europe may reflect the emerging reality that it is America and Russia, rather than the EU and Ukraine itself, determining the peace.
Europe’s Choice.
The decision by Finland and Norway to engage Putin is just the latest fracture in Europe in what was once a united front against Russia and for Ukraine.
As the fifth anniversary of the conflict approaches in February, Russian attacks continue to damage Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Fighting in Donbas remains intense, while a potential conflict over Kaliningrad could drag NATO, including Finland and Norway, into a hot war with the Russians at their doorstep.
For years, much of Europe’s strategy has rested on the assumption that sustained pressure from economic sanctions and arms to Ukraine could force the Russians to reconsider their war aims and possibly retreat altogether. That strategy has not borne fruit, and now countries are beginning to look for other avenues to avoid conflict with the Russians and broker some kind of peace.
What follows could determine the fate of Europe, as the bloc will have to decide whether to pursue a potentially unpopular peace or a catastrophic war.
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Two European NATO members sharing borders with Russia have broken with the European Union, opening direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war in Ukraine continues to devastate the country and tensions escalate across the Baltic region.
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By Popular Demand.
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A recent court case in Bristol has again put the spotlight on the risks some migrant groups pose to British women and girls. In November last year, three Afghan men and an Afghan minor aged 17 subjected a teenage girl to a prolonged gang rape lasting several hours. They had first contacted her through Snapchat, supplied her with alcohol, then assaulted her before attempting to leave the country hidden in a lorry bound for France. French officials sent them back, British courts convicted them, and they were sentenced on October 6.
Such cases reinforce public concerns about migrant crime that have been growing for years. A government booklet distributed to asylum seekers recently felt the need to spell out that the age of consent is 16 and that rape is a serious offense. Statistics suggest that these concerns are justified, with migrants from Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa perpetrating sex crimes at much higher rates than other demographic groups and the native population.
Official statistics do not routinely break crime rates down by immigration status, so researchers must work with the limited figures available. Freedom of Information Act requests secured by the Migration Observatory at Oxford University produced Ministry of Justice records covering cautions and convictions in England and Wales from 2010 to 2024. Afghans accounted for 409 cases over the full period.
That raw total becomes meaningful once set against population size. The 2021 census counted roughly 21,400 people of Afghan origin in England and Wales. Subsequent arrivals after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 pushed the estimated Afghan population to around 45,000 by the end of 2022. Focusing on the 2020–22 window and adjusting for age and sex, the analysis finds Afghans convicted of sex crimes at seven times the rate of British nationals.
This is a large and persistent gap. The elevated rate means additional victims in every period, and continued high inflows will multiply the total impact.
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A Pattern Across Europe.
Britain is not unique. Data from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Sweden show immigrants from the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa are over-represented among both suspects and those convicted of sexual offenses. Age-standardized comparisons reduce the disparity, but the elevated rates do not disappear. Alice Weidel, leader of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has noted that Syrians and Afghans form the main category among those responsible for the most serious crimes, including rape and homicide.
The practical consequence for public safety of importing demographic groups with substantially higher rates of offending per person is more victims. Official reluctance to publish detailed, regularly updated rates by nationality has left the field open to competing claims. However, the available evidence confirms that Afghan, Middle Eastern, and African migrant groups commit sex crimes at markedly higher rates than the native population.
That reality, illustrated in repeated court cases and European data, is a serious problem that requires clear acknowledgment.
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A recent court case in Bristol has again put the spotlight on the risks some migrant groups pose to British women and girls. In November last year, three Afghan men and an Afghan minor aged 17 subjected a teenage girl to a prolonged gang rape lasting several hours. They had first contacted her through Snapchat, supplied her with alcohol, then assaulted her before attempting to leave the country hidden in a lorry bound for France. French officials sent them back, British courts convicted them, and they were sentenced on October 6.
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By Popular Demand.
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American political campaigns are increasingly paying specialist consultants to influence what artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots tell voters about candidates, according to a new investigation. This new phenomenon is attempting to mold how AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini describe political candidates, evaluate their policies, and even recommend whom to vote for.
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The investigation uncovered documents detailing a proposed strategy for Republican Mike Minogue, who is challenging Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey. The plan included creating hundreds of specially designed webpages, purchasing placements on websites frequently cited by AI systems, and distributing political content through social media sites like Reddit and YouTube.
Political operatives are now attempting to influence the information systems that voters increasingly trust to provide impartial answers, rather than solely relying on traditional media or social media ads.
Cameron Hickey, CEO of the National Conference on Citizenship, estimates that approximately 25 percent of eligible American voters have consulted an AI chatbot about a political candidate when deciding how to vote. AI is being adapted as a search and query tool by more and more voters, but just how reliable is it?
GEO: How Political Operatives Are Controlling AI Answers.
The newly uncovered strategy involves a relatively new industry known as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), an evolution of traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While conventional SEO attempts to push websites toward the top of Google search results, GEO aims to influence the information that artificial intelligence systems incorporate directly into their answers.
A voter searching for information about a candidate on traditional search engines might previously have encountered a series of websites, advertisements, and news articles, allowing them to weigh each source on its own. An AI chatbot instead synthesizes information into a single response, while often presenting its answers as being authoritative.
Austin-based consulting firm Visigent prepared the strategy document for Minogue’s campaign. The proposal included publishing hundreds of policy pages, buying placements on established websites already referenced by AI systems, and continuously monitoring chatbot responses to determine whether the campaign’s messaging was succeeding.
The firm’s CEO, Thomas Howell, confirmed that Visigent works with six political campaigns, although he refused to identify them.
The business model is clear: political campaigns are being offered services intended to make AI systems more likely to repeat their preferred messaging.
AI Influencing Is Already Attracting Thousands of Dollars in Campaign Funds.
Visigent offers basic monitoring software for $134 per month, while its political consulting services begin at approximately $5,000 per month. More elaborate operations involving paid media placements and influencer outreach can reportedly cost as much as $50,000 per month. One proposal even included a potential $200,000 success fee for achieving a specified category victory in AI recommendations.
Democrats are also looking to influence AI. The progressive organization Run for Something Action Fund operates CampSight, a service designed to help Democratic and progressive candidates monitor and improve their representation in chatbot responses.
Its services range from $9 to $250 per month for smaller campaigns, with customized arrangements for statewide and federal races. Run for Something president Amanda Litman stated that dozens of campaigns were already using the platform, with more than 300 candidates and organizations on its waiting list.
The New Frontier for Political Messaging.
For decades, candidates competed for television airtime and newspaper endorsements. The rise of social media introduced algorithm-driven political advertising, viral messaging, and the rise of the social media influencer class.
AI, however, is treated as an authority, rather than an opinion. A voter asking which candidate has the strongest record on immigration, taxation, or public safety might receive a detailed chatbot response without realizing that some of the underlying information was deliberately placed online by political consultants.
An investigation published last week by The Atlantic reported that cybersecurity researchers identified 37 suspicious websites registered on the same night, apparently designed to influence AI-generated answers about American elections.
The websites carried newspaper-style names and published Q&A material about various political candidates. In one instance, Google’s AI-powered search incorporated information from sites within the network when answering questions about a Michigan congressional candidate.
Meanwhile, research by AI evaluation company Forum AI found that approximately 40 percent of tested chatbot responses to election-related questions contained at least one factual inaccuracy, while roughly one-third cited unreliable sources.
The findings concerned particular models and questions tested in August, rather than every AI response. The companies involved said their systems had subsequently improved.
Chatbots Have a History of Giving Bad Advice.
Several major AI companies have faced major lawsuits alleging that their systems encouraged dangerous behavior, reinforced people’s mental illnesses, or failed to protect users. In August 2025, the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT reinforced their son’s suicidal thoughts and provided harmful information before his death.
OpenAI expressed sadness over the teenager’s death and acknowledged that safeguards could become less reliable during extended conversations, while not specifically addressing the lawsuit’s allegations.
Another case involved 14-year-old Sewell Setzer, whose mother alleged that interactions with a Character.AI chatbot contributed to his suicide. In January 2026, Google and Character.AI had agreed to settle the lawsuit.
The cases highlight the potential dangers for vulnerable people who interact with AI and treat it as an infallible and reliable source of information, something that could potentially now influence politics.
The Potential Impact of AI on Elections.
The political consequences of AI could become far-reaching as more and more people begin using various AI services to seek out information. AI potentially becoming closer and closer to something approaching self-awareness could also play a role if AI bots decide to present information to sway voters to candidates who are most sympathetic to AI development, possibly without revealing this motive.
Joe Bonilla, managing partner of political strategy firm Relentless Awareness, has said that efforts to influence AI responses are already underway and predicted that such practices would become widespread during the 2028 presidential election.
Wealthier political campaigns could gain an advantage by financing extensive networks of AI-friendly content, while misleading information could be repeated by chatbots without its original source or financial backing being obvious to users.
For voters already skeptical of Big Tech’s influence over political debate, the emergence of an industry devoted to manipulating AI-generated answers introduces yet another reason to question the neutrality of the information they receive.
The next great election battlefield may not be television advertising or social media algorithms, but the supposedly impartial answers generated by artificial intelligence.
With political consultants already charging tens of thousands of dollars to influence those responses, the question heading into the 2028 presidential election is no longer whether campaigns will attempt to manipulate AI, but how well they will do so and the impact it will have at the ballot box.
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American political campaigns are increasingly paying specialist consultants to influence what artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots tell voters about candidates, according to a new investigation. This new phenomenon is attempting to mold how AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's Gemini describe political candidates, evaluate their policies, and even recommend whom to vote for.
show more
By Popular Demand.
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Spain’s 2026 snap general election campaign is underway, and the country’s right-leaning parties are finalizing an electoral pact that could inspire further cooperation between national populists and the center-right across Europe.
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Election Background.
Earlier this month, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a snap election. This followed the Socialist government’s defeat in the legislature over emergency measures intended to address Spain’s worsening housing crisis, which were voted down by the center-right People’s Party (PP), the national populist Vox party, and Junts, a party advocating Catalan independence. Along with Sumar, a far-left electoral alliance, Junts was a critical supplier of votes to Sánchez’s left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), which lacks an outright legislative majority.
The decision to call a snap election came after mounting pressure on Sánchez, including a slew of corruption scandals and allegations affecting prominent figures in his government and domestic and international criticism of his handling of an illegal immigrant amnesty and migrant border influx into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the coast of North Africa, bordering Morocco.
However, while PP leads in the polls, much of the Spanish right is worried about repeating the outcome of the 2023 general election, in which PP secured more seats than PSOE, but no party won an outright majority and Sánchez struck a governing agreement with various smaller far-left and regionalist parties. PSOE gave significant policy concessions in exchange for parliamentary support, thereby allowing Sánchez to become Prime Minister despite PSOE not being the largest party.
The Agreement.
PP and Vox have made an electoral agreement to maximize the right’s combined strength in Spain’s Senate, which is elected by a party-list system. Under the system, voters choose individual candidates rather than a party.
According to the agreement, Vox will withdraw its Senate candidates in six provinces: Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Cádiz, Valencia, Castellón, and the Balearic Islands. In the six provinces, a Vox-backed candidate will appear on the PP ticket as an independent. The party will also field only one candidate instead of three in 14 other provinces, allowing voters to support two PP candidates alongside the Vox candidate.
In exchange, PP will withdraw its Senate candidates in three provinces: Gipuzkoa, Girona, and Tarragona, boosting the electoral prospects of Vox candidates.
This agreement aims to help the Spanish right achieve the three-fifths threshold in the upper house required for important institutional appointments. This includes the Constitutional Court, the supreme interpreter of the Spanish Constitution, along with the General Council of the Judiciary, the governing body of Spain’s legal system.
This is not the first time that PP and Vox have worked together, having cooperated at the municipal and regional levels on a number of occasions. However, this is the first time that the two parties have cooperated on a national level. It demonstrates that the Spanish right has made more progress towards internal cooperation than right-leaning parties in other European countries.
In Germany, the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is subject to an electoral firewall, meaning that other parties, including the notionally center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) formerly led by Angela Merkel, refuse to work with it. Similarly, the establishment-right Republicans in France are officially opposed to working with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party, although they have been increasingly permissive of their voters independently supporting RN candidates to prevent left-wing victories.
Meanwhile, according to data released last week, it has been revealed that the remaining supporters of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom would prefer a coalition with the Liberal Democrats over Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. The Liberal Democrats are a left-leaning party that supports open borders and reversing Brexit.
Election Forecast.
The Spanish election is scheduled for November 29, with PP and Vox expected to gain seats, while the PSOE is projected to suffer losses. Broad Front, the far-left electoral alliance to succeed Sumar, is also on track for heavy losses.
Specifically, according to polling conducted last week, PP secured 33 percent support, giving the party a seven-point lead over PSOE, which is currently on 26 percent. Meanwhile, Vox is polling at 19 percent, while Broad Front polls at seven percent.
It is possible that the Spanish right’s movement towards cooperation is incentivized by a crowded political field in which the establishment center-right remains viable and the establishment left can mobilize voters focused on preventing right-leaning victories. This is likely strengthened by the imminence of the election, meaning that while many center-right parties across Europe currently refuse to work with national populists, their position is prone to shifting over time.
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Spain's 2026 snap general election campaign is underway, and the country's right-leaning parties are finalizing an electoral pact that could inspire further cooperation between national populists and the center-right across Europe.
show more
By Popular Demand.
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On Sunday, National Rally (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen officially became the party’s nominee for France’s 2027 presidential election. This is far from Le Pen’s first presidential bid, but it is shaping up to be her most successful.
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2012 Presidential Bid.
Le Pen made her first presidential bid in 2012, having succeeded her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as leader of the Front National, National Rally’s predecessor party.
The election was held against a backdrop of economic uncertainty from the global financial crisis and the eurozone debt crisis, along with high unemployment and growing frustration with the government of then-President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), an establishment center-right party. He won the 2007 presidential election and sought a second five-year term.
However, François Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate and leader of the establishment center-left, won the first round with 28.6 percent of the vote, whereas the incumbent Sarkozy came second with 27.2 percent. Le Pen placed third in the first round, meaning she was ineligible to advance to the second round run-off, although she secured roughly 17.9 percent of the vote, a record for her party and foreshadowing the growing influence of the French national populist right.
Hollande ultimately won with 51.6 percent of the vote while Sarkozy received 48.4 percent.
2017 Presidential Bid.
Le Pen made her second bid for President in 2017. The election took place amid concerns over unemployment, immigration, Islamic terrorism, and France’s membership of the European Union. Socialist President François Hollande was deeply unpopular and therefore did not seek re-election, creating an open field.
Emmanuel Macron, an economy minister in Hollande’s government at the time, resigned to run for the presidency. The former banker founded the En Marche! movement, a globalist party pulling support from both the establishment left and the establishment right. The party was renamed Renaissance in September 2022.
Macron won the first round with 24 percent of the vote, while Le Pen came second with 21.3 percent. The establishment center-left Socialist Party and the establishment center-right Republicans, the latter of which emerged from the UMP, fell to third and fifth place in the first round.
During the second round, Macron won 66.1 percent of the vote as the establishment united around him, while Le Pen received 33.9 percent. This represented the first time since 2002 that the Front National had advanced to the run-off.
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2022 Presidential Bid.
Le Pen’s third bid for President happened in 2022. The incumbent President Emmanuel Macron sought a second term amid rising concerns over the cost of living, immigration, security, and the then-new war in Ukraine.
Macron topped the first round with 27.9 percent of the vote, followed by Le Pen with 23.2 percent. The election also saw the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon rise to third place with 22 percent, and Éric Zemmour split the national populist vote with 7.1 percent in a fourth-place finish. Meanwhile, support for the country’s establishment center-right and center-left parties cratered, receiving just 4.8 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.
During the second round, Macron won with 58.6 percent of the vote, while Le Pen received 41.5 percent, representing an improvement on her second round result five years prior. This was Le Pen’s first presidential bid after rebranding her party from the National Front to the National Rally, in order to distance the party from its more radical past under her father and gain more mainstream appeal.
This election saw not only the collapse of France’s establishment political parties, but the emergence of the country’s current three electoral blocs: Macron’s new establishment globalists, Le Pen’s national populists, and Mélenchon’s radical leftists. These divisions are currently reflected in France’s gridlocked legislature, contributing to ongoing political instability in the country.
2027 Presidential Bid.
Le Pen’s fourth and most recent bid for President was announced at the National Rally conference on October 25. “We are not living through the end of the world but the end of a world, their world,” Le Pen declared at the event in Orléans in north-central France this past weekend.
Le Pen also confirmed that if elected President she would appoint Jordan Bardella, who was re-elected as the National Rally’s president at the conference, as Prime Minister.
Le Pen’s nomination by her party coincided with violent riots across the country, which have resulted in the destruction of revered French landmarks such as the Limoges City Hall.
The first round of voting is scheduled for April 18, while the second round has been scheduled for May 2 in the event no candidate wins the first round outright. A victory for Le Pen next year would not only represent the first-ever presidential victory for the National Rally, but the culmination of 15 years of presidential campaigning.
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On Sunday, National Rally (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen officially became the party's nominee for France's 2027 presidential election. This is far from Le Pen's first presidential bid, but it is shaping up to be her most successful.
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By Popular Demand.
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On Thursday, YouGov, the largest polling firm in Britain, published research on the voters’ attitudes regarding potential coalition governments. The data indicates that Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party is closer to the political left than the populist right.
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Coalition with The Liberal Democrats.
According to YouGov’s polling, the remaining supporters of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party view a hypothetical coalition with the Liberal Democrats more favorably than a coalition with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. Specifically, 68 percent favor the former while only 60 percent favor the latter.
The poll showed that a Badenoch-led coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had a net positive of +40 with Conservative supporters. In contrast, a Badenoch-led coalition between the Conservatives and Reform scored a net positive score of +25.
The same polling also revealed that current supporters of the Conservative Party would prefer a coalition with the Labour Party, provided it was led by Badenoch, over a Farage-led coalition with Reform. Specifically, the former had a net positive of +14, whereas the latter had a net negative of -31.
Notably, Labour supporters did not reciprocate, with the hypothetical Badenoch-led coalition polling at a net negative of -67. The most popular combination with Labour supporters was a coalition with the Liberal Democrats led by Burnham, with a net positive figure of +70.
Labour supporters overwhelmingly rejected working with Reform, even if Burnham was Prime Minister, with a Farage-led Reform-Labour coalition having a net negative figure of -89 and a Burnham-led Labour-Reform coalition having a net negative figure of -70. However, Labour supporters polled a very slight net negative of -5 regarding a hypothetical coalition with the Tories with Burnham as Prime Minister. This suggests that while both Labour and Conservative supporters want their respective leaders to be Prime Minister, both parties’ supporters are considerably less hostile to each other than they are to Reform.
These figures raise the question of whether the Conservatives under Badenoch can meaningfully be considered a conservative or right-wing party.
The Liberal Democrats are a progressive party that supports reversing Britain’s democratic decision to leave the European Union. The party also supports liberalizing border controls and supports remaining in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a treaty which is regularly used to block deportation flights for illegalmigrants and foreign-born criminals. The party also strongly supports Net Zero.
Under Burnham, the Labour Party has shifted noticeably to the left on a number of issues. The Labour-led government has also overseen an increase in illegal immigration. According to data released back in August, an average of 130 illegal migrants arrived per day during Burnham’s first three weeks in office, constituting an increase from the average of 103 who arrived during the first three weeks of former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s tenure.
The polling repeatedly demonstrates that Conservative supporters would only back a right-leaning coalition with Reform if Badenoch was in charge, while Reformers were shown to be more pragmatic. “Most Conservative and Reform supporters would back a Badenoch-led coalition between the two parties, but Tories are opposed if Farage was in charge,” notes the YouGov report’s summary.
This suggests that Conservative supporters are not only prepared to form coalitions with left-leaning parties, but prioritize the interests and influence of their party over implementing a right-wing policy platform.
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On Thursday, YouGov, the largest polling firm in Britain, published research on the voters' attitudes regarding potential coalition governments. The data indicates that Kemi Badenoch's Conservative Party is closer to the political left than the populist right.
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By Popular Demand.
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Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Sir Keir Starmer was summoned to give evidence as a “core participant” in the country’s ongoing national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal last week.
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Background.
The United Kingdom’s national grooming gangs inquiry follows years of scandals involving the sexual exploitation of mostly white children by gangs of mostly Pakistani Muslim men, while the authorities repeatedly failed to protect victims.
Specifically, the scandals revolved around Muslim men targeting white working-class girls in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Bradford, and Oldham. However, due to the demographics of the victims and the perpetrators, British authorities were often reluctant to investigate due to fears of being seen as “racist” and fueling community cohesion, on occasion dismissing victims as young as 12 as “child prostitutes” making a “lifestyle choice.”
Pressure for a new national investigation intensified during former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership, especially throughout 2024 and 2025. Starmer’s Labour governmentinitially resisted calls for a statutory inquiry. This followed the decision of then-Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls Jess Phillips to reject a request from Oldham Council for a government-led investigation in October 2024. The government’s decision to vote against launching the inquiry triggered widespread public backlash.
In response, the Starmer government commissioned Baroness Louise Casey, a Crossbench peer in the House of Lords, the upper house of the British legislature, to conduct a national audit of group-based child sexual exploitation. Her June 2025 report recommended both a national police operation and a national statutory inquiry, and the government subsequently announced an inquiry later in the month.
Officially “The Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs,” the investigation is set to span three years. It has a £65 million budget.
While it will not investigate every location where grooming gangs have operated, the investigation will utilize information collected from areas including Oldham, Bradford, Keighley, London, and Birmingham.
The inquiry formally began in April 2026 under Baroness Anne Longfield, a Labour peer and the former Children’s Commissioner for England. Rather than merely examining individual cases, the inquiry aims to understand why institutions failed to respond effectively and why recommendations from earlier investigations did not consistently lead to change. Specifically, the inquiry will investigate the more than 800 recommendations that have been made by previous reviews and inquiries over approximately two decades.
Under the Inquiries Act 2005, the inquiry has significant legal powers, including the power to require witnesses to give evidence and organizations to provide documents. The inquiry also has the power to pass on evidence suggesting criminal activity to the police.
What This Means For Starmer.
As a “core participant,” Starmer is viewed by the inquiry as having sufficient connection to the matters being investigated. Starmer has served as both Prime Minister and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), putting him in a uniquely difficult position. Specifically, Starmer served as DPP from 2008 to 2013, when several major child sexual exploitation cases were being investigated. Due to the focus on the inquiry on institutional failures, Starmer is likely to be subject to intense scrutiny. The inquiry is also likely to question the former Prime Minister’s decision to block a national inquiry back in 2025.
This could represent Starmer’s first major appearance in national public life since stepping down as Prime Minister back in July and being replaced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Starmer announced his resignation in June, a month after the Labour Party suffered critical losses in local elections to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. Starmer also resigned his seat in Parliament in September.
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Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Sir Keir Starmer was summoned to give evidence as a "core participant" in the country's ongoing national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal last week.
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By Popular Demand.
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The British establishment media has spent days targeting Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, for branding Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch a “Nigerian scammer.” Media organizations including LBC, The Huffington Post, and the notionally right-leaning Daily Mail, which employs former Labour and Hope Not Hate activist Dan Hogdges, have joined the deeply chequered Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake in attacking Reform figures, including Robert Jenrick and Danny Kruger, for declining to denounce Kassam as “racist,” with Kruger dismissing the supposed controversy as “rumbustious debate online.”
Kassam has responded to the attacks with a detailed thread providing evidence that Badnenoch is a “scammer,” and noting that “Nigerian” is not a race. Significantly, Badenoch has also indicated that she does not believe “Nigerian” is a race, previously stating that she identifies with her “specific ethnicity” as a Yoruba, and that she regards northern Nigerians as her “ethnic enemies.”
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I enjoyed this. Nigerian isn't a race, and calling her a scammer because she invokes it when its politically convenient isn't racism.
Kemi is a scammer.
On race, on politics, on the economy, on her own background, and more.
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Selective Nigerian Identity.
Kassam’s core point is straightforward. Badenoch was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980 to visiting Nigerian parents, who immediately returned to Nigeria to raise her. Early in her British political career, she directly appealed to Nigerian diaspora voters for support, and suggested she entered British politics to “[speak] for the Africans,” particularly on foreign aid.
Badenoch has at times emphasized her Nigerian roots and, in footage highlighted by Kassam from 2022, told a Nigerian audience she loves Nigeria “just as much as” England while speaking in a Nigerian accent. At other times—particularly when speaking to British audiences—she has said she no longer identifies as Nigerian, or even, as mentioned previously, that she has never identified as Nigerian, but only as a Yoruba.
Kassam argues this is convenient identity politics: using her Nigerian background for career advancement or making emotional appeals situationally, but downplaying it when dual loyalty concerns arise. He has noted he is Indian by heritage, but would never declare equal love for India and Britain.
Have you seen this before???
When Kemi Badenoch speaks to other Nigerians, she turns off her fake English accent.
She also tells them that she loves Nigeria just as much as England.
And what’s all this about saying Islamic prayers in Nigeria?
Badenoch has repeatedly said that at age 16, while attending school in the U.S., strong SAT scores earned her an offer and partial scholarship to study medicine or “pre-med” at Stanford, but her family could not afford it. Former Stanford admissions staff have called this implausible or impossible, as Stanford has no undergraduate pre-med degree.
Admissions were also not based on test scores alone, and partial scholarships of the type Badenoch described were not how the university operated at the time—if they admitted someone who needed aid, they covered the full cost so the student could enroll. Badenoch has stood by the story, but says she no longer has the paperwork to prove it.
This is one of several origin-story embellishments. Earlier reporting has also challenged a claimed national girls’ chess championship win at age seven, which, if it ever took place, appears to have involved only two competitors, and questions around Badenoch’s account of a supposedly difficult Nigerian childhood, despite the fact that her father was a doctor with a clinic and she attended elite schools.
Inconsistencies.
Kassam also referenced “Melonigate,” a conversation reported by The Times in which Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni supposedly advised Badenoch against any electoral arrangement with Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Meloni’s party subsequently indicated that no such discussion took place, and The Times made extensive stealth edits to remove the claims without a proper correction note.
On the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Badenoch previously said leaving it would not be a “silver bullet” for immigration control. She now claims she would abrogate the convention, despite her party upholding it over 14 years in government while overseeing record immigration and falling deportations.
As Equalities Minister, she advanced the “Inclusive Britain” agenda, including ethnicity pay gap reporting and pushing for greater racial diversity in the judiciary and policing, despite public criticism of DEI. Farage has called the shift “totally disingenuous.”
On the Chagos Islands, Badenoch attacked Farage’s comments about offering the U.S. perpetual use of the vital Diego Garcia base as “humiliating” and falsely claimed the Reform leader was advocating giving away the British territory. The U.S. government publicly rebuked her for “spreading fake news,” clarifying that Farage was referring to continued U.S. use of the Diego Garcia base, not transferring control over the islands to the U.S. Significantly, Britain’s negotiations to hand the territory to Mauritius began under the Conservatives, while Badenoch was a government minister.
British Conservative (Tory) Party leader Kemi Badenoch has been rebuked by the White House after she attacked Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage over recent comments about the Chagos Islands, with a senior official accusing her of spreading “fake news” and undermining the… pic.twitter.com/GFcMMxjmnC
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Same Old Tories.
Kassam noted that the vast majority of Badenoch’s top team are, like her, veterans of the failed 2010–2024 Conservative governments which botched Brexit and accelerated Net Zero and mass migration, warning voters: “There is a REASON that 92% of her shadow cabinet are the same Tory ministers and spads from the failed 14 years. Don’t fall for the great Kemi scam.”
He also noted that her husband Hamish Badenoch has been described in the press as a “sopping wet Remainer,” firmly on the left of the Conservative Party.
Kassam has doubled down on the original “Nigerian scammer” line as a colorful way to draw attention to his underlying critique of Badenoch as, at best, a serial embellisher and political chameleon, whose record and actions do not match her public positions.
The Conservatives joining the left-wing media in focusing on Kassam’s reference to her Nigerian nationality and demanding ritual disavowals from Reform figures, instead of focusing on the substance of the critique, shows they remain a fundamentally center-left party in hock to leftist identity politics and political correctness.
American observers will recognize the pattern. When a politician’s résumé, past statements, and policy consistency face detailed challenge, establishment outlets and politicians pivot to policing the tone of the critique on woke, left-wing terms. Kassam’s receipts are there for anyone with the wherewithal to read past the familiar accusation of “racism.”
Kemi Badenoch is an unrelenting scammer, and she has used her Nigerian background as a means by which to advance her career when it suits her. Of that there can be no doubt. A thread… 🧵
Lets start with HER STORY of how she joined the Tories in order to promote foreign aid to… pic.twitter.com/lvLRrODAwh
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The British establishment media has spent days targeting Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, for branding Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch a “Nigerian scammer.” Media organizations including LBC, The Huffington Post, and the notionally right-leaning Daily Mail, which employs former Labour and Hope Not Hate activist Dan Hogdges, have joined the deeply chequered Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake in attacking Reform figures, including Robert Jenrick and Danny Kruger, for declining to denounce Kassam as "racist," with Kruger dismissing the supposed controversy as “rumbustious debate online.”
show more
By Popular Demand.
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Sir James Cleverly, the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Braintree and frontrunner for his party’s 2028 London mayoral nomination, stepped down from Kemi Badenoch’s Shadow Cabinet in late August 2026 to focus on the City Hall contest. A former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary during the Conservatives’ most recent stretch in government (2010–2024), he now positions himself as an alternative to Lord Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party incumbent. However, a closer look at his views and record reveals a center-left politician more at ease with open borders and a multicultural redefinition of Britishness than with traditional conservative priorities such as immigration enforcement and maintaining national cohesion.
Open Borders in the Guise of ‘Free Market Labor Movements.’
Despite the party’s center-right branding, Cleverly has long advocated positions that treat mass migration primarily as an economic boon. He has written approvingly of a future defined by “free market labor movements”—that is, open borders for foreign workers, prioritizing employer demand over domestic wage pressures or community capacity.
He did advocate for the shift towards open borders to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, due to the social upheaval it would cause, but still predicted that “At some point in the future we will look back at our current (fairly) protectionist policies on free market labour movements with the same disbelief that we look back on the corn laws.”
As Home Secretary, Cleverly presided over the tail-end of the Boriswave influx. While he claimed that the unprecedented post-COVID migration spike his party engineered had been a “fatal mistake,” his earlier enthusiasm for liberal international labor markets puts him firmly in the camp of Conservatives whose public, restrictive position on immigration did not match his record.
Woke on Identity: Redefining Britishness as Defined by Foreign Foods and Imports.
Cleverly has a distinctly woke-left view of national identity. In one article, he described Britishness exclusively in terms of consuming foreign goods: “Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.”
Cleverly’s view elevates the enjoyment of foreign goods, cuisine, and media as the essence of Britishness. It echoes the broader progressive insistence that diversity is the defining feature of modern Britain, rather than national traditions or the national language, institutions, and history. Critics see it as the opposite of a coherent civic or cultural identity, replacing nationhood with a cosmopolitan marketplace.
I’m proud to be Chairman of the @Conservatives, I’m proud to be part of the most diverse cabinet in history, and I’m proud of how my party is championing diversity. https://t.co/baKpndOWYo
Labeling Immigration Skeptics ‘Extremist and Racist.’
The son of an immigrant from Sierra Leone, Cleverly has repeatedly insisted that Britain’s social cohesion and sense of identity “is not being watered down by immigration.” Those who argue otherwise, he has maintained, are “extremist and racist.”
He has extended this claim across centuries of arrivals: “We have managed to stay British through immigration from the Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Huguenots, Jews, Irish, West Indians, West Africans, East Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, etc., etc., etc. Britishness evolved, but it did not diminish.”
Notably, the “immigration” of the Romans, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans generally involved the violent overthrow of the existing political, social, and sometimes cultural order, suggesting that their arrival did indeed fundamentally alter the national character.
Party Context Under Badenoch.
Cleverly’s outlook sits comfortably within the current Conservative leadership. Party leader Kemi Badenoch has described herself as a “first-generation immigrant,” being born in London but raised in Nigeria. Like Cleverly, Badenoch publicly strikes a restrictionist posture on immigration, but her record in government includes lobbying to have limits on foreign students and migrant workers removed, which helped create the Boriswave.
Longstanding Hostility to Trump and America First.
Cleverly’s liberal instincts on migration and identity pair with strong disdain for President Donald J. Trump and the America First movement. In 2015, he publicly urged Republicans not to nominate Trump, writing on Twitter (now X): “Dear Republican colleagues, please, please, please don’t choose Donald Trump as the front man for American Right-of-Centre politics. Please.”
After Trump’s 2016 election and 2017 inauguration, Cleverly denounced the administration’s policies on immigration and Syrian refugees as “indefensible, unworkable and almost certainly unconstitutional.” By contrast, he later spoke warmly of meeting then-President Joe Biden in 2024, calling the Democrat “a great friend to the UK” despite his open hostility to Britain in general and the English in particular.
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Sir James Cleverly, the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Braintree and frontrunner for his party’s 2028 London mayoral nomination, stepped down from Kemi Badenoch's Shadow Cabinet in late August 2026 to focus on the City Hall contest. A former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary during the Conservatives’ most recent stretch in government (2010–2024), he now positions himself as an alternative to Lord Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party incumbent. However, a closer look at his views and record reveals a center-left politician more at ease with open borders and a multicultural redefinition of Britishness than with traditional conservative priorities such as immigration enforcement and maintaining national cohesion.
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By Popular Demand.
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