‘Alligator Alcatraz' Is a Dystopian Pipe Dream, Not a Plan
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has been getting a lot of attention this week for erecting an ICE deportation camp on an abandoned airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades and calling it 'Alligator Alcatraz.' In a glossy video, he suggests that the flood-prone wetland is perfect for housing detained immigrants in the heat of the summer because if anyone escapes 'there's not much waiting for them — other than alligators and pythons.'
As a policy, building a tent city in a fragile swamp during hurricane season doesn't make much sense, but Uthmeier needed a publicity stunt. The little-known politician has held the job for six months and is facing a serious election challenge from Democratic former state Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez. Conjuring up harsh conditions for undocumented immigrants may not only get Uthmeier the attention of President Donald Trump, but also give him traction with Florida's MAGA voters. Indeed, the federal government is already backing the plan, giving Uthmeier $450 million in taxpayer money to dish out in no-bid construction contracts to potential political donors.
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Newsweek
3 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Donald Trump Voters Are Losing Faith With Trump
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Once the cornerstone of his political strength, President Donald Trump's base is showing signs of erosion. The latest YouGov/Economist poll, conducted June 20-23 among 1,590 adults, shows that Trump's approval rating among those who voted for him in 2024 stands at 83 percent, while 14 percent disapprove, giving him a net approval rating of +69 points, down from +80 last month. The poll had a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Air Force One while in flight from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, on June 24, 2025. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Air Force One while in flight from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, on June 24, 2025. Alex Brandon/AP Last month's poll was conducted before Trump carried out airstrikes against three key Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. In retaliation, Iran fired missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar on Monday. A ceasefire between Iran and Israel was agreed to the same day, though tensions remain high. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have since accused Iran of violating the ceasefire and threatened to strike Tehran in response—an accusation Tehran denies. The rapid escalation has spotlighted the risks of deeper U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and highlighted the evolving nature of American foreign policy under Trump, who once promised to protect "America's vital interests" without engaging in "endless wars" overseas. The strikes appear to have triggered a shift in public attitudes—even among Republicans—with polls showing signs of declining support for Trump's agenda. Additional data from the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted June 21–23 among 1,139 respondents, reinforces the trend: 84 percent of Republicans said they approve of the president's job performance, down from 90 percent last month. The latest poll had a margin of error of +/-3.2 percentage points. Political analysts say Trump's declining approval ratings are tied to a growing disconnect between his actions and voter priorities—particularly after his recent military intervention in Iran. Thomas Gift, founding director of the University College London Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek Trump's decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities has unsettled many in the MAGA movement who expected him to avoid foreign entanglements. "Trump's recent actions in Iran have done little to reassure the MAGA base that he'll steer clear of another endless war in the Middle East," Gift said, noting that even former chief strategist Steve Bannon has warned the conflict could escalate into "U.S. boots on the ground." Gift added that a core tenet of Trump's 2024 message was that "'America First' meant staying out of foreign conflicts," but now "that promise is starting to ring hollow." Peter Loge, a political communications professor at George Washington University and former Obama advisor, told Newsweek Trump's approval ratings are falling for broader reasons as well. "Trump's numbers are down because that's how public opinion works," Loge said. "He is pursuing policies people don't like, while ignoring things people care about." He pointed to "thermostatic politics"—the idea that voters often react against the party in power, even when it does what they asked for—as a key factor. "Trump started in a weak position with a lot of soft support," Loge explained. "That he is getting less popular is unsurprising." Loge added that many of Trump's headline policies—such as sending troops into American cities or escalating military conflicts abroad—don't match what most voters are asking for. "Most voters mostly want things to work," he said. "They want to be able to afford gas and groceries, pay their medical bills, and know their kids have a shot at a good future." Instead, Trump's agenda—threatening Medicaid, risking inflation with tariffs, and engaging in costly foreign conflicts—"either ignores what most voters care about, or threatens to make those things worse." "President Trump likes people to pay attention to Donald Trump," Loge said. "Voters would rather pay attention to their families." It comes as polls show that a majority of Americans do not approve of U.S. airstrikes in Iran. The YouGov/Economist poll found just 29 percent think the U.S. should be carrying the strikes, while 46 percent said it should not. The Washington Post found modestly higher support for the U.S. military bombing Iran. In a poll, 25 percent of adults supported "the U.S. military launching airstrikes against Iran over its nuclear program," while 45 percent were opposed. The poll also found that 82 percent of Americans were either "somewhat" or "very" concerned about getting involved in a full-scale war with Iran. Analysis by pollster G. Elliott Morris showed that 21 percent of Americans said last week that they supported U.S. involvement in Iran, while 57 percent opposed. And it seems that Trump's decision to launch airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities has exposed deep divisions within the party. Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky called Trump's move unconstitutional. "This is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution," Massie posted on X, formerly Twitter. Far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a Trump ally, struck a cautious tone after the bombing, posting on X: "Let us join together and pray for the safety of our U.S. troops and Americans in the Middle East." But just 30 minutes before the announcement of the airstrikes, Greene voiced frustration: "Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war... Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer." Former Trump adviser and War Room podcast host Steve Bannon was even more direct in his criticism, blasting the president for publicly thanking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the operation. "It hasn't been lost... that he thanked Bibi Netanyahu, who I would think right now – at least the War Room's position is – [is] the last guy on Earth you should thank," Bannon said. Bannon, who has long opposed U.S. military involvement in Iran, questioned Trump's reliance on intelligence reportedly provided by Israel, rather than U.S. sources. "I don't think we've been dealing from the top of the deck," he said, and described Trump's post-strike remarks as "very open-ended," adding: "I'm not quite sure [it was] the talk that a lot of MAGA wanted to hear." While Bannon insisted that "the MAGA movement will back Trump," he noted growing discomfort with the president's increasingly hawkish posture, recalling that opposition to "forever wars" was a defining issue in Trump's 2016 campaign. "One of the core tenets is no forever wars," Bannon told an audience in Washington days before the strike. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, also appeared to diverge from the president. Trump recently criticized the intelligence community's assessment that Iran had not taken the political decision to build a nuclear bomb, saying they were "wrong." Gabbard has denied any serious disagreement. Charlie Kirk, a prominent right-wing influencer, warned ahead of the strikes that Trump risked alienating his base. "Trump voters, especially young people, supported [him] because he was the first president in my lifetime to not start a new war," he said. But after the strikes, Kirk appeared to soften, reposting a clip of Vice President JD Vance praising the pilots involved. "They dropped 30,000 pound bombs on a target the size of a washing machine... Whatever our politics, we should be proud," Vance said. Nonetheless, polls suggest that Trump's MAGA base is largely supportive of the strikes. A recent J.L. Partners poll showed that support for U.S. military action against Iran is strongest among Trump's most devoted base. Two-thirds of self-identified "MAGA Republicans" (65 percent) back U.S. strikes, far surpassing support among "Traditional Republicans" (51 percent). Most Republican voters also view Israel's war with Iran as a shared American cause, with 63 percent saying "Israel's war is America's war"—a figure that rises to 67 percent among MAGA Republicans. And a new Washington Post/George Mason University survey finds Republican support for a strike rising from 47 percent to 77 percent. For comparison, political independents moved 10 points in Trump's direction, and Democrats stayed put. For pollster G Elliott Morris, there is a simple explanation for this. "Many Republicans do not hold isolationism as a value above their partisanship," he wrote in a blog post. "When push comes to shove, party loyalty and following the leader override some abstract commitment to staying out of foreign conflicts. If Trump decides that the MAGA movement should abandon isolationism altogether and invade Iran, then a large chunk of the movement will follow suit. The speed and scale of the shift in Republican opinion after Trump's decision to bomb Iran is a textbook example of this." He continued: "Of course, partisanship is not just a Republican phenomenon, but Trump's gravitational pull on opinion is unlike the force wielded by any other politician." Aaron Evans, president of Winning Republican Strategies, summed up why Republicans support Trump's actions in Iran. "Americans know President Trump did exactly what he promised: he stopped Iran from getting nuclear weapons without dragging us into another endless war," Evans told Newsweek. "While Democrats rushed to scream 'World War III,' Trump exposed their weakness and lack of seriousness on foreign policy. He showed strength, poise, and strategic discipline—doing what others only talk about: keeping nukes out of the hands of a terror regime while securing peace through strength. The media can spin, but voters see the truth. President Trump acted with precision, avoided war, and protected American lives. He's a man of action, not talk—and that's exactly why his base remains strong." However, the most recent YouGov/Economist poll found that only 47 percent of Trump 2024 voters think the U.S. should take active part in world affairs, while 37 percent disagreed and 19 percent said they are not sure.
USA Today
30 minutes ago
- USA Today
Ranked choice voting promised more moderates. It delivered extremists instead.
Ranked choice voting further loosens party control and gives the activists within either party more say in the process. And voters in the middle suffer the consequences. In one of my first published columns ever, I advocated for ranked choice voting, which was at the time a lesser-known alternative way to conduct elections in which you rank several candidates in order of preference. I have since changed my view. Since then, the idea has grown in popularity, even making its way into New York City's Democratic Party primary election on Tuesday, June 24. Ranked choice made headlines as state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani won that primary. The promise of ranked choice voting producing more moderate candidates has been undermined by extreme candidates. American politics are better off under more traditional voting systems. What is ranked choice voting? Ranked choice voting seeks to solve the issue of strategic voting ‒ when voters cast their ballot not for their top choice in a crowded field, but rather their preference between one of the two candidates with a high chance of winning. One of the central arguments in favor of ranked choice is that, because people can express their true preferences, it is more likely to produce more moderate candidates. However, in practice, it rarely accomplishes this goal. Take New York's mayoral primary race, for example. The city's ranked choice system led to the election of Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as the Democratic nominee to be the next mayor, giving him the inside track at the job. Now, part of that issue is candidate quality. Mamdani's opponent was Andrew Cuomo, who is best known for resigning the New York governorship in disgrace in 2021 due to numerous sexual harassment claims and mismanagement of COVID-19. But that dilemma goes even further to the point of ranked choice voting not producing better outcomes than an ordinary ballot system. The New York election is not the sole arbiter of this system's effectiveness, however. Other municipalities that have adopted ranked choice have seen more extreme candidates prevail. Researchers have found that 'as an electorate grows more polarized, candidates located at the median are less likely to be elected under IRV (another term for ranked choice voting) because they simply are not the first choice of enough voters.' In our polarized political environment, ranked choice voting may make matters even worse by favoring more extreme candidates, thus widening the partisan divide in races. Ranked choice voting weakens political parties One fact that many in the news media are reluctant to admit (but may agree with privately) is that voters are extraordinarily bad at selecting good candidates. This is why America is better off with strong political parties. Strong political parties, with more influence over who their nominees are, limit the extent to which voters can influence a party to nominate a candidate outside of the mainstream opinion. Political parties have grown weaker in recent years as populist movements in both parties grow, and the result is a rise in extreme candidates in response to American political polarization. More extreme candidates acting outside the structure of parties is a major reason for this. Ranked choice voting reduces the amount of sway that a political party has over its nominee. Ordinarily, in a primary election, there is a uniform sequence of dropouts that build coalitions among two and three candidates by the time Election Day rolls around. This typical procession gives parties plenty of opportunities to interject their preferences into the race, and to help boost their preferred candidate. Still, the existence of a primary system in the first place entails that, from time to time, the voters will override the preferences of the internal party structure, such as Donald Trump's initial nomination in the 2016 presidential election. That problem has worsened as activists have captured the primary system to promote their candidates, rather than those of the median partisan. Ranked choice voting further loosens party control and gives the activists within either party more say in the process. These activists are only further likely to produce more extreme candidates, and the voters in the middle suffer the consequences. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Republican field for 2026 Maine governor's race slow to take shape
Jun. 29—The Maine governor's race is still more than a year away, but already four high-profile Democratic candidates are vying to succeed Gov. Janet Mills, setting up what's expected to be a heavyweight primary. Among Republicans, though, there are a lot of names but no front-runners. And one of their more viable options — Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford — announced last week that he was unenrolling from the Republican party to run for governor as an independent. There is still plenty of time for more candidates to join the mix, but now that the state Legislature has adjourned, a lot of eyes have turned to the 2026 governor's race and whether Mainers will continue what has been more than a half-century tradition of not electing back-to-back governors from the same party. "On the Republican side, the people who have announced so far are kind of lesser-known or second-tier candidates," said Mark Brewer, a professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Maine. Brewer noted, however, that it's still early and he expects the field to grow. Among the prominent names that have been mentioned are: Rep. Laurel Libby, Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, former Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, and former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin. Candidates have until March 16 to turn qualifying signatures in to the Maine Department of the Secretary of State ahead of primaries that are nearly a year away. The Democratic field started to take shape early and could be set. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows declared her candidacy in March followed by former Senate President Troy Jackson's announcement last month, and Hannah Pingree, a former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives who recently left a position in the Mills administration and is the daughter of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, declared earlier this month. Angus King III, a businessman, renewable energy entrepreneur and the son of U.S. Sen. Angus King, announced his bid in early May. Bennett's decision to run as an independent had long been rumored but it will certainly impact next year's race. The Republican field has been slower to build momentum. While seven people have filed campaign finance paperwork with the state to run, none are well-known and several have no experience holding elected office. "There are no big Republican names out there right now, but I would be stunned if we didn't have at least one high-profile Republican get into the race," Brewer said. A LOOK AT WHO'S IN Perhaps the most politically well-known Republican candidate so far is Sen. Jim Libby, R-Standish, a professor at Thomas College who is serving his sixth nonconsecutive term in the Legislature and who also ran in the Republican primary for governor in 2002. Other candidates include Bobby Charles, a Leeds resident and lawyer who served as an assistant secretary of state under President George W. Bush, Owen McCarthy, a medical technology entrepreneur from Gorham, and David Jones, a Falmouth real estate broker. Steven Sheppard of Bangor, Ken Capron of Portland and Robert Wessels of Norway have also filed paperwork with the state to run. Some other names that have been rumored as possible candidates include Laurel Libby, the Auburn representative who is a prolific fundraiser and who has been in the spotlight recently for her criticisms of Maine's policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports; Stewart, the current Senate minority leader from Presque Isle; Mason, a former Senate majority leader who also was a candidate in the Republican primary in 2018; and Poliquin, Maine's 2nd District congressman from 2015-19 and a former state treasurer. Libby said last week that she is "actively exploring a run for governor." She said she is confident in her donor base and fundraising potential and doesn't see a need to rush a decision. "There's still plenty of time," Libby said. Mason, who finished a distant second to Moody in the 2018 primary, also said he is thinking about getting in the race. "I ran for the job in 2018, so I think I would be lying if I said I didn't want the job," he said. "I'm looking to see how the field shakes out and, if I feel I can make a contribution and see a path to win, I might get in. I'm definitely interested." Stewart and Poliquin did not respond to messages asking if they are considering getting in the race. Brent Littlefield, who worked on past Poliquin campaigns and is also a longtime strategist for former Gov. Paul LePage — now a candidate for the U.S. House seat held by Rep. Jared Golden — said the Republican field for this year's race is likely to grow. Littlefield noted that LePage was relatively unknown outside of Waterville, where he served as mayor from 2004 to 2011, before winning statewide office in 2010, and said it's not necessarily a "big name" that will win. "Certainly, very few people outside of Waterville knew LePage in 2010, and he became governor of the state for eight years," Littlefield said. "The field is wide open. I think there may be additional candidates who enter, but no one should begin to guess at this point who might serve as the next governor." THE WAITING GAME Candidates may also be waiting to see what other possible contenders do. "I think a lot of Republicans who might be potentially interested are waiting to see what Laurel Libby does," Brewer said. "Is she going to get in? Is she not going to get in? If she does get in, does she clear the field? ... I think a lot of people are watching to see what she does." There were no contested primaries in the last governor's race in 2022, when Gov. Janet Mills was running for re-election and was challenged by LePage, who sought an unprecedented third nonconsecutive term and didn't face any primary opponents. Mills, a Democrat, cannot seek reelection next year because of term limits. Some want to see her challenge U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, but Mills has not announced any future political plans. Since there is no official start to campaign season, predicting when the field might be set is difficult. In the 2018 governor's race, Shawn Moody, an auto body entrepreneur who ran as an independent in 2010 and who became the Republican nominee, did not announce he was entering the race until November 2017, just a little over a month after Moody joined the party. Mills, who was attorney general at the time, announced her candidacy in July 2017. "It's not so much the Republicans are late (in announcing candidates), it's that the Democrats went early this cycle," Brewer said. McCarthy, one of the candidates who has declared as a Republican in the race already, acknowledged in a written statement that he doesn't have the name recognition or political experience of some of the Democrats who have gotten in the race, but he said that's not a bad thing. "If people are looking for more of the same from Augusta, they'll have plenty of options," he said. "But if they are looking for something different, someone with modest roots who understands their struggles, someone with an unmatched work ethic and grit and who will fight to build a better future for Maine's working families — then I'm their candidate." Copy the Story Link
