CANTON, Ga. (AP) — A lone Democrat competing for a state senate seat in a deeply Republican Atlanta suburb snagged nearly 40% of votes in a special primary election last month, amplifying her party’s optimism that discontent with President Donald Trump could spur future wins.

Yet it’s unclear whether Democrat Debra Shigley’s success foreshadows a coming Democratic wave like her supporters hope. Democrats have performed well in low-turnout special elections in recent years, and parties perform better locally when they aren’t in control of the executive branch, Georgia Republican strategist Brian Robinson said.

“To read the tea leaves too much is a fool’s errand, because it’s such a low turnout,” Robinson said. “All it shows is that Democrats are more angry than Republicans are, and fear and anger are the most important motivators in voter turnout.”

Data from The Downballot tracking 39 special elections nationwide since Trump entered office shows that on average, Democrats performed 15.7 percentage points better than former Vice President Kamala Harris did as a presidential candidate in 2024. Republicans mostly kept their seats, but Democrats flipped a Pennsylvania state senate seat in March and two Iowa state Senate seats in January and August.

Anger at DC, or a predictable outcome?

After taking the primary, Shigley advances to a Sept. 23 runoff in which Republican Jason Dickerson will be favored. The District 21 seat is up for grabs after Trump drafted state Sen. Brandon Beach, who won with more than 70% of the vote in 2024, to serve as U.S. treasurer.

Georgia does not have party primaries in special legislative elections, so Shigley competed against six Republicans. Dickerson, an investment company president, came in second with 17.4% of the vote.

Shigley is a lawyer and mother of five who started a business that delivers hair care services to women of color. She lives in the affluent suburb of Milton, and it is her second political race after she lost in 2024 to Republican state House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones.

Shigley promises to champion working families and push to lower the costs of housing, health care and groceries. But she says her campaign is also generating enthusiasm because it’s letting Democrats organize and “make their voices heard” in a moment when “folks have felt a lot of despair.”

“The chaos that’s happening right now is causing folks not just pain in their pocketbook but the anxiety when you look at the headlines and feel it’s just one chaotic measure everyday,” Shigley said at a recent campaign event in the district, which includes suburbs in Fulton and Cherokee counties about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of downtown Atlanta.

Connor Roberts, who knocked on hundreds of doors for Shigley over the summer before starting his freshman year at college, said people may not be switching which party they vote for, but many who lean liberal are “really fired up” about Trump’s actions and are voting in special elections when they usually wouldn’t.

Dickerson, for his part, has made standard conservative appeals on the campaign trail, advocating for lower taxes, less bureaucracy, stricter immigration enforcement and election integrity. He is self-funding his race.

“Dickerson is stepping up to serve our community rather than lobbyists or special interests,” his campaign website says.

Dickerson has said his experience as a businessman would help him work with other legislators to pass conservative policies. He also touts his track record helping people access housing and scholarships through his foundation.

Looking to 2026

The Democratic Party in Cherokee County, home to most of the district, has historically been weak, according to party chair Nate Rich.

But Rich said it has come alive for Shigley’s campaign, which has drawn hundreds of volunteers and unprecedented enthusiasm from voters. In his view Democrats need a platform that promises to do more than just oppose Trump, and Shigley’s emphasis on helping working families does just that.

“The small army that we built, we’re training them up,” Rich said.

Even if Shigley loses, Democrats hope grassroots organizers will multiply statewide with races coming up in 2026 for governor, U.S senator and other offices.

“The way we win the governor’s seat and the U.S. Senate seat is by organizing up and down the ballot, and it’s races like Debra’s that are going to lay the groundwork that is going to build the broad-based coalition that we need to win,” said former state Sen. Jason Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat and gubernatorial candidate who has campaigned for Shigley multiple times.

Georgia Republican Party chairman Josh McKoon said Republicans also need to mobilize their voters to avoid losses like the 2021 U.S. Senate runoff, but the state still leans conservative.

“If Democrats are saying that because she got 39% of the vote in a rock-bottom-turnout special election, that’s good news, then they’re having to look really hard to find good news for Georgia Democrats,” McKoon said.

How voters feel about Trump a year from now will matter most for the 2026 elections, said Charles Bullock III, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

McKoon noted that the GOP picked up ground in the 2024 presidential election and is confident voters still largely support Trump statewide. But Bullock said there are signs that people across party lines are displeased with the president’s immigration crackdown and tariffs, which could continue to drive up prices.

“What’s going to be at play in 2026 is does Trump deliver on his promises, and if he does, are they still popular?” Bullock said.

Only if Democrats flip more seats across the country, he said, will Shigley’s race “tell us something broader.”

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Charlotte Kramon, The Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. government employs a sizable staff of 150 Venezuelans and spends upward of $6.7 million annually for upkeep of the shuttered American embassy and other diplomatic properties in Caracas, despite having broken relations with President Nicolás Maduro’s government in 2019, according to a new watchdog report.

The report, published on Friday by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General, criticized U.S. officials for failing to conduct a required cost-benefit analysis to determine whether taxpayers should continue to foot the bill for the security, operations, and maintenance of the 27-acre embassy compound and five residences no longer housing American diplomats.

The Trump administration has emphasized cost-cutting efforts across the government and remade U.S. foreign policy, including launching a military strike on a boat off the Venezuelan coast that has upended drug busts at sea and ramped up tensions with the adversarial South American government.

The first Trump administration broke ties with Maduro and recognized an opponent as Venezuela’s legitimate leader in a failed attempt to force the socialist leader from power. As part of the breakdown in relations, the State Department in March 2019 suspended operations at its embassy in Caracas and evacuated all diplomats, fearing a takeover of the hilltop compound.

US Embassy work that remains in Venezuela

A contingent of Venezuelans employed by the State Department was always known to have stayed behind to advance U.S. interests, and relations between the two governments — although outwardly hostile — never ceased completely. The size of that mission and an account of their behind-the-scenes work have not been made public.

The inspector general report, while focused on compliance with U.S. policies, nevertheless provides a rare glimpse into that sensitive work, much of it risky given the Maduro government’s record for jailing Americans, opponents and sometimes regular Venezuelans accused of conspiring with U.S. “imperialists.”

Relations have further soured over an American buildup of warships in the Caribbean and a strike on a boat that the Trump administration says was piloted by gang members trafficking drugs.

“It’s not a bad idea to have minimum baseline operations at the embassy,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior analyst on Venezuela at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “If relations ever get restored, it’s important that we have a team on the ground that’s ready to move the relationship forward. But if we’re spending millions of dollars just to maintain a few empty buildings with no end in sight, I think it’s fair to raise questions about the price tag.”

The State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Watchdog criticizes parts of remote Venezuela mission

The 28-page report was based on an inspection this year of the so-called Venezuela Affairs Unit, which is run out of a narrow, former training room called the “submarine” at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Colombia.

The office was initially staffed with 10 U.S. diplomats as a stopgap way to manage relations with Maduro’s government and — it was hoped — pave the way for his quick replacement by a government aligned with the U.S.

Since then, the number of employees working at the remote mission has increased to 21, the watchdog said, adding that it could find no evidence that the State Department conducted a review to justify the staffing increases.

The unit was headed until January by career diplomat Francisco Palmieri, who also served as the top American diplomat to Colombia at a time when the U.S. lacked an ambassador to either country.

The dual role of leading one of the largest U.S. overseas embassies in Colombia, while running a highly unusual remote mission, negatively affected the Venezuela Affairs Unit, the report found. It cited the difficulty Palmieri faced reviewing all sensitive diplomatic cables and participating in meetings supporting secret talks with Maduro officials.

Much of the unit’s work appears to be supported by 150 locally employed staff in Venezuela. At least some of those employees appear to be working from the embassy compound itself, according to the report, which found instances of unauthorized renovations to two embassy buildings.

After lowering the U.S. flag at the embassy, the U.S. reached an agreement with Switzerland to serve as the “protecting power” of the diplomatic compound. The total annual budget to support the operations in Caracas, including pay for local staff, stands at $10.5 million.

The inspection, which concluded in March, praised several initiatives by the Venezuela Affairs Unit, including establishing a WhatsApp channel that promoted content reaching 144,000 individuals monthly.

However, the watchdog also issued seven recommendations for shoring up compliance with State Department policies on issues ranging from management of diplomatic residences and staffing levels to proper use of a vehicle fleet and cloud-based software by staff in Caracas.

Rules require that U.S. embassies annually identify any excess properties not being fully utilized or that no longer make economic sense to maintain. In Venezuela, the U.S. owns five properties, including the ambassador’s residence, the home of the deputy chief of mission and three apartments.

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AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press

Political analyst Matthew Dowd says MSNBC reacted to a “right wing media mob” in firing him for commentary about hateful rhetoric that aired on the network shortly after early reports this week that conservative activist Charlie Kirk had been shot.

In a Substack post Friday, Dowd admitted to being “down and a bit disheartened.” The former aide to George W. Bush, who was a political analyst at ABC News for nearly 15 years before joining MSNBC in 2022, detailed a long-running grudge that President Donald Trump had against him since his first term.

Dowd was fired after his commentary on Kirk, in which he said “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which ultimately lead to hateful actions.” MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler called the remarks insensitive and apologized to viewers. Dowd apologized, too, saying he didn’t mean to imply Kirk was to blame for the violence that killed him.

At the time he spoke, Dowd wrote, he was responding to reports of a shooting at Kirk’s appearance, when it wasn’t even clear that Kirk has been hit. He said on the air that Kirk was a divisive and polarizing figure. He thought “how could anyone disagree with this?” he wrote on Substack. “I guess I was naive.”

“The right wing media mob ginned up, went after me on a plethora of platforms, and MSNBC reacted to that mob,” Dowd wrote on Substack. “Even though most at MSNBC knew my words were being misconstrued, the timing of my words forgotten … and that I apologized for any miscommunication on my part, I was terminated by the end of the day.”

But people at MSNBC knew right away that his words were inappropriate, and the decision to fire Dowd was not the result of outside pressure, said an executive at the network, who spoke under condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk about personnel issues.

A corporate message on Dowd’s firing

Reverberations over the firing continued Friday, with a memo sent to Comcast employees by Brian Roberts, CEO of the company that owns MSNBC; Comcast President Mike Cavanagh; and Mark Lazarus, CEO of Versant, the spinoff company that is to take over MSNBC ownership — if it receives Trump administration approval.

Without using Dowd’s name, it referred to the firing and said his comments were “at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions. We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately with respect. We need to do better.”

The letter urged employees to “engage with respect, listen, and treat people with kindness.”

The dismissal and Trump’s previous criticisms of Comcast and MSNBC raise questions about whether he will take further actions to constrain TV networks he views as adversarial. In an August social media post, the president wrote that it was “so much fun to watch their weak and ineffective owner, ‘Concast,’ headed by dopey Brian Roberts, hopelessly and aimlessly flailing in the wind in an attempt to disassociate itself from the garbage that they created!”

In his Substack post, Dowd said he had been very critical of Trump and the Republican party while at ABC News, and said Trump and White House staff called the head of ABC News to try and get him fired. “ABC News folks came to me a number of times after that and tried to get me to not be so critical,” he said.

Asked about that, White House communications director Steven Cheung said, “Matthew Dowd is an irrelevant piece of s-— loser who has debased himself for what he disgustingly said in the aftermath of Wednesday’s tragedy.”

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AP writer Josh Boak in New York contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

David Bauder, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California state lawmakers have passed legislation that would ban most law enforcement officers from covering their faces while carrying out operations, a response to recent immigration raids in Los Angeles.

But even if the governor signs the measure into law, it’s unclear whether the state could enforce it on the federal agents who have been carrying out those raids.

It is the first such bill to be approved by a state legislature, though Democrats in Congress and lawmakers in several states, including Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, have introduced similar proposals calling for mask bans for law enforcement officers.

California’s legislation, approved in the Democratic-controlled Legislature on Thursday, is among a number of bills state lawmakers were considering this year in response to the immigration raids.

The bill would prohibit neck gator, ski masks and other facial covering for local and federal officers, including immigration enforcement agents, while they conduct official business. It makes exceptions for undercover agents, medical masks such as N95 respirators or tactical gear.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has about a month to decide whether to sign it into law. The Democratic governor has criticized federal agents’ use of masks while making arrests but in July also questioned the state’s authority over federal agents. His office said Friday it does not typically comment on pending legislation.

Proponents of the bill said the proposal is necessary, especially after the Supreme Court earlier this week ruled that the federal administration can resume the sweeping immigration operations for now in Los Angeles.

Assemblymember Juan Carrillo, vice chair of the Latino caucus, said the decision is “effectively allowing federal agents stop suspects based solely on their race, language, or job.”

“How is anyone supposed to reasonably believe that they are law enforcement officers and not masked individuals trying to kidnap you?” he said prior to the vote. “Imagine the absolute fear of being pulled over at gunpoint by a group of masked individuals.”

Supporters also cited an opinion from constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky at the University of California, Berkeley to defend the proposal. A state cannot directly regulate the federal government, he wrote in an opinion piece for the Sacramento Bee, but that does not mean federal employees do not have to follow state rules “unless doing so would significantly interfere with the performance of their duties. For example, while on the job, federal employees must stop at red lights.”

“ICE agents have never before worn masks when apprehending people, and that never has posed a problem. Nor have other officers of local, state and federal law enforcement faced dangers from the public because they don’t wear masks in the streets,” he wrote.

Republican lawmakers and law enforcement agencies said the legislation would only make the job more dangerous for officers.

“Bad guys wear masks because they don’t want to get caught. Good guys wear masks because they don’t want to get killed,” said state Republican Sen. Kelly Seyarto on Thursday.

The increase in high-profile immigration enforcement was already contentious between those opposed to the actions of Trump’s administration and those in support of them. The sight of masked agents carrying it out is creating a whole new level of conflict, in a way that has no real comparison in the U.S. history of policing.

Trump administration officials have consistently defended the practice, saying that immigration agents have faced strident and increasing harassment in public and online as they have gone about their enforcement in service of Trump’s drive toward mass deportation, and hiding their identities is for their and their families’ safety.

Democrats and others, including several state attorneys general, have pushed back, saying the use of face masks generates public fear and should be halted.

Trân Nguyễn, The Associated Press