Alexandria Jacobson, Investigative Reporter

After voting for Donald Trump multiple times, longtime Republicans Ron and Chrissey Kelley turned on the president and his MAGA movement when his second administration’s policies threatened their livelihood.

Last October, Ron, a 55-year-old construction analyst for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), was furloughed for 43 days as the Trump administration took a sledgehammer to federal agencies’ budgets under the Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.

“We voted for Trump, not realizing that he was going to slam as hard as he did, but it was on day one when he sat down, right after inauguration, and started signing those executive orders and just trashed us federal employees, it was a kick in the teeth,” Ron said.

“That point was the beginning of my turning away from MAGA.”

Rather than leave the GOP quietly, the couple from Byron, Georgia, decided to publicly announce their decision to break with the party, and joined a growing community of former Trump supporters called Leaving MAGA.

“If people would just listen and research and do something other than just listen to Fox News, we may all be better off, but it's going to take an open mind and an ability to say, ‘I made a mistake,’ because once you say you made a mistake, you can turn the ship around,” said Chrissey Kelley, 50, a stay-at-home mom.

Speaking out against MAGA cost the Kelleys relationships with friends and family members who support Trump, but in sharing their story, they hope to inspire others having doubts about the GOP.

“It's okay to be wrong. You made a mistake, it was a bad choice, but it's not the end of the world. We can fix it. We just got to ride it out and hold strong and support each other through it,” Ron said.

“It widens the field for everyone so that they can feel comfortable coming out saying they supported this guy instead of being embarrassed and trying to hide it.”

‘Bought into the lie’

The Kelleys’ journey into MAGA took place over many years.

Chrissey said she became a Republican as soon as she started voting.

“You were just a conservative. There was no thought behind it. You listen to Fox News, and you listen to conservative outlets, and you're spoon-fed,” Chrissey said.

Ron and Chrissey Kelley (Photo courtesy of Chrissey Kelley)

When Trump ran the first time she remembered thinking, “He's gonna fix everything. He's a businessman. He's gonna help us.”

Ron, who served in the military for 25 years, said the 2008 housing market crash left him “really disillusioned with the Democratic Party.”

When he couldn’t find work in Detroit, he moved to Georgia. He supported Republicans because he associated them with bigger spending on defense.

Ron said he supported Trump with donations, bumper stickers and the “whole nine yards” of MAGA.

“I bought into the lie about the stolen election and all that, and I thought January 6 insurrectionists were actually patriots,” Ron said.

“I just remember being content with thinking that he was what we needed, and he was going to drain the swamp in Washington until he got into office this third [election], and realizing that I was dumb as a rock, and I believed everything that I was spoon fed.”

‘Lie after lie after lie’

Ron came to regret his vote when he said Trump's executive orders started to “destroy my life, which affects my family.”

Months later, Ron said DOGE is still complicating his work at HUD.

“They brought DOGE in and created a whole new layer of bureaucracy that we're still suffering from,” Ron said.

“They've created so much headache and so much overhead.”

In addition to Ron’s furlough, Chrissey said the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and its treatment of immigrants pushed her away from MAGA.

“Just watching the policies of what's happening in our world today unfold one by one by one, I just started drawing up very different conclusions and found out that I was clueless, and most people are today, but now I'm awake and looking at it for what it is, and I cannot believe that he had my support,” Chrissey said.

“It's lie after lie after lie.”

Others in the Leaving MAGA community have been vocal about the extremes they went to while supporting Trump — from embracing Christian nationalism to believing conspiracies, losing friends and marriages and committing crimes in Trump’s name.

Ron said while there are some people in “deep, deep red MAGA that you're never going to convince that Trump is not who they think he is,” he thinks more people are turning away from MAGA quietly.

“I believe that the more that we share, the more of the fringe MAGA are dropping off,” Ron said.

“As you see in the polls that they keep taking, that Trump is dropping lower and lower and lower almost daily, so the only way that that could happen is that his base is leaving him, which means that MAGA is moving.”

Ron said he now votes for Democrats, and Chrissey said she considers herself an Independent but has voted for Democrats three times now, something she “never thought in my entire life” would happen.

“The road we're headed down now, if we don't turn this truck around, we're so close to going off the edge of the cliff that we need to stick together,” Ron said.

“We need to put our country back together. It might take decades, but don't give up. We need to be vocal. Stay strong, and follow our laws and Constitution, and hold strong with our values, not the values that the MAGA claims that we have, but the values that we've had in the past 250 years from the founding of the country til Joe Biden's era.”

A Chicago teen detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for more than two months was released Tuesday in time to attend his high school graduation after pressure from legislators and community backlash.

Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete, 18, and Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capazan, 46, were unexpectedly detained at an ICE check-in in March. They were separated and then transported to at least eight different facilities in seven states, Raw Story first reported.

Navarrete-Capazan was ordered immediately released on May 19 in response to her habeas corpus petition, and Hernandez-Navarrete was released by ICE on his own recognizance on Tuesday, said Kelli Fennell, the family’s lawyer.

Both reunited Tuesday at a gas station in Crown Point, Indiana, in front of a local media frenzy. Hernandez-Navarrette will attend his graduation at Mather High School in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood on Thursday, Fennell said.

Kristy Morrow, community organizer; Ricardo Hernandez-Navarette; Liliana Navarrete-Capazan; and Steven Navarrete reunite on Tuesday.

“It was just incredibly fortunate and so grateful that they're home now, where they should be, and we're going to continue doing things the right way, and keep fighting their cases,” Fennell told Raw Story Wednesday.

At a check-in with ICE on Wednesday, Hernandez-Navarrete was given a watch wrist monitor, Fennell said. While “no monitor and a selfie app on the phone would have been ideal,” Fennell said Hernandez-Navarrete was grateful to not have to wear an ankle monitor that would interfere with his soccer playing.

"It’s like a watch," Hernandez-Navarrete told Raw Story via phone on Wednesday. "It's okay. I prefer that than be there in jail."

"It was really good, see[ing] a lot of people, a lot of friends, and a lot of interviews," Hernandez-Navarrete said after being released.

Both the mother and son are still pursuing their asylum cases, Fennell said. The family faces fear of harm or persecution in Colombia, she said.

"I hope, and I have faith with God, and he's going to do everything," Hernandez-Navarrete said.

Lawmakers react

The family’s detention experience drew attention from national lawmakers.

In response to Raw Story’s investigation, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) called for the release of the mother and son.

“Donald Trump and this gang of thugs think that cruelty and bigotry make America strong. They are mistaken,” Schakowsky told Raw Story in a statement last month. “Immigrants are and always have been what makes our country great. My office is in communication with the family’s attorney, and we will do everything possible to bring them home and secure justice for them.”

Upon Hernandez-Navarrete’s release, Schakowsky posted a statement on X.

“I'm relieved that Ricardo and his mother Martha have finally been reunited and released. But what they endured should've never happened in the first place,” Schakowsky posted.

“The cruelty we're seeing in our immigration system must end. Immigrants make our communities stronger, and we must keep fighting for a system that reflects our values."

Hernandez-Navarrete told Raw Story via a phone interview from Kenton County Detention Center in Kentucky last month that he was subjected to strip searches, slept on the floor without blankets, was unable to use the restroom due to too many people in one room and spent two days in solitary confinement — he says without reason.

Fennell called the conditions “appalling” last month.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) called for the release of Hernandez-Navarrete on the Senate floor last week and celebrated his release in a post on Wednesday.

“I am very pleased that Ricardo has been released from ICE detention and is reunited with his mother. But he should never have been taken from his school and family in the first place,” Durbin posted on X Wednesday.

“We must end the Trump Administration’s mass deportation operation and stop these needlessly cruel attacks on immigrants and our communities.”

Kristy Morrow, a community organizer, teacher and parent whose son played soccer with Hernandez-Navarrete, organized a GoFundMe that raised nearly $60,000 to help the family with hiring lawyers and paying for living expenses while they were detained.

Morrow said the community response to the family's release has been overwhelming, and Fennell credited media coverage and community support with making a "huge difference" in the outcomes for the mother and son.

"People are so thankful, and I think it's brought a lot of awareness, even to our very blue city, that this is happening to 18 year olds," Morrow said.

Morrow coordinated hiring lawyers and organized communication with attorneys and family members over the past couple months. Volunteers drove to pick up the mother and son when they were each released from detention facilities in Kentucky, and Morrow picked them up from the drop-off point in Crown Point, Indiana, to drive them back to Chicago.

Helping the family navigate their detention experience, Morrow said she learned that the immigration system is "incredibly unfair" and "terrifying," but she's hopeful Hernandez-Navarette and Navarrete-Capazan will be successful in pursuing their asylum cases.

"We are obviously feeling a lot more optimistic about their chances of remaining in the United States for the rest of their lives, which is what they’d like to do," Morrow said.

"We feel like there will be a more compassionate outcome for them, hopefully."

When Ronn Easton, a Vietnam veteran, first learned of President Donald Trump’s plans to build a massive triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery he started losing sleep.

“The thought of that big, 250-foot monstrosity casting shadow on the graves of those heroes makes me sick to my stomach,” said Easton, who has visited Arlington 10 times.

As news came out in the lead up to Memorial Day that the Trump administration plans to proceed with building the arch without Congressional approval and has recently started surveying the proposed arch site, Easton called it “one big grift, another big con” hurting the American people.

“It's a slap in the face to veterans,” Easton said. “It's a slap in the face to the people who have made the ultimate sacrifice, so that [Trump] might be able to stand and grift and rip us off. That's how I see it.”

Ronn Easton (provided photo)

The arch’s proposed site is Memorial Circle, located between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery. Its 250-foot height would make it the tallest triumphal arch in the world and tower above the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial.

The arch would feature gilded figures, including Lady Liberty and eagles, along with inscriptions of “One Nation Under God” and “Liberty and Justice for All.”

Easton started a petition last month, limited to veterans and their family members, calling to stop the arch and “protect Arlington’s sacred ground.” He collected nearly 3,500 signatures as of Thursday.

“I will sell my soul to stop this — that's how serious I am,” Easton said.

“I know the general public can't stand this, but this is about veterans. This is about the military, and that's the reason why I wanted the people who were affected the most by this [to sign].”

Easton has previously spoken out against the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Vetereans Affairs and killings by immigration enforcement agents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area where he lives.

‘Infuriating’

Three other Vietnam veterans and an architectural historian sued in February to stop the “unlawful” construction of the arch. They are represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, part of the government accountability and consumer advocacy nonprofit.

“It's very important to our clients, who all have a very strong personal connection with Arlington National Cemetery and the area around which the arch is planned to be constructed, and I think they are not alone,” said Nick Sansone, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group.

On Thursday, Sansone said the group is “certainly planning to move forward with the lawsuit as expeditiously as possible.”

Memorial Circle, the proposed site for President Donald Trump's "Triumphal Arch" on May 15. (Photo credit: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper)

Public Citizen filed an opposition to the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss on May 12, and the administration was granted an extension to respond, Sansone said.

“We don't want another ballroom situation. We don't want a situation where we don't get any kind of guarantee from the government that they're not going to start building, and then all of a sudden they start building, and before we know it, we've got the foundations laid for an arch in the middle of the capital city,” Sansone said.

Demolition began on the East Wing of the White House in October to build a new ballroom, which Trump initially promised would be privately funded. On Wednesday, Senate Republicans removed a $1 billion Secret Service funding request from its immigration enforcement bill, which included funding for the ballroom.

In previous negotiations with the government, Public Citizen agreed to drop a preliminary injunction motion barring the government from starting work on the arch while the lawsuit is pending.

It did so “without prejudice,” meaning it can be renewed at any time, and in exchange, the government must provide 14 days’ notice on the public docket prior to beginning construction, Sansone said.

The Trump administration’s claim it can proceed with building the arch without Congressional approval is “wrong” and “incorrect as a matter of law,” Sansone said.

“Feelings run deep about the proper way to tell our national story in the nation's capital and the proper way to use monuments and commemorative structures to create a national narrative,” Sansone said.

“We live in a democracy, and that's precisely why those sorts of disputes need to be hashed out in our legislative body, the body that's representative of the diversity of American opinion, Congress, and shouldn't be up to the sort of unilateral decision making of a single president.”

Watching Thursday’s meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts was “infuriating” as the agency led by Trump appointees gave final approval to the arch with minor modifications, despite approximately 1,600 negative public comments, Sansone said.

“Any kind of Commission of Fine Arts consideration or approval or process is premature until Congress has initiated the procedure by authorizing this arch in the first place,” Sansone said.

“Watching the arch fly through the approval process in the face of that consistent negative feedback from the public just reinforces why it's important to have democratic buy-in for a project like this in the first place and why congressional authorization is not only legally necessary but also advisable as a matter of public policy.”

Easton compared Trump to a “rabid dog” marking its territory as Trump has pursued numerous projects to leave his touch on the capital city from the ballroom to the arch and painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.

“He's spending all this money, except for where it's really needed. People are starving. People need health care. People need help,” Easton said.

Hidden among a sea of blue campaign signs for Democrats off the side of a road in the Atlanta metro area lies a dark navy blue and green sign for a conservative candidate for governor.

The placard is for Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, whom President Donald Trump famously called after the 2020 election loss, while asking Georgia officials to “find 11,000 plus votes.”

Campaign signs in Gwinnett County, Georgia. (Photo courtesy of Julie Davis/Raw Story.)

Among the eight Republicans running for governor of Georgia in Tuesday’s primary election, Raffensperger and others, such as Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, have seemingly leaned away from Trump and the GOP in their campaign materials — in favor of branding centered around being “conservative” rather than “Republican.”

Some Democratic strategists view this type of campaign move as part of a national trend and a way for Republican candidates to distance themselves from the MAGA branch of the party and Trump himself, whose poll ratings have reached record lows.

The departure from the classic GOP branding might also appeal to more centrist voters as Democrats anticipate a blue wave come November, with the hope of flipping enough seats to take back the House — and possibly even the Senate.

“You're seeing some Republicans that are trying to separate conservative identity from the national Republican brand. For certain voters, especially suburban, college-educated, business-oriented voters, ‘conservative’ can feel values-based and familiar, while ‘Republican’ increasingly carries baggage tied to polarization, or Trump-era chaos, or national dysfunction,” said Adin Lenchner, founder of Carroll Street Campaigns, which works with Democrats.

“Georgia's particularly interesting for this because the state has become genuinely competitive, so candidates are really trying to thread that needle, so to speak, where they can still communicate ideological conservatism without fully wrapping themselves in the national GOP brand.”

The campaigns for Raffensperger and Carr did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

'A departure'

Raffensperger and Carr’s campaign websites barely make any reference to the word “Republican,” which is “signaling independence from the national party brand,” particularly as some conservatives have grown uneasy with “Trump-era chaos, election denialism, the fallout in 2020,” said Jay Satterfield, a principal with political consultancy North Shore Strategies, who calls himself a “dirt road Democrat.”

On social media, Carr has called himself the “conservative alternative for governor.”

“There's still those voters who grew up Republican. but don't necessarily want to wear that MAGA label socially, politically, any more because it's hurting them nationally,” Satterfield said.

“Emphasizing conservatism over party identity, I think it can be a way to create distance without actually breaking from the coalition.”

Despite his long political career, voters who don’t know Raffensperger might think he’s an Independent, Green Party or even a Democratic candidate based on his green color campaign branding, said Joe Bonilla, co-founder of creative strategy firm, Relentless Awareness, who works mostly for Democrats but also for Republicans and Independents.

“It's definitely a departure from what you would think a dyed in the wool conservative would have,” Bonilla said.

“If I didn't know anything about him, I would think he would be definitely much more of a Democrat.”

In swing states like Georgia, candidates can be expected to “pivot to the center” as early as possible, which could lead to more neutral branding, said Keith Donner, president of The Donner Group and a Democratic-aligned consultant for more than 30 years.

“Georgia's a purple state, especially this year, which is going to be a very large, very pronounced blue wave year, so they're just looking at the most nondescript first impression of the campaigns you can get,” Donner said.

“Unlike the Democratic waves of 2006 and 2018, Republican candidates in tough, tough districts or tough states are doing everything they can before November to pivot to the center earlier and distance themselves from Trump.”

But breaking with Trump can backfire on Republicans, as seen in Louisiana last Saturday when Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment, lost the GOP primary to a Trump-backed candidate who is headed to a runoff.

“Each of these primaries will be their own little test, and I have no doubt that Republican candidates across the country are watching them very, very closely to see what is permissible and what's a death sentence,” Lenchner said.

Holding an American flag attached to a microphone, Democrat Lexy Doherty tells her social media followers that flipping the House seat in Georgia’s 10th congressional district is within reach.

“You can help me flip a seat from a MAGA Republican by boosting this video,” Doherty says to her TikTok followers.

“If this district swings in 2026 as much as we’ve seen other districts swing in recent elections, we will flip this seat,” she tells her Facebook audience.

By conventional measures, it’s a long shot to turn the seat in northeast Georgia blue. The last time a Democrat held the seat was more than 30 years ago, and the Cook Political Report rates the district solidly Republican.

But, Doherty and other Democrats in the district running in Tuesday’s primary election say that circumstances are ripe for a flip come November.

President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have hit record lows. The incumbent Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) is running for Senate, leaving the seat open.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which elects state-level Democrats, boasts flipping 30 seats across the country, compared to zero for Republicans during the special election cycle, which Democrats hope will be a bellwether for national races.

“Especially in a year like this where we are expecting a wave — who knows how big — but also it's an open seat … which will mean it's easier to flip,” Doherty said.

“If the 10th district swings like we've seen some of these other districts swinging, we can definitely flip this seat, so we're looking at this like the wind is at our back. It's still definitely a tough race, but if it's going to happen, this is going to be the year that we flip the seat for sure.”

'Very realistic'

Three Democrats and three Republicans are competing in Tuesday’s primary.

Pamela DeLancy, another Democrat running for the seat in Georgia’s 10th congressional district, said while the district has been gerrymandered to favor Republicans, a Democratic flip is still “very realistic.”

“Absolutely it can be done. The bottom line is getting people out to vote, getting people to get out of this mindset that their vote doesn't count or their voice has been squashed,” DeLancy said.

Pamela DeLancy (provided photo)

“I think our current administration is trying … to put fear and tell people, ‘No matter what you do, you can't change anything because we're in charge,’ and I like to challenge that thought.”

DeLancy said the district is a mix of suburban and rural areas and has shifted to become “a huge diverse community.”

Doherty lost to Collins in 2024, bringing in 36.9 percent of the vote, but she said she’s learned a lot since the last election and has gained recognition running in the district for more than two years already.

“This is an area that, if there was any sanity to how we drew districts, it would be a blue seat, but they had to work really hard to make it a red seat,” Doherty said.

“In a year like this, it is very possible for us to flip this seat.”

'Solidly in the swing'

Recent swings in Georgia have given Doherty and DeLancy hope for a shift in their district

Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a state House seat that overlaps with Georgia’s 10th congressional district in a special election in December. The seat had a Trump 12-point advantage.

“I think we're seeing a blue wave across the whole United States,” DeLancy said.

“He flipped the seat last election ... which no one had done, and no one expected him to do it. The possibility does exist … because the environment has changed.”

In March, Democrat Emily Gregory flipped the Florida House seat where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is located, and in February, Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a Republican Texas Senate district that favored Trump by 17 points, both drawing national headlines.

On the national stage, Doherty said Democrat Shawn Harris’ race in Georgia’s 14th Congressional district gives her hope even though Harris lost to Republican Clay Fuller in an April special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who resigned in January.

Harris captured 44.1 percent of the vote. When he ran against Greene in 2024, he got 35.6 percent of the vote, improving upon a 10-point Democratic swing from the 2022 election.

“If we swing even half as much as that race swung, we can flip this seat,” Doherty said.

“We are kind of solidly in the swing if things keep going like they've been going.”

'Make a penny holler'

Republicans have far out-fundraised Democrats in the district.

Georgia State Rep. Houston Gaines, endorsed by Trump, raised more than $2.1 million and Ryan Millsap, a “proud MAGA warrior” film producer brought in more than $1.1 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings through April 29.

Doherty has raised more than $209,000, and DeLancy has raised more than $13,000, according to the filings.

“Hey, I can make a penny holler when you have to account for every penny that you earn,” DeLancy said.

“I'm not going to go out here and complain to my constituents, say, ‘Oh, man, the economy is so bad. By the way, I know you can't afford milk and eggs and bread for your kids, but can I have your last $10?’ What type of representative I'm going to be if I have the audacity to ask for somebody’s last $10? I don't think that's the kind of person you need representing you.”

Doherty said she went into the race recognizing out-fundraising Republicans would be an unlikely task, especially in Georgia. She has refused corporate PAC money, and she said she’s turned to fundraising outside of the district, recognizing the district’s voters are working class.

Lexy Doherty (provided photo)

“One of the big things that I'm trying to do in this race is make sure that across the country, people understand how important this seat is and how flippable it is,” Doherty.

“If you're serious about wanting to take back the House, this is a race where a little bit of money can go a long way, and we've had a lot of people outside of the district that have been incredibly supportive and see the importance of that.”

Doherty said she’s trying to strike a balance between both turning out the Democrats and persuading voters to support her, leaning into her roots growing up in rural South Carolina.

“I try to talk to the people that are our traditional Democratic base, but I also try to talk to people that maybe are a little skeptical,” Doherty said.

“I've worked on farms my whole life, so I think I have the ability to talk to your traditional moderate conservative voter in a way that a lot of people can't.”

As a nurse and 39-year Army veteran, DeLancy said she’s been a “bipartisan person my whole career.”

The issues DeLancy said she’s focusing on apply to both the liberal and conservative parts of the district, including a need for affordable food, housing and gas prices, along with access to health care.

'Democracy versus a dictatorship'

If she were elected in November, passing a minimum wage increase would be Doherty’s top priority, she said.

Voters in the district are concerned about the direction of the country under Trump, and as DeLancy put it, “democracy is on the ballot,” this election.

“A lot of people are really concerned about the corruption that we're seeing, just a lot of people generally not happy with the direction things are going right now,” Doherty said.

The stakes of the 2026 election are “extremely high, maybe higher than ever before,” DeLancy said.

“If the Democrats do not come out and make their voice heard … Democrats’ party may no longer be in existence because what you're looking at is democracy versus a dictatorship.”

Simply, in order to stand-up to the Trump administration, whose policies on immigration, tariffs and Iran have been unpopular, Democrats simply need to flip seats in Congress, DeLancy said.

“We have to take the fight to the polls. We have to have individuals go and vote,” DeLancy said.

“If you don't go and vote and help us flip these seats and put more representation in the House, then we're going to be at a standstill. They will continue to rule as long as they have the numbers.”

If Georgia’s 10th congressional district goes blue come November, that would signal that Democrats likely will take back control of the House, Doherty said.

“Flipping a seat like this, it would mean we've got a majority in the House. Basically, I think there's no way we flip the seat and don't take the majority,” Doherty said.

“If I get elected, I will be a part of hopefully a very strong majority party that's standing up to this administration in every possible way that we can.”

In solidly red Nebraska lies a “blue dot” around Omaha where Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris captured the majority of the vote in the last two presidential elections, but the incumbent Republican House representative kept his seat.

Now that Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) announced his plans to not seek re-election for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, a crowded field of Democrats has lined up to compete in Tuesday’s primary, with the hope that the winner can flip the seat blue come November.

“We're a district that is really competitive and one that has been splitting its ticket,” said Crystal Rhoades, Democratic candidate and Douglas County clerk of the district court.

“It is a really unique opportunity for the Democrats to pick this up.”

Crystal Rhoades (provided photo)

As Democrats try to take back control of the House come November, they have their sights on the Nebraska district, which the Cook Political Report now ranks as leaning slightly blue from a toss-up.

However, an onslaught of negative ads focused on the top two Democratic fundraisers in the race, Nebraska State Sen. John Cavanaugh and Denise Powell, a political consultant and small business owner, may jeopardize the party’s chances of flipping the seat come November, other Democratic candidates say.

“It needs to have the right person, the right candidate, the right strategy, because if we don't, we're not going to win it,” said Kishla Askins, a Democratic candidate who is a retired naval officer and physician's assistant.

“That is the truth from the ground that people will either not show up, or my fear is that some of the dynamic in this primary is going to actually hurt people in the general, if they get through.”

Cavanaugh said there has been "a huge number of billionaires and dark money groups funding attacks against me." A newly formed Republican super PAC spent $200,000 to run ads against Cavanaugh in the final five days before the election, according to his campaign.

Democratic PACs backing Powell have run a series of ads against Cavanaugh as well, according to Nebraska Public Media.

Cavanaugh’s campaign has released ads attacking Powell as “Dark Money Denise.”

Powell campaign did not respond to Raw Story’s requests for comment.

“My experience over 20 years of doing this is that the voters do not like it when you attack another Democrat,” said Rhoades, who is the former Douglas County Democratic Party chair.

“The Powell and Cavanaugh camps have decided not to talk about anything other than each other, and the voters are really turned off by that. It appears to be affecting their chances in a really negative way.

“I think unfortunately, if John or Denise ends up being the nominee, it's going to be very difficult for them to bring the party together because of the vitriol between the two camps.”

The Democratic nominee will need to be someone who challenges “status quo politics” in order to beat the sole Republican candidate, Brinker Harding, said Melanie Williams, a Democratic Socialist candidate.

“I guarantee that the only person who would beat this man in November is someone who is advocating for progressive policies because that's different. Otherwise, it's just two politicians up against each other and voting for lesser evils, and people just stay home for that,” Williams said.

“After Donald Trump being elected twice now, we are in a position at this time where we have to meet this moment. It's not the same as two years ago, as two years before that. This moment is going to be the most important moment, I think, in all of our history, because we don't take back the House and or the Senate? I think all is lost, and we will not have a 2028 election.”

‘Risky endeavor’

Cavanaugh’s campaign has been criticized by some Democrats for putting the state’s “blue dot” at risk if he were to be elected in November, leaving a vacancy in the state legislature for the Republican governor to fill — presumably with a Republican.

Republicans already have a super majority in the Nebraska legislature, but if Cavanaugh was replaced by a Republican, state Democrats would need to flip at least two seats to stop a continued Republican supermajority. Nebraska is only one of two states that splits its electoral college votes.

If Cavanaugh wins, “Republicans will have the super majority that they need to redistrict to put us back to winner-take-all and to pass a heartbeat abortion ban, and they have been very plain and very public, and have made numerous statements publicly that that that is what they will do, and that is their intention,” Rhoades said.

“Electing John Cavanagh is an incredibly risky endeavor.”

On his campaign website, Cavanaugh calls such concerns “MAGA lies” and said a handful of Republicans are willing to protect the “blue dot.” He told Raw Story characterizations of his candidacy as jeopardizing the blue dot are "100 percent false, inaccurate."

Democrats have the chance to pick up five to 10 seats in the state legislature, and the millions spent attacking his campaign would be better spent helping elect those Democrats, Cavanaugh said.

The role of money in this election has concerned the voters, Cavanaugh said. Democratic candidates for the district have raised more than $3.9 million, according to the latest FEC filings.

"They want to hold Donald Trump accountable. They want to focus on affordability, grocery costs, fuel costs, access to health care, cost of health insurance, all of those things are definitely issues people want to focus on at the moment," Cavanaugh said.

"Almost everybody on the doors at this point is only talking about the absolute onslaught of dollars being spent in this race that's become what every conversation is at the door at this point.

Candidates have faced criticisms for the PAC money they’ve received, particularly from pro-Israel groups.

“We cannot credibly say we need money out of politics when we have candidates who are taking big money, so those candidates are just not going to make it in November,” Williams said.

Melanie Williams (provided photo)

‘Stop the partisanship’

Askins has centered her campaign around affordability, health care and accountability and said she has the best chance to win independent Republican votes.

“The action we do see coming out of the White House, it's tearing people apart. It's dividing us. It is causing people to lose their health care. It is causing farmers to struggle more than they've ever struggled before, and so we need to deliver for them, and we need to stop the partisanship and start building bridges, fighting for our people and taking bold action,” Askins said.

Kishla Askins (provided photo)

“We need to excite them now for ’26 with bold people that are actually delivering for them, so that when ’28 comes around, we've already started this process, and so we just need to listen and deliver.

“That's all they want. They're not asking anything huge. They're just asking for affordable health care. They're asking to have a job and be able to spend time with their family, to afford their first home, to be able to maybe take a vacation, to afford their groceries and maybe, maybe save some for retirement.”

The incumbent, Bacon, held onto his seat in part due to crossover votes he got from moderate Democrats and labor unions, Cavanaugh said.

"Bringing home those core constituencies and building the coalition of everyday Nebraskans, labor groups and environmentalists, seniors, working people, very broad coalition of the core Democratic constituencies will allow me to finally flip this seat," Cavanaugh said. "I think there's a real risk that the other candidates in this race can't put together that coalition."

Rhoades said the top concerns she’s hearing from voters involve “the chaos of the Trump administration and its impact on our democracy, and they're concerned about the cost of everything.”

“The point is not for us to just stop the Republicans from doing bad things to us. The point is to actually get enough representation in our government so that we can advance the policies that align with our values, and we're not going to be able to do that if we're giving away seats to MAGA Republicans,” Rhoades said.

Williams said she has been excluded from some candidate forums and took issue with the local Democratic Party pushing for the candidates to sign a pledge backing whoever wins on Tuesday.

“I am not a party loyalist. I'm not a blue hat, and I want to convince Republicans who have fallen away from Donald Trump now that they are seeing who he really is, how their lives are getting harder, and how their friends are getting swept up in these masked raids,” Williams said.

The other Democrat running in the race is disbarred immigration attorney and former Attorney General candidate, Evangelos “Van” Argyrakis.

“I would like to be known as the one who enacted comprehensive immigration reform legislation to preserve our immigrants rights and also to set up a pathway to citizenship,” Argyrakis told Nebraska Public Media. “A quick pathway to citizenship.”

Mark Johnston, who raised just over $10,000, withdrew from the race last summer, and James Leuschen, a Congressional economic policy staffer, will still appear on the ballot but dropped out in March.

Three nonprofits associated with dark money megadonor and architect of the conservative Supreme Court supermajority Leonard Leo funneled more than $50 million into the world’s largest lay Catholic organization — whose donations, in turn, advanced anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ causes, according to analysis of the two most recent years of tax returns.

The Knights of Columbus, the all-male Catholic service organization commonly associated with local Tootsie Roll fundraisers and pancake breakfasts, spent eight figures on funding unregulated pregnancy centers, political initiatives campaigning against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and donated money to nonprofits directly tied to Leo, according to tax filings from 2023 and 2024.

Leo has a well-documented history of using his networks to funnel money to ultraconservative causes from working to limit access to abortion medication to supporting anti-trans laws.

Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, is best known for his part in building the Project 2025 blueprint for Trump's presidency and for helping build the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court, advising President Donald Trump on the appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with recommending lower court appointees who would rule favorably on conservative causes.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh ahead of a state dinner held by President Donald Trump in honor of Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House on April 28. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

On Wednesday the Supreme Court’s ruling in the gerrymandering case, Louisiana v. Callais, weakened Section 2 of the Voting Act — a cause for which Leo has engaged his dark money networks.

Investment from Leo groups into the Knights of Columbus “certainly fits ideologically with Leo's aims,” said Robert Maguire, vice president for research and data at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who has investigated how Leo’s firms have raked in millions from his own dark money network.

But, most people who contribute dues and donations to the Knights of Columbus are likely unaware of the extent to which the organization supports more extreme conservative hot button issues — and its recent ties to Leo groups.

The Knights of Columbus “invest a considerable amount of money and energy in political campaigns that have the blatant stated objective of restricting reproductive freedom and of restricting LGBTQ rights, and the Knights of Columbus just do not represent the views of most Catholics,” said Kate Hoeting, director of education and research at Catholics for Choice, a nonprofit advocating for reproductive rights.

“It is really kind of shocking at the end of the day, the disconnect between the story that you might see in a parish bulletin and the story that the money tells when you actually follow it.”

About 60 percent of Catholics support abortion rights, according to a 2025 Pew Research report, and about 75 percent of Catholics support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and around 70 percent support same-sex marriage, according to research from the Public Religion Research Institute released in March.

“Most people do not know who Leonard Leo is, but Leonard Leo is impacting almost every aspect of their life because Leonard Leo is the Catholic billionaire who, from my perspective, his mission appears to be taking his … unpopular interpretation of Catholicism and making sure that everybody must follow it,” Hoeting said.

Leo and the Knights of Columbus could not be reached for comment.

‘Outsized influence’

The three Leo-affiliated groups who gave significant grants to the Knights of Columbus in 2024 are The 85 Fund ($39 million), Rule of Law Trust ($1.4 million) and Marble Freedom Trust ($500,000), according to tax filings.

The Rule of Law Trust gave the Knights of Columbus $4.05 million and Marble Freedom Trust gave $6.7 million in 2023, according to tax filings.

The 85 Fund, managed by Leo, is formerly known as the Judicial Education Project and is the oldest in the network, Maguire said.

Both tied to Leo, the Rule of Law Trust is “a very large dark money group,” and “Marble Freedom Trust seems to be the really the hub of Leo's financial network,” Maguire said.

Marble Freedom Trust received a $1.6 billion infusion from industrialist Barre Seid in 2022.

“You have these shell groups that are holding themselves out as social welfare organizations, but they essentially exist as shell entities funded by a small set of extremely wealthy donors who, by virtue of the amounts of money they're giving, have outsized influence over policies, over nominations, over the outcomes of elections,” Maguire said.

The Knights of Columbus 501(c)(8) — a tax-exempt status for fraternal society organizations who provide life and accident benefits to its members in a lodge system — brought in revenue of $2.76 billion in 2024 and has $31.2 billion in assets, according to the tax filing.

Knights of Columbus in Slidell, Louisiana (TineyHo/Wikimedia Commons/Flickr)

That year the Knights of Columbus gave more than $2 million to anti-abortion groups and Leo-affiliated groups. For instance, the Knights of Columbus donated $825,000 to March for Life, a nonprofit that puts on the largest anti-abortion demonstration in the world.

The Knights of Columbus gave $500,000 to Florida Voters Against Extremism, a political action committee opposing Florida Amendment 4, the “Right to Abortion Initiative.” The amendment got 57 percent of the vote but fell short of the 60 percent supermajority required to pass.

The group gave $200,000 to oppose South Dakota Constitutional Amendment G that would’ve established a right to abortion in the state but did not pass.

Leo is on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which received $325,000 from the Knights of Columbus, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which received $100,000.

The Becket Fund received a grant of the same amount in 2023, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center received $200,000 that year, according to tax filings.

In 2023, the Knights of Columbus contributed at least $2.8 million to anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ causes, including an $877,000 to March for Life that year.

The Southern Poverty Law Center designated Do No Harm, a medical policy advocacy group opposing gender affirming care and DEI in medicine, as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Knights of Columbus granted the group $100,000 in 2023.

Among the Knights of Columbus’ other donations to anti-abortion groups in 2023 was $1 million granted to Protect Women Ohio, which opposed Issue 1 which protected the right to abortion in the Ohio state constitution. The amendment passed.

“You're giving your $10 to the Knights of Columbus — you're probably not thinking they're going to put $1 million towards a losing anti-abortion campaign in Ohio,” Hoeting said.

‘Evade scrutiny’

The Knights of Columbus has other nonprofits and charitable funds who've contributed significantly to Leo-affiliated groups and anti-abortion causes.

The Knights of Columbus Charities gave nearly $2.6 million in 2023 and at least $2.4 million in 2024 to anti-abortion groups as part of its “culture of life” program, according to tax filings.

Knights of Columbus at a ceremony (Photo by Robert F. Farmer/Creative Commons)

The Knights Of Columbus Charitable Fund, a donor-advised fund, gave more than $11.5 million in 2024 to groups where Leo serves on their boards. That includes $10.7 million to the Catholic University of America, $455,000 to the Ethics and Public Policy Center, $240,000 to the Napa Legal Institute and $135,000 to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

At least $424,000 was donated to unregulated pregnancy centers and anti-abortion groups, according to the tax filings.

Those same Leo-affiliated groups brought in more than $6.1 million in 2023 and anti-abortion causes received at least $534,000.

“Whether that's a donor advised fund or another dark money entity .. people who might not want the blowback for the types of large investments that they're making and controversial causes are increasingly using these types of dark money vehicles to evade scrutiny, evade the spotlight,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on reducing the influence of money in politics.

“That's one of the reasons that you see these types of entities being increasingly popular, especially when it comes to funding lightning rod issues and highly controversial advocacy campaigns.”

‘Weaponized’

The Knights of Columbus has become part of Leo’s “huge network that is set on imposing its will on all Americans,” said Alyssa Bowen, deputy executive director at watchdog group True North Research.

“He has his hand in many kinds of avenues to impose his agenda and his unpopular will on all Americans through the courts and the legal system.”

While Trump has recently started turning on Leo after receiving unfavorable rulings to the administration, Leo’s influence on advancing Trump policies remains undeniable.

“A lot of the conservative advocacy that we see, whether that's advancing President Trump's agenda, his economic agenda, his immigration related agenda, the attacks on voting rights that we're seeing, some of the money flowing through Leonard Leo's network ends up in that ecosystem,” Beckel said.

“His organizations are part of a central hub of money flowing into Republican politics and conservative nonprofits these days.”

Bowen said the lack of transparency around the causes the Knights of Columbus supports might mislead donors who don’t realize their donations may support extreme conservative causes.

“The takeover of Knights of Columbus is significant because it allows him to use this long-standing organization that has legitimacy in the eyes of a lot of Catholics, and most Catholics probably don't understand that it's being weaponized to push this anti-abortion, anti-trans, very political agenda,” Bowen said.

“Now that it's been weaponized, you see millions and millions of dollars going to these extremely political causes that the people contributing to Knights of Columbus are likely not to know about.”

When the College Republicans of America appointed a student with ties to white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes as its political director, social media praise rolled in from university chapters.

“We are @KaiSchwemmer,” posted Nick Jacobs, president of the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans.

“UF LET’S GO!! Kai is a legend! We are so happy to see his continued success!” said the University of Florida College Republicans on X, whose chapter was recently disbanded by the university for alleged antisemitic behaviors.

The Utah Federation of College Republicans said on X it’s “extremely excited for @KaiSchwemmer stepping into this new role with our national charter College Republicans of America.”

A simple “Nice!” from the Virginia College Republicans.

Kai Schwemmer, a student at Brigham Young University, the Mormon flagship in Utah, came under fire for his past association with Fuentes, whom he met and praised in a documentary, saying he "fell in love with the movement" after hearing Fuentes speak about immigration.

Schwemmer was promoted as a special guest for a Fuentes conference and has streamed on the “anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Black, antisemitic” platform, Cozy.TV, founded by Fuentes and conspiracist theorist Alex Jones.

Schwemmer appeared to post misogynistic and homophobic content on fringe platforms, along with Adolf Hitler cartoons, Vice reported.

Last week Schwemmer came into the spotlight again when he announced plans to run for a vacant Utah Republican treasurer role — a “low-profile race that could reveal the future of the Utah GOP," Deseret News reported.

The College Republicans of America and other conservatives have stuck by Schwemmer, which experts tell Raw Story indicates a broader shift for some in the GOP as President Donald Trump’s MAGA following weakens.

“What was offered to a fracturing MAGA base was a new direction into historical antisemitism, and what you see with the College Republicans of America, what you see there is a movement in that direction,” said Lawrence Rosenthal, chair and lead researcher of the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies.

An embrace of the ideology spread by Fuentes and his followers, who are called “groypers,” has alarmed liberals and some conservatives such as the California Republican Party, which released a memo this year warning about the growing popularity of a “white nationalist,” America-First ideology “modeled closely after Nazi Germany.”

“You're watching an extremist form of conservatism basically overtake Republicanism, and so we're looking at a shift away further down the line in which that type of thing is going to come to a head at some point,” said Jamie Cohen, an associate professor at Queens College, CUNY, who specializes in digital culture.

“The normalization of Nick Fuentes … that's a completely different shift than we've seen in a long time.”

Rosenthal said this type of ideology is “disproportionately attractive to young men and, to some extent, young women as well.”

“It's exaggerated considerably among youth in the same way that hypermasculinity that characterizes the extreme right, both in the USA and internationally, has an extraordinary appeal for young men,” Rosenthal said.

The college groups did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

‘Provoking extremism’

The president of the College Republicans of America, Martin Bertao, doubled down on Schwemmer’s appointment amid backlash.

“Over the last day I have done a lot of reflecting on my decision to appoint Kai as CRA’s political director. And in that reflection I have came to the decision that I would like to apologize… to absolutely NOBODY, CRA will never back down to the WOKE mob!” Bertao posted on X on March 6.

That kind of doubling down is characteristic of Fuentes and his followers, said Jamie Cohen, noting that groypers responded to the overturning of the right to abortion granted in Roe v. Wade with the provocative slogan, “Your body. My choice.”

“Not only do they have to support his appointment, but they do it even more if people get mad,” Cohen said.

Schwemmer denied being a groyper despite his affiliations with Fuentes.

“Life is a process of growth and refinement. My comments in high school and as a teenager should not be taken to accurately reflect my views or demeanor now. I condemn all forms of hatred, including antisemitism, obviously,” Schwemmer posted on X on March 13.

“I’m not a groyper; I am simply and unapologetically an American nationalist. Additionally, all positions I hold are personal ones, not those of the CRA. I reject the ADL’s allegation that the College Republicans or I currently hate or have ever hated Jews.

“In the past, I’ve spoken in ways that were unnecessarily crass or demeaning. I’m conscious of that fact, and since returning from my service as a missionary, I have made adjustments to become a better disciple of Christ.”

Schwemmer’s post was in response to the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, calling his appointment “normalizing antisemitism and white supremacy, full stop,” noting that Schwemmer appeared on Fuentes’s platforms, at his conference and promoted “‘Zionists’ in America” conspiracy theories.

Justin Buchler, an associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, shied away from calling Fuentes and his associates “far-right” but said groypers “are younger voters, and they have some really extreme positions.”

“With somebody like Nick Fuentes, you just call him a neo-Nazi, because Nick Fuentes is a neo-Nazi,” Buchler said.

Elevating someone with associations to Fuentes reflects how the two political parties are increasingly “provoking each other into extremism,” Buchler said.

“What's going on politically is we are in a period of hyper-polarization, and the ideological sides and the two parties have moved very far apart, both left and right, and it's a dynamic process,” Buchler said.

‘Violence begets violence’

The College Republicans of America, which appointed Schwemmer, came to be in 2023 as a rejection of the College Republican National Committee, founded by the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans and the California College Republicans.

Some of the biggest names in political megadonors have infused money into these groups and their leadership.

For one, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the billionaire founders of the shipping company Uline, donated $1 million total to the Wisconsin Federal of College Republicans in December 2025, according to filings with the State of Wisconsin Ethics Commission.

Jacobs, the Wisconsin group’s president, was the recipient of a $1 million check given away by tech billionaire and former Trump appointee Elon Musk as part of his massive $25 million spend on a state judicial race.

“Money from Uihleins has been reshaping Republican politics, flowing into Republican campaigns in the post-Citizens United era. This is a power couple who has been willing to dig deep, write very large checks and support their preferred candidates through all sorts of massive investments,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit focused on campaign finance reform.

“They are pushing a certain type of vision for the Republican Party. They are supporting certain types of Republican candidates ... their money was also very supportive of not only President Trump and his campaigns over the years, but his January 6 rally.”

Buchler countered that “the influence of money is vastly overstated, generally across the board, in politics,” and that looking at political donations is used by both the left and right “to explain the other side's behavior without grappling with the idea that maybe people just disagree.”

Fuentes himself has raked in significant money, bringing in at nearly $900,000 since 2025 from fan donations, along with other income from selling shirts with swastika imagery and subscriptions to his private chatrooms, according to a Washington Post analysis.

“The normalization of racism begets more racism. Violence begets violence,” Cohen said.

“Racism is on the lower end of the extremism sphere, and on the other end of the extreme sphere is violence, so it would be in everyone's best interest to tamp this down sooner than later.”

After weathering years of challenges, from online competition to the COVID pandemic, President Donald Trump’s tariffs became “the last reason” why Jennifer Bergman decided to close down the New York City toy store her mother opened in 1981.

As small businesses currently navigate a complex tariff refund process and still face rising costs, Bergman, 59, is one of five business owners speaking out in a new $200,000 YouTube ad campaign launched Wednesday by Small Businesses Against Tariffs, a project from the Defending Democracy Together Institute, an advocacy group formed by anti-Trump conservatives.

“I'm not afraid of [Trump]. I'm not afraid of his goons, and if they want to throw us all into jail because we're saying things against them, that's fine by me,” Bergman told Raw Story.

“My parents would be really proud of me, and they'd bail me out if they were still around. Actually, they'd be right there with me in jail.”

Jennifer Bergman (provided photo)

Bergman closed her store, West Side Kids, in July after she realized she wasn’t going to be able to pay her rent or make payroll.

”I’d never had that before, ever, ever,” she said.

Over the years, Bergman’s staff shrunk from 12 employees to four. Those four people lost their jobs when the store closed and struggled to find new ones, with one even becoming unhoused, Bergman said.

When Trump added a 145 percent tariff on China last year, Bergman said a $10 toy she’d typically sell for $20 would need to be marked up to $45 to cover the extra costs since she couldn't “afford to eat any of it.”

The price of a scooter she’d typically sell for $150 shot up to $180 when her supplier called to say they needed to reroute shipping containers to Canada and raise prices after Trump announced tariffs last May.

“Prices were going up, and you only have a finite amount of money to spend,” Bergman said.

“The product was getting so much more expensive that I was spending more money for less.”

Bergman also blamed Trump’s tariffs for preventing her from closing on a deal to sell her store as she was in conversation with two potential buyers in early 2025.

“When the tariffs hit, they were both like, ‘We can't do this right now … we just need to deal with this,’ and so I lost the opportunity to sell my store, too.” Bergman said.

‘Never in my wildest dreams’

After deciding to expand to a second location in 2024, Gabe Hagen, co-founder and owner of Brick Road Coffee in Arizona, said starting construction in early 2025 was “rough” timing due to tariffs.

“Once we learned the results of the election and what the new administration was planning on doing with tariffs, we had to really think on our feet,” Hagen told Raw Story.

“We had to kind of re-pivot what we were doing, so we cut back a lot up front.”

Hagen, who is also featured in the Small Businesses Against Tariffs campaign, said the business decided to change equipment purchases and pre-purchased a year’s worth of cups and disposables to “weather the impacts of tariffs.”

Hagen’s projections for stocking the second location, which is both a roastery and a coffee shop, ended up being about a third of what he actually spent.

“The strain of that on a new small business — especially one that's just expanded — we're already so tight on our cash, it's just rough,” Hagen said.

At the end of 2024, raw coffee beans cost Hagen about $4 a pound. At one point, prices spiked to just under $7 a pound, Hagen said. Now prices for speciality coffee are still $5 to $6 per pound, he said.

When Hagen started, roasted coffee cost around $10 per pound. Now prices range between $12 to $14 on the wholesale side, he said.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be paying 50 percent tariffs on a Brazil coffee, which is our number one coffee that we use,” Hagen said.

The Trump administration backed down its tariffs on coffee at the end of last year, but small businesses like Hagen's are still feeling the effects.

“Every new business, we expect some bleed, but this bleed is taking a lot longer than we expected,” he said.

Hagen took out another working capital loan and put his house up for collateral, he said.

Gabe Hagen at Brick Road Coffee's second location and roaster, Prism Coffee Lab (Photo provided by Brick Road Coffee)

“We don't really have many more levers left on a small business side, so that's why tariffs were so important for me to speak out against because I can't just grow my coffee,” Hagen said.

The unpredictability of Trump’s tariffs make it hard to know “when we'll feel relief," Hagen said.

“I don’t know if it'll change back, so I think the hardest part for me is I don't know how to do a 12 month forecast," he said.

‘Who truly pays’

Small Businesses Against Tariffs previously launched a $5 million ad campaign in February, including the story of a Republican farmer turned Democrat over tariffs’ impact on his business.

From a trucking company to a DIY flower shop and an eco-friendly dinnerware company, small businesses have struggled to stay afloat due to tariffs, Raw Story reported.

"We felt it was important to run this campaign in light of spiking prices and confusion around the tariff refund policy,” a Small Businesses Against Tariffs spokesperson said.

“Our hope is that it will help to educate Americans about who truly pays the costs of tariffs and trade wars: American small businesses and consumers. The goal here is to keep engaging those people who show an active interest in the tariff issue, to emphasize who ends up paying the costs of tariffs and to de-bunk widespread lies.”

When federal agents unexpectedly detained a Chicago teen and his mother last month, outraged community members rallied to support them while they were separated, traversed across the country and subjected to alleged harsh treatment while in detention, Raw Story first reported.

Community advocates called the arrest of Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete, 18, and his mother, Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capazan, 46, at a check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a “trap” and reached out to their congresswoman, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) for help.

In response to Raw Story’s investigation, Schakowsky said in a statement:

“Ricardo, a now 18-year-old high school senior, and his mother Martha came to this country three years ago seeking a better life. They represent what all Americans should strive for, and the way the Trump administration has treated them is horrific, unacceptable and un-American,” she said.

“Donald Trump and this gang of thugs think that cruelty and bigotry make America strong. They are mistaken. Immigrants are and always have been what makes our country great. My office is in communication with the family’s attorney, and we will do everything possible to bring them home and secure justice for them.”

Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete and his mother\u00a0Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capaza (Photo provided by Steven P.,Hernandez-Navarrete's brother)

One of the family’s lawyers, Kelli Fennell, said Hernandez-Navarrete and Navarrete-Capazan had accepted pending asylum applications as they faced fear of harm or persecution in their home country of Colombia. Neither the mother nor son has a criminal record, she said.

Raw Story’s investigation also prompted a response from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois.

“We’ve seen many asylum-seekers like them get detained for no reason, after being in the United States lawfully for many years,” said Samuel B. Cole, senior supervising attorney and chief immigration litigation counsel at the ACLU of Illinois.

“To make matters worse, the facilities where ICE is detaining them frequently do not comply with ICE’s own standards or even pass minimal constitutional muster.”

When Hernandez-Navarette spoke with Raw Story via a phone interview from the Kenton County Detention Center in Kentucky on Tuesday, he said he had been searched without clothes, required to sleep on the floor without blankets and unable to use the restroom due to too many people in one room.

The 18-year-old said he spent two days in solitary confinement and was unable to shower during that time.

His advocates said he’d been transferred at least eight times over the course of the month, traveling to Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Kentucky after leaving the Broadview ICE facility outside of Chicago.

In response to a series of questions from Raw Story, a spokesperson for ICE said U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended the mother and son, "both illegal aliens from Colombia, for illegally entering the United States in 2022,"

“ICE Chicago took custody of Hernandez-Navarrete and Navarrete-Capazan [in] March 2026 for being unlawfully present in the United States. They remain in ICE custody pending further proceedings and will receive full due process," the spokesperson said.

ICE is encouraging immigrants to use the CBP Home App, "offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now," the spokesperson said.

“Being in detention is a choice," the spokesperson said.

“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

After former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene turned on MAGA Republicans and President Donald Trump, resigning from her seat in Georgia’s 14th congressional district, a Democrat captured the most votes in a special election to replace her — fueling hopes of a long-shot blue flip in the solidly red district.

Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army brigadier general and cattle farmer, earned more than 43,000 votes, but it wasn’t enough to win the seat with a majority of the vote on March 10.

Still, Harris told Raw Story in the days prior to his runoff race on April 7 that he was “feeling real good” about his chances to win Greene’s former seat, particularly as the district’s MAGA base is “not as strong as it used to be."

Shawn Harris on his cattle farm in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)

Harris, who took 37.3 percent of the vote last month, faces Republican Clay Fuller, a district attorney and Air Force veteran endorsed by President Donald Trump as an “America First Patriot,” who received 34.9 percent of the vote in a crowded Republican field that grew to more than 20 candidates at one point.

“With Marjorie Taylor Greene coming out there basically every day and saying that everything about MAGA was a lie, or everything that Donald Trump told you what he was going to do was a lie, and then Clay is, in turn, anything that President Trump said he's doing, Clay says, ‘Yes, I agree with it,’ including this war of choice [in Iran], including putting ICE everywhere, those things are the reason why people are actually saying 'I'm voting for Shawn,'” Harris said.

During a visit to the district from Trump in February, Fuller called himself a “MAGA warrior.”

Fuller declined an interview with Raw Story.

'Sold his soul'

While MAGA is “the loudest part of the party, and it's Donald Trump's base,” the 14th congressional district saw little benefit from Greene while she was loudly backing Trump during her five years in Congress, Harris said.

“Too many times under Marjorie Taylor Greene, she voted with the party and left northwest Georgia out to dry … we didn't actually get any benefits for anything that Marjorie was doing, and if we send Clay, we're going to get even worse.”

If elected to Congress, Harris said he “will be a person with a backbone that will fight for Northwest Georgia” and “nobody can buy me.”

Harris’ fundraising receipts totaled $6.4 million, dwarfing the $1.2 million raised by Fuller as of March 18, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Harris emphasized receiving small dollar donations averaging around $25 and said he’s “not taking any money from any organizations that when I get there, they're going to be telling me how to vote.”

Harris also said he wouldn’t just vote along party lines if elected to Congress.

“If President Trump and his administration is doing something right, and it makes sense for Northwest Georgia, I'm going to support it 100 percent — that's what leaders do, and that's what I want to do as a representative for all of northwest Georgia,” Harris said.

“However, if President Trump’s leadership, his team, in itself, is not doing something that's benefiting northwest Georgia, I will be in a position to push back, and the reason why I've been in a position to push back is because, yes, I'm a Democrat, but I'm not tied to the party.

“Clay has sold his soul to President Trump. That means Clay's vote is already in the bag.”

Blue wave

Another reason why Harris hopes he can defy the odds and win the seat in the runoff is because Republican candidates in the district are still competing against Fuller in a primary election on May 19 for the November general election, distracting them from this race and making them less likely to endorse him, he said.

The runoff race is to immediately fill the vacancy left in Congress after Greene resigned in January.

“The Republicans are not collapsing around Clay,” Harris said.

Republican Clay Fuller speaks at an event in Lookout Mountain, Georgia on March 10. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Harris previously cut into Republican domination in the district when he ran against Greene in 2024, capturing nearly 135,000 votes and more than 35 percent of ballots cast.

Prior to that, Democrat Marcus Flowers cut Greene’s share of votes by nearly 10 percent, capturing more than 88,000 of his own in 2022, when she previously won with 75 percent of the vote in her first election in 2020.

Democrats are hoping to overtake Republicans’ slim majority in the House and even possibly flip the Senate, despite massive amounts of dark money funneling into Senate Republican races, Raw Story exclusively reported.

The Democratic party is also looking to state-level races as a bellwether for a blue wave as Democrats have flipped at least 30 seats, including the state House seat where Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, is located.

'Left behind'

Harris said he’s been able to appeal to voters across party lines because of economic issues under the Trump administration, such record-high gas-prices, reaching over $4 on average for the first time since 2022.

“It’s killing us to go to the gas pump or to the diesel pump, especially our farmers, because right now diesel prices are high and fertilizer prices are high,” Harris said.

“As a farmer, I can feel it myself, just like all the rest of them.”

If elected to Congress, Harris said one of his top priorities would be helping pass the Farm Bill as the farmers in his district are “tired of all of these subsidies,” which end up being passed through to farmers to pay the vendors they owe.

“We're in a situation where farmers need help today, and the administration is just moving too slow to actually help us,” Harris said.

Some former Republican farmers have broken with Trump over his fluctuating tariffs, which led to higher prices on essentials like lumber, fertilizer and farming equipment.

Harris said he’s working to earn the votes of Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike — even distributing "Republicans for Shawn" signs.

If he wins, Harris said, “Democrats would be happy, but at the end of the day, I'm not doing this for Democrats. I'm not doing this for independents, and I'm not doing this for Republicans”.

“I'm doing this for the hardworking people here in northwest Georgia. Period … Because too many times northwest Georgia has been left behind.”

Facing credible threats, Harris has continued wearing a bulletproof vest at advertised public appearances, he told Raw Story, but that hasn't deterred him from engaging with the community, especially as the race will come down to turnout during a short voting period around the Good Friday and Easter holidays.

"We're not going to let those threats cause us not to continue to running this campaign," Harris said.

"Something I always tell my supporters is, courage is contagious, and when they see me out and about, I hope that motivates them to continue to go out and knock on doors, call people, because this race is going to come down to strictly turnout."

As disabled U.S. Navy veteran Steven Francisci built his mental health advocacy community, he connected with veterans who, like him, started questioning their support of President Donald Trump.

Since Trump returned to the White House, some MAGA supporters have found “vulnerable pain points” that are tipping them away from backing the president, Francisci told Raw Story. Whether it's the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, federal immigration enforcement agents’ aggressive and fatal tactics or the country's intensifying conflict with Iran as 2,500 Marines head to the region and senior military officials consider sending in airborne Army troops.

Breaking with Trump increasingly happens when “people start to really feel the effects of what this administration is doing, including the rising gas prices right now that are happening before our eyes, and the tariffs and the cost that we're bearing because of these insane, ridiculous approaches to trying to raise money in this country,” Francisci, a 50-year-old mental health influencer from Chesapeake, Virginia, said.

Francisci’s own transformation from a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporter to a member of his local Democratic committee was part of a “deconstruction journey” that took place over years of trauma-informed therapy starting in 2022.

He is now a part of Leaving MAGA, an online community and nonprofit for former Trump supporters who found themselves embracing Christian nationalism, lost in conspiracies, losing friends and committing crimes in Trump’s name.

“That version of me that I lived for so long was crumbling before my eyes, and then I had to also deconstruct my politics,” Francisci said.

“I was starting to understand why I was so attracted to Trump because I was previously highly narcissistic, and I previously thought that being that alpha male, masculine guy is what we needed for the country.”

Steven Francisci (provided photo)

While his third marriage “literally was falling apart,” Francisci said he began to focus on his mental health and reevaluate his religious beliefs having become “really, really deep into evangelical Christianity, really supportive of Trump.”

“It's very important to understand religion and how it ties into politics today,” he said.

While less supportive than they were a year ago, white evangelicals remain among Trump’s strongest supporters, with 69 percent approving of how Trump has handled his presidency, according to a February report from Pew Research.

Francisci said his break from MAGA and evangelical Christianity was “more of a slow, gradual process and a slow awakening.”

But, by the time of the 2024 presidential election, he said, “there's no way in good conscience that I can vote for Trump a third time, and so I didn't.”

“I voted for Kamala Harris … it just helped me to continue to move in the path of the person I want to be today.”

‘Damaging’

Francisci wasn’t interested in politics when he joined the U.S. Navy shortly after his 18th birthday and spent about seven years in the military.

Not long after he left the Navy, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened. Growing up in New York City, he had family there he couldn’t reach for a time to let him know they were safe.

“Everything was just bananas, and it was incredibly terrifying,” Francisci said.

“After that, I really started to watch Fox News. It became really a main source of my media diet, and I also noticed that I started to become, I would probably say, Islamophobic.”

Francisci said he saw himself continue to “gravitate more and more right-leaning.”

Fast forward to the time Trump first ran for president in the 2016 election, Francisci said he “had a ton of anger and rage, and then I continued to watch Fox News.”

At the time, Francisci said he had a “close call with suicide” that brought him to a Veterans Affairs hospital. He experienced marriage troubles and was still recovering from a nearly fatal motorcycle crash the year before that left him with a traumatic brain injury and every bone in his face broken.

Politics “became way more emotional to me than thoughtful,” he said.

“I just started to listen and believe everything you heard on Fox News, and I didn't really realize how damaging that was at the time.”

By the end of Trump’s first term when he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, Francisci said he was confused by the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 but felt “that's what we need to do if this election was stolen … we need to take back our country.”

‘Move the dial’

It wasn’t until he began his trauma-informed therapy work in 2022 that everything changed. He started a mental health advocacy social media platform called Healing Roots On Up and became a court-appointed special advocate working with abused and neglected children.

Francisci recently applied to a masters in counseling program to become a trauma-informed therapist and was appointed to the Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare Board of Directors. He self-published a book in January, “From A**Hole To Alright: A Life Rewritten Through Self-Reflection, Therapy, and Conscious Change.”

Steven Francisci at Chesapeake City Hall (provided photo)

With other former Trump supporters, Francisci has identified a common experience of “a lack of empathy and compassion, a lack of being in touch with their emotions.”

Francisci said it’s important for him to share his “growth and journey” with others and has been particularly upset by the “lack of kindness and the cruelty” exercised by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

For instance, ICE has detained a breastfeeding mother, proposed a plan to deport unaccompanied immigrant children, physically assaulted bystanders and deported young adults with pending immigration cases, just in cases reported by Raw Story.

“I think we are starting to move the dial on helping people become more aware of what's happening and what Trump is doing,” Francisci said.