Can a Populist Who Likens Herself to Zohran Mamdani Topple a Staid Democratic Incumbent in North Carolina?

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Minneapolis Hotel Workers Speak

People watch from the window of a Hilton hotel in Minneapolis as police make arrests during a demonstration.

Adam Gray/AP

By Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright and Emily Kennard

January 30, 2026 06:01 AM

Today’s notice: Reporting from Texas on immigration politics. Reporting from Minneapolis on hotel workers trying to keep their heads down. A government funding deal fails to materialize. And: The DOJ has made learning about federal law enforcement conduct much, much harder to do.

THE LATEST

Get ready for the big Fed chair reveal: While walking the black carpet last night at a screening of his wife’s $75 million documentary, “Melania,” Donald Trump told reporters he would announce this morning his nominee to chair the Federal Reserve. “I’ve chosen a very good person to head the Fed,” he said, adding that it’s “a person that won’t be too surprising to people.”

Not long ago, Republicans were asking for ICE deployments. Now? “The people that are doing well, we need to make sure that we have a pathway [to citizenship] for them. I’m not saying a freebie, put some fines on there, but have something in place for them,” John Lujan, a Texas state representative running in the GOP primary for the newly drawn 35th Congressional District, told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman.

Republicans redrew the 35th District to take advantage of their 2024 success with Latino voters, who MAGA faithful say were won over in part by Trump’s immigration promises. Today, there’s real concern the president’s policies are alienating those people.

One candidate complained that Republicans don’t have a cohesive immigration message. But another running in the same Dallas-area primary said Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts have been “a blessing.”

What does this mean for November? “You know, we’re in January,” Republican strategist Doug Heye told us. That said ... “It’s a driver of donations right now. It’s a drive of Democratic voter intensity. It’s certainly a driver of turning independents off Trump.”

Open tabs: Trump sues the IRS and Treasury Department for $10B over leaked tax records (NBC); Troop deployments to U.S. cities cost nearly half a billion dollars in 2025 (CBS); A Secret FBI Bust Nabbed an Alleged Drug Lord—and Rocked Ties With Mexico (WSJ); Murdoch and News Corp Take on the West Coast With The California Post (NYT)

From the Hill

Government funding is still in limbo: Things were looking promising yesterday evening when both Trump and Democratic leaders said a deal was nigh — but the day came and went with no vote, leaving just hours to go to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The deal in question appears to include funding for most departments through the end of September, as well as a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks — giving lawmakers time to hash out specific reforms for federal immigration agencies requested by Democrats.

Important to note: The House is still in recess, so even if senators come to an agreement today it likely won’t be enough to avoid at least a partial shutdown over the weekend.

From Minneapolis

Hotel workers caught in the middle: “What can we do?” a housekeeper at a hotel currently housing federal agents in Minneapolis told NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery. “Everything’s gone wrong.”

One concierge at a hotel housing federal officers said half of the cleaning staff stopped coming to work after the immigration enforcement surge. So part of the maintenance tech’s job now is to carpool the remaining housekeepers to work so they don’t get pulled over on the commute. Their hours are terrible because staffing is so low. So the manager offered to let the remaining housekeepers live at the hotel for free. But the housekeepers are too afraid to bring their kids into the same building as the agents.

DHS comment: “Those who are not here illegally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear. Those choosing to fearmonger by distorting reality are doing a great disservice to our country and are responsible for violence against our officers.”

From the campaign trail

A trio of fundraising scoops. First: The Republican National Committee raised $172 million in 2025, including a $16 million haul in December, a spokesperson for the RNC told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman. The numbers are significantly higher than past election off-years.

Second: Rep. Emilia Sykes has $1.1 million cash on hand to defend her redrawn district — Ohio’s 13th — according to numbers obtained by NOTUS’ Tyler Spence, and she raised more than $470K last quarter. Sykes’ seat is slightly more Democratic post-redistricting, though the NRCC still considers the seat a top flip target and says it will spend big there. No clear front-runner has emerged from the Republican primary field.

Third: Democratic candidate Jamie Ager’s fundraising numbers outpaced the Republican incumbent he is running against in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, Rep. Chuck Edwards. Ager raised $387K last quarter and had $480K in cash on hand, as compared to Edwards’ $350K and $460K, respectively.

NEW ON NOTUS

Out of NLEADs: Public interest in potential misconduct by federal law enforcement is pretty high at the moment. But data around it is much harder to find after the DOJ suspended its National Law Enforcement Accountability Database last year per Trump’s order, NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak reports.

NLEAD used to offer state and local law enforcement agencies a central location to find reports of misconduct among potential hires from federal agencies, and an anonymized version was released publicly every year.

What the last available data says: Customs and Border Protection agents and Bureau of Prisons officers accounted for more than half of misconduct findings.

A NOTUS exclusive: “One year into the second term of the Trump administration, President Trump has folded in the face of those opposed to IVF,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Rep. James Walkinshaw wrote in a letter to the White House urging officials to require that in vitro fertilization be covered for federal workers. Currently, not all health insurance plans offered to federal employees provide IVF coverage, NOTUS’ Oriana González reports.

More: White House Rankles Canadian Officials by Meeting With Alberta Separatists, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

How Should Democrats Feel About the MAGA Women of Congress? The revolt of Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, writes Lauren Leader, suggests we all benefit when more women hold elected office — even if they are women you would never vote for.

NOT US

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