After the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, some Democrats recognized that “defund the police” and other anti–law enforcement activist slogans may have cost the party key seats in both House and Senate races. But even as many establishment Democrats have sought to distance their movement from those slogans, a closer look at many Democratic candidates for the 2026 midterms suggests that many appear willing to repeat the same mistake.
A number of Democratic candidates running for both the House and Senate have been forced to defend their past statements on police, as well as their willingness to support activist organizations that have worked to undermine police officers in nearly every way possible.
For example, James Talarico, a Democrat running for the Texas Senate, not only donated money to the Austin Justice Coalition, a group that has called for defunding the Austin police to the “minimum possible” amount, but also said in a 2019 interview that placing police presence in schools amounted to “leaning into a culture of violence.”
"We’re all concerned about school safety and recent school shootings, and that concern, in some ways, has been channeled unproductively toward militarizing schools and toward kind of leaning into a culture of violence and adding more law enforcement officials into campuses," he said at the time.
In another instance, Christina Bohannan, a Democrat running in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, encouraged members of the University of Iowa community to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund and National Bail Out Fund, organizations that post bail for individuals arrested while rioting or protesting and for advocacy efforts aimed at “dismantling, defunding, and abolishing the police.”
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She has also acknowledged involvement with groups that advocate abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and promoting sanctuary city policies. In addition, she authored an op-ed opposing a “Back the Blue” law that sought to increase penalties for rioting and other protest-related offenses and protect law enforcement officers’ personal information from public disclosure.
The list doesn't stop there. A Democrat running for New Mexico's second district, Gabe Vasquez, has said he'd want to replace police officers with social workers, has attended Black Lives Matter Rallies, and vowed to slash police budgets by up to 50 percent.
🚨UNEARTHED
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 11, 2026
New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez says he's committed to defunding police:
"If we do have to take budget away from...whether it be police...if we don't need those positions anymore, if we don't need those budget line items anymore then we need to get rid of them." pic.twitter.com/LAy7yDwAgz
Graham Platner, the Hamas sympathizer running for Senate in Maine, has called police “pigs” and “bastards” and accused entire police forces of egregious misconduct rather than individual bad actors.
EXCLUSIVE:
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 12, 2026
Left-wing Senate candidate Graham Platner called a small-town Maine police chief “trash” for his refusal to take a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters and referred to other cops as “authoritarian bullies,” @ChuckRossDC reports. pic.twitter.com/noeOHG8JJK
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has quietly deleted old social media posts calling to defund the police, including statements such as: “The police have become standing armies we deploy against our own people,” and “When we make a choice to invest in policing in a majority Black community, rather than to invest in public schools, that choice is influenced by systemic racism.”
He also sat on the board of a group called Michigan United, which organized a Defund the Police protest in 2020 that turned deadly.
In Wisconsin, Democratic House candidate Rebecca Cooke has made comments calling into question her stance on policing as late as 2024, where she said: "When it comes to policing, I'm a proponent of allocating greater funds to root causes of the issue, rather than brute police enforcing."
And finally, North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper, the former governor of the state who has drawn ire over his criminal justice record, including his support for policies that led to the early release of more than 3,500 inmates, among them individuals convicted of serious offenses such as murder, rape, and child sexual abuse, as well as 51 inmates serving life sentences. He also established a “Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice,” which advocated for soft-on-crime policies, and he has commuted the sentences of at least 15 convicted killers.
Each of the candidates mentioned is not only anti-police, but each also has a serious chance of winning their elections as Republicans face an uphill battle in the 2026 midterms.
The American electorate voted for safety by electing President Trump in 2024. Republicans cannot let Democrats reverse the administration's course and bring us back to the era of soft-on-crime policies.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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