By STEVE PEOPLES, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — For a day, at least, Democrats across the country have a sense that their comeback against President Donald Trump may have begun.

It wasn’t just about the election results in Wisconsin, where Democratic-backed Judge Susan Crawford won a 10-point victory against Trump and Elon Musk’s favored candidate for the state Supreme Court.

Some Democrats highlighted New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s marathon, record-setting 25-hour Senate speech as a rallying point for frustrated voters. Others pointed to congressional Democrats lining up with a handful of House Republican lawmakers to oppose a procedural rule that would have stopped a proposal for new parents in Congress to able to vote by proxy.

In this image provided by Senate Television, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. speaks on the Senate floor, Tuesday morning, April 1, 2025. (Senate Television via AP)

The series of victories gave Democratic leaders moments of relief and vindication of their strategy to focus on Trump’s alliances with Musk and other billionaires. That’s even as some party officials warned that it was far too early to draw sweeping conclusions from a series of lower-turnout off-year elections with polls still showing that the party’s brand is deeply unpopular among key groups of voters.

“Elon Musk and Donald Trump are on the ropes,” charged Ken Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee. “We’re just getting started.”

Wisconsin gave Democrats a much-needed win

Democrats have had little to cheer about in the five months since Trump won a decisive victory in November’s presidential election in which he peeled away a significant portion of working-class voters and people of color. And in more recent weeks, the party’s activist base has become increasingly frustrated that Democratic leaders have not done more to stop Trump’s unprecedented push to slash the federal government and the reshape the economy.

Democrats in Washington and in state capitals across the country privately conceded that a bad night, especially in Wisconsin, would have been devastating.

Supporters for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford cheer during her election night party Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)

Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, lost to liberal-backed Crawford in a relative blowout, five months after Trump carried Wisconsin by less than 1 point.

And in Florida, Republicans won special elections in two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, but both candidates significantly underperformed Trump’s November margins.

“I went to bed last night feeling uplifted and relieved,” Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass said Wednesday.

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Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., predicted further political consequences for Republicans if they don’t resist the sweeping cuts to government services enacted by Musk and Trump.

“In swing districts, if I was a Republican, I would either decide how to stand up for your constituents or find out how to get a discount on adult depends, because one or the other is what you’re going to be needing to do,” Pocan said.

Rebecca Cooke, a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin’s 3rd congressional district, said the election was a clear indication that voters are upset with how Trump and Musk “are messing with their lives.” But she stopped short of projecting confidence in future elections.

“We have work to do to build long term infrastructure in this party and to really build trust back with voters that I think have felt left behind by the Democratic Party,” said Cooke, a 37-year-old waitress who is running against GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden. “I think it takes time to build trust with voters, and it can’t happen overnight, and it can’t happen in just one election.”

Expect more Democratic talking points about Musk

In this week’s successes, Democratic officials believe they have confirmed the effectiveness of their core message heading into the 2026 midterms that Trump and his billionaire allies are working for the rich at the expense of the working class.

Indeed, talking points distributed by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday reinforced that notion while pointing to what the committee described as “an undeniable trend” after recent lower-profile Democratic victories in Virginia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Minnesota.

“In 2025, Democrats continue to overperform in special elections as voters send a resounding message: They want Democrats to fight for them, and they want the Trump-Musk agenda out of their communities,” the talking points read.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., told the AP Wednesday that the election results showed that the public is “outraged” by chaos and dysfunction coming from the Trump administration. The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Trump and Republicans in Congress are failing to fix high prices and seeking Medicaid cuts, in addition to supporting tariffs that could worsen inflation for families.

“What we saw yesterday in Florida and Wisconsin was Republicans running scared because the American people are angry and scared about the direction the Trump-Musk agenda is taking us,” she said. “They’re seeing prices go up. They’re seeing more and more the focus is not on them, but on Trump and his wealthy donors.”

More protests are to come

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of voters are expected to attend more than 1,000 so-called “Hands Off!” related protests nationwide focused on Trump and Musk. More than 150 political groups worked together to organize what will almost certainly represent the single biggest day of protest of the second Trump administration.

The Washington event, which will feature Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., already has more than 12,000 RSVPs, according to organizers.

Meanwhile, Booker is planning to attend a series of unrelated public events, including a town hall in New Jersey this weekend.

His office reports receiving 28,000 voicemails since he finished his speech shortly after 8 p.m. on Tuesday. At its peak, the 25-hour address was being streamed by more than 300,000 people across Booker’s social media channels. It earned more than 350 million likes on his newly formed TikTok account.

A spokesperson said that the Democratic senator spent much of Wednesday sleeping.

Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Leah Askarinam in Washington and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin contributed reporting.

A Woodbury High School student had a replica firearm that looked like a real gun in his backpack, according to charges filed Wednesday.

The student ran from the school, charges said, which led the high school and Royal Oaks Elementary to put additional security measures in place while a search for him was underway Monday afternoon. He was arrested Monday.

The Woodbury City Attorney’s Office charged the 18-year-old student Wednesday.

On Monday, after lunch, the teen was in another student’s vehicle in the school’s parking lot. There was discussion about fights with acquaintances and the 18-year-old said, “I would not fight him, I would just pop him. … Look at this,” and pulled a handgun from his backpack, according to the criminal complaint.

Just before 1:45 p.m., a Woodbury police school resource officer was told about the gun. The officer found the teen and asked if he had anything he shouldn’t. He “grew aggravated and walked away,” said he would “refuse the search” and left the school, the complaint said.

Witnesses reported seeing someone running from the school. “After an extensive search of the area,” police found the teen, the complaint said. He didn’t have a backpack or a firearm.

During a search, an officer found the bottom/handle of what appeared to be a firearm on Cypress Drive near Cochrane Drive. Officers continued searching and located the top portion and slide. It was determined to be a replica firearm.

The teen is charged with brandishing a replica firearm while on school property, a gross misdemeanor, and fleeing a peace officer, a misdemeanor.

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NEW YORK – The groups who are most directly impacted by the who and when of the NHL schedule – coaches and players – have zero say when it is put together. Instead, consideration of TV coverage and travel distances and whether Kylie Minogue has already booked dates at a particular arena are given the most weight.

The 2024-25 schedule has been more condensed due to the two-week break in February for the 4 Nations Face-Off. Still, the New York Rangers play at Madison Square Garden, which is one of the busiest venues in sports, which leads to schedule anomalies like the one experienced Wednesday night.

While the Wild have essentially had a game every other day for the past month or so, the Rangers were playing for the first time since Saturday. While Wild coach John Hynes reiterated the lack of say they have in the schedule, he said his job is to strive for a balance between rested and rusty when teams are off for multiple days.

“I think at this time of year you want to be able to play. It’s just that you have to take what the schedule gives you. Whatever that situation is, you’ve got to make the best of it,” Hynes said. “So I don’t think there is any one recipe. If you’re playing every other day, then you’ve kind of got to get in your groove in the schedule. If you have a couple days off…managing that the right way is important.”

The Wild conclude a stretch of eight games in 14 days on Sunday afternoon when they host Dallas, then get a two-day break before San Jose visits for one of the final home games of the season on April 9.

More progress for Kaprizov

While the Wild were playing games versus the Devils and Rangers, star forward Kirill Kaprizov checked in with his New York-based doctors and got some more encouraging news about a potential return to the ice.

“It was positive feedback, so he is going to go into the next phase of his rehab, ramp it up, test out some contact and things like that, so that’s where he’s at,” Hynes said, adding that he does not anticipate Kaprizov would be ready to return when the Stars come to Xcel Energy Center on Sunday.

“Let me put it to you this way: I think the feedback that he got and we got was in the positive direction, so we’re hopeful that he’s gonna be able to return before the end of the regular season,” he said.

Following Wednesday’s meeting with the Rangers, the Wild have six games remaining in the regular season – three at home and three on the road.

Gophers get a transfer portal addition

With eight of their top 11 scorers from last season gone either due to early signings or the expiration of their college eligibility, the Minnesota Gophers have plenty of opportunities in their 2025-26 lineup. Several spots will be filled by an incoming freshman class, the specifics of which have not yet been announced.

And this week the Gophers got a homecoming of sorts from the transfer portal. Tanner Ludtke, a former standout at Lakeville South and a 2023 third round draft pick of the Utah Hockey Club, announced he will transfer to Minnesota from Nebraska Omaha, after putting his name in the portal.

After averaging two points per game as a high school senior and during his only full USHL season with Lincoln, Ludtke put up 28 points in 40 games as a freshman in Omaha – a season which ended with a loss to the Gophers in the NCAA tournament – and was named to the NCHC’s all-rookie team. An upper body injury limited him to just eight games last season.

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“While I cannot always prevent pollution from entering my kids’ lungs, I can call on Gov. Hochul to move forward with cap-and-invest and pass strong climate legislation.”

Climate groups staged a rally in March calling for Gov. Hochul to move faster on climate policies. Photo by Noemie Trusty.

It’s every parent’s nightmare: knowing something is harming your child but feeling powerless to stop it. Yet it’s a nightmare that replays every single day when I turn on our gas stove, open our rented apartment’s window to the heavy air outside, or navigate our traffic-choked streets in search of space to play. When your child huffs over to you after running around in the park to tell you he’s finding it hard to breathe again, the guilt and helplessness is crushing.

There is very little the average parent in New York can do on an individual level to remove pollution from their child’s environment, especially as many families are struggling simply to make ends meet in an increasingly unaffordable city. 

Most of us can’t close down the dirty “peaker” power plants scattered throughout the city, or make policy to ramp up the transition to renewable energy. Most of us aren’t able to incentivize and fund widespread electrification of the buildings that produce 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in our city. But there is one parent who has more power than most: our Governor, Kathy Hochul. 

We’ve heard her use encouraging rhetoric around climate and the threat it poses to her grandchildren, but our progress under her administration remains painfully slow. Her flip-flopping on congestion pricing last summer delayed the program until after the general election, putting it squarely in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs. Now Trump wants to kill it. Her hesitation to sign the Climate Superfund Bill in December signaled weakness to the corporate polluters who are challenging it and has us wondering: whose interests come first—ours or theirs? 

This year she’s sitting on another important program—cap-and-invest—that would make big corporate polluters pay for their emissions, then use that revenue to invest the estimated billions into climate solutions. Despite having proposed the program two years ago, the governor has now hit pause and is refusing to make public the draft of the long-promised regulations, upon which the program would be based. 

Not only must Gov. Hochul move forward with cap-and-invest, she must do it right. Climate “solutions” that involve moving pollution from wealthy, politically powerful communities into underserved neighborhoods are not solutions at all; outsourcing the green transition to corporations without any input from New Yorkers, or favoring economies of scale over community skillsets equally won’t get our state where it should be. 

Carbon emissions and the air pollution that comes with them are not family-level problems for parents to tackle alone, they’re society-level problems that need society-level solutions. This is why parents and caregivers like me are choosing to turn away from helplessness and towards building collective power and taking action to push Gov. Hochul to tackle the climate threats facing our kids—threats that are escalating with each passing year.

Last month, local families with Climate Families NYC gathered outside Gov. Hochul’s Manhattan office dressed in snail costumes to tell her to stop being so slow—and to hurry up on tackling the climate crisis. Parents found temporary solace in taking action while the children enjoyed a tale from a giant storybook. Its pages tell of a snail called “Governor Slochul” who has the power to make polluters pay for clean energy and a safer planet but is just being way too slow.

Along with the children in the story, they cheer the snail on as she wakes up and starts to speed towards the finish line of a cleaner and greener state. Because every generation is feeling the effects of climate change, our kids were joined by grandparents from Third Act NYC and teens with the Fridays for Future movement. But, most of all, it’s our children who will reap the consequences of inaction.

To succeed in this mission, families will need our elected representatives in our corner. That’s why we had our last action in Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s district and have contacted our state legislators with our message about the Fund Climate campaign, a spending plan that focuses on cutting pollution and making corporate polluters—not people—pay for climate action. The plan includes programs for affordable climate-ready homes, community-directed grants to climate resiliency projects, and support for policies like the NY HEAT Act and the Cap-and-Invest Guardrails Bill.

More than ever, families are feeling the urgency of this issue. In the past two years, our kids have had to wade to school through unprecedented floods, see the sky turn orange with wildfire smoke, or sit sweltering in classrooms that were not designed for it to be 98 degrees Fahrenheit in June. Despite that, we’re not interested in doom and gloom. Done right, we see an opportunity to make strides towards clean energy and climate resiliency. We see good union jobs, healthier schools, cleaner air, and a more affordable and equitable city. 

So while I cannot always prevent pollution from entering my kids’ lungs, I can call on Gov. Hochul to move forward with cap-and-invest and pass strong climate legislation. Together with other families, we can cut through the smog of corporate interests and hold our leaders accountable for delivering a city where all of us can breathe easier.

Ella Ryan is a member of Climate Families NYC.

The post Opinion: Children, Parents & Grandparents Call for Hochul to Move Faster on Climate Action appeared first on City Limits.