WASHINGTON, DC – A new article from Axios outlines how state attorneys general have reshaped the legal landscape in challenging the Trump administration and what’s at stake in the thirty-one AG races across the country during this year’s midterm elections.

“Democratic attorneys general have become some of the most powerful challengers curtailing the Trump administration’s policies on elections, tariffs, federal funding, National Guard deployments and more,” Axios’s Avery Lotz wrote. “Attorneys general of both parties have become key policymakers, ones that have coordinated to not only challenge Washington, but also to regulate industry and protect consumers.”

Key highlights: 

• “Meanwhile, Democrats are targeting Republican-held offices in states like Kansas, Iowa and Georgia, and the Democratic Attorneys General Association just announced a $5 million investment in Florida’s race this month.”
• “‘There’s no more important elected official on the ballot than attorneys general,’ DAGA President Sean Rankin says. ‘This is the people’s lawyer.’”
• “When Democrat Jay Jones took office as Virginia’s attorney general this year, he immediately reviewed which lawsuits his state should join or withdraw from, after pledging to challenge the Trump administration more vigorously than his Republican predecessor.”
• “Less than two years into Trump’s second term, Democratic state attorneys general have brought nearly 150 cases against the administration, according to a tally by the Progressive State Leaders Committee.”
• “‘If someone breaks the law, [AGs are] going to go after them. That’s their instinct,’ [James Tierney] says, adding, ‘If you have more law breaking from the president in the second term than you do in the first term, you’re going to have more lawsuits. It’s not because they’re activist AGs.’”
• “States have also stepped up, he says, as the Trump administration has gutted federal agencies and kneecapped anti-corruption measures.”
• “‘States are stepping into some of the newest and important policy areas that we’re talking about today, like AI and social media, and it’s incredibly consequential for setting a regulatory agenda nationwide,’ Dishman says.”
• “Whoever wins next week will join the team deciding which Trump policies face legal challenges and how aggressively states police some of the nations most powerful corps.”

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