LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had a narrow escape this month, when tremors from the Jeffrey Epstein files shook his leadership and threatened to bring him down.
He faces new danger this week from a special election Thursday in northwest England, where his center-left Labour Party could face defeat by either the hard-line anti-immigration party Reform UK or the self-styled “eco-populist” Green Party. Losing to either would drive home to Labour members how unpopular the prime minister is with voters on both left and right.
The election is in Gorton and Denton, a seat in Greater Manchester that has been Labour turf for a century. Yet Labour’s fortunes have fallen so far that University of Manchester political science professor Rob Ford says victory for Starmer's party when results are announced early Friday would be considered a surprise “man-bites-dog” outcome.
Local polling and betting markets suggest a close three-way contest between Labour local councilor Angeliki Stogia, Reform UK contender Matthew Goodwin an academic-turned-pundit, and the Greens’ Hannah Spencer, a plumber.
The anti-immigration Reform UK, led by the veteran hard-right politician Nigel Farage, holds just eight of the 650 seats in the House of Commons — Labour has 404 — but has topped national opinion polls for months, ahead of both Labour and the main opposition Conservative Party.
The Green Party has just four seats, but under energetic leader Zack Polanski has expanded beyond environmental concerns to focus on issues including support for the Palestinian cause and the legalization of drugs.
The election’s outcome is hard to call, in a diverse area that has traditional working-class neighborhoods — once strongly Labour, now tilting toward Reform — as well as large numbers of university students and Muslim residents. Many of them feel disillusioned by Labour’s centrist shift under Starmer and the government’s perceived slowness at criticizing Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
That makes it fertile ground for the Green Party. Spencer said a win for the Greens would “send shock waves through the political establishment.”
Starmer on Wednesday railed against Green drug policies and urged voters to back Labour to counter Reform’s “hate and division.”
In part, the contest echoes the challenge from populist upstarts faced by mainstream parties around the world.
But some of Starmer’s problems are of his own making.
The British leader has endured a string of setbacks since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024. He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living. He pledged a return to honest government after 14 years of Conservative government that ended in scandals and chaos, but has been beset by missteps and U-turns over welfare cuts and other unpopular policies.
The lackluster performance sparked discontent among Labour lawmakers that was ignited into crisis by revelations about former U.K. ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson in a trove of Jeffrey Epstein files released by authorities in the United States last month.
Police are investigating emails suggesting Mandelson passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. Mandelson was arrested and questioned by detectives this week before being released on bail. He does not face any allegations of sexual misconduct.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September 2025 after evidence emerged that the ambassador had maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.
The recent revelations reignited Labour lawmakers’ anger at Starmer’s poor judgment in appointing Mandelson to the Washington job, and pushed some to call for his resignation. After the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland joined those calls earlier this month, Starmer’s chief of staff and communications director quit, and his premiership teetered on the brink.
Starmer vowed to fight on, and got a reprieve after potential leadership rivals publicly backed him. But his position remains precarious.
If Labour loses on Thursday, Starmer will face questions about why the party blocked Andy Burnham, the popular Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, from running. Burnham is widely seen as a potential leadership rival to Starmer.
A loss also would bolster those who argue that the government’s efforts to win over “Reform-curious” voters with policies aimed at curbing immigration have alienated many liberal Labour voters.
The next national election does not have to be held until 2029, meaning the main threat to Starmer comes from within his own party.
Ford said a narrow Labour victory in Gorton and Denton “will buy him a reprieve,” but Starmer still faces peril after May 7 elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and local councils in England, when Labour is expected to do badly.
“It remains to be seen whether the (special election) result panics them into making a challenge now, or whether they bide their time and make a challenge in May — which is likely to be even more gruesome,” Ford said.
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session in parliament in London, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has delivered the State of the Union. Now the challenge for him is to make that message stick.
His address on Tuesday was a declaration of pride in the achievements of his still-young second term, as he boasted of an economic renaissance at home while he's imposed a new world order abroad. Trump is getting his first opportunity to test drive that midterm year message later this week, when he travels to Texas, where the Latino voters whose shift toward Trump in his successful 2024 reelection campaign highlighted how he had reshaped the Republican coalition.
The White House is aiming to promote that message to a broader electorate that is largely disenchanted with Trump’s job performance, while a looming conflict in the Middle East threatens to shift focus away from his domestic priorities. Trump also has a proclivity to go off-script during political rallies, such as during a speech last week in Rome, Georgia, asserting that he’s “solved” affordability when high prices remain a chief concern for voters.
Still, the themes of economic prosperity and a more secure America that Trump emphasized in his 108-minute speech Tuesday night will underpin the broader narrative that he and his fellow Republicans will seek to sell to voters this November.
“This is going to be setting the tone for the following year,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who has close ties with Trump, told The Associated Press.
Presidents often travel immediately after delivering the State of the Union to amplify their agenda. President Joe Biden, for instance, went to swing states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania the day after his speech in the last two years of his term.
Vice President JD Vance will be first to hit the road with a Thursday visit to a Wisconsin factory. Trump won’t leave the Washington area until Friday, when he heads to Texas, to talk about the economy and energy policies just days ahead of the state’s March 3 congressional primaries. Rather than hitting the road, the president will spend much of the day after his State of the Union participating in meetings at the White House, including policy sessions and a sit-down with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
But Trump — who wove a series of made-for-social media surprises into his address — is known for being able to command attention in a fractured news environment, and he is likely to find other ways to break through aside from the usual post-State of the Union blitz.
“Donald Trump is a master at the big moments, so he obviously cares a lot about how the speech goes, but what he cares a lot about are the clips that get replayed over and over again from the State of the Union,” said Austin Cantrell, who served as an assistant White House press secretary in Trump’s first term.
Cantrell, who is now with the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based firm Bridge Public Affairs, said: “I don’t expect this to be some Aaron Sorkin-esque, perfectly choreographed post-State of the Union media fan-out.”
Six years ago, it was Trump’s move to award conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, that surprised the audience. Tuesday's address — record-breaking in its length — included similar attention-grabbing moments. He said he would give the same honor to Connor Hellebuyck, goaltender for the U.S. men's hockey team, fresh off winning a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy. Trump called Hellebuyck and his teammates into the House chamber, where they were greeted with roaring applause.
Trump also used his speech to roll out some new proposals to address affordability concerns, while castigating Democrats for opposing policies that he said have led to a more prosperous, safer America. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, in Democrats' response, argued that costs remain high for many Americans and that families are still struggling under Trump’s policies.
Trump called on both parties to “protect American citizens, not illegal aliens,” and pushed for measures to limit mail-in ballots and tighten voter identification rules, while warning about the dangers of unchecked, illegal migration.
“I do think a lot of the success outlined in the State of the Union will be a part of the Republican message in the fall,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., another close Trump ally, told the AP, pointing to the GOP's achievements on tax policy and border security. “As far as the president is concerned, I think he'll be anxious to get on the road and talk about the success.”
Senior White House officials have promised that Trump will travel the country regularly until the midterms. He so far has hit critical battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina on his economy tour, but he also traveled to reliably conservative Iowa and the congressional district of former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. He has boosted candidates — in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, he bantered with Republican Michael Whatley and promoted his Senate run — while sometimes veering far away from the economic points the trips are meant to emphasize.
Just the optics of leaving Washington can help telegraph to voters that a president cares about connecting with them. Edward Frantz, a historian at the University of Indianapolis, said Herbert Hoover — an engineer, self-made millionaire and technocrat — believed he could solve the nation's ills by working with his team in isolation and rarely leaving Washington. That led to a perception among voters that Hoover simply didn't care, because they didn't see him connecting with Americans.
“If you think about a call and response ... the call is the State of the Union, and if you really do care about being in touch with others, then what's the response?" Frantz said. “The best way to be able to see that is by hitting the road.”
How Americans feel about Trump has remained relatively stable throughout his second term, making it unlikely that one speech will meaningfully shift the way he’s perceived. His approval rating has changed very little during his second term, Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling has found, falling only slightly from 42% in March 2025 to 36% in early February.
Nevertheless, the annual address offers Trump the chance to reframe his message, just as it has for presidents who came before him.
Presidential historian Timothy Naftali pointed out that in 1996, Bill Clinton used his State of the Union to set the themes of his Democratic reelection campaign. After George W. Bush’s midterm drubbing in November 2006, the Republican struck a noticeably more conciliatory tone toward the new Democratic leadership that had just taken charge on Capitol Hill.
“The State of the Union, they’re less important than they once were because with a president like Trump, he’s always available,” said Naftali, a senior research scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. “But the State of the Union is an opportunity to reset the president’s agenda or to reaffirm it, and resetting an agenda in the social media era is different from resetting it in previous times.”
Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report.
Vice President JD Vance arrives before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump applauds with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson of La., as he delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., speaks to members of the media at the Capitol, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., arrives before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
President Donald Trump exits the House Chamber after delivering the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
