Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley isn’t caving to pressure to end the precedent of deferring to home-state senators on district court and U.S. attorney nominees — even after being called out over the weekend by President Donald Trump and his thwarted pick for top prosecutor in New Jersey.

“As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE,” the Iowa Republican wrote in a social media post Monday.

“A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not [have] the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t [have] the votes to get out of cmte,” he added.

Trump has tried to pressure Grassley for weeks to get rid of the so-called blue slip, the practice that allows senators to block a home-state district court or U.S. attorney nominee they don’t support.

Republicans got rid of the same precedent for appeals court nominees during Trump’s first term, but they have so far rebuffed Trump’s calls for them to do the same for district court and U.S. attorney nominations. Many GOP senators believe that if they bend to Trump’s demand now, it would only come back to bite them later, when they find themselves back in the minority and unable to stop nominees from a Democratic administration.

But the conflict with the White House got new fuel poured into it late last week when U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled that Alina Habba “is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney” in New Jersey and has been in the position without legal authority since July 1.

Trump had tried to keep Habba in charge of the office after her interim appointment expired. That effort included withdrawing her Senate nomination, which was already stalled because of opposition by New Jersey Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim.

In a Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump doubled down on his attempts to pressure Grassley to nix the blue slip, which the president called an “old and outdated ‘custom.’”

Trump continued: “The only candidates that I can get confirmed for these most important positions are, believe it or not, Democrats! Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!”

Habba also criticized Grassley and Sen. Thom Tillis by name Sunday morning, calling on them to revisit the blue slip precedent and allow her nomination and others to go through.

“This tradition that Senator Grassley is upholding effectively prevents anybody in a blue state from going through into Senate to then be voted on,” Habba said on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

“I would say to Senator Tillis and Senator Grassley, you are becoming part of the issue,” she added. “You are becoming part of the antithesis of what we fought for four years.”

Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said recently that he would continue to honor the blue slip for district court and U.S. attorney nominations even if the precedent was rescinded. That means he would oppose all relevant nominees who lacked support from their home state senators.

Grassley also noted in a subsequent X post Monday that the administration had withdrawn Habba’s nomination and that the committee “never received any of the paperwork needed for the Senate to vet her nomination.”

Spokespeople for Grassley and Tillis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

As Republicans look to flip House seats through redistricting in Texas and other red states, they have a pickup opportunity in what was once deep blue North Jersey, without having to redraw any lines.

In the state’s heavily Hispanic 9th Congressional District, the Democrat who was widely thought to be a shoo-in won by just five points last year, and President Donald Trump narrowly won the district after losing it the last two cycles. Yet, even amid talk of New Jersey becoming a purple state, just two Republican candidates have stepped forward to run in the district.

By contrast, in the one Republican-held seat Democrats have a realistic opportunity to pick up, in Central Jersey’s 7th District, Democrats are practically falling over each other to challenge two-term Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Nine Democratic candidates — including several with a proven ability to raise funds and made-for-campaign bios like former Navy Black Hawk pilot, physician and climate scientist — have declared their candidacies with nearly a year to go before the primary.

“Democrats in New Jersey feel like the stakes are existential — literally existential — in these midterm elections,” said Hunterdon County Democratic Chair Tom Malinowski, a former 7th District representative whom Kean ousted in 2022. “I’m not sure Republicans feel quite as strongly.”

Trump’s remarkably narrow six-point loss in New Jersey last year was widely seen as a sign one of the bluest states in the nation was turning purple. And there are other indicators that Democratic dominance is fading in the state. Since the 2020 election, Republicans have shaved Democrats’ statewide voter registration advantage from more than 1 million to 864,825. And in the 2021 election, Republican Jack Ciattarelli — yet again the GOP nominee for governor this year — came within just three points of ousting Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

But presidential elections turn out more lower-propensity voters than midterms. And wealthier suburban districts like the 7th have had higher turnout than the more working-class 9th. Candidate recruitment and fundraising are some of the few tangible measures of where the political winds are blowing. And in New Jersey’s 2026 House races, Democrats are so far dominating on both fronts.

“Republicans are calling the 9th a swing district. They’re talking about a potential investment,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “But I think they understand they’re not going to get the turnout they’re looking for in a midterm. I think it’s a different kind of priority than the 7th District, where turnout is not going to be as dependent on the presidential race.”

The heavy interest from Democrats seeking to oust Kean is reminiscent of the blue wave 2018 midterms, when Democrats flipped four New Jersey Republican-held House seats. Back then, seven Democrats lined up to run for the 7th District seat — and that was when the district boundaries made it slightly easier for Democrats to win it.

Even in South Jersey’s 2nd District, where Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew won reelection last year by 17 points, three Democrats have filed to run in 2026 — more than Republicans in the 9th District. The same goes for North Jersey’s 11th District, where three Democrats have already filed with the FEC to replace Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for governor, in case she wins the governorship this November and vacates the seat.

In the 9th District, Republican Billy Prempeh is running again in his fourth straight campaign for the seat since 2020, and just one other Republican has so far come forward: Rosemary Pino, a councilmember in Clifton. No one else has even teased a candidacy yet to take on Democratic freshman Rep. Nellie Pou, though Republicans are optimistic other candidates will emerge.

While national Republicans POLITICO spoke to had yet to commit to any candidates, Prempeh — who narrowly lost in 2024 — believes he can be their man.“I feel supported by the Republican Party. I think they see the same things that I see: This district is very winnable. I think I’m making the right choice,” he said in a phone interview.

But Prempeh, never a strong fundraiser, has barely raised anything for his next race. His last campaign finance report, filed mid-July, showed a balance of negative $634.

“We ran that race with under $50,000, while my opponent spent close to $500,000 against me,” Prempeh said. “I’m very good at running a race, even with small resources.”

Pino, as a Hispanic woman, could be a demographic ideal for a Republican candidate in the district. But she’s already demonstrated vulnerability. Shortly after she declared her candidacy, Prempeh pointed out that a group she led last year endorsed Pou against him.

Passaic County GOP Chair Peter Murphy, whose county makes up much of the district, said that it’s a tempting target for Republicans and that he sees more candidates emerging, including from next door in Bergen County. “I really do believe more Republicans are going to be coming out of the 9th district. I think you’re going to see a lot more coming. By the primary I could see four or five,” he said.

Meanwhile, Republicans are pointing to Central Jersey’s 7th District race as a potential mess, while noting Pou in the 9th District could face her own primary challenge.

Many of the Democratic candidates in the 7th live just outside the district, including Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy Blackhawk pilot and the first to declare. So far, she has captured the most attention from national Democrats. But several rivals have already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Republicans warn that in such a large primary, the candidates will work to drag the field to the left, hurting the eventual nominee’s chances in the general election.

Bennett said she felt called to run. “I can’t explain it any other way that a switch flipped in my brain, and I told my husband, ‘I have to run for office now,’” she said. “I really love this country. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution.”

Republicans see Pou as a potentially weak incumbent, never having had competitive general elections during her time in the state Legislature and already facing buzz about potential primary challengers, including from the mayor of Paterson, by far the largest city in the district.

Kean, by contrast, is a two-term incumbent with a family name that goes back generations in New Jersey. His father, Tom Kean Sr., is the state’s most popular former governor.

“Whoever prevails will be wearing the progressive crown, completely broke and too battered to even compete against Rep. Tom Kean Jr.,” said Maureen O’Toole, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Harrison Neely, a campaign consultant for Kean, said the field is “a clear signal of Democrat party chaos and disarray. They can’t unite behind a candidate because they have no organization, no vision and nothing to offer.”

In addition to Bennett, the 7th District field includes: Tina Shah, a medical doctor; Michael Roth, a former top official at the Small Business Administration; businessman Brian Varela; former Summit councilmember Greg Vartan; criminal justice professor Beth Adubato; attorney Valentina Mendoza; and little-known Michael Garth. Megan O’Rourke, a former Biden administration climate scientist, became the latest to declare her candidacy this month.

Democrats see echoes of the 2018 Democratic wave, when seven candidates filed to run in the district’s primary. Eventually, the field narrowed down to three, and the nominee — Malinowski — ousted Leonard Lance that November after 10 years in Congress.

Recent polling shows Trump is unpopular in New Jersey — between 11 points and 18 points under water, according to two recent polls. Still, that’s more popular than he was at this point in 2018.

The 7th and 9th Districts both encapsulate a shift in the Democratic and Republican coalitions. The wealthier, suburban and whiter 7th has many traditional Republican voters who began shifting left after Trump’s first election. That’s in contrast to the more working-class, Hispanic-plurality 9th, which has recently moved towards Republicans.

But so far, the signs point to a tough time flipping the 9th District in a midterm, said Rasmussen, the Rebovich Institute director.

“Republicans realize that their success in the 9th depends on presidential-level turnout that they’re not going to get in 2026,” he said. “They could get it again in 2028, although presumably Trump isn’t going to be on the ballot.”

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday slammed President Donald Trump’s statement that he might deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, as the White House flexes federal power in the name of fighting crime.

“We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular,” Jeffries told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Trump told reporters last Friday he was weighing sending troops to Chicago and New York, after federalizing Washington’s police department and bringing in the National Guard in mid-August.

Almost immediately, Illinois Democrats responded with force.

“An authoritarian power grab of major cities,” Gov. JB Pritzker called the move in a Friday post on X, placing it as the sole item on a list of “things People are NOT begging for” and needling Trump for his administration’s handling of the Epstein files. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said on X that deploying the national guard could “inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement” and “threaten to undermine the historic progress we have made” in fighting crime.

Democrats are skeptical of the president’s motivations, since crime in major cities — including Chicago — has been on a notable decline since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The National Guard troops detailed to the nation’s capital were authorized to carry “service-issue weapons” last week, and several Republican states have sent their own National Guard members to join the ones already dispatched to D.C. The Washington deployment will continue “for a while,” Trump said Thursday, even though nearly 80 percent of residents told a poll they oppose the president’s actions.

Jeffries pushed back on the notion that Democrats’ opposition to Trump’s national guard deployments meant the party isn’t serious about maintaining law and order, and accused the president of “exacerbating” the national mental health crisis that has contributed to violence.

“As Democrats, we want safer communities,” he told Bash. “We want to continue to make sure that crime can go down as it’s doing in Chicago, in New York, in Washington, D.C., and other places. And to do that, we should support local law enforcement. We should make sure that the flood of guns into these communities is cut off.”