Bobby Pulido, 52, is a Tejano music star and two-time Latin Grammy winner. His songs are a staple at quinceañera celebrations, especially in South Texas. Now he’s entered politics: as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, he’s one of the Democratic Party’s top contenders to win at the November midterm elections and wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress from the Republicans. This would allow them to block President Donald Trump’s policies or even impeach him. And it would serve as a springboard to the ultimate prize: winning the White House in 2028.

His popularity and his place in the local culture are his trump card. His Republican rival, Mónica de la Cruz, attacked him in March: “This isn’t about who’s going to sing at your niece’s quinceañera. It’s about who you’re putting your family’s future in the hands of.” Within days, Pulido announced he would perform at any quinceañera party he was invited to: he claims to have received more than 3,000 requests. And he spends his weekends at these celebrations in his region, the Rio Grande Valley—a predominantly Latino area near the Texas border—an ideal opportunity to cultivate voters. The campaign slogan that emerged from this episode, “Make Quinceañeras Great Again,” is a mockery of Donald Trump’s MAGA slogan, but also a vindication of local culture.

“I think the Democratic Party sometimes tends to be overly intellectual in its rhetoric. But people often don’t want you to use jargon they might not understand. They want you to speak simply. I feel that’s something we have to change so that people can understand exactly what we’re saying,” the musician said during a phone interview. He announced his jump into politics last year, convinced that “democracy is in danger.” The idea had crossed his mind before, but he had put it aside as his music career took off.

He says he wants to solve the problems of ordinary people: soaring prices, access to affordable health insurance. “Being famous helps in the sense that people know who you are. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to vote for you. What does help is that they’re interested in hearing answers to what they want to know, and we’re generating that interest,” he says, noting that he has already visited every county in a district spanning more than 500 kilometers from end to end.

It’s the 15th district, where Democrats were once the dominant party, but where Republican positions have been gaining strength. De la Cruz became the first Republican in over a century to win this district in 2022, and it’s now being contested by Pulido. In 2024, the current president, Donald Trump, won by 17 percentage points.

For the Democrats, the House until recently seemed within reach: they only need to gain three more seats to secure a majority out of the 435 available seats. The Senate is a more difficult task, since only a third of the seats are up for grabs, and most of those are already in the hands of the opposition, which needs to defend them.

But in the last couple of weeks, Democrats have suffered a series of setbacks that make those aspirations a bit more difficult. The Supreme Court issued a ruling last week that, for all intents and purposes, nullifies the 1965 law that protected minority representation in elections. Republican states in the South have rushed to implement—Tennessee being the first—new district boundaries that guarantee their candidates victories in perpetuity. This Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a local district reform, approved by voters last month, that would have guaranteed Democrats four more seats in Congress.

Despite the setbacks, Democrats are elated by their chances of success. In the Senate, where they need to gain four more seats, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is optimistic about achieving this in New Hampshire, Alaska, North Carolina, and Ohio. Almost every primary election held in the last year has either favored the Democrats or improved upon the party’s 2024 results. Polls show a six-percentage-point lead in voter intention for Democrats, with 50% compared to 44% for Republicans. Even the online betting site Polymarket gives Democrats an 83% probability of winning a majority in the House of Representatives, compared to a 17% probability that Republicans will retain it.

Strategists point out that it is common for the ruling party to lose seats in midterm elections: in 2010, Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63 in the House and six in the Senate; in 2018, Donald Trump gained two in the Senate, but lost 40 in the House.

The president’s unpopularity, stemming from immigration enforcement excesses earlier this year in Minnesota and other states, the war in Iran, and rising fuel prices, represents another favorable factor: a Pew Research Center poll indicates that only 34% of voters approve of the president’s performance, while 62% disapprove. An influential Republican political support and fundraising group, AFP Action, acknowledged last week in a memo, first reported by Politico, that “the Republican majority in the Senate is in danger.”

Democrats believe they’ve found a formula. Their Congressional Democratic Campaign Committee has expanded its “Red to Blue” program to support candidates with a chance of flipping districts currently held by their rivals. The original slate of 12 hopefuls in February has now grown to 18, in 12 different states, from California to Pennsylvania. Pulido is one of them.

The Democratic candidate model

The 18 candidates offer a clue as to the type of candidate the Democratic Party is considering for the upcoming elections, and possibly even beyond. They are a very diverse group. There are men and women, white and from minority groups. There are celebrities like Pulido; familiar faces in their states such as Marleen Galán-Woods, a former television journalist, mother of five and second-generation Cuban-American running for Arizona’s 1st district. There’s also physician and state representative Jasmeet Bains in California, and the firefighter and union leader Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania. What they mostly have in common is that they are relatively new to politics and moderate in their views, people with whom the party hopes voters can connect. The Republican Party, in a statement, describes them as “radical extremists, out of touch with reality, hate-mongers, and elitist.”

“We can’t lose again,” Galán-Woods declared in a phone interview, highlighting her “disciplined and competitive campaign and community support” as key strengths, given her more than 40 years of residence in her district. For the former television journalist, this is her second attempt to reach the Capitol in Washington, following a previous defeat. She still needs to win a primary before becoming the official candidate. Galán-Woods, whose husband is a former Republican mayor of her hometown, boasts of being “with the working people” and promises to collaborate with the opposing party to achieve common goals. “I want to work to lower the cost of gas, food, medicine… I’m interested in working with anyone in Congress, regardless of their ideology, on these issues that matter to all of us.”

“Democrats have the momentum to regain the majority,” said Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in a statement: “These latest additions to our Red to Blue platform represent the strength of our people-first message and the charisma of our candidates.”

A preview of 2028?

Could these be a preview of the party’s strategy for 2028? Perhaps. Although the 2028 strategy “is a whole different ballgame,” a former high-ranking Democratic official joked in a recent conversation. His opinion echoed that of Michelle Obama, wife of former President Barack Obama, in controversial remarks earlier this year, following the defeats of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024. The former first lady suggested that the United States is not yet ready for a female president. “As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready,” she said. “Don’t even look at me about running ‘cause you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman.”

The former Democratic official predicts that in the upcoming presidential election, “Democrats will play it safe” when choosing a candidate: “No innovative formulas that could alienate voters.” In his opinion, that means a white, Christian, heterosexual male candidate.

“Would I like to see a woman in the Oval Office? Of course. Would I want to see a Black president again, like Barack Obama, or one from another minority group? You bet I would. But in the upcoming election cycle, it doesn’t seem like that’s the right time,” he noted. “We don’t want to try to make history again. What we want is to win.”

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Not so long ago, in the final decades of the 20th century, the United Nations was the arbiter of international law, and its secretary-general was almost a full‑time peacemaker. Today, negotiations to resolve wars and conflicts fall to businesspeople friendly with U.S. President Donald Trump or to third-party countries, often emerging powers (Qatar as mediator in Gaza, or Pakistan in the war against Iran), which have co-opted the organization’s historic role as interlocutor. On the eve of electing its next secretary-general, the U.N.’s peacemaking dimension takes on particular significance after the organization’s paralysis in recent conflicts: Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Iran, Lebanon…

Historian Thant Myint-U, a former U.N. official and mediator in the Myanmar peace process, recently asked on social media: “Where is the secretary-general of the United Nations in today’s [Iran] war? An impartial mediator, appointed by the entire world, who’s on good terms with all the big powers (and can easily be scapegoated if things go wrong) is precisely what’s needed to find face-saving pathways to deescalation for all sides. This is what U.N. secretaries-general did — often with remarkable success — for decades, especially between 1955-1990.”

One of those peacemakers was his grandfather, the Burmese diplomat U Thant, who was U.N. secretary-general between 1961 and 1971 and helped resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, with a peace plan accepted by both U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Russian president Nikita Khrushchev.

The historian notes that Pakistan is currently doing the work of past U.N. secretaries-general with regard to Iran. “But every now and then, including in cases of potential nuclear escalation, someone called the secretary-general of the United Nations may be indispensable in crafting an exit. Everything else the U.N. did should be theatre that ensures that the prestige of this actor was retained, for when the world needed the person most,” he wrote, as criticism mounts regarding the organization’s apparent irrelevance.

The Security Council’s paralysis and the U.N.’s mounting failures now amount to what looks very much like a reputational — even legitimacy — problem. The organization’s paralysis — for some, outright ineffectiveness — has taken deepest root in the Middle East, where Israel repeatedly disregards Security Council resolutions.

Today, peacemaking in the region seems to have been privatized, as demonstrated by Trump’s so-called Gaza Board of Peace: a corporation where diverse interests intersect, many of them economic, such as those of the U.S. president’s chief negotiators, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his friend, the businessman Steve Witkoff, special envoy for peacekeeping missions (the official title of his position), both of whom have multimillion-dollar investments in the countries with which they are negotiating.

Then there is lobbyist Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, whom many still criticize for his support of the Iraq War in 2003. In his role as an executive member of the Board of Peace — for many, a parallel U.N. that overlaps with its functions — Blair has urged the organization to back Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip: “Gaza is the test for all of us.”

The four candidates for secretary-general (Michelle Bachelet, Rebeca Grynspan, Rafael Grossi, and Macky Sall) were recently examined before the 193 members of the General Assembly and representatives of civil society. One of the eight sections of the agenda was precisely “peacekeeping and peacebuilding,” because without fulfilling this function, it is difficult to preserve the organization’s core purpose.

“The U.N. has lost a great deal of credibility as a peace institution at a time when wars are on the rise and the Security Council is regularly deadlocked on how to react to major conflicts,” Richard Gowan, director of the Global Affairs and Institutions Program at the International Crisis Group, recently explained to this newspaper. “The secretary-general cannot achieve world peace alone. But a savvy secretary-general could play a more significant role in secondary diplomacy with Beijing, Moscow, and Washington on how to manage future conflicts. [Current Secretary-General António] Guterres has often seemed rather fatalistic about his inability to play a significant role in managing major wars. Diplomats want his successor to take more risks.”

“Lords of peace”

The Trump model seems to indicate that, just as there are infamous warlords, there appear to be mercenary “lords of peace,” starting with Kushner and Witkoff. But the U.N.’s capacity will not be complete if its largest contributor — the U.S. — does not settle its debts (more than $1.5 billion) to ensure the proper functioning of the organization and its costly peacekeeping missions.

“With timely funding, the new secretary-general should emphasize the organization’s traditional role in working for peace and security. A good first objective would be eastern Congo; another, working toward a peaceful Syria amid its internal discord,” explains George A. Lopez, professor emeritus of peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “In each case, it would be useful to have a secretary-general who, in the interest of budgetary constraints and a pragmatic vision, works with the World Bank and other international financial institutions to inject real resources of money and expertise that can further incentivize peace options as a smart choice.”

“Despite the fact that some members of the Security Council are eager to put the secretary-general in a straitjacket, that leader must be a moral voice for the values ​​of the Charter, for peace in the face of unprecedented violence, and a defender of international law and especially international humanitarian law, even when nations that have respected those traditions may now be flouting them,” concludes Lopez.

The candidacy of Grynspan, the former vice president of Costa Rica, is boosted by her significant role as a negotiator of the 2022 Black Sea trade agreement, which allowed for the release of grain blocked in Ukrainian ports by the Russian invasion. At the time, Grynspan was serving as secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), an organization from which she has temporarily stepped down to focus on her candidacy.

When asked about this key role, the candidates for secretary-general have not gone into detail or put forward concrete proposals, because their hypothetical success depends on securing the approval of the General Assembly without antagonizing any of the five permanent members of the Security Council (where Grynspan seems well-positioned, given her work in 2022). Bachelet has proposed politically oriented and context-specific peacekeeping operations, rather than heavily militarized models, with an emphasis on gender perspective and regional alliances. Grynspan promises a new vision for peacekeeping operations, with simplified mandates tailored to each specific case.

Grossi, under fire for calling the potential election of the first woman to head the United Nations “symbolic,” has barely addressed the issue of peacekeeping and has called for renewed dialogue on funding. The Senegalese candidate, Macky Sall, has little chance, as he lacks the support of the African Union, a key regional player with a growing role in peacekeeping missions.

Barring any dark horses — the application period is still theoretically open — at the end of the selection process in the fall, the five permanent members of the Security Council (Great Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States) will largely determine the election of the next U.N. chief for a five-year term, beginning in 2027. This council, paralyzed by the veto power of its five permanent members, is the same one before which U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz recently requested U.N. assistance in resolving a problem caused precisely by Washington: the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

“The United Nations was built for times like this,” said Waltz, without a hint of embarrassment, while Trump remains intent on dismantling the organization.

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