Attorneys general to watch fight Trump in 2025
Democratic attorneys general are preparing for the fight of their careers against President-elect Donald Trump, who plans to begin mass deportations on “day one,” among many other cruel policies.
These top legal public servants are vowing to protect the constitutional rights of their residents, and some are crossing state lines to team up for the fight.
West
Kris Mayes, Arizona
Mayes assumed office in 2023, after beating the Republican candidate by 511 votes. The race involved significant attention to voting rights and election integrity. Her focus is on fighting fraud, cyber scams, and elder abuse as well as pushing back against extremist attacks on reproductive rights, prosecuting political corruption, and protecting voting rights.
"I do not believe, in electing Donald Trump, Arizona voters voted to shred the U.S. and Arizona constitutions,” she said shortly after the presidential election. “And if Donald Trump tries to do that, he'll have to go through me first.”
Rob Bonta, California
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Bonta in 2021. He’s the first person of Filipino descent and only second Asian-American to be the state’s attorney general. His top priorities are stopping gun violence, helping victims of crime, and protecting civil rights and reproductive rights.
Bonta has a $25 million legal war chest to fight Trump.
"Let me be clear, President-elect Trump's immigration agenda is draconian and his rhetoric, xenophobic," said Bonta at a recent press conference. "We're issuing updated policies to guide institutions and their staff in complying with California law limiting state and local participation in immigration enforcement activities.”
Phil Weiser, Colorado
Weiser has been Colorado’s attorney general since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He has used his office to protect the Endangered Species Act, fight fraud, ensure the state’s right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars, and hold the Sackler family—which owned Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive drug OxyContin—accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic.
“It's hard to know exactly what’s coming. We’re going to be ready for a range of scenarios,” he told ABC News on Nov. 21 regarding Trump’s mass deportations. “We’re going to make sure that we operate by the law. … We’re worried about citizens. We’re worried about people’s spouses, grandparents, getting swept up in these indiscriminate raids.”
Anne Lopez, Hawaii
Lopez has served the Aloha State since 2022. Her top priorities are increasing access to health care and expanding affordable housing. Lopez and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green are amassing a $10 million legal war chest against Trump. They joined other blue states in preparing a coalition against the Trump administration.
Aaron Ford, Nevada
Ford has served since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He’s the first Black person to hold the office in Nevada's history.
“It would be a lie to say that President-elect Trump’s upcoming term does not concern me, based on his prior disregard for the law,” Ford said. “Though there are many areas which concern me, including reproductive rights and antitrust protections, I will pay close attention to any action that seems like it may run afoul of the law.”
Raúl Torrez, New Mexico
Torrez was sworn into office in 2023. His priorities are protecting democracy, crime prevention, and reproductive health care access. Earlier this year, he released a report on the criminal investigation into New Mexico’s fake-elector scheme, which Trump promoted.
“It is disgraceful that New Mexicans were enlisted in a plot to undermine democracy and thwart the peaceful and orderly transfer of power,” he said in a statement in January.
Dan Rayfield, Oregon
Rayfield will be sworn into office in January 2025. His incoming priorities are gun violence, substance abuse and homelessness, reproductive health care access, consumer and worker protections, and environmental policy.
“The values in Oregon are extremely clear when it comes to abortion access,” he recently said in an interview with local news. “An overwhelming majority of Oregonians support abortion access here in our state, and so as an attorney general representing the values of our state, Project ‘25 and some of the things that they want to do when it comes to abortion access are deeply concerning.”
Nick Brown, Washington
Brown will be sworn in January 2025. He’s recently been vocal about the “uniquely dangerous threats” Trump will bring with his second administration.
“Make no mistake, I do view the threats from the next Trump administration as profoundly serious and as uniquely dangerous to some of the protections and interests here in Washington state,” he said on Dec. 3.
Midwest
Kwame Raoul, Illinois
Raoul has served as attorney general since 2019. His focus is on climate laws, such as energy efficiency standards, and fighting against unlawful pharmaceutical practices.
In 2018, he spoke out against Trump's attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act. A week later, he joined other Democratic attorneys general by opposing Trump’s cruel policy of family separation. In September, the court granted his judgment that Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower violated the state’s environmental laws. He and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser have drawn up a playbook to fight Trump.
“For years, Trump Tower failed to follow state and federal regulations that protect the health of the Chicago River and the balance of critical aquatic ecosystems therein,” Raoul said. “All entities—no matter who they are—must be held accountable when they willfully disregard our laws.”
Dana Nessel, Michigan
Nessel assumed office in 2019 and was the first openly gay person to be elected to statewide office in Michigan. She has gained national attention for her work on consumer protection, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ+ issues, and political corruption. This year, Nessel spoke at the Democratic National Convention in support of Harris.
In November, Nessel wrote an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press slamming Trump’s Cabinet picks as showing “disdain for victims of sex assault.”
“With these nominations, we are telling survivors of sexual assault that they don’t matter, that their trauma is meaningless and that they should stay silent,” she said. “And they will.”
Keith Ellison, Minnesota
Ellison began serving in 2019 and was reelected in 2022. He’s the first Black American and Muslim American to hold the office in Minnesota's history. Ellison has worked on issues related to the protection of workers and environmental advocacy, and played a prominent role in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd in 2021.
“If [Trump] violates the rights of people, we're gonna sue, it's simple as that,” he told reporters.
Josh Kaul, Wisconsin
Kaul has served since 2019. He launched an investigation into Trump’s fake-elector scheme in the 2020 election.
“We have been tested in this office,” Kaul said in a press conference on Nov. 8. “If the new administration infringes upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or attempts to use our system of justice as a tool for vengeance, we will act.”
He also chimed in on his office’s effort to protect reproductive rights.
“Folks are worried about what the future holds for women’s ability to make their own reproductive health care decisions,” he added. “Those kinds of actions are wrong and we are committed at the Department of Justice to standing up against them.”
East
William Tong, Connecticut
Tong has served as attorney general since 2019. In 2020, he was part of a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration over the rollback of environmental regulations related to climate change and air-quality standards.
“Number one, we don’t know how it’s going to go down,” Tong told a group of residents after Trump’s victory. “We know it’ll likely be aggressive, and hardly a day went by when I first became attorney general that I didn’t get a phone call about an undocumented person in a church or somewhere, and what do we do? That was bad, but I expect it to be 10 times that.”
Kathy Jennings, Delaware
Jennings has served the state since 2019 and was reelected in 2022. Her top priorities are corporate accountability, “making Delaware a safer place to live and raise our children,” and improving the justice system for all.
In 2022, she criticized the GOP for spreading lies about the 2020 election that led to the violent Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. “The fact that 18 Republican attorneys general who are sworn to uphold the rule of law tried to subvert it is profoundly disturbing,” Jennings said. “Even in Delaware, our president’s home state, our state Republican Party filed a lawsuit that attempted to throw out 80,000 vote-by-mail ballots in our small state. That’s about 16% of all the ballots our state cast in the general election.”
Brian Schwalb, District of Columbia
Schwalb was sworn into office in 2023. His priorities are enhancing public safety and protecting young people, promoting equity and opportunity within the District, tackling the rise in hate crimes, and defending democracy in the wake of Jan. 6.
In 2023, Schwalb opened an investigation against Leonard Leo, a Trump ally and architect of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, on allegations of violating nonprofit tax laws.
Aaron Frey, Maine
Frey has served since 2019 and was reelected for his fourth term in November. Frey has worked to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable and joined the multistate coalition opposing Trump.
“I will be an open and willing partner to communities and organizations working for a humane immigration system,” Frey said shortly after this year’s election.
Frey added that he joined 20 other state attorney generals to respond to immigration policies of Trump’s second term, and make sure that “the Constitution and the laws of Maine are upheld in the coming years.”
Anthony Brown, Maryland
Brown was sworn in as attorney general in 2023. He is the first Black American elected attorney general of the state. His focus is on protecting democracy and the right to vote, legalizing cannabis, protecting reproductive rights, and preventing gun violence.
“Preserving the rule of law in service of justice for every Marylander remains my highest priority,” Brown said in a statement the day after the election. “The Office of the Attorney General will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure the rights of Marylanders are protected, regardless of changes at the federal level.”
Andrea Campbell, Massachusetts
Campbell took office in 2023 and is the first Black woman to serve as attorney general in Massachusetts' history. Her priorities are criminal justice reform, consumer protection, and environmental justice. Earlier this year, she campaigned for “dear friend” Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Campbell said she’s prepared to defend the state’s abortion-provider shield law against Trump. The law protects providers from legal action if their practice goes against other states’ abortion laws.
Matt Platkin, New Jersey
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy appointed Platkin to the position in 2022. Platkin played a significant role in advancing legal issues related to criminal justice reform, environmental protections, and economic policy.
“Rest assured, we are ready to step in and I will be prepared to sue him and see him in court,” Platkin said after Trump’s win. “It is not something I wake up every day dying to do. It is not the reason that I was honored to take this job. But it is something I’m now prepared to do to protect the residents of this state.”
Letitia “Tish” James, New York
James has served since 2018 and was reelected in 2022. She’s the first Black woman to hold the office, and Trump once called her “the WORST Attorney General in the U.S.”
In 2019, James launched a high-profile civil investigation into the Trump Organization to determine whether the company had engaged in fraud by inflating property values in financial statements. The case centered on whether these inflated valuations were used to secure favorable loans and avoid paying taxes. In September 2022, after a three-year investigation, James filed a $250 million lawsuit against Donald Trump and his children—Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump—and eventually increased it to $370 million.
The civil lawsuit is ongoing, and Trump has sought to have the case dismissed, but the courts have generally ruled against him.
"We've created contingency plans, so no matter what the next administration throws at us, we're ready,” she said the day after the election. “We're ready to respond to their attacks. We're ready to respond to any attempts to cut or eliminate any funding to the great state of New York."
Jeff Jackson, North Carolina
This year, Jackson won his election in a state that went to Trump. He’ll be sworn into office in January 2025. His priorities are tackling the fentanyl epidemic, consumer protection, and supporting law enforcement.
Peter Neronha, Rhode Island
Neronha has served since 2019 and has a history of fighting Trump during the president-elect’s first administration, during which he joined a coalition of Democratic attorneys general opposing Trump’s national emergency declaration regarding the U.S.-Mexico border.
Charity Clark, Vermont
Clark was sworn into office in 2023. Her top priorities are tackling climate change, fighting for small businesses and consumers, and criminal justice reform.
“The federal government can’t break federal statute. They can’t violate the Constitution, and it’s attorneys general like me who will represent the states in making sure that that doesn’t happen,” said Clark in an interview.
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