7 left-wing groups to watch in 2026

This year doesn’t just mark the 250th anniversary of the United States—it also means another year of President Donald Trump’s second term and impending midterm elections.

Last year, we saw the same leftist groups that staffed and advised the Biden administration gear up to oppose the president’s agenda, from filing lawsuits to block his executive orders to advising illegal aliens on how to evade immigration officers.

Trump is remaking the executive branch and planning another bill for the reconciliation process, but the Left won’t just bend over. Here are a few left-wing activist groups to watch in the year ahead.

The ACLU

Many left-wing groups have sued the Trump administration this past year, but the American Civil Liberties Union stands out. In its 2025 annual report, the ACLU touted having filed “over 110 lawsuits—53 of them within the first 100 days of the president’s second term.”

Thanks to rogue district court judges, the ACLU celebrated having “defeated, diluted, or delayed President Trump’s unconstitutional agenda” in 70% of cases. Many of these victories involved a judge issuing a temporary injunction against the administration, only to have the injunction lifted on appeal.

The ACLU fought to block Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations; it sued to protect the “birthright citizenship” abuse of the 14th Amendment; it claimed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act must cover abortion; and it sued on redistricting to enhance “Black voting power” in Alabama and Louisiana. It also released videos training illegal aliens to avoid immigration officials.

Every time the Trump administration acts to restore sanity in government, expect the ACLU to take Trump to court.

Sixteen Thirty Fund

Sixteen Thirty Fund, a key arm of the Left’s dark money network, bankrolls left-leaning groups, Democrat campaigns, and ballot initiatives across the U.S.

Sixteen Thirty Fund spent nearly $311 million in the 2024 election cycle, funding super PACs that supported Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats running for U.S. Senate in red states. It backed an abortion ballot initiative in Florida and opposed redistricting in Ohio.

The dark money nonprofit also sponsors a project called Chorus, which trains pro-Democrat social media influencers.

Arabella Advisors, which provided management services to Sixteen Thirty Fund and other left-leaning nonprofits, has ostensibly disappeared, but one of its successor organizations (Sunflower Services) is still working with the 501(c)(3) “sisters” of Sixteen Thirty Fund. It remains unclear whether Sixteen Thirty Fund will have any relationship with Sunflower Services or with Vital Impact, the firm led by Arabella Advisors’ former CEO.

Sixteen Thirty Fund will likely support Democrats running for Senate, ballot initiatives, and redistricting campaigns ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The Center for American Progress

The Center for American Progress, an influential leftist think tank that fed dozens of staff into the Biden administration, has also opposed Trump.

In April, the Center for American Progress launched a map showing which congressional districts were ostensibly hurt by the grants terminated due to the Department of Government Efficiency.

In December, the center released a report condemning “climate deniers” in Congress and in the administration, suggesting everyone in positions of authority must agree with the climate alarmist narrative.

Expect the Center for American Progress to make more moves ahead of the midterms.

National Democratic Redistricting Committee

Trump is attempting to shore up Republicans’ slim majority in the House of Representatives by engaging in redistricting, the process of redrawing the maps of congressional districts, after the 2020 census short-changed Republican-leaning states. Meanwhile, many on the Left have long pushed redistricting for political purposes. Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder, for example, established a nonprofit dedicated to giving Democrats an edge in redistricting.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee gave $150,000 to the Virginia House Democratic Caucus and another $150,000 to Democrat candidate Abigail Spanberger’s campaign before the off-year elections this past November, and Virginia Democrats backed a redistricting constitutional amendment one day afterward.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee has opposed redistricting efforts in Texas and Florida, and it celebrated the failure of Indiana’s redistricting bill.

In July, the committee released a list of 13 priority states for 2025 and 2026, targeting next year’s governor’s races in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations

The Council on American-Islamic Relations bills itself as the largest Muslim civil rights group in America, but it recently sued Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida because they designated CAIR a foreign terrorist organization.

CAIR has pushed the narrative that Israel is engaging in genocide in Gaza, opposed Trump’s deportations, and designated a sitting Republican U.S. senator an “anti-Muslim extremist.“

CAIR does not align with other leftist groups on every issue. Notably, it defends Muslim parents’ rights to opt their kids out of LGBTQ lessons in school. However, it often teams up with other left-wing groups, particularly the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Following the Minnesota fraud scandals, which heavily involved the majority Muslim Somali community, and the Afghan national’s November attack on National Guard members in Washington, D.C., Republicans are raising the alarm about radical Islam. Expect CAIR to lead the charge in demonizing these concerns.

The Southern Poverty Law Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center has weaponized its history of suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, putting mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” with Klan chapters. This map allows the SPLC to demonize its opponents and scare donors into ponying up cash. This strategy has contributed to the SPLC’s massive wealth, even while the “hate map” has inspired violence against conservatives.

Republicans have rightly drawn attention to the SPLC’s close relationship with the Biden administration, hosting a hearing on the SPLC.

Under Trump, the FBI has sworn off the SPLC, and the SPLC appears to be losing influence in corporate America, as well. That said, many on the Left still defend the organization, and it seems likely the SPLC will break new ground in demonizing conservatives next year. This year, it added Turning Point USA to the “hate map,” just months before Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

The American Federation of Government Employees

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest public-sector union in the federal government, has fought to insulate the bureaucracy from Trump’s agenda. In doing so, it seeks to protect what amounts to a fourth branch of government, unaccountable to the people’s elected representatives.

AFGE sued to block Trump’s reductions in force, his executive order blocking collective bargaining for federal employees in national security roles, the termination of contracts that unions negotiated in the final days of the Biden administration, and to undermine his DOGE efforts.

The union claimed that the president attacked “science itself” when questioning climate alarmism. It claimed Trump’s decision to eliminate so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in the federal government was a “smokescreen for firing civil servants.”

When Senate Democrats refused to pass a clean continuing resolution to fund the government during budget negotiations, leading to the longest government shutdown in American history, AFGE eventually tired of the charade and called on Congress to reopen the government.

Expect AFGE to continue to oppose Trump’s efforts to reform the federal government, advancing Democrat narratives against the president.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]