campaign

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Noah Goldberg, Melissa Gomez and Sandra McDonald, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has had some pretty tough words over the years for Mayor Karen Bass and her administration.

Rodriguez, who is running unopposed in Tuesday’s election, repeatedly criticized Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people indoors, saying it lacked financial oversight. She voted against the mayor’s budget last year, saying too much was going to Inside Safe. She was especially harsh in the wake of the Palisades fire, saying that Bass’ team botched the first few months of the recovery.

That might make her an ideal person to endorse Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is running to unseat Bass in Tuesday’s primary and has leveled similar critiques. Instead, Rodriguez has emerged as an unexpected ally of the incumbent.

During the campaign, Rodriguez has appeared with Bass at events in Eagle Rock, Pacoima and even Sherman Oaks, located in Raman’s district. She popped up in a campaign flier from Latinos Por Karen Bass. And she’s been dinging Raman over everything from economic development to policies around outdoor barbecues.

Rodriguez explained her decision to support Bass in an interview, saying she views the incumbent as being far more willing to entertain opposing views than Raman — and understands that “not everyone thinks the same way.” Bass also is more consistent on the issues, Rodriguez said.

Raman, by contrast, has shifted her positions on police spending, the tax hike known as Measure ULA and even who should be the next mayor, jumping into the race after she endorsed Bass, Rodriguez said.

“I don’t know what she stands for,” she said.

Raman’s campaign declined to comment on Rodriguez’s remarks. But former former Deputy Mayor Rick Cole, a Raman supporter, said he is surprised to see Rodriguez line up behind Bass, given how critical she has been over the years.

“Monica is a self-described maverick, so it’s ironic that she’s thrown in with the establishment on this. But sometimes personalities play a role,” he said.

Rodriguez had been talked up at one point as a possible opponent of Bass in this year’s election. If Bass wins a second and final term, the mayor’s race would be wide open in 2030.

Pratt accuses Bass of electioneering

It was a small yet upbeat event staged by Bass’ reelection campaign: The mayor, accompanied by supporters chanting “four more years,” walking up to an official drop box and putting in her ballot.

That miniature rally, staged last weekend near the city’s Memorial Branch Library, was captured on video and circulated by Bass’ campaign. But it has drawn a complaint from mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, who accused the mayor of violating a state law prohibiting electioneering near a polling place or voter drop box.

In a complaint filed with the city clerk, Pratt attorney Peter McNulty said Bass and her supporters improperly solicited votes, waved campaigns signs and “engaged in blatant electioneering” near a voting location.

“Such clear violations of electioneering restrictions show a reckless disregard for the rule of law and an apparent belief that she need not comply with relevant restrictions that apply to all other candidates,” he wrote.

The Bass campaign pushed back on those allegations, saying the video features footage from two locations near the drop box. The portion that featured the Bass campaign signs was filmed 200 feet away — twice the distance required by law, said Alex Stack, a Bass spokesperson.

“Spencer is just mad that his supporters are AI cartoons and we have real Angelenos,” he said. “We follow the rules.”

Pratt’s lawyer said in his letter that he wants the city to investigate. He also filed a complaint with the state, citing the state election law that prohibits the dissemination of “visible or audible electioneering information” near a polling place or drop box.

Feldstein Soto flames Airbnb

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has been getting hit from both directions over the last few weeks.

On one side, a committee with at least $450,000 in funding from the Consumer Attorneys of California has been pumping out campaign ads promoting her opponent, Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy. On the other, a campaign committee heavily bankrolled by Airbnb is running ads for Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney, another opponent in the race.

Feldstein Soto has countered with a television ad that highlights her office’s lawsuit against Airbnb, which accuses the company of engaging in price gouging after the Palisades fire. Staring into the camera, Feldstein Soto said Airbnb and other special interests “are spending millions to try and get rid of me.”

“They think L.A. belongs to them,” she says. “I know it belongs to you.”

Feldstein Soto had raised about $860,000 for her campaign through May 16, compared with about $680,000 for Roy and about $122,000 for McKinney. But those fundraising efforts, which face strict limits under the city’s ethics laws, have been overshadowed by the unlimited spending from Airbnb and the others.

Angelenos for Progress, a pro-McKinney committee sponsored by the Central City Assn., received at least $2.1 million from Airbnb over the last month, pouring that money into campaign videos and television ads.

Justin Wesson, senior public policy manager for Airbnb in California, said in a statement that McKinney’s campaign platform is “focused on keeping Los Angeles communities safe and vibrant, including for Angelenos who share their home and their guests that contribute to the local economy.”

In recent weeks, Airbnb has been pushing the city’s elected officials to loosen L.A.’s home-sharing regulations, by allowing owners of second homes to lease their properties on short-term rental platforms.

Airbnb has put big money into other committees, including those that support Tim Gaspar, who is running to replace Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, and Jose Ugarte, who is running to replace Councilmember Curren Price.

Team Raman woos Huang, without success

We mentioned a few weeks back that Raman supporters have been noisily demanding that mayoral candidate Rae Huang drop out of the race, saying she was siphoning left-of-center votes away Raman. Turns out Raman’s campaign was trying to persuade her to pull the plug as well.

Raman campaign strategist Jeff Millman reached out to Huang advisor Bill Przylucki earlier this month about getting the community organizer to drop her mayoral bid, according to Huang spokesperson Emel Shaikh.

The overture from the Raman camp, first reported by LA Material, took place after the May 6 NBC LA debate but before a Fox debate planned for the next week, Shaikh said.

“She never really entertained the idea,” Shaikh said.

Raman, speaking with reporters on Friday, said she knew that people from both campaigns were conferring.

“I’m sure [Huang] was aware of it as well,” she said. “And I think we were really talking about how to achieve a bold, progressive vision for Los Angeles. Both of us got into this race because we felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo.”

Millman, a veteran of L.A. politics, worked for former Mayor Eric Garcetti and was a spokesperson for Austin Beutner’s mayoral bid before his campaign ended in January. After Beutner dropped out, he moved to the Raman campaign. Przylucki is the former executive director of the progressive nonprofit Ground Game LA.

Supporters of Raman contend that Huang doesn’t have a path to victory — and could deprive Raman of a chance to compete in the Nov. 3 runoff. Asked whether she feels the same way, Raman said she is focused on getting her voters to the polls.

At this point, Raman is neck and neck with Bass and slightly ahead of Pratt, according to a poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by The Times.

State of play

— A THREE-WAY RACE: Bass, Raman and Pratt are locked in a tight three-way contest, with the mayor holding a statistically insignificant lead in the run-up to Tuesday, the latest UC Berkeley-L.A. Times poll found. Bass had 26% support from likely voters, followed by Raman with 25% support and Pratt at 22%.

Bass, appearing at City Hall Thursday, said she’s not worried about failing to make the top two, telling an audience there are many polls that show different results. “I feel confident about Tuesday,” she said.

— AN EMBATTLED MAYOR: The Times took a look at Bass’ first term and the events that have put her political future in peril. Although some point to the city’s handling of the massively destructive Palisades fire, others say her troubles go much deeper.

— READING THE ROOM: While Bass has had difficulty managing the city, Raman faces a different issue: her struggle to forge working relationships with colleagues and allies. No one on the council, including those backed by the DSA, have endorsed her. Raman allies downplayed the issue, saying her strength is her independence.

— CUTTING CRIME: Even with L.A. experiencing fewer murders than at any point in 60 years, crime remains a potent issue in the mayor’s race. Pratt has been portraying the city as a lethal hellscape. Meanwhile, even some of Bass’ supporters have been shocked by how “aggressively pro-police she has been,” said former Councilmember Mike Bonin, who heads the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State, LA.

— DOWNTOWN IN THE DUMPS: Meanwhile, downtown business owners say they are struggling with crime, homelessness and aging infrastructure — all issues that have become central to the mayor’s race.

— LOVE, MOM: The mother of city controller candidate Zach Sokoloff has pumped at least $7.5 million into an independent expenditure campaign supporting him as he seeks to unseat City Controller Kenneth Mejia. The incumbent has accused the Sokoloff family of trying to buy the seat. Sheryl Sokoloff has declined to comment.

— SHERIFF SHOWDOWN: Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna is in a rematch against former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, while also facing six other opponents. (Villanueva was unseated by Luna in 2022.) The top two vote getters will head to the Nov. 3 runoff.

— WAITING FOR THE WAGE: The council finalized its plan to delay a series of minimum wage hikes for hotel and airport workers this week, ensuring that the wage won’t reach $30 until January 2030 instead of July 2028.

— D&D AND DSA: Democratic Socialists of America, whose L.A. chapter is campaigning for five candidates in the city election, took in $30,000 at a Dungeons & Dragons-themed fundraiser. The candidates took part in the action, playing fantasy characters who still keep one foot in the political world.

— CALLING THE COPS: Looking to prevent copper wire theft, the Department of Water and Power is seeking to create its own police force.

— OUT OF THE FRYING PAN: The council on Wednesday confirmed Gabrielle Amster as the latest general manager for the animal services department, which oversees the city’s network of animal shelters. Amster had been serving as vice president of shelter engagement for DocuPet, a national pet registration business, according to her resume.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? Bass’ signature initiative to tackle homelessness did not launch any new encampment operations this week.
• On the docket next week: The election, obviously! If you haven’t cast a ballot by mail, make sure you show up at a voting center!

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

PLANO, Texas — As it turned out, it would never be enough.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried for more than a year to show President Trump and Texas Republicans that he and the president were on the same team.

Cornyn posted a photo of himself reading Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.” He proposed legislation to rename a stretch of interstate in Trump’s honor. Perhaps most glaringly, the Senate institutionalist who long supported the filibuster reversed his position in a failed effort to advance voting restrictions that are a priority for the president.

None of it worked. On Tuesday, Cornyn became the latest in a line of Republicans who lost their primaries after falling out of favor with a president with little tolerance for dissent and a seemingly insatiable appetite for retribution. The four-term senator lost by double digits to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed last week as “a true MAGA Warrior.”

Cornyn, on the other hand, “was VERY disloyal to me,” Trump wrote on social media.

Trump’s intervention in the Texas runoff came after weeks of successfully backing primary challengers in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky as revenge against incumbents who broke with his agenda.

Cornyn’s attempt to avoid the same fate made even some of his supporters wince.

“You look at the positions he took to please the president and the groveling and whatever,” said former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican and Trump critic who didn’t seek reelection during the president’s first midterm in 2018. “It was rather painful to watch.”

Trump took an uncommonly equanimous approach to Tuesday’s results the following morning.

“Congratulations to Ken Paxton on such a tremendous win, and to John Cornyn for having run a strong and powerful race but, more importantly, having had a truly great career,” he wrote on social media. “John will remain my friend for a long time to come, as we both watch Ken become a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.”

Cornyn started early with ad touting pro-Trump voting record

Cornyn’s loss wasn’t for a lack of political gymnastics and astronomical campaign spending.

His campaign began running an advertisement last summer — part of an astounding nearly-$100-million air war by the senator and allied groups — with Cornyn looking into the camera and saying, “I voted with President Trump 99% of the time.”

On Cornyn’s campaign homepage, Trump and Cornyn stand side-by-side with thumbs pointed upward in an image aimed at projecting solidarity. Deeper in the website, the category titled “The Trump-Cornyn Record” notes the senator’s role securing votes for Trump’s signature 2017 tax cut bill.

Cornyn has also been championing provisions in Trump’s signature tax-and-spending legislation to finance work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The senator had dismissed the project as “naive” during Trump’s 2016 campaign. But in January, he stood along a section of completed wall in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley touting the measure’s $11 billion for Texas contractors’ work at “the direction of the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.”

Cornyn’s 2023 dismissal of Trump’s return glares in background

Cornyn’s praise for his party’s leader and president were not unusual, but they clash with a statement Cornyn made in May 2023, when Trump was mounting his presidential comeback campaign.

“Trump’s time has passed him by,” he told reporters. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”

Trump would go on to easily win the nomination and carry every battleground state in the general election.

Cornyn would hew closely to the president for the first 16 months of his second administration, hoping at the outside chance of his endorsement or to keeping him from weighing in at all.

But Trump did not forget the past slights.

“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” he wrote on social media while endorsing Paxton.

Smaller gestures, and one big one

Cornyn has playfully worked to promote Trump fandom, last year posting a picture on social media of himself thoughtfully peering into the pages of Trump’s 1987 memoir and business advice book, “The Art of the Deal.”

In a more obvious gesture, he proposed designating a section of a U.S. highway from the Texas Gulf Coast to Montana as “Interstate 47,” to honor a 47th president with a well-documented love of naming things after himself. In a news release about the proposal, filed just over two weeks before Tuesday’s runoff, Cornyn said it would be known as the “Trump Interstate.”

The more tectonic shift occurred in March, after Trump had teased a possible endorsement of either Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.

Paxton swiftly said he would consider dropping his candidacy if the Republican-controlled Senate lifted the filibuster and passed the SAVE America Act, a series of voting restrictions that Trump has described as an essential part of his agenda.

The following week, Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the New York Post — Trump’s favorite hometown newspaper — backing away from his previous support of the filibuster. He vowed to “support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to get the bill “through the Senate and on the president’s desk for his signature.”

Flake watched with unease.

“I know John and his long-held positions on the filibuster and the Senate’s institutions,” he said. “No office is worth that.”

Beaumont and Bedayn write for the Associated Press. Bedayn reported from San Antonio. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

PLANO, Texas — Texans are choosing a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election, bringing to a close the extended, bitter and expensive primary where President Trump weighed in late to tip the race in another effort to rid the GOP of leaders less devoted to him.

Trump’s endorsement of state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton over four-term Sen. John Cornyn gives the challenger a late boost and puts Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.

That’s despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90 million in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton.

It’s the latest GOP contest where Trump has sought to punish a Republican he sees as insufficiently loyal. This month, he has successfully backed challengers to incumbents in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.

Paxton’s campaign and a pro-Paxton super PAC began airing ads promoting the endorsement within 24 hours of Trump’s announcement. Cornyn acknowledged Trump’s move would have an impact but said he wasn’t giving up.

“I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas,” he said hours after the endorsement.

The winner will run in November against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.

Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic U.S. House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party hopes to flip.

The primary has been long, bitter and costly

Cornyn led Paxton in the March primary but failed to win a majority in the three-way contest that also included U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished in a distant third.

That was after Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups waged a monthslong ad campaign, mostly attacking Paxton for ethical and personal questions. The two-term attorney general was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial when allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds.”

The alliance of pro-Cornyn groups have continued its attack, outspending Paxton’s campaign and two allied super PACs $16.5 million to $5.9 million since March 3, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Trump promised to endorse immediately after the primary, asking the unchosen candidate to withdraw. But he didn’t act until after early voting began on May 18.

“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to win,” Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”

Pro-Cornyn groups lately have been airing ads criticizing the attorney general office’s handling of a Waco sex abuse case. Pro-Paxton groups had seized on Cornyn’s awkward relationship with Trump.

Trump snubs Cornyn amid retribution campaign

The negative tenor could diminish turnout in an election already complicated by coming a day after Memorial Day, Texas Republican strategist Tyler Norris said. About 2 million of Texas’ 18.7 million voters participated in the GOP primary.

The dynamic could favor Paxton, whose support draws from more of the most loyal Trump base in Texas, said Norris, who isn’t affiliated with either campaign.

“The defining battle lines are based around hyper-negative messaging, which dampens turnout to begin with,” he said. “So who is going to show up is the hardest of the hard core.”

Trump in his endorsement also poked at Cornyn, as he has done with other Republicans who are not in lockstep with the president.

He blasted Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy as “a Disloyal Disaster” on May 16, before Cassidy lost a GOP primary for the office he has held since 2015. The two-term senator had voted to convict Trump after his 2021 impeachment trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who advanced to a runoff with John Fleming, the state treasurer. Cassidy finished well behind them.

Last week, Trump celebrated as Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a critic of the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, lost his primary to Ed Gallrein. Trump called Massie “the worst congressman in the history of our country.”

In endorsing Paxton, Trump said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough” and that “John was very late in backing me.”

Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the presidency again in 2024 and that his “time has passed him by.” He also was an early critic of Trump’s plan for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — a project he now supports.

Senate GOP leaders backed Cornyn, saying he would be stronger in the general election. Some GOP strategists have argued a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority.

Democrats also will choose U.S. House nominees

Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee and veteran Rep. Al Green are vying for the party nod in Texas’ 18th District, which the Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew last year to help the GOP. The new map led to a contest between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections in the Houston area. Menefee was elected in a special runoff in January to the seat that had been held by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025.

Menefee finished narrowly ahead of Green in the March 3 primary but didn’t win a majority to avoid the runoff.

Former Rep. Colin Allred and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson are competing in the Dallas-area 33rd District. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid and instead is looking to return to the House.

Near San Antonio, Democratic leaders are trying to prevent Maureen Galindo, who has expressed antisemitic views, from winning the party’s runoff with Johnny Garcia. While Texas lawmakers redrew the 35th District to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and don’t want Galindo’s past comments to impede them.

Beaumont and Bedayn write for the Associated Press. Bedayn reported from Austin.

Corporations, labor unions, tech titans, Native American tribes and other special interests have donated a record-shattering $79.6 million to independent committees focused on swaying the volatile California governor’s race ahead of the June 2 primary.

Many of the largest backers to these committees will have significant business interests in front of the state’s next governor and state agencies, with hopes of either strengthening a candidate aligned with their political priorities or undercutting those who oppose them.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen IEs [or independent expenditures] have this kind of an impact on a governor’s race,” said veteran GOP strategist Martin Wilson, who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and worked on an outside effort backing San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s 2026 bid for governor. “It’s totally unprecedented.”

Election laws bar independent expenditure committees from communicating or coordinating with campaigns, allowing candidates to emphasize that they have no control over the money that pours into these outside groups. The wall between the two has long been viewed as performative and penetrable.

The greatest amount of outside spending has been directed at attacking billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer, a leading Democrat in the race.

Nearly $32.3 million had been donated to opposing his candidacy as of Monday, according to the California Target Book, a nonpartisan political almanac, which tracks independent expenditure committees. Among the major donors are utility giant PG&E, a political action committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Assn. of Realtors’ independent expenditure committee, which combined have utility, business, property tax and building issues affected by lawmakers and regulators in the state capital.

Independent expenditures supporting Steyer’s bid for governor have been minimal compared with the record-breaking $212 million Steyer has donated to his own campaign as of Monday, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Still, more than $1.4 million of outside money has been spent supporting his bid, largely by the California Nurses Assn., which shares his goal of creating single-payer healthcare.

Expenditure committees linked to Uber, the California Medical Assn., the kidney dialysis company DaVita and the California Dental Assn. contributed nearly $7.3 million to independent efforts backing former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) before he dropped out of the gubernatorial race in April because of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.

Several of those donors then coalesced behind former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra, who was struggling to connect with California voters before he surged to become a front-runner, recent opininon polls show. More than $13 million has been contributed to outside groups backing the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

The outside money has led to flashpoints in the race. Steyer points to corporations backing Becerra, such as a $500,000 Chevron donation to a group supporting him that was reported to state election officials on Thursday.

“The Becerra campaign was running out of gas until the latest half-million dollar influx from Chevron,” said Steyer spokesman Anthony York.

The message echoes a Steyer theme on the campaign trail — that candidates ought to be judged by who is supporting them and who is opposing them.

Becerra accused Steyer of misleading voters because the $500,000 from Chevron went to an independent expenditure committee supporting him that he has no control over. However, Becerra did receive a direct $39,200 contribution from the oil company to his campaign committee in June 2025.

“For him to say that I took the [$500,000] … that’s just an outright lie,” he said in a television interview this weekend. “It pains me to see that candidates for office believe that they have to descend to telling lies in order to gain favor with voters. If that’s what you do as a candidate, what will you do when you’re in the office?”

Steyer’s campaign, which used the Memorial Day weekend to attack Becerra with billboards highlighting high gas prices in Los Angeles and Fresno, said it was disingenuous for Becerra to feign ignorance of how the political system works.

“Chevron is charging Californians record gas prices on one hand and turning right around to spend $500,000 to elect Xavier Becerra with the other,” said Steyer spokesperson Danni Wang. “Now Becerra is playing semantic gymnastics trying to pretend voters are too stupid to understand how dark money in politics works. Californians aren’t buying it.”

Becerra’s campaign argued that such comments are the height of hypocrisy coming from a billionaire whose campaign is funded by his profits from a hedge fund that made investments that are opposed by many voters. Becerra said he continually took on oil companies when he served as California’s attorney general.

“Tom Steyer made his billions off fossil fuels and private prisons, then decided that qualified him to run California,” said Becerra spokesman Jonathan Underland. “He’s now attacking the only candidate in this race who actually held Big Oil’s feet to the fire and beat [President] Trump 100 times as [state attorney general]. The irony would be funny if Tom’s checkbook weren’t so thick.”

Mahan, a moderate Democrat, has benefited from $21.7 million in spending by outside groups backing him, while $570,000 has been spent by independent committees opposing him, according to the Target Book. The donors who supported his bid are a who’s who of Silicon Valley, including venture capitalists Michael Moritz and L. John Doerr, Stripe Chief Executive Patrick Collinson and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. Other notable donors include billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, who unsuccessfully ran for Los Angeles mayor in 2022, as well as Griff Harsh V, the son of billionaire Meg Whitman, the unsuccessful 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee turned Democrat who once led EBay.

Despite that generous support, Mahan remains mired in the single digits in the polls. On Wednesday, billionaire Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings received a refund of $1 million he had donated to one of the independent expenditure committees supporting Mahan’s bid.

Hastings said he had not requested the money to be returned to him.

“I’m voting for Matt Mahan. I didn’t ask for any refund and they shouldn’t have done it,” he posted on X on Saturday. “Go Matt.”

Matt Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Back to Basics committee backing Mahan, said that he believes Mahan’s standing in the race is a reflection of a number of factors — an underwhelming contest as well as Mahan’s January entry into it and the fact that he was not well known statewide.

“He got in a little bit late and it was a big climb … with an apathetic electorate,” Rodriguez said. “Politics is all about money and timing — both the amount of time and being there at the right time.”

Mahan’s priorities, such as housing and homelessness improvements he oversaw in San José, had an impact on the campaign, the Democratic strategist said.

“Democrats have to perform, and if we are going to perform, we have to have results,” he said.

The only other candidate who saw seven figures in independent expenditure spending was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator who has been endorsed by Trump and is the leading GOP candidate in the race. More than $1.8 million has been spent opposing Hilton and $13,750 was spent supporting him.

SEIU California donated $250,000 to opposing gubernatorial candidates. Oscar Lopez, the union’s political director, said it has opposed Hilton, Mahan and Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

“Each of these candidates represents a serious threat to the wages, rights and dignity of California’s working people,” Lopez said.

Hilton said the spending against him represents Democratic recognition of him as a threat.

“They know that they’re vulnerable. The Democratic machine understands they’ve got weak candidates and a terrible record,” he said in an interview. “They see me as outsider and change agent. The only argument they have — if you can call it an argument — is to endlessly repeat the words Trump and MAGA.”

Outside spending has grown exponentially after a voter-approved 2000 California ballot measure limited how much donors can contribute directly to candidates. For the current election, it’s $78,400 for the primary and the general election in the governor’s race.

But donors can contribute unlimited amounts to outside groups, which are formally called independent expenditure committees. Though such donations were already legal in California, they greatly increased in the state and across the nation after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that said limits on independent political spending by corporations, unions and other entities violated 1st Amendment free speech protections.

“It has been a steady increase in the amount of money going to outside groups,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA.

In California, independent expenditure groups set a record in 2010 when they spent about $25 million supporting then-gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown. Largely union money, it was spent in the summer after the primary and was viewed as critical to stalling self-funding Republican billionaire Meg Whitman’s campaign. Brown ultimately won the race by 13 percentage points.

In the 2018 gubernatorial primary, records were once again broken by more than $26 million of outside spending, with former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa being the biggest beneficiary. Charter school backers spent nearly $16 million on unsuccessful efforts to boost his campaign.

In addition to an enormous financial advantage over campaign committees, outside groups have the ability to trumpet highly provocative adversarial attacks without the candidate they support being blamed for the often controversial messaging.

“IEs are as free to go as negative as they want without that negativity boomeranging back to hurt the candidate,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego.

While communication between candidate campaigns and independent committees is forbidden, these rules are commonly circumvented using legal but obvious methods. One called “red boxing,” which Becerra employed earlier this year, literally puts messages inside red-lined boxes on candidate websites that their campaign strategists would like to see outside groups highlight.

“There are technical rules that prevent certain types of communication, but it’s easy enough to communicate in public and be on the same page on messaging,” Hasen said.

Among the major donors in the 2026 campaign are the California Chamber of Commerce, PG&E, the California Assn. of Realtors, the Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition PAC, the Pechanga Band of Indians, the California Nurses Assn., and corporations and leaders or founders of companies such as Meta, Google and Uber.

Californians for the People, an outside committee that has spent nearly $32.3 million opposing Steyer, is the most well-funded independent expenditure committee this year. Among it’s largest donors is JOBSPAC, a group sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, that has donated nearly $11.8 million to the effort.

“CalChamber is participating in an independent expenditure campaign because voters deserve to know more about Mr. Steyer,” said John Myers, a spokesman for the chamber. “His policy promises will cost billions, driving investment out of California and worsening the state’s affordability crisis.”

The Pechanga Band of Indians has spent $1.5 million on pro-Becerra efforts.

“Secretary Becerra has stood with Indian Country for decades and understands Tribal sovereignty,” said Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro. “When tribal healthcare was on the line, he was there. This experience comes from a lifetime of public service, not a checkbook.”

Coffee chain has seen ‘very significant’ drop in sales after campaign that evoked deadly crackdown, local operator says.

Starbucks Korea has suffered a “very significant” drop in sales after a marketing campaign that evoked a brutal 1980 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters triggered a public outcry, according to the coffee chain’s local operator.

Shinsegae Group, whose subsidiary E-Mart owns the coffee chain in South Korea, has faced mounting criticism over its so-called “Tank Day” campaign, launched on the anniversary of the May 18 Gwangju Uprising, when the military government deployed troops and tanks to suppress pro-democracy demonstrations.

In a news conference on Tuesday, Shinsegae Group chairman Chung Yong-jin made a public apology and asked people not to take out any anger on Starbucks Korea employees and front-line staff.

“I take it very seriously, the fact that many people felt deep pain and anger because of Starbucks Korea’s inappropriate marketing campaign,” Chung said.

“I will take all responsibility for the incident.”

Chung also asked people not to take out their frustration on staff at Starbucks shops, saying the responsibility lies with management. There were no immediate reports of major incidents at stores.

Chung issued his first apology on May 19, saying in a statement that the campaign caused “deep pain to the victims and bereaved families of the May 18 Democratization Movement as well as to the public”.

Shinsegae fired the head of Starbucks Korea last week after apologising over the campaign. Starbucks Global also apologised and said that an investigation had begun.

A Shinsegae official said sales had fallen sharply since the marketing controversy.

“While sales are not our main concern at the moment, we have seen a very significant drop,” said the official.

At Tuesday’s news conference, Jeon Sangjin, a senior Shinsegae Group executive, said the company had yet to find conclusive evidence that Starbucks Korea marketing employees intended to mock the pro-democracy movement, an accusation the employees have denied.

However, he said some employees refused management requests to hand over their smartphones during a weeklong internal review.

Jeon said the company would look at the results from the police inquiry, and any employee found to have intended to ridicule protesters would be fired.

The anger over the campaign has triggered public calls for boycotts, amplified by government officials, including Interior and Safety Minister Yoon Ho-jung, who said Starbucks products will no longer be used at government events and lamented the chain’s “anti-historical behaviour”.

The country’s president, Lee Jae Myung, said on X last week that the campaign displayed “inhumane and disgraceful behaviour by cheap profiteers who deny the values of the South Korean community, basic human rights and democracy”.

Hundreds of people are estimated to have died ⁠or gone missing when Chun Doo-hwan’s military government cracked down on the protests in Gwangju.

Many details remain unconfirmed, including who gave the order to open fire.

WASHINGTON — In the 2024 election, hundreds of social media influencers were credentialed for the first time to attend the Democratic and Republican conventions. They have been invited to holiday parties in the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, to political rallies in Texas and to events at the White House by both the Biden and Trump administrations.

The role of influencers is surging as candidates and groups across the political spectrum see their social media feeds and personas as a pathway to younger audiences and harder-to-reach groups of voters.

“You have that sense of authenticity, like a friend is talking to you,” said Emma Briant, a professor at Notre Dame University’s Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society who studies propaganda.

That’s exactly what campaigns are hoping to harness when they partner with influencers, she said.

But the nature of that partnership has come into question in California’s hotly contested gubernatorial race after it emerged that a number of content creators — some with millions of followers, others with only a handful — had taken payments from the campaign of Democratic candidate Tom Steyer and not disclosed that they were paid to create those posts.

Some popular content creators have felt the need to explain themselves to their audience. Others have questioned how common such under-the-table payments might be, since there are no disclosure requirements for paid content at the federal level and few jurisdictions have any rules mandating it.

Some campaign finance advocates are concerned that voters could increasingly be influenced by social media posts that they don’t know are sponsored.

“The problem is that it doesn’t look like an ad,” said Saurav Ghosh, a former enforcement attorney at the Federal Election Commission. “It ends up really getting people at a place where they’re not skeptical and not able to tell the difference between what’s voluntary and where the influencer is acting as a paid spokesperson.”

Ghosh is now the director of campaign finance reform at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, which has filed a petition asking the FEC to require disclaimers on paid content created by influencers.

Roughly 1 in 5 Americans said they regularly got news from social media influencers in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center, and that number was nearly double for younger adults between the ages of 18 and 29.

Working with social media creators can be an easy way for candidates to try to boost their image, particularly with a younger audience.

“If they don’t have big personalities, maybe partnering with some influencers who seem cool and fun can make you seem cool and fun also through association,” said Link Lauren, a political influencer and podcaster who served as a communications advisor for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign in 2024.

California is one of the few places that requires disclosure of sponsored social media posts, but the 2023 law that created those rules hadn’t gotten much of a workout before the issue was raised in this contest through a series of dueling complaints with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. The commission has yet to weigh in on the various accusations.

Under the law, influencers are required to provide disclosure that a post was sponsored and say who paid for it. Political groups are required to notify paid creators of the requirement.

Even if the commission finds that violations have occurred, the penalties are not especially harsh.

Violation of the law carries no civil, criminal or administrative penalties. The FPPC can take alleged violators to court and ask a judge to force compliance. And violations can be penalized with a fine of up to $5,000 per instance.

Influencers reporting influencers

In the gubernatorial race, the issue of compliance was raised, naturally, by a pair of influencers.

Beatrice Gomberg has built up a following of more than 180,000 followers on TikTok, where she posts under the handle antiplasticlady. Her side gig of creating nonplastic children’s cups and lunch boxes became her main gig after she lost her human resources job at Macy’s during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I started doing social media because I didn’t want to hire a marketing company,” Gomberg said.

Gomberg’s posts were initially largely focused on research related to plastic, but have become increasingly political over time. When campaigns put out the call for influencers to meet with candidates, Gomberg answered.

She interviewed Katie Porter, she met with Xavier Becerra. And it was at a Becerra event in April when she met Kaitlyn Hennessy, another influencer focused on politics.

They found that the world of online influencers can be isolating. “We stare in front of our phones,” Hennessy said. “You don’t want to see our screen time.”

As they scrolled through social media posts about the governor’s race, they found a cause to unite them.

They kept seeing videos posted by social media accounts espousing similar messages in support of Tom Steyer. Hennessy wondered at first if they were actually created by artificial intelligence.

They found that the posts seemed to be created by a network of women who, in some cases, had created several different profiles to promote a variety of products.

They pored over Steyer’s campaign disclosures and saw that the campaign listed payments to several prominent influencers — including one with the handle Zay Dante, with 1.8 million followers on TikTok — who had not disclosed creating paid content for the campaign.

The pair filed a complaint laying out their allegations, which the Steyer campaign has called “baseless.”

In the wake of their complaint, Steyer defended his campaign’s use of paid influencers, writing on Substack that his campaign believed content creators should be paid for their work and that the campaign had been transparent about disclosing those payments.

In a separate post, influencer Carlos Eduardo Espina said he had been paid $400,000 for work he has done for the Steyer campaign. Espina, who has more than 14 million followers on TikTok, is an advisor to the campaign, which was publicly announced.

“You will never see anything on my channels that I don’t believe in, or that I think goes against the best interest of my community. No one buys my opinion. But I also think it’s fair to be compensated for my work,” he wrote on Substack.

Not everyone is ready to accept payment for posts.

Lauren, the influencer who advised Kennedy’s campaign, said that while he doesn’t begrudge other influencers accepting sponsorship, he chooses not to.

“A passive viewer might think you really believe this,” he said. “I have a strong connection with my audience. I really consider them my family.”

Lauren said he favors disclosure requirements.

Briant, the propaganda researcher, said she is concerned about the possibility of foreign actors trying to influence Americans through paid posts.

In 2024, for example, federal prosecutors filed an indictment alleging that Russian state media employees had paid nearly $10 million to a Tennessee company that paid popular right-wing social media influencers to unwittingly produce pro-Russia content.

Briant said she believes that the only way to counteract increased manipulation through social media influencers is to impose harsh penalties when paid content is not disclosed.

“Ultimately, it’s a wild west at the moment if there are no repercussions for not doing it,” she said.

Los Angeles voters will cast ballots in eight City Council district elections next week, including for two open seats where incumbents are leaving because of term limits.

The contests for the seats being vacated by Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and Curren Price have drawn large fields of candidates, but the biggest spending has been in the Westside’s District 11, where incumbent Traci Park is facing challenger Faizah Malik, a public interest attorney and one of four council candidates backed by the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

Park has raised $1.3 million, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed Friday, while challenger Faizah Malik reported about $520,000 in contributions. In addition, more than $3 million has been spent in the race by so-called independent expenditure committees that spend money to elect or defeat candidates but which are barred from coordinating their activities with the campaigns.

The district includes Venice, Mar Vista, Brentwood and Pacific Palisades, which was devastated by wildfire in January 2025.

Malik said Friday she is confident heading into the primary election, saying most of her donations are under $100 each, and that she hasn’t taken money from corporations.

Los Angeles City Council candidate Faizah Malik attends a canvassing event March 15 in Westchester.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“This is what it means to be a grassroots candidate, and it is just more evidence that the people of CD11 believe in our vision for a Westside that is affordable for everyday people,” Malik said.

A Park campaign aide said Park’s haul is indicative of the councilmember’s record of getting results.

“But no one is taking anything for granted,” the aide said in a statement. “We’re working until the final vote is cast because this election will determine whether the Westside keeps moving forward or gets pulled backward into the same failed ideological politics Angelenos are exhausted by.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park, center, with members of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City on May 12.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Park has emphasized her advocacy for fire recovery efforts, including pushing for permit fee waivers for residents wanting to rebuild. Malik has said Park has been too focused on single-family homeowners and said she would focus more energy on renters.

They have contrasting views on policing: Malik said she opposes expanding the size of the Los Angeles Police Department and instead supports shifting more resources to the city’s unarmed crisis response program. Park said the Police Department should have about 10,000 sworn officers, up from about 8,700 currently. She voted in favor of a 2023 LAPD contract that gave raises to officers and increased salaries to new hires.

They stand in contrast of each other on the Venice Dell housing development project, which would turn a city lot into 120 housing units for low-income and homeless people. Park opposed the completion and instead wants to turn it into a “mobility hub” and move the housing project to an adjacent lot. Malik, who represented the developer that filed a suit against the city claiming Park and others sought to kill the project, said the project was a motivating factor for her campaign.

District 9

Six candidates are vying to replace Councilman Curren Price, who hit the 12-year limit, in District 9. The district includes the Convention Center, USC and communities along the Harbor Freeway.

The candidates vary on key issues, including policing and housing. Estuardo Mazariegos, co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Los Angeles, is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. He has called for reducing the LAPD budget and redirecting funds to other city departments.

Two other candidates — Jorge Hernandez Rosas, an educator, and Jose Ugarte, who previously worked for Price — said they support hiring more police officers. Another hopeful, Elmer Roldan, executive director of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, said he believes in keeping the LAPD at its current size.

Ugarte, Roldan, Rosas and Martha Sánchez, a therapist, all support enforcing Municipal Code 41.18, which bars homeless encampments near schools and daycare centers. Mazariegos and Jorge Nuño, an entrepreneur, say the code doesn’t solve homelessness and instead just moves people around.

Ugarte has raised the most in contributions of any candidate and has been endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party in the nonpartisan race.

District 3

Three candidates are competing for an open seat in District 3, where Councilmember Bob Blumenfield has termed out of office. The district encompasses Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, Winnetka and Tarzana.

The candidates are Tim Gaspar, who founded an insurance company, Barri Worth Girvan, district director for Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and Christopher Robert “C.R.” Celona, a tech entrepreneur.

The three candidates are similarly positioned on public safety, backing Mayor Karen Bass’ long-term goal to increase the LAPD ranks to at least 9,500 officers. All three also support enforcing Municipal Code section 41.18.

Gaspar and Worth Girvan have both scored key endorsements. Gaspar is backed by Blumenfield, billionaire developer Rick Caruso and Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez, Tim McOsker and John Lee and billionaire developer Rick Caruso. Worth Girvan has endorsements from a long list of state Democratic lawmakers, the county Democratic Party, the Sierra Club and labor unions.

Gaspar leads in campaign contributions, followed by Worth Girvan. Celona, who has promised to resuscitate the city’s entertainment industry by fast-tracking film permits and cutting red tape, trails far behind.

District 1

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez faces four challengers in District 1, which stretches from Highland Park on the northeast to University Park on the southwest. She is backed by the local Democratic Socialists of America, and her challengers claim the district has suffered under under her leadership, pointing to MacArthur Park as emblematic of the homelessness and drug addiction crisis plaguing the city.

Hernandez counters with a list of accomplishments, including helping secure a $6.3-million state grant to house homeless individuals near the Arroyo Seco riverbed and advocating for a citywide network of unarmed crisis response teams.

She faces challenges from Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles police commissioner and founder of the nonprofit Legacy LA; Nelson Grande, an executive consultant and former president of Avenida Entertainment Group; Raul Claros, founder of California Rising; and Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and former council aide.

Hernandez’s campaign has also faced an onslaught of accusations of “dark money” spending. A group called Neighbors First has sent mail pieces critical of Hernandez and other leftist City Council candidates.

District 5

Incumbent Katy Yaroslavsky faces two challengers for her District 5 seat, both of whom oppose her stance on housing and public safety spending. The district includes some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, including Bel-Air, Westwood, Cheviot Hills and Hancock Park.

Challengers Henry Mantel, a tenants’ rights lawyer, and Morgan Oyler, an accountant, say Yaroslavsky hasn’t done enough to increase the district’s housing supply. Yaroslavsky, who holds a wide lead in fundraising, has said she supports increasing housing density near transit centers but cautioned against building more than the city can sustain.

District 13

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who is also backed by the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter, faces three challengers in District 13, which includes Atwater Village, Glassell Park, Elysian Valley, Echo Park, Silver Lake and East Hollywood.

The list of challengers includes Colter Carlisle, vice president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Dylan Kendall, who runs Grow Hollywood, and Rich Sarian, vice president of strategic initiatives for downtown’s South Park Social District.

While Soto-Martínez supports expanding the city’s unarmed personnel program, Carlisle and Kendall would like to expand the police force. Sarian has said he supports the unarmed personnel program and wants to examine the LAPD’s current size and resources.

District 15

Incumbent Tim McOsker is facing off against community organizer Jordan River in District 15, which covers Harbor City, Harbor Gateway, San Pedro, Watts and Wilmington. McOsker has decades of experience in the political world, having worked in the mayor’s office, and the city attorney’s office before joining the City Council in 2022. Rivers, who is unemployed, is a member of the Green Party.

District 7

Monica Rodriguez is running unopposed for the District 7 seat in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Times staff writers David Zahniser, Noah Goldberg and Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A political influencer has filed a complaint against Tom Steyer’s campaign for governor, saying the committee failed to notify her of disclosure requirements, as required by law, when she was paid to meet with Steyer in March and later produced social media content from the meeting.

What’s more, she said the Steyer campaign falsely accused her of posting paid content in support of Steyer’s chief Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra, and failing to disclose it in a complaint filed by the billionaire’s campaign this week.

Maggie Reed, who regularly posts satirical takes on politics to roughly half a million followers on Instagram and TiKTok under the username mermaidmamamaggie, said she was actually paid by Steyer’s campaign and signed an agreement that barred her from disclosing the payment.

She posted, and later deleted, a video from her meeting with Steyer in March.

“In plain terms: the Committee paid for political content, structured it to look like an ordinary creator’s organic opinion, and used a non-disclosure agreement to keep the public from learning the truth,” says the complaint, filed Thursday with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

Steyer’s campaign disclosed in a campaign filing that it had paid the agency that represents Reed $5,000 for digital advertising, but didn’t indicate that the payment was connected to Reed’s meeting with Steyer or her production of content.

The Steyer campaign said that while it did pay to meet with Reed, it left the decision of whether to create content entirely up to her.

Since then, Reed has produced several videos expressing support for Becerra, the former California congressman and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, but she said that she was not paid to produce those videos and that they reflected her genuine support for Becerra’s campaign.

Becerra has been the top Democrat in recent polling in the race, maintaining a narrow edge over Steyer and a firm grip on one of the top two spots in the June 2 primary that would send him to the general election in November.

Reed’s complaint is the latest volley in a back and forth involving the use of paid influencers in the gubernatorial race.

Two influencers who support Becerra — but were not paid by his campaign — filed a complaint last week saying that a number of influencers had created paid content in support of Steyer, but failed to disclose so in their posts.

Steyer’s campaign then filed a complaint earlier this week in which it leveled accusations against Reed and another influencer named Jay Gonzalez, who is now a paid staffer on the Becerra campaign. The complaint alleges that Gonzalez made several pro-Becerra posts after joining the campaign and belatedly amended them to include disclosure that they were sponsored.

The Becerra campaign has maintained that it does not otherwise pay influencers to produce content on its behalf.

Steyer’s complaint included screenshots of an email sent to Reed’s talent agency by a gubernatorial campaign gauging her interest in producing paid content.

While the screenshots produced in Steyer’s complaint did not disclose who had sent the inquiry, Reed said in her complaint that the request had come from a staffer for the gubernatorial campaign of former Los Angeles Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa.

Disclosure of paid political content by social media creators is required in California thanks to a law passed in 2023.

Influencers themselves are required to disclose that a post they created was sponsored, but campaigns are required to notify them of the requirement.

Violation of the law doesn’t trigger civil, criminal or administrative penalties, but the FPPC has the right to take violators to court and request that a judge force compliance with the law.

The agreement Reed signed with Steyer’s campaign, which was attached to her complaint, indicated that she needed to follow all applicable state, federal and local laws, but made no specific mention of her requirement to disclose that content she produced was sponsored.

The agreement did specify that Steyer’s campaign might need to disclose the payment.

WASHINGTON — In the latest escalation of a fight over the use of paid social media creators, Tom Steyer’s campaign for governor filed a complaint Tuesday accusing influencers who posted content supportive of Xavier Becerra’s campaign of failing to disclose that they had been paid, which is required by California law.

The complaint, filed with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, accuses Jay Gonzalez of producing at least 14 pro-Becerra posts on Instagram and Facebook in late April and early May, after he was hired by the campaign, and only belatedly editing the posts to acknowledge they had been sponsored by the campaign.

The complaint also said that a social media creator named Maggie Reed, who posts under the username mermaidmamamaggie, created four pro-Becerra posts on Instagram and had previously offered to create paid posts for another gubernatorial campaign, though the complaint doesn’t specify how the campaign knows Reed was paid.

Reed and a talent agency that represents her did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Becerra campaign maintained that it has not paid influencers who have created posts in support of the campaign.

“All of the content you see online is entirely and purely organic,” said Becerra spokesman Jonathan Underland.

Becerra and Steyer have been the top two Democratic candidates in recent polling for the governor’s race, with Becerra consistently maintaining a slight edge in those polls.

The complaint by Steyer’s campaign comes after two influencers who support Becerra filed a complaint last week accusing social media creators hired by the Steyer campaign of failing to disclose that they had been paid to produce their posts.

The campaign of the billionaire candidate for governor had previously disclosed payments to some influencers with large audiences, including one creator with the user name zayydante, who has 1.8 million followers on TikTok, and another with the user name littleyeg, who has nearly 350,000 followers on TikTok. The complaint filed last week said that both of these influencers failed to disclose that they had been paid by the campaign to produce content.

The complaint also highlighted several accounts created by user who don’t appear to live in California who created posts promoting Steyer and, in at least one case, posted elsewhere that they had been paid by the campaign.

The influencers who filed the original complaint said they saw the newly filed complaint as an attempt by Steyer’s campaign to deflect criticism.

“All he’s done is attack his opponent instead of taking accountability for violating the law,” said Kaitlyn Hennessy, one of the two influencers who filed the complaint against Steyer’s campaign. Hennessy and the other influencer who filed the complaint both said they have not been paid by the Becerra campaign.

In a post on Substack, Steyer defended his campaign’s use of paid social media influencers and said that it had been transparent about their use.

“Every creator we compensate has been and will be publicly disclosed as required by law,” he wrote.

Under a California law passed in 2023, social media creators who create paid content on behalf of a political campaign are required to disclose in their post that the material was sponsored and who paid for it.

The onus is on creators to provide the disclosure, but campaigns are required to notify influencers they hire of the requirement.

Violation of the rules doesn’t trigger criminal, civil or administrative penalties but the FPPC can take alleged offenders to court and ask a judge to force compliance with the law.

WASHINGTON — The NAACP is calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps that the nation’s oldest civil rights group says are restricting Black voting rights.

Launched on Tuesday, the “Out of Bounds” campaign urges prospective Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to “withhold athletic and financial support” from major public universities in states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation.”

If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it could deplete rosters for powerhouse football and basketball programs across the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.

The NAACP is among groups responding to a wave of gerrymandering in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that winnowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The boycott comes as civil rights activists have mobilized across the South to protest redistricting plans by Republican state legislatures that eliminate majority-Black congressional districts after the high court’s ruling. Activists have looked for pressure points to dissuade GOP-led states from redistricting maps, including calls for mass protests and economic boycotts.

“Across the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. Johnson noted that the programs “generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, national television value, alumni donations, merchandising sales, ticket sales, and brand equity — much of it powered by Black football and basketball talent.”

The NAACP’s campaign calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina as states to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs of those states’ flagship universities are especially reliant on Black athletic talent and should protect Black political interests.

“Black athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power for state institutions while those same states strip political power from Black communities,” said Johnson.

Black lawmakers themselves are also putting pressure on athletic leagues to take action against Republican-led states that may redistrict longtime Black members of Congress.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Monday sent a letter to the commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences, as well as NCAA President Charlie Baker, that its members will oppose the SCORE Act, a bill to standardize athletes’ contracting rights across the country, unless conference leaders oppose GOP-led redistricting efforts in states that include major conference members.

“The Congressional Black Caucus believes institutions that profit from Black talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack,” the CBC said in a Monday statement. “Silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality — it is complicity.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

Former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra remains the top Democrat in the California governor’s race despite being targeted by a barrage of negative political ads and enduring sharp attacks from his rival candidates during recent debates, according to a new poll released Tuesday by the state Democratic Party.

Billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democrat who is shattering self-funding records for statewide office, has been flooding the television airwaves, internet and social media with ads ripping Becerra’s long record in public office, as well as for accepting campaign donations from oil giant Chevron. But, thus far, that has not been enough for Steyer to overtake Becerra.

The survey found that 21% of likely voters backed Becerra, who also served in Congress and as California’s attorney general, while 15% backed Steyer. Among the other top Democrats: Former Orange County congresswoman Katie Porter received 7%; San José Mayor Matt Mahan came in at 4%; and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa registered at 1%.

Becerra on Tuesday said he believes he has climbed in the polls because voters are now paying attention to the race.

“They’re really looking closely at who’s out there, and I think I’ve been one of the beneficiaries of folks looking for a place that they can feel comfortable, where they can trust,” Becerra told reporters after a campaign event in South Los Angeles. “I think more and more as people look at the candidates, they’re going to start to crystallize behind somebody who won’t need training wheels, as I say, when they get into the governor’s office and can hit the ground running, day one.”

He said he thinks Steyer’s attacks aren’t working because Californians are skeptical of the billionaire.

“He’s spending like no one before, and he’s hitting like no one before, and so far, it hasn’t made a difference,” Becerra said. “We continue to surge, even after weeks of his barrage of lies and attacks…. California voters are not anxious to have someone who wants to buy the office.”

Leading all candidates in the race was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, who was supported by 22% of likely voters. His top GOP challenger, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, was backed by 10%, the poll showed.

While Hilton and Becerra right now appear to be the likeliest candidates to finish in the top two in California’s June 2 primary, which is required to advance to the November general election, there still remains plenty of time for political fortunes and voter support to rise or fall. Ballots were mailed to the state’s 23.1 million registered voters and early voting sites opened earlier this month, but most Californians have not sent them in thus far.

For Becerra, the strong poll results indicate an astounding turnaround for a campaign that appeared all but dead just weeks ago. In early April, the California Democratic Party tracking poll showed Becerra with support from just 4% of likely voters. That changed after then-Northern California Rep. Eric Swalwell, who had been the front-running Democrat in the race, withdrew from the campaign and resigned from Congress after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct.

The California Democratic Party launched a series of tracking polls in March after leaders and allies grew increasingly concerned that Republicans would win the top two spots in the primary, shutting the party out of the November general election. This prospect, while statistically possible given the crowded field of candidates running for governor, has grown increasingly less likely as California voters finally focused on the contest to lead the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Under California’s top-two primary system, only the candidates who finish in first and second place in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their political party or affiliation.

The poll of 1,200 likely voters took place between May 14 and 16 and has a margin of error of 2.83% in either direction.

Billionaire Tom Steyer, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, as of Monday has donated a record-shattering $192.4 million of his personal wealth to his campaign in the lead-up to the June 2 primary.

The cash infusion dwarfs the money raised by all his Democratic and Republican challengers combined, and has fueled a torrent of political ads and a campaign infrastructure that’s kept him near the top of the opinion polls.

But Californians have dismissed rich candidates in the past, especially those who use their own fortunes to appeal to a largely middle- and working-class electorate struggling with day-to-day expenses in the notoriously costly state.

Steyer hopes to avoid the fate of former EBay CEO Meg Whitman, former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina, banking and oil heir Michael Huffington and former Northwest Airlines co-chairman Al Checchi, none of whom were able to turn their riches into successful gubernatorial or senate campaigns in California over the last three decades.

Darry Sragow, a veteran Democratic strategist who managed Checchi’s unsuccessful 1998 bid for governor that set a self-funding record, said voters have long been skeptical of the motivation of rich people who run for office.

“Their basic reaction is, this person is incredibly successful, has made obscene amounts of money, could do anything they want to do in the world. Why would they want to run for office? Why would they want to represent me? What’s in it for them?” Sragow said. “And voters just go, ‘You’re just doing this for sport.’ … because they’re bored and they have big egos and they want something to do. That is the fundamental challenge for a self-funding candidate.”

Sragow said Steyer could benefit from his sustained involvement and financial support of climate change policy and other Democratic priorities, in addition to his immense spending in a race that lacks a clear front-runner less than three weeks before the primary.

Steyer said his and his wife’s decades-long work and funding of progressive causes sets him apart from previous wealthy self-funding candidates.

“I’m completely different from those people,” Steyer said in an interview on Friday. “I’ve been working full time on behalf of Californians for 14 years, and I was involved before that. You know, those people … never did anything but the private sector.”

He pointed to his and wife Kat Taylor’s work on ballot measures that took on the tobacco and oil industries, protected environmental laws and taxed out-of-state corporations to fund schools. They also backed successful efforts providing free breakfast and lunch for every California schoolchild, registering 1.2 million voters in the state, and supporting the state’s largest provider of services for immigrants, Steyer said.

“We didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. We didn’t just decide in our boardroom [that] we’re smarter than everybody else, they should listen to us.,” Steyer said. “We have been working within this system as private citizens for really a long time, and that’s the truth.”

Steyer said his background is completely different from the people who thought they would bring a business accounting method to state government, a belief he called “super juvenile.”

The hedge-fund founder turned environmental warrior has spent nearly $1 billion on his political pursuits. In addition to the $192.4 million Steyer has spent to date on his gubernatorial bid, he spent nearly $342 million on his unsuccessful 2020 presidential bid, $325 million on national Democratic candidates and causes, $67.4 million on state efforts and nearly $13.5 million backing a successful California gerrymandering ballot measure last year that was widely viewed as a precursor to his gubernatorial bid, according to state and federal fundraising disclosures and Open Secrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks electoral finances.

Californians watching television cannot escape his ads during local newscasts, sitcoms and niche programming such as the Puppy Bowl (the Animal Planet show that airs on Super Bowl Sunday).

Voters are being inundated with glossy multi-page mailers touting Steyer’s environmental record, his work taking on corporations and President Trump, and his campaign promises to build 1 million new affordable homes in four years, cut electric bills by 25% and enact single-payer healthcare.

Recently placing second in Real Clear Politics’ average of recent polls, Steyer is now third behind Republican Steve Hilton, a former conservative commentator and political strategist, and Democrat Xavier Becerra, a longtime elected official who most recently served as President Biden’s Health and Human Services secretary.

Steyer’s Democratic rivals argue that he is trying to buy the election with money his hedge fund made investing in fossil fuels, private prisons currently housing ICE detainees and other industries that are anathema to liberal voters. Only after making money from those ventures did he come out and oppose them, his challengers say.

Steyer “is a billionaire who got rich off polluters and ICE prisons and is now using that money to fund this election,” former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter said during an April debate.

Steyer responded that corporations such as Chevron and PG&E are spending heavily to defeat him because he is the sole candidate who would not be beholden to them.

“‘I’m the only person in this race that the corporate special interests are spending money against, and they’re spending tens of millions of dollars. And the reason that’s true is because I said I will only put the interest of working Californians first,” he told reporters last month in Sacramento. “They’re worried that I mean it, and I do.”

Steyer said the idea that the money funding his campaign is from controversial investments is “absurd.”

“That is such a bunch of bull, that that’s where my money comes from,” he said in the interview. “My money came from long-term investing over 27 years. It did not come from a couple of investments out of thousands that were there for a very short time and were, in terms of the actual money, irrelevant.”

Additionally, endorsements by influential left-leaning organizations — including actor/climate change activist Jane Fonda’s political action committee, the California Nurses Assn. and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Action Fund — could assure voters who may be skeptical of his past.

He has donated millions to environmental groups and individuals who have endorsed him. Their goals align with Steyer’s long-term commitment to environmental causes. But he was accused of trying to use his money to win endorsements in Iowa and South Carolina during his 2020 presidential bid. He has also recently come under fire that social media influencers who were touting his gubernatorial candidacy did not disclose that Steyer was paying them.

In the 2010 governor’s race, Whitman spent $144 million of her wealth on an unsuccessful campaign, which set a record for statewide campaign spending in the nation until Democrat J.B. Pritzker broke it in 2018 by donating roughly $171.5 million of his fortune to his successful bid to be elected governor of Illinois.

Adjusted for inflation, Whitman’s spending would be nearly $220 million today. But she spent the money in a lengthy primary and general election, while Steyer is still weeks away from the primary and will almost certainly contribute more money before the June 2 primary and if he advances to the November election. Steyer declined to say how much he plans to spend on his bid.

Steyer’s outsized spending in a state that is home to many of the nation’s most expensive media markets could break the unsuccessful streak of wealthy Californians trying to win the state’s top offices, according to political experts.

“Steyer is outspending his opponents by far more than any other self-funded candidate in California,” said Dan Schnur, a longtime politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine University. “It’s not a question of his message but rather the magnitude of his spending.”

However, Schnur added that the unsettled nature of the race reflects Democratic voters’ “built-in” resistance to supporting a billionaire who became wealthy because of investments that contradict their morals.

Veteran GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, a top adviser to Whitman during her 2010 campaign, said he didn’t think voters’ primary concern would be Steyer’s self-funding, but the money could make a difference.

“It’s not just that Steyer has self-funded to this amazing number,” Stutzman said. “There’s really nobody [else] that’s even spending enough money, arguably, to be successful.”

Steyer’s net worth is estimated at $2.4 billion by Forbes.

In 1986, Steyer founded Farallon Capital, once one of the largest hedge funds in the world. He sold his stake in it in 2012, saying he didn’t want to be associated with investments that did not align with his values.

“There’s a reason I walked away from that business and walked away from a ton of money, because I felt like that is not the life I want,” Steyer told San Francisco voters in March.

Though Steyer has repeatedly expressed regret about Farallon’s investments, his Democratic rivals argue that this is a convenient stance while Steyer benefits from the largess that Farallon created for him. He is using his money to not only tout his record and build a robust campaign operation, but to slash at competitors who present a threat to his candidacy.

Steyer has unleashed a blistering attack ad campaign against Becerra, who was once mired in the single digits and surged in the polls after former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) dropped out of the race in April after being accused of sexual misconduct and assault.

Ads on television and social media accuse Becerra of being inconsistent about his position on single-payer healthcare and about what he knew about a federal corruption scandal that ensnared a former top campaign strategist for stealing funds from a dormant Becerra campaign account.

Steyer recently sent voters a mailer that castigates Becerra for taking campaign contributions from oil, tobacco and utility companies, and his handling of unaccompanied migrant children when he was HHS secretary.

“Xavier Becerra was supposed to keep immigrant kids safe, but thousands were lost, trafficked, or exploited,” the mailer says. “Becerra failed to protect children and they paid the price. What price will California pay when he fails us?”

On April 27 on the social media platform X, Steyer also called on Becerra to return a $39,200 contribution from Chevron.

Becerra responded with an ad that highlighted California’s natural beauty, from the coastline to the desert to the redwoods, as a respite from the deluge of Steyer ads.

“Take a break from all those Tom Steyer ads. Enjoy,” reads the introduction to the ad.

When Swalwell was still in the race, and topping the field of Democratic candidates, Steyer questioned the then-congressman’s eligibility to run for governor because of residency concerns, as well as his attendance record in Congress. Steyer ran ads saying that Swalwell skipped more than two-thirds of congressional votes while in office.

Rich politicians have won prominent elected offices, including financial executive Jon Corzine, who spent more than $100 million of his money on campaigns for New Jersey senator and governor. In California, self-funders have won lower offices, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who dropped out of the 2026 gubernatorial race and is now running for state treasurer; Richard Riordan in his 1993 Los Angeles mayoral bid; and Rep. Gil Cisneros, Rep. Sara Jacobs and former Rep. Jane Harman in their congressional races.

Steyer has never been elected to public office. The two times he has jumped into a race, there was a familiar pattern.

In last year’s state campaign about redrawing California’s congressional districts to counter Trump’s efforts to do so in GOP-led states, Steyer spent significantly in support of the effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom. However, he did not donate to the official campaign backing Proposition 50. Instead, he spent his money featuring himself in ads that were widely viewed as a way to raise his visibility among voters before a gubernatorial bid.

In 2019, Steyer spent $8.5 million airing nearly 19,000 ads calling for Trump’s impeachment, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. That was on top of several million dollars he spent on ads that featured himself, leading Trump to call him “unhinged” and a “wacko” in 2017.

That year, when asked by The Times whether his financial support for Trump’s impeachment was laying the groundwork for a future political bid, Steyer demurred.

“One of the things that is now true in American politics — it is reflected in that question — is there is no sense that people might try and do something for its own purpose,” he said. “Throughout American history, people have chosen to do the right thing ’cause they felt like it was important.”

A year and a half later, Steyer launched his presidential campaign. Facing similar questions about the source of his wealth and poor showings in early Democratic primaries, he dropped out in February of 2020.

Times staff writer Nicole Nixon in Sacramento contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he called off a new round of airstrikes he claimed were set for tomorrow. In a post on his social media outlet, Trump said he made the decision at the best of Gulf Arab allies because of improving efforts to end the war. 

“I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold off on our planned Military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow, in that serious negotiations are now taking place,” Trump proclaimed on Truth Social, adding that, “in their opinion, as Great Leaders and Allies, a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond.”

“This Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!” the president emphasized. “Based on my respect for the above mentioned Leaders, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, The Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Daniel Caine, and The United States Military, that we will NOT be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, but have further instructed them to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.”

However, as Axios reporter Barak Ravid noted, “Trump has extended deadlines and postponed planned attacks on Iran at least half a dozen times since the war began.”

So it remains to be seen whether this latest statement has any merit or if it is another effort to kick the can down the road.

Trump’s latest claim about the war highlights the ever-changing narrative of events. Earlier in the day, Axios reported that Iran had given an updated proposal for a deal to end the war, “but the White House believes it is not a meaningful improvement and is insufficient for a deal,” citing a senior U.S. official and a source briefed on the situation.

At issue is the future of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and specifically their stockpile of enriched uranium. Trump’s bottom line is that Iran needs to give up any and all future nuclear ambitions, and the enriched uranium it already has, while the Iranians maintain they have the right to enrich uranium and will not hand over any of their existing material. Tehran’s control of the Strait, its ballistic missile and drone arsenal, and support for proxies are other sticking points.

U.S. officials say Trump wants a deal to end the war, but is considering resuming it “due to Iran’s rejection of many of his demands and refusal to make meaningful concessions on its nuclear program,” Axios added. “Trump is expected to convene his top national security team in the Situation Room on Tuesday to discuss military options, two U.S. officials said.”

Axios stated that the senior U.S. official said if Iran won’t shift its position, the U.S. will have to continue the negotiations “through bombs.”

In contrast, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday told reporters that his country’s “nuclear enrichment is a right that ‘already exists,’” an indication that Tehran isn’t budging on its stance. Still, Baghaei also described how negotiations with the United States are still continuing through Pakistani mediation.

All this comes against the backdrop of reports that the U.S. and Israel have been carrying out their most intense preparations yet to renew attacks on Iran, possibly as soon as this week, two Middle Eastern officials told The New York Times on Friday.

Monday’s back and forth comes a day after Trump issued a new warning to Tehran, saying “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

In the wake of renewed threats from Trump, Iran claims it is prepared to defend against the U.S. and Israel if needed.

“In case of aggression against Iran again, Iran’s armed forces have new #surprises for the enemy,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei warned, according to a post on X by the official Iranian IRIB media outlet. “Contradictory behaviors and threats of the enemy do not confuse or scare us.”

The tough talk between the U.S. and Iran clearly also includes some amount of bluster as the two sides seek a way forward without appearing to have caved to the other’s demands. Trump’s claim about holding off on an attack due to improving negotiations may be another example of that. But eventually time on this kind of posturing will run out and this week could be that inflection point.

UPDATE: 5:53 PM EDT –

New satellite imagery shows damage to three Iranian ships caused by the U.S-Israeli  bombing campaign against Iran’s Navy.

Satellite imagery dated May 17 from Shahid Bahonar Port appears to show the IRIS Makran, a forward base ship of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, with a large hole in the deck alongside other heavy damage.

Imagery shows the IRGC Navy’s expeditionary base ship IRIS SHAHID MAHDAVI apparently sunk.

Satellite imagery dated May 12 also shows the Iranian IRIS Kordestan, an Iranian Navy forward base ship in the Persian Gulf with light to moderate damage due to the airstrikes.

Dozens of U.S. Air Force refueling jets now deployed to Ben Gurion Airport are expected to stay in Israel at least until the end of this year, Israel’s N12 News reported on X.

“The presence of the aircraft—not the U.S. military—is causing significant operational difficulties at Ben Gurion Airport, as they are parked almost everywhere possible at the port,” the outlet added.

בישראל התקבלו מסרים מהאמריקנים שלפיהם עשרות מטוסי התדלוק המוצבים בנמל התעופה בן גוריון צפויים להישאר בארץ לפחות עד סוף השנה האזרחית. נוכחות המטוסים שלא הצבא האמריקני מעוררת קשיים משמעותיים בתפעולו של נתב”ג, שכן הם חונים כמעט בכל מקום אפשרי בנמל@Dean_Fisher_

— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) May 18, 2026

UPDATES

On Monday, the country’s Supreme National Security Council said a newly formed Iranian agency, called the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), would provide “real-time updates” on operations and the latest developments in the Strait, a crucial chokepoint through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas pass in peacetime.

The announcement about the PGSA follows news that Iran “started a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies that want to transit the Strait of Hormuz,” Bloomberg News reported, citing the semi-official Fars news agency reported, which claimed it has documents obtained from Iran’s Ministry of Economy and Financial Affairs.

Dubbed Hormuz Safe, “the Iranian government says it could generate more than $10 billion in revenue for the Islamic Republic,” Bloomberg noted, adding that Fars provided no time frame or a breakdown of how the service would work.

Iran has started a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies that want to transit the Strait of Hormuz, the semi-official Fars news agency reported https://t.co/0L0nyM3eAT

— Bloomberg (@business) May 18, 2026

The effort is widely seen as a way for Iran to get around calling any fee for crossing the Strait a toll.

“The Iranian regime is introducing a formalized toll system under the guise of maritime insurance policies and continuing to deploy incentives and threats to vessels in the Persian Gulf as part of their efforts to normalize and solidify Iranian control over the Strait,” the Institute for the Study of War posited. “This system appears designed to be more palatable than an outright ‘toll’ by framing it as a ‘maritime insurance policy.’ The insurance presumably insures the vessel against an Iranian attack.”

“As the President stated, the Strait is international water, and we are not going to let Iran toll the Strait or normalize an illegal regime where they attempt to control traffic through the Strait.,” a White House official told us.

Coinciding with its growing efforts in the Strait, PGSA unveiled an account on X on Monday.

“The Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) is the legal entity and representative authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran for managing the passage and transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” PGSA asserted. “Navigation within the introduced boundaries of the Strait of Hormuz, which were previously determined by the Armed Forces and authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is contingent upon full coordination with these entities, and passage without permission will be considered illegal.”

2/
دریانوردی در حریم معرفی شدهٔ تنگه هرمز، که حدود آن پیش از این از سوی نیروهای مسلح و مقامات جمهوری اسلامی ایران تعیین شده، منوط به هماهنگی کامل با این نهاد است و عبور بدون مجوز، غیرقانونی تلقی خواهد شد.

— PGSA | نهاد مدیریت آبراه خلیج فارس (@PGSA_IRAN) May 18, 2026

Iran has divided its operational control over the Strait of  Hormuz area between the Iranian Navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) Navy.

“From the shores of Makran to the Strait of Hormuz, it is managed by the Iranian Navy, and the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are managed by the IRGC Navy,” the official Iranian IRIB news outlet announced on X.

🚨A division of duties has been carried out among the Iranian armed forces.

From the shores of Makran to the Strait of Hormuz, it is managed by the Iranian Navy,
and the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are managed by the IRGC Navy. pic.twitter.com/PU2Md8eOim

— IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) (@iribnews_irib) May 18, 2026

Despite the ongoing U.S. blockade of its ports, Iran is still loading crude into tankers, “although (not right now) in Kharg Island,” Bloomberg commodities and energy columnist Javier Blas reported on X. “Instead, it’s loading a tanker at Jask, an alternative terminal outside the Strait of Hormuz (but inside the US Navy blockade line).”

Iran is still loading crude into tankers — although (not right now) in Kharg Island. Instead, it’s loading a tanker at Jask, an alternative terminal outside the Strait of Hormuz (but inside the US Navy blockade line).

Left May 17 🛰️Sentinel-2; right, May 18 🛰️Sentinel-1 pic.twitter.com/iU2o6YXAmD

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) May 18, 2026

In a post on X, TankerTrackers.com stated that there “are actually plenty of able, cargo-empty tankers within the US Navy blockade perimeter but Iran has already lowered its oil production to match consumption and some storage buildup on land. The storage situation does not appear to be dire for the time being.”

As we have previously reported, a major goal of the blockade is to hurt Iran economically, including by threatening its ability to store oil.

Incorrect. There are actually plenty of able, cargo-empty tankers within the US Navy blockade perimeter but Iran has already lowered its oil production to match consumption and some storage buildup on land. The storage situation does not appear to be dire for the time being. https://t.co/mmlpHIr9ZI

— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) May 18, 2026

Pakistan has reportedly deployed thousands of troops, jets and air defense systems to Saudi Arabia to help defend the kingdom amid a shaky ceasefire.

Pakistan’s contribution to the mutual aid pact includes Chinese weapons, Reuters explained. It “has deployed a full squadron of around 16 aircraft,” mostly JF-17 Thunder fighters, which were ​sent to Saudi Arabia in early April. Pakistan had also sent “two squadrons of drones,” Reuters reported, adding that Islamabad could also send more troops, plus a Chinese-made HQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missile system.

The equipment is operated by Pakistani personnel and financed by Saudi Arabia, the news outlet pointed out. It remains unclear exactly what this means, if it pertains to the deployment or to the hardware itself.

Earlier this year, we reported that talks about the jets were underway, potentially to be paid for by converting some of the billions of dollars of Saudi loans taken out by Islamabad. However, at the time, shortly before the war broke out, it remained unclear if the Saudis even would want a light fighter like the Thunder at all, especially considering it could cause a rift with the U.S. at a critical time. In the past months, the kingdom had been offered the U.S.-made F-35, as you can read about here, and operates advanced fighters like the F-15SA and Typhoon.

The JF-17 was developed jointly by China’s Chengdu and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), and the first prototype took to the air in 2003. The aircraft is powered by a single Russian-designed RD-93 turbofan engine, an improved version of the RD-33 that is found in the twin-engined MiG-29 Fulcrum. Presumably, the JF-17s will help defend Saudi skies from drone and cruise missile attacks, although that too isn’t perfectly clear at this time.

It is possible that amid the shaky ceasefire, Iran’s proxies may be carrying out attacks on Arab Gulf nations. On Sunday, both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia said they were attacked by drones. UAE officials said the attacks were carried out by Iran or its proxies while Saudi said it was struck by drones launched from Iraq.

The UAE Defense Ministry said an electrical generator outside the inner perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant was struck by one of three drones launched at the country. Two other drones were successfully intercepted, it said.

In its initial statement on X, the MoD said that the drones “entered the country from the western border direction,” without assigning blame. UAE officials later updated that to say the drone was “launched by Iran or one of its proxies” in what officials called a “dangerous escalation.”

The officials did not get more specific. The Houthi rebels of Yemen operate southwest of the UAE while several Iranian-backed militias operate in Iraq, northwest of the country.

The Emirate MoD “affirmed that it remains fully prepared and ready to address any threats and will firmly confront any attempts to undermine the country’s security, in a manner that safeguards its sovereignty, security and stability, and protects its national interests and gains.”

UAE air defences intercept 3 UAVs.

The Ministry of Defence announced that on 17th May 2026, UAE air defence systems intercepted three UAVs that entered the country from the western border direction.

The ministry said that two of the UAVs were successfully intercepted, while the… pic.twitter.com/Ca6JRwc8w8

— وزارة الدفاع |MOD UAE (@modgovae) May 17, 2026

In a post on X, the IAEA expressed “grave concern” about the incident and said military activity that threatens nuclear safety is unacceptable. The [director general] reiterates call for maximum military restraint near any NPP to avoid the danger of a nuclear accident.”

The IAEA has been informed by the UAE that radiation levels at the Barakah NPP remain normal and no injuries were reported after a drone strike this morning caused a fire in an electrical generator located outside the inner site perimeter of the NPP. Emergency diesel generators… pic.twitter.com/km2rg08Gvd

— IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) May 17, 2026

Pakistan on Monday “strongly condemned” the drone attack on the UAE’s nuclear power plant.

“Any deliberate targeting of nuclear facilities constitutes a grave violation of international law, including international humanitarian law, the United Nations Charter, and the fundamental principles of nuclear safety and security enshrined in the Statute and resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in an X post. “Nuclear installations must never be targeted under any circumstances. Such reckless actions carry potentially catastrophic and irreversible consequences for human life, the environment and regional, as well as global peace and security.”

Pakistan’s condemnation comes as it is trying to keep a flagging peace process going amid an increasingly tenuous ceasefire.

🔊 PR No.1️⃣1️⃣8️⃣/2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣

Pakistan Strongly Condemns the Drone Attack on the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant of the United Arab Emirates

🔗⬇️https://t.co/7J7r1j6ZCH pic.twitter.com/DyMIR7bmoQ

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) May 18, 2026

Saudi Arabia said it too was attacked by drones on Sunday, but did not say who launched them.

The official spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense (MoD), Major General Turki Al-Maliki, “stated that on the morning of Sunday…three drones were intercepted and destroyed after entering the Kingdom’s airspace coming from Iraqi airspace,” the Saudi MoD stated on X. Al-Maliki “affirmed that the Ministry of Defense reserves the right to respond at the appropriate time and place, and will take and implement all necessary operational measures to respond to any attempt to infringe on the Kingdom’s sovereignty, security, and the safety of its citizens and residents on its territory.”

There are several Iranian-linked proxy groups in Iraq that have been attacking U.S. and allied facilities in that country.

صرح المتحدث الرسمي باسم وزارة الدفاع اللواء الركن تركي المالكي أنه في صباح يوم الأحد الموافق (17 مايو 2026م) تم اعتراض وتدمير 3 مسيّرات بعد دخولها المجال الجوي للمملكة قادمة من الأجواء العراقية.

وأكد اللواء المالكي على أن وزارة الدفاع تحتفظ بحق الرد في الزمان والمكان المناسبين،… pic.twitter.com/80hZw8z7BU

— وزارة الدفاع (@modgovksa) May 17, 2026

On Monday Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a phone call with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan. According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the two discussed issues related to the ongoing diplomatic process and the latest regional developments, in their seventh call since the ceasefire began.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a phone call with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan, a day after Riyadh said it was attacked by three drones originating from Iraq.

According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the two discussed issues related to the ongoing… pic.twitter.com/UiuEZ8RMno

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) May 18, 2026

The New York Times is reporting that Israel established at least a second base in Iraq to aid its air campaigns against Iran. As we previously noted, the presence of the first one was reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In its story, the Times stated the base it was writing about pre-dated the current conflict and was used during last year’s 12-Day War between Israel and Iran. The newspaper also said a Bedouin shepherd was killed by helicopter fire after stumbling on the base in an effort to keep it secret.

The Times story lines up with our earlier reporting that Israel likely created facilities in Iraq during the 12-Day War. We also predicted at the time that it would likely happen again in the future.

As we noted in the past, Israel used the base reported on by the Journal to stage troops and equipment and provide combat search and rescue service if needed for downed pilots during the current conflict. 

Israel spent over a year preparing a covert site in Iraq for its operations against Iran, regional officials say. Iraqi officials later confirmed the existence of a second base.
By @ErikaSolomon & Falih Hassanhttps://t.co/l6fIJdfTFx

— Malachy Browne (@malachybrowne) May 17, 2026

Amid its own ceasefire agreement with the Lebanese government, Israel is continuing to hit Hezbollah targets in the southern part of that country where it has a growing military presence.

חיל-האוויר וכוחות חטיבה 769 בפיקוד אוגדה 91 השמידו בסגירת מעגל מהירה מחסן נ״ט ששימש את ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה נגד הכוחות הפועלים במרחב. pic.twitter.com/WmBpY0gbdM

— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) May 18, 2026

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s run for California governor has been defined from the start by his donor list.

Mahan entered the race late and with little statewide name recognition, but catapulted into contention thanks to massive funding from billionaire tech titans, venture capitalists, cryptocurrency investors and other Silicon Valley elites. In a state with more than 23 million voters and hugely expensive media markets, the money signaled Mahan would be a contender.

It also spurred accusations from his more liberal Democratic competitors and powerful labor leaders that Mahan is beholden to Big Tech, including forces aligned with President Trump.

California Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher recently described Mahan as “funded by Trump’s big tech billionaires,” while fellow Democratic candidate Tom Steyer — a billionaire running against corporate interests — called him “MAGA Matt Mahan.”

That framing has persisted, despite Mahan being a centrist Democrat who has publicly criticized Trump.

On Thursday, Mahan released a four-page “Plan to Hold Big Tech Accountable and Ensure AI Works for All Californians.” The proposal called for AI and data centers to pay for their power and water needs, fund workforce stability initiatives and ensure human oversight of AI tools in critical sectors such as healthcare. It also called for the state to use AI to become more efficient, to bar cellphones in schools and to require parental consent for kids 15 and under joining social media.

In an interview with The Times, Mahan, 43, said AI is “one of the most significant trends in society” and needs to be addressed.

He also rejected the notion that he would do Big Tech’s bidding, and the idea that his support from tech leaders is entirely or even largely premised on his plans for their industry.

“I’ve spoken very little about tech with any of my donors,” he said.

Mahan said his fundraising has instead been “centered on how we get California on a better path in terms of building housing, improving the quality of our public schools, solving our biggest problems,” which “just resonates with people in the tech industry.”

A ‘digital native’

Mahan, the son of a teacher and a mailman, grew up in the farming community of Watsonville but commuted to San José to attend high school at Bellarmine College Prep on scholarship as a low-income student. He went on to Harvard University, where he was student body president and classmates with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, spent a year in Bolivia building irrigation systems, and then taught for two years in Alum Rock as part of the Teach for America program.

He then joined Causes, an early Facebook application that allowed nonprofits to build grassroots support online, and rose to become chief executive. In 2014, he co-founded Brigade, a nonpartisan platform where voters could advocate for issues, which was acquired in 2019. He won a San José City Council seat in 2020, and was elected mayor in 2022.

An early mayoral profile described Mahan as painting a whiteboard behind his desk to “write on the wall as I did in my tech days.” Another noted he used ChatGPT to write speeches. A third recounted how he’d used AI to make city buses run faster.

Mahan said he learned as a startup leader and a classroom teacher that metrics matter — that “when we take our precious tax dollars and invest them in public services, we should measure our performance.”

He said he has always believed government should take the best tech has to offer while being vigilant about the risks it poses, which maybe comes naturally to him as a millennial who remembers “the world before the internet” but is also something of a “digital native.”

Donors explain

Between Jan. 1 and April 18, Mahan’s campaign raised nearly $13.5 million, according to state campaign finance filings. During the same period, an independent expenditure backing Mahan called Back to Basics raised about $22.7 million, while another launched by the group Deliver for California raised nearly $3.3 million.

The donors are a who’s who of tech leaders, venture capitalists and other leaders in the gig, gaming, digital media and AI defense fields.

Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, gave the maximum individual contribution of $39,200 to Mahan directly, and $1 million to the Deliver for California committee. Reed Hastings, the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, gave the maximum contribution to Mahan, plus $1 million to the Back to Basics committee.

Some donors, such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who gave the maximum to Mahan, are well-known supporters of progressive causes. Others, such as Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and crypto founder David Marcus, who maxed out to Mahan, are also Trump backers.

Brin, a friend of Gov. Gavin Newsom since the Democrat was mayor of San Francisco, has been moving rightward recently. He has donated to the Republican National Committee and in March was appointed to the White House tech advisory council. He’s also a major donor to the nonprofit opposing the ballot measure for a new tax on California billionaires — which Mahan also is against.

Brin, Lonsdale and Marcus did not respond to a request for comment. Hastings and Hoffman declined to comment.

Several other tech donors did speak with The Times — and universally described their support for Mahan as less to do with his tech policies, and more to do with issues important to all Californians.

Jamie Siminoff, who sold his home security startup Ring to Amazon for $1 billion and gave the maximum donation to Mahan, said he thinks L.A., where he lives, is the “greatest city in the world” and California is the “best state in the world.” But he sees Mahan as someone who could make improvements by bringing the state toward the political middle on public safety, housing and homelessness.

“He’s just like a nice, pragmatic, sort of centrist person, from what I can see, [who] wants to make California better, and I’m 100% behind that.”

Siminoff said it doesn’t hurt that Mahan speaks the same language as many tech leaders, who are mostly just “pragmatic inventors and entrepreneurs” who want California’s leader to be “principled in thinking about fixing things.”

Ruchi Sanghvi, the first female engineer at Facebook and a former Dropbox executive who state records show donated $25,000 to Mahan, said she has known Mahan since he was leading Causes but fell out of touch. When he entered the governor’s race, and she “got all these emails from people that I respect” saying they were supporting him, she asked for a meeting.

At that meeting, she said, Mahan “really dug in on some of the core issues that I care about,” including housing, homelessness and education.

The San Francisco resident, political independent and mother of three said the idea that tech leaders are backing Mahan because they believe he will scratch their back in business is wrong. Referring to his tech plan’s restrictions on social media for youth, she said, “I don’t think of that as scratching my back.”

Instead, “what really resonates with me and my peers is that, yes, he is pragmatic,” Sanghvi said. “He cares about measurable outcomes, which I think is very critical.”

Marc Merrill, co-founder, co-chairman and chief product officer of L.A.-based video game developer and e-sports company Riot Games, gave the maximum to Mahan, as did his wife, Ashley, founder of the sleepwear brand Lunya. In a statement to The Times, Merrill said he and his wife are lifelong Californians who love the state and support Mahan because of his record “addressing California’s most pressing challenges with practical, results-oriented solutions” in San José.

Merrill said Mahan brought down violent crime, reduced homelessness with “data-driven programs that address root causes rather than just managing the problem,” and “fostered an environment where businesses are choosing to invest and grow in the city.”

Tech vs. labor?

Gonzalez Fletcher said tech leaders have long “been very clear about their desire to support candidates who won’t regulate AI, to support candidates who will go after organized labor” — and their support for Mahan is no different.

She pointed as an example to a March event attended by Mahan and hosted by one of his most vocal backers: Garry Tan, a venture capitalist and chief executive of Y Combinator, a startup incubator in San Francisco.

At the event — which was part of Tan’s launch of a new statewide group called Garry’s List, which he has described as a “Rotary Club for radical centrism” — Chris Larsen, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency network Ripple, railed against the influence of unions in California politics and the “weak” response from business leaders, according to video.

“We’ve got to fight on par with the unions when they’re proposing stupid, job-killing ideas like the San Francisco CEO tax,” Larsen said. He noted that several other candidates for governor, including former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, whom he’d donated to, had backed the measure to tax companies that pay their chief executive 100 times more than their average employee.

Neither Tan nor Larsen responded to a request for comment.

Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state legislator, said the argument that California Democrats have caused the state’s biggest problems by bowing to unions is false, and that what is more true is that “ruling class” Democrats such as Newsom “acquiesce to business interests” driving the state’s affordability and homelessness crises.

She said employers get away with underpaying workers and big landlords are allowed to take advantage of renters. She said Airbnb, as a tech example, has gone unchecked despite causing “a lot of the removal of housing stock.”

She said one reason she opposes Mahan is that he “suffers from the same love affair with Big Tech” as Newsom.

Steyer — who has funded his own campaign to the tune of nearly $200 million — has repeatedly struck a similar note.

Earlier this month, his campaign wrote that “Mahan continues to fail working Californians by catering to tech billionaires and wealthy special interest groups.” In February, it wrote that although Mahan had the support of “powerful special interests hellbent on keeping California a playground for the rich,” Steyer had the backing of “bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and custodians.”

Airbnb declined to comment but in the past has denied claims its platform substantially contributes to housing affordability issues, and has donated to housing initiatives. Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, a Mahan donor, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mahan said he values unions, in part because he grew up in a union household and benefited from the high-quality healthcare that provided, included when he was hospitalized for a collapsed lung as a teenager.

He said he has also worked with tech employers who “are inventing the future, quite literally,” and “creating a lot of jobs and opportunity.”

Mahan said the idea the two are inherently at odds is false, because “business needs labor, and labor needs business,” and the real question is “how to balance everyone’s needs.”

“If we don’t have a strong enough regulatory environment, and business has too much power, workers can be exploited, the environment can be exploited and we can see really negative social outcomes,” he said. “But the flip side is also true. If labor in our politics has too much power, you can also see distortions, you can see investment flow elsewhere, you can see less housing get built.”

Mahan said that “neither side has a monopoly on the truth,” and that government has to “bring people together and strike the right balance.”

He also defended Airbnb, which in San José pays taxes just like hotels, he said.

“We don’t see Airbnb as an antagonistic thing. We don’t let them take over the market, we regulate them, we charge them, and we use their tax revenue to provide services to people.”

He said the state’s housing crisis is due to over-regulation slowing new building to the point where it cannot keep up with job growth — which he called “fundamentally unsustainable and unfair” to low-income folks pushed out of job centers as a result.

The answer is building more homes, more quickly, he said, including by reducing building fees and streamlining permitting processes — which he said he has done in San José and would replicate statewide as governor.

“I am, first and foremost, focused on making government deliver results that make a real difference in people’s lives,” he said. “That’s my North Star.”

President Trump succeeded in his effort to defeat Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana’s Republican primary, a signal of the enduring strength of the president’s hold on his party despite an unpopular war and soaring gas prices.

Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators in 2021 who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 that year. He placed last in a three-way race Saturday against U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who was endorsed by Trump, and state Treasurer John Fleming.

“His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!” Trump said of Cassidy on social media late Saturday.

With 92.3% of ballots tallied, Letlow had 44.8% of the vote and Fleming had 28.3%. Cassidy trailed with 24.7%.

Letlow and Fleming will advance to a runoff next month. Whoever wins that contest is virtually assured victory in November in deep-red Louisiana. In his last reelection in 2020, just months before his vote to convict Trump, Cassidy won 59% of the vote.

In a primary season where Trump is crusading to vanquish members of his party with whom he’s been at odds, the Louisiana race comes just days before the president tries to oust another Republican foe, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. But Trump has opted so far to stay out of a hard-fought Texas GOP runoff later this month between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, a traditional conservative, and state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, who is more politically aligned with the president’s MAGA movement.

Massie, who faces a primary that has become the most expensive of its kind, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that’s he’s confident he will prevail Tuesday despite a string of social media insults from the president and fundraising by Trump allies such as billionaires Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer.

“I think it’s going to help my fundraising,” Massie said. “People don’t like this.”

With state polls showing Massie with a slight lead, the congressman said, “that’s why the president is losing sleep and tweeting about me.”

Trump’s success in defeating Cassidy left the Louisiana senator defiant: “Let me just set the record straight. Our country is not about one individual, it is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution.”

“If someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves, they’re not about serving us,” he added.

Trump has attacked Cassidy for his 2021 vote and his opposition to some aspects of his agenda, particularly vaccine and other health policies pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings last year, Cassidy, who is a doctor, expressed deep skepticism about the nominee’s anti-vaccine views, but ultimately voted to confirm him.

Trump recently blamed Cassidy for thwarting the nomination of wellness influencer Casey Means as surgeon general. Means is a longtime ally of Kennedy’s, and Cassidy had also questioned her stance on vaccinations.

On Saturday morning, Trump continued his attacks, calling Cassidy a “a disloyal disaster” on social media. He later congratulated Letlow on her first-place finish.

In his concession speech, Cassidy said: “I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet.”

Despite the president’s opposition to his candidacy, Cassidy had run ads featuring images of Trump, praising top White House issues that the senator had supported including the president’s massive tax package enacted last year, while casting Letlow as insufficiently conservative.

The outcome also notches a high-profile win for Kennedy’s political operation, which supported Letlow and opposed Cassidy in the race. The two men have repeatedly clashed over nominations and the department’s changes to vaccine policy. With certainty of his departure when his term ends in January, Cassidy could make the health secretary’s job even more difficult as he finishes out his term with an eye to his legacy and priorities.

Cassidy’s departure will also leave a leadership vacuum for the GOP atop the Senate Health Committee next year. The panel oversees health agencies and confirmations for key leadership positions at the agencies, and Cassidy brought his medical expertise to the role. He has built a reputation as a healthcare policy wonk willing to work across the aisle.

Only two other Republican senators who broke with Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, remain in the Senate. Collins, who represents a state Trump lost in 2024, has largely avoided the president’s wrath while she fights for her political life in one of the most competitive races of the midterms. Murkowski won reelection in 2022.

“You can disagree with President Trump, but if you try to destroy him you’re going to lose because this is the party of Donald Trump,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“There’s no room in this party to destroy his agenda or to destroy him or his family as a Republican,” Graham said. “It’s just a reality.”

Cohrs Zhang writes for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writers Tony Czuczka and Se Young Lee contributed to this report.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican who has occasionally asserted his independence from President Trump, failed to advance in Saturday’s GOP primary runoff in Louisiana, as a Trump-backed foe and another candidate finished in the top two spots.

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won the most votes, capitalizing on the power of Trump’s endorsement in his latest attempt to purge his party of people he views as disloyal. State Treasurer John Fleming came in second to join her in the next round of voting.

Trump supported Letlow over Cassidy, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial over the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cassidy, a doctor, has also clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, even though he provided crucial support to help Kennedy get confirmed.

By receiving less than 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming, a former U.S. House member and Trump administration official, were unable to avoid the runoff, which will take place June 27. The winner will almost certainly take the November general election because of the state’s Republican leanings.

The Louisiana primary comes in the middle of a month of campaigns by Trump to exact retribution on politicians he views as having crossed him. On May 5 he helped dislodge five of seven Indiana state senators who rejected his partisan gerrymander plan.

Next Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky will face a Trump-backed challenger, Ed Gallrein, in another Republican primary. Massie angered Trump by opposing his signature tax legislation over concerns about the national debt, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing his decision to go to war with Iran.

The president leveled insults at Cassidy on Saturday morning, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media. In the evening he followed up with: “Congratulations to Congresswoman Julia Letlow on a fantastic race, beating an Incumbent Senator by Record Setting Numbers.”

Jeanelle Chachere, a 66-year-old nurse, said she considers Cassidy “a phony” and voted for Letlow solely because Trump endorsed her.

“I’m going by what he says, because I like what he does,” she said.

Election changes stir concern

The election was scrambled by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision focused on Louisiana gutting a part of the Voting Rights Act that affects how congressional maps are drawn. Although the Senate primary is moving forward, Louisiana leaders decided to delay House primaries until a future date to allow them to redo district lines ahead of time, a shift that threatened to cause confusion for voters Saturday.

Mary-Patricia Wray, who has consulted for Republican and Democratic candidates in Louisiana, said before the vote that the change could weigh against Cassidy by dampening turnout among voters who are less fervently pro-Trump.

“Suspending the congressional primaries hurts Cassidy,” she said. “Some people believe the Senate primary is canceled.”

Cassidy also complained that a new primary system enacted last year confused voters by requiring them to ask for a partisan ballot instead of the all-party primary previously in place. He said some called his office to say they had been unable to vote for him.

“The process that was set up was destined to be confusing,” Cassidy told reporters Friday.

Dadrius Lanus, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said his team fielded hundreds of calls from voters statewide who said the changes undermined their ability vote as they planned.

“A lot of the information should have gotten to voters well in advance,” Lanus said. “It’s literally been a whirlwind of confusion.”

A costly primary

Cassidy waged an aggressive campaign to convince voters he should not be counted out. Wray was among the political consultants who, as election day neared, gave the senator a chance of pulling off an upset.

The senator’s campaign was expected to have spent roughly $9.6 million on advertising through May 16, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And Louisiana Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting him, was on track to spend $12.3 million.

By comparison, Letlow’s campaign, which launched Jan. 20, spent roughly $3.9 million, while a super PAC backing her, the Accountability Project, spent about $6 million.

Fleming’s campaign spent about $1.5 million.

Cassidy and Louisiana Freedom Fund ran ads attacking Letlow within days of her entering the race for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which Trump has tried to root out of the federal government.

Letlow, a college administrator before her election to the House, said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020.

The ads, an attempt to characterize Letlow as a progressive trying to pass as a conservative, were one way Cassidy tried to flip the script in a race where he was on the outs with Trump.

Trump’s campaign

The senator’s vote in favor of convicting Trump after his 2021 impeachment has shadowed Cassidy throughout his second Senate term.

John Martin, a 68-year-old retired engineer in south Louisiana, said he would vote for Letlow because he was still upset by Cassidy’s decision. He waved a flier from Letlow’s campaign showing her standing alongside the president.

“I know a lot more about Cassidy than I do about her,” Martin said. “But if she’s endorsed by Trump, I’m going to believe that.”

Cassidy steered clear of Trump’s ire last year, supporting Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services despite his public reservations about the nominee’s anti-vaccine views.

Mark Workman, a 75-year-old retired infectious disease physician in the New Orleans suburbs, said he backs Fleming. Had Cassidy “stood up and blocked RFK,” Workman said, he would have supported the senator for taking a strong and courageous stance.

“He had the ability to stop him,” Workman said, “and he was too weak to do that.”

As chair of the Senate Health Committee, Cassidy has been more publicly critical of Kennedy, including over funding cuts for vaccine development.

Trump blamed Cassidy for the failed nomination of his second choice for surgeon general, Casey Means, who raised doubts about vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B, a practice Cassidy supports. Trump withdrew the Means nomination and decried Cassidy.

Challenger waited for Trump’s backing

Letlow considered running last year but only entered the race after Trump announced his endorsement in January.

By that time Fleming, who was elected state treasurer in 2023, was already in the race as a Trump devotee. But Landry was looking for a better-known challenger, and he suggested Letlow to the president.

Letlow had an unconventional and tragic entry into politics.

In 2020, while she was a college administrator, her husband, Luke, was elected to the U.S. House but died of COVID-19 before he could be sworn in. Letlow ran for and won the seat in a March 2021 special election and was reelected in 2022 and 2024.

Beaumont and Brook write for the Associated Press and reported from Des Moines and Baton Rouge, respectively

WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee on Friday announced that he is ending his bid for reelection, his career upended by the redistricting battles that are sweeping the country after last month’s Supreme Court decision.

Republicans in Tennessee this month enacted a new U.S. House map that carves up Cohen’s majority-Black district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.

“I don’t want to quit. I’m not a quitter. But these districts were drawn to beat me,” Cohen told reporters in his Washington, D.C., office.

Cohen is challenging the state’s redistricting effort in court and said that he would reenter the race if that lawsuit succeeded in restoring his old congressional district.

He lamented that Tennessee would likely shift to an entirely Republican congressional delegation after the next election, warning that it could also leave the state out of the loop once Democrats are able to regain the White House.

Redistricting targeted Cohen’s district

Tennessee was the first state to pass new congressional districts after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. But more Southern states could follow. Republicans in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina also have taken steps toward redistricting.

Cohen has represented his Memphis-based district for about two decades, among the last of the white Democrats representing the South. He has been a longtime member of the House Judiciary Committee and has focused on strengthening voting access and civil rights.

“It’s unique in America that an African American majority district has elected a white guy, and that we’ve got a great relationship, great amount of support,” said Cohen, who is also the first Jewish person to represent Tennessee in Congress.

He was facing a primary challenge from state lawmaker Justin Pearson, a Black Democrat who represents Memphis in the state’s General Assembly. Pearson has said he will continue his campaign in the state’s newly redrawn 9th Congressional District.

But Cohen predicted that it would be nearly impossible for Tennessee Democrats to win a seat in Congress with the new districts. He added there was a chance the redistricting effort could “backfire on the Republicans” but that would require an “unbelievable registration effort among Democrats” and a massive vote turnout effort.

Cohen vows to oppose Trump

Sitting in his congressional office with staff looking on, Cohen pointed to photos of Memphis and local projects that he had championed during his career and expressed worry that Memphis voters would no longer have a voice in Washington. He also recounted how he had worked with the state’s Republican leaders to win funding during the Biden administration for a larger bridge to cross the Mississippi River into Memphis.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement that Cohen was “a powerful champion for civil rights” and that “the City of Memphis, the Congress and the nation are better because of Steve’s commitment to making a difference.”

Cohen said that the Republican’s redistricting effort was being done “for Donald Trump to get one more vote, he thinks, to stop them from being impeached.”

Still, he vowed to use his remaining time in Congress to try to mount opposition to Trump, calling the president “the greatest threat to democracy and to decorum and grace that we’ve ever seen.”

Like many lawmakers, Cohen has often attracted attention with colorful outbursts during congressional debates and hearings. During Trump’s first term, in 2019, Cohen brought a bucket of fried chicken to a House Judiciary Committee hearing at which then-Atty. Gen. William P. Barr was a no-show.

“The message is Attorney General Bill Barr is not brave enough to answer questions from a staff attorney and members of the Judiciary Committee,” he said in a statement at the time.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — In recent weeks, several social media influencers have popped up in online feeds touting the California gubernatorial campaign of billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer.

Some complain about the price of gasoline. Others mention environmental concerns. One cites her newfound sobriety as evidence that people can change — a nod to Steyer’s self-proclaimed metamorphosis from hedge fund titan to scourge of big corporations.

“I did not expect the most progressive governor candidate to be a billionaire, but look at the policies you guys,” said one content creator on TikTok with the user name Jaz R. “Hear me out. I know Tom Steyer is a billionaire, but he also is for the people.”

The posts include direct-to-the-camera appeals, with personal details interwoven into messages of support for Steyer. An influencer goes for a stroll as onscreen text touts Steyer’s policies. Some seek to convey authenticity, if occasionally ham-fistedly; one influencer mispronounces Steyer’s last name.

What they do not include is a disclosure that their creators were paid by the Steyer campaign to produce the videos, according to a complaint filed this week with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a Times review of the posts.

The complaint alleges that the Steyer campaign failed to notify the influencers it hired of their obligation to inform their audience when their posts have been sponsored by the campaign.

California passed a law in 2023 requiring that influencers disclose if they have been paid to create promotional content for or against a candidate or ballot measure, one of the few jurisdictions in the country with such a requirement. There is no such requirement at the federal level.

“Every time there’s a new technology, you have to create legislation that requires them to disclose,” said state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), who sponsored the bill.

Violating the law doesn’t carry criminal, civil or administrative penalties, but the FPPC can take influencers who break the law to court and ask a judge to force them to comply.

The complaint was filed by two California women — political influencers themselves — who said they noticed a number of new accounts that suddenly started posting similar-sounding videos promoting Steyer earlier this month.

“They had the exact same language, they had the same talking points,” said Beatrice Gomberg, who worked with Kaitlyn Hennessy in their digital sleuthing efforts.

The FPPC did not comment on the complaint.

Steyer’s campaign appears to have relied on paid influencers more than any candidate for governor, according to the most recent campaign finance filings.

That spending represents only a small fraction of the massive campaign war chest Steyer has seeded with nearly $180 million of his own money. But the complaint highlights the growing degree to which political candidates have come to seek out the authenticity that social media influencers seem to offer.

Steyer campaign spokesperson Kevin Liao said the campaign had properly followed the rules in hiring influencers and that the campaign is “confident” that Gomberg and Hennessy’s complaint is “baseless.”

“Creators make their living generating content. The campaign believes in compensating people for their time and work product and has paid creators to generate content,” Liao said in a statement. “Payments for creator content are disclosed in campaign finance reports, and we notify creators we directly work with of their disclosure requirements.”

While many of the new Steyer influencers have few followers, Steyer’s campaign disclosed in its most recent campaign finance report that it had paid thousands of dollars to numerous social media influencers with massive audiences, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Several of the videos produced by these popular social media personalities also failed to disclose that they had been paid by the campaign, according to the complaint and The Times’ review of the content.

But even accounts with few followers can still have a big impact if they are producing a steady stream of content supporting Steyer, said veteran California political strategist Mike Madrid.

“What they’re trying to do is trip the algorithm,” he said. “It looks like it has a bigger audience than it really does. It’s taking the concept of astroturfing into the digital age.”

Gomberg and Hennessy said they became friends after meeting at an April campaign event for Xavier Becerra, Steyer’s chief Democratic rival in the race, who holds a narrow advantage over Steyer in several recent political polls.

The pair have been prolific social media supporters of Becerra’s campaign ever since, though they insist they are not being paid for their efforts.

They said they discovered that many of the new pro-Steyer accounts seemed to be run by influencers — mostly women — who had previously created different social media accounts to hawk other products.

One of the pro-Steyer influencers had an online portfolio listing numerous clients, including the Steyer campaign and a gummy designed to boost arousal, according to the complaint and the Times review of the publicly accessible website.

The pair said they stumbled on an advertisement placed by a vendor for the campaign on a platform used by creators to find work. The advertisement indicated that creators would be paid $10 for each post, with bonuses for posts that amassed large viewership.

The vendor who posted the ad did not respond to a request for comment.

The advertisement has since been updated to say that it pays $1,000 per month and that creators will have to disclose that it is paid content.

As Gomberg and Hennessy dug deeper, they determined that some of the influencers promoting a candidate for governor weren’t even based in California.

A TikTok account using the handle jess.votes, for example, appears to be connected to a woman registered to vote in Florida. Other accounts were connected to women who indicated elsewhere that they were based in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Michigan.

Several influencers who created seemingly paid content promoting Steyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Times.

The brouhaha over paid social media content is just the latest instance of the growing political impact of online creators.

Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor — and congressional career — came to an end after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. A pair of influencers had publicly raised concerns about Swalwell’s behavior and helped connect victims with journalists who produced highly detailed reports of the allegations.

The California law requires influencers to disclose in a political post’s audio or text that it was sponsored and who paid for it.

The onus is on the creators to make the disclosure, but campaigns are required to tell them that they must do so. Despite passage of the law, the issue has so far remained largely under the radar.

“I have dozens of candidates and campaigns and I have not heard this issue come up one time,” said a campaign finance lawyer who requested anonymity because they represent numerous candidates with active campaigns.

Gomberg and Hennessy said that they were driven to call attention to potential violations of the disclosure requirements because of their concern about the corrosive influence such paid content could have if left unchecked.

“You have people who have trust in these creators,” Hennessy said. “You have a responsibility to your audience.”

COVINGTON, Ky. — Rep. Thomas Massie was stuck in Washington for a vote on Capitol Hill, so one of his supporters made the pitch for his campaign in a banquet hall packed with Republicans in northern Kentucky.

The audience had just heard Ed Gallrein, who was drafted by President Trump to run against Massie in next Tuesday’s primary, describe the congressman as suffering from “a severe case of Trump derangement syndrome.”

Then Gex Williams, a state senator backing Massie, told the audience at the Lincoln Day Dinner not to worry about all that.

“If you are thinking that you can’t be for President Trump and for Thomas Massie, you certainly can be,” Williams said.

Whether voters agree will determine whether Massie’s political career survives Trump’s most aggressive attempt to purge the Republican Party of dissenters. The president already succeeded last week in dislodging several Indiana state senators who opposed his redistricting plan, and he’s supporting a primary challenge against U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana on Saturday.

But nothing compares to the vitriol against Massie, whom Trump has called a “moron” and a “nut job” who “will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman.” Trump made an unusual trip to Kentucky to campaign against Massie, and some of the president’s top advisors are working to help Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL.

Massie angered Trump by voting against his signature tax legislation over concerns of adding to the national debt, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing his decision to go to war with Iran. His positions, Massie insists, reflect the America First promises Trump initially made on the campaign trail.

In a Kentucky district where the president won by 35 points two years ago, Massie told the Associated Press that the upcoming primary is “by far the most challenging reelection I’ve ever faced.”

Party loyalty or ideological purity?

The race is playing out across Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, which sweeps northeast from the outskirts of Louisville along the Ohio River, through the suburbs south of Cincinnati and over to the lush foothills and old coal towns of Appalachia.

Voters here have sent Massie back to Congress ever since his first election in 2012, embracing his stalwart independence and jaunty personality. Back in 2020, they brushed off Trump’s social media demand to “throw Massie out of Republican Party” because he was a “third rate Grandstander.”

Now, Republican voters are debating whether they will do the same thing again.

“If all we’re doing is pulling in yes men, then how do you grow from that? How do you have the best end product if everyone just says, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great idea,’” said Tonya Young, an attendee of the Lincoln Day Dinner who is leaning toward Massie but still undecided.

“However, I do feel like it’s important to stay loyal. That’s where, I’m like, I’m a hot mess,” said the 57-year-old special education teacher. “Sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and compromise on things.”

Young said she will plumb through the Republican-backed bills that Massie voted against before she makes up her mind. What isn’t a major part of her calculation is Trump’s endorsement of Gallrein or his epithets against Massie.

Young still supports Trump, rating his second term at a “B to a C+” relative to his campaign promises. During Trump’s first term, Young said, she’d “probably put more stock in” his endorsement.

‘I’m going to vote for Massie even though he makes me mad’

At the Lincoln Day Dinner in Covington, well-dressed Republicans sat at circular tables, ate dinner and listened attentively as candidates gave speeches.

Steve Jarvis, a 77-year-old retired law enforcement officer, who stood near the late night coffee station, has decided to vote against Massie for the very first time.

“Made me sad, truly it does,” said Jarvis, wearing a bespoke American flag bow tie made of feathers, “I like Massie.”

When Massie first ran for Congress, Jarvis bought a Massie campaign sign, sized for a freeway overpass, and planted it outside his home, a few doors down from which lived Massie’s opponent.

But some of Massie’s departures from the party, he said, “made me nuts. I can’t do it anymore.”

One was Trump’s flagship Big Beautiful Bill, which Massie voted against citing the consequent budget deficit and increased inflation.

“I understand voting your principle once or twice,” said Jarvis, “but at some point in time when it becomes crucial, I think they have to get in line.”

Gallrein, he said, would get in line.

Jana Kathman came to a different conclusion.

“I’m going to vote for Massie even though he makes me mad,” she said while shopping for bagels at a local farmers market outside Covington.

The 56-year-old registered nurse said, “I just like him as a person, I like how he lives his life, and I know he stands very strong with his convictions.”

Though she still likes Trump, his endorsement and attacks don’t impress her.

“I don’t like when Trump plays the little games as soon as someone opposes him, but we know that’s how Trump lashes out,” Kathman said.

‘Antibodies’ to Trump’s electoral broadside

Gallrein mounted the stage at the Lincoln Day Dinner with a prepared speech. He grew up on a family farm, was inspired by President Reagan to join the Navy SEALs and was recently asked by Trump to serve his country again in Congress.

He hyped up Trump — “Do you know he doesn’t take a salary?” — and launched into a list of Trump-backed policies Massie had voted against, lumping him in with the “radical Democrats.”

Gallrein declined an interview request, and he’s declined to attend candidate forums and debates with Massie.

Several voters said they were grateful for Gallrein’s service, but still don’t have a grasp of his platform, aside from his fidelity to Trump.

Massie argues that’s why Kentucky should stick with him, using what has become a go-to refrain.

“Politicians promise during the campaign, and then they go to D.C. to go along to get along,” he said. “My opponent is promising to go along to get along.”

Massie is hopeful that Trump’s anger will blow over once he wins the primary.

“Once this race is over, I don’t think there’s any benefit to him attacking me, I’ll have the antibodies from a natural infection,” Massie said chuckling.

After years of being considered a conservative gadfly in Congress, he said, maybe he has some of those antibodies already.

“This will be the booster shot,” he said.

Bedayn writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — A federal immigration court in Lower Manhattan has come to represent the Trump administration’s deportation campaign in New York City, with agents carrying out chaotic and sometimes violent arrests in the hallway as migrants leave hearings.

Now the court is serving as a front in a different kind of battle: one of the city’s most closely watched congressional races.

In the Democratic primary between incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman and former city Comptroller Brad Lander — for a district so solidly blue that the June primary is considered its deciding election — both candidates have made the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants at 26 Federal Plaza a feature of their campaigns, but with decidedly different approaches.

Goldman — an heir to the Levi Strauss denim fortune and former prosecutor who was lead counsel for President Trump’s first impeachment — has approached the topic with a lawyerly bent that leverages the power of his office.

He sued the administration to open immigration detention centers to members of Congress, conducts oversight visits and turned his office across the street into what he’s called a triage center that connects immigrants with advocacy groups and legal services that has, his campaign said, helped more than 30 people get released from federal custody.

After a recent visit, Goldman credited his oversight work as a reason conditions at a holding facility inside the building have improved.

“What you see from our multipronged approach is the way that I push back, which is not performative, but it is substantive,” he told the Associated Press outside 26 Federal Plaza after he toured the detention center that is closed to the public.

Meanwhile, Lander — a progressive city government stalwart who is running with the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — has acted as protester and court observer, watching hearings and attempting to accompany immigrants out of the building past masked federal agents.

His efforts have gotten him arrested twice, with the most recent case headed to a trial scheduled to take place just before the primary.

“I would characterize his oversight function as strongly worded letters,” Lander told AP when asked about Goldman’s approach. “And my oversight function is: Show up with hundreds of your neighbors and bear witness and accompany people and demand access and stay until they give it to you or they arrest you.”

Lander’s first arrest happened last year when he linked arms with a person authorities were attempting to detain in the hallway outside the court. Lander was running for mayor at the time, and the arrest gave his campaign a jolt of excitement at a time when Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo were considered the front-runners in the race.

A few months later, after losing the mayoral primary but not long before launching his congressional campaign, Lander was arrested again during a large protest at the building and hit with a misdemeanor obstruction charge.

But instead of accepting a deal that would have made the case go away in six months, Lander instead opted to go to trial. He said the case would extract information about the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts at the building during a tense period that predates Goldman’s oversight visits.

Goldman dismissed Lander’s efforts as performative.

“I don’t understand why someone would reject a dismissal of a case so that he can have a public trial, ostensibly to ask for information that I could provide him whenever he wanted because I have the answers from doing my oversight,” he said.

This week, Lander returned to 26 Federal Plaza to sit in on hearings. But just before entering the building, his team got word that federal agents were lingering outside an immigration hearing at a different federal courtroom in a building across the street. He raced over and eventually found the agents, who were wearing masks and milling around in the court’s waiting room.

“The challenge is trying to figure out who they’re going to arrest,” Lander said, popping out of the hearing, where he sat in a back row and took notes. After a while, the agents walked away from the hearing room, down a hallway and exited the floor. It was not clear why they left.

“Maybe we have different styles,” Lander said of his opponent after the agents departed. He later went back across the street and filmed a campaign video in front of 26 Federal Plaza.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press.

A briefing memo obtained by The Times appears to support former Rep. Katie Porter’s accusation that a Tom Steyer staffer leaked a video of her yelling at an employee, an outburst that tainted her gubernatorial prospects when the video became public.

The video, which was obtained in October by Politico, showed Porter erupting at a staff member who appeared in the background of a prerecorded Zoom call between the former congresswoman and then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

During a nationally televised interview on CNN by Dana Bash on Monday, Porter accused the Steyer campaign of leaking the damaging video.

“I am confident that is the case,” Porter said after Bash asked how she knew Steyer was the source. “I’ve been told by many people it’s a Department of Energy video, it was only held by the Department of Energy, and people can follow the trail to who his campaign staffers are and understand what happened there.”

Following the CNN interview, Steyer’s campaign denied that the candidate was involved with the leak.

Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer hosts an “LA Block Party” campaign event Wednesday at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park. Rocky Mosse, 9, waits his turn for a photo with Steyer.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“Tom has nothing to do with that video,” Steyer campaign spokesperson Sepi Esfahlani said after Porter levied the accusation on Monday. “This is an attempt from Katie Porter to deflect from her past mistakes. Katie Porter only has one person to blame for her standing in the race, and it’s herself.”

According to a briefing memo from the meeting obtained by The Times, Steyer spokesman Kevin Liao was listed as an “expected participant” on the video call between Granholm and Porter, which took place on June 21, 2021, and was filmed to promote electric vehicles by the Biden administration. Granholm and Liao were the only participants listed from the Energy Department, according to the document obtained by The Times.

“This is a 20 minute recorded Zoom with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to discuss the importance of investing in electric vehicles,” the document apparently prepared for Porter and her staff states. “Kevin Liao, Granholm’s press secretary, reached out to set this up. His team will edit this video down into a 2-3 minute clip for social media. Secretary Granholm will have a whiteboard, as noted in the script.”

The edited video conversation was posted on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Facebook page in early July 2021. Politico reported that the Porter staff member snapped at by the congresswoman was not the source of the video provided to the news outlet.

The clip from the Porter-Granholm call was the second unflattering video of the candidate to surface last fall. Days earlier, another clip began to circulate, showing Porter threatening to end an interview with CBS California reporter Julie Watts after becoming frustrated by Watts’ questioning.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm speaks during the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2024.

(Sean Gallup / Getty Images)

The pair of videos prompted her Democratic rivals in the gubernatorial race to question Porter’s temperament, a criticism that has continued to linger during debates and throughout the hotly contested campaign. Though Porter became well-known for her blunt questioning of witnesses in Congress, her brusque style has not translated to broad support in California’s 2026 governor’s race.

Before the videos became public, Porter had a narrow edge in the race, according to a poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, though many voters at the time remained undecided. Though Porter has continued to hover in the upper tier of gubernatorial hopefuls, she currently trails behind two Democrats — Steyer and former Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra — and one Republican, former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

The UC Irvine law professor has repeatedly said she apologized to the employee, who spent four more years working in Porter’s congressional office. Dozens of former staffers also came to her defense in an open letter last month.

Liao declined to comment when reached Wednesday evening. He is a primary spokesman for Steyer’s campaign and sent the press release announcing the San Francisco billionaire’s campaign for governor in November. Granholm, when reached via text message, denied leaking the video and said she did not know who did.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Liao, a Los Angeles-based political consultant, worked as Granholm’s press secretary from January through October 2021, during the time the Porter video was recorded. In 2024, he founded Frontrunner Strategies, a consulting firm which has been paid more than $45,000 by Steyer’s campaign, according to campaign finance records.

Porter’s campaign declined to comment on the document.

Voting is underway in the primary election to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited and exploring a 2028 presidential bid.

A Wednesday Emerson College poll showed Democratic former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra leading with 19%, followed by both Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Steyer at 17%. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, had support from 11% of likely voters and Porter had 10%. San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond were in single digits. Twelve percent of voters were undecided, according to the poll.

Top candidates, with the exception of Thurmond, are slated to appear in a Thursday night debate hosted by CBS California and the San Francisco Examiner.

May 14 (UPI) — Just five months before Brazil’s October elections, the presidential campaign of right-wing Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro has become entangled in what authorities describe as the country’s largest recent banking fraud case.

According to reports published by Intercept Brasil, Bolsonaro negotiated a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal to finance a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, with a banker now jailed on suspicion of leading a criminal organization involved in financial fraud.

The Brazilian news outlet released audio recordings and messages allegedly tied to negotiations between the senator and Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the collapsed Banco Master. Vorcaro is being held in pretrial detention as part of a financial and political scandal that has expanded to include Brazilian politicians and judges.

The scandal erupted after Brazil’s Federal Police intercepted Vorcaro’s phone messages, which reportedly reveal a close relationship between the two men — with Flávio Bolsonaro referring to the banker as “brother.”

In the conversations, Bolsonaro allegedly pressured Vorcaro to release payment for a sponsorship worth 134 million reais, or about $26 million, according to Brazilian outlet G1 Globo. The funds were intended for the Hollywood production of The Dark Horse, a biographical film aimed at improving Jair Bolsonaro’s public image.

In one audio recording, Flávio Bolsonaro discussed the urgency of the payments and the importance of the film project, according to Agência Brasil.

“Even though you gave us the freedom to hold you accountable, I feel uncomfortable having to ask,” the senator said in the recording. “We are at a crucial point in the movie’s production, and because many payments are still pending, everyone is tense, and I worry this could have the opposite effect from what we expected for the film.”

Authorities say the controversy extends beyond the size of the sponsorship and centers on the source of the money. Brazil’s Central Bank liquidated Banco Master after discovering an accounting shortfall estimated at between $7.6 billion and $10 billion.

Investigators allege the bank operated a scheme involving fraudulent securities sales and the theft of pension savings belonging to public-sector workers. Brazilian media reported that while retirees lost savings, members of the banker’s family purchased luxury homes in Miami and private aircraft.

Hours before the audio recordings became public, Flávio Bolsonaro denied having a business relationship with Vorcaro and dismissed the allegations as false during television interviews.

After the recordings surfaced and his voice allegedly could be heard in the conversations, the senator acknowledged contact with the banker, but argued the deal involved legitimate private sponsorship.

Bolsonaro later wrote on X that he was the victim of political persecution and said the leaked chats only showed a lawful business negotiation.

“It was a son seeking private sponsorship for a private film about his father. Zero public money,” the senator wrote, insisting he did not know the banker’s funds allegedly originated from purported fraud.

The market reaction was immediate. After publication of the recordings, the São Paulo stock exchange fell nearly 2% and the Brazilian real weakened against the U.S. dollar, reflecting investor concerns over political instability.

Recent polls show Flávio Bolsonaro statistically tied with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a potential runoff election.

Government allies have launched an offensive to capitalize on the scandal, demanding Bolsonaro’s removal from office through ethics proceedings in the Senate. According to Gazeta do Povo, lawmakers are seeking to suspend his political rights for eight years.

Those aligned with Lula also are pushing to create a congressional investigative committee into Banco Master. The proposed inquiry would seek access to Bolsonaro’s banking and tax records to trace the millions of reais allegedly negotiated in the sponsorship deal.

Left-wing parties argue the movie financing arrangement served as a front for money laundering and illicit enrichment, linking the failed bank’s expansion to political protection networks allegedly built during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.