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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.

Sacramento — A veteran California political consultant has agreed to plead guilty in a scheme to steal campaign funds from Xavier Becerra, now a leading candidate for governor, when he served in the Biden administration, according to filings in her criminal case on Thursday.

Dana Williamson will plead guilty to three counts, including bank fraud and lying to authorities. In exchange, the federal government will dismiss 20 other counts against her related to her tax filings and a federal COVID-era loan she received.

A court hearing is scheduled Thursday morning.

Williamson, a former chief of staff to Gov. Gavin Newsom, was arrested in November and pleaded not guilty. The government secured guilty pleas in December from two advisors who worked with alongside her to skim money from Becerra.

The case against her and a looming plea deal have taken center stage in the California governor’s race as rivals seek to tie the charges to Becerra, who is a Democratic front runner. He hasn’t been charged, and prosecutors paint him as a victim.

Prosecutors say that Williamson, Becerra’s then-chief of staff Sean McCluskie and lobbyist Greg Campbell took part in a scheme to siphon money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account and funnel it to McCluskie.

McCluskie needed the money, according to prosecutors, so he could afford to fly home frequently to see his family in California while working for Becerra, who was Biden’s health secretary, in Washington, D.C.

As part of the scheme, Williamson and another consultant charged Becerra’s account up to $10,000 a month to manage one of his dormant state campaign accounts.

Becerra approved the payments, even though he had never paid such a high amount for a similar job. He told The Times that McCluskie told him to pay the fees.

Becerra’s rivals in the governor’s race are hammering him over his decision, arguing he should have known something wasn’t right. Becerra has said that he didn’t know about the criminal behavior and has called the charges a “gut punch.”

Known as an hard-nosed and aggressive operator, Williamson’s career in politics also included working for former governors Jerry Brown and Gray Davis and mentoring other women.

McGregor Scott, Williamson’s attorney, told reporters last year that federal authorities initially approached Williamson about helping them with a probe into Newsom. She refused, he said, and was subsequently charged.

Details contained in the indictment and other public records suggest that federal authorities were looking into the state’s handling of alleged sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard Inc., a video game company.

Out in the high desert city of Barstow stand three Del Tacos that bill themselves as better than their corporate cousins.

They’re the last ones owned and operated by Ed Hackbarth, the founder of the Mexican fast food chain. Two of them feature the word “Original” under their marquees, even though that’s historically inaccurate — Hackbarth opened the first Del Taco in the nearby town of Yermo in 1964.

That hasn’t stopped thousands of devotees — myself included — from trekking to these Cal-Mex shrines to buy memorabilia, gawk at historical photos and gorge on hard shell tacos, burritos and bun tacos that they insist are tastier than the ones at regular Del Tacos.

Among those visitors was Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton.

He stopped by the Original Del Taco off 1st Avenue on Saturday after a town hall with lieutenant governor candidate and Barstow native Gloria Romero. His campaign posted a short video on social media of him standing outside the spot — the oldest operating Del Taco — while holding something that looked like a melted Frisbee.

It was what the place calls a Barstow Taco: ground beef, a few strips of lettuce, a blizzard of bright yellow cheese and a thick red tomato slice on top, all inside a hard taco shell.

Hilton gleefully wielded the crunchy mass with one hand as he pointed to the Original Del Taco sign with the other.

“My Barstow street taco, I’m going to enjoy,” he concluded in an accent from his native England, while giving a thumbs-up. “See you soon.”

He didn’t take a bite.

The social media blowback exploded like a digital Montezuma’s revenge. Haters ridiculed Hilton for visiting a Mexican restaurant in what seemed like an attempt to attract Latino voters — if he was going to do that, why on Earth pick a multimillion-dollar empire founded by a gringo? Others noted that “street tacos” are made with corn tortillas and bought from a food truck or street stall. As the author of a book about the history of Mexican food in the United States, I pointed out that this Del Taco isn’t actually the original, despite what the marquee says.

A humble man would have immediately owned up to his mistakes. Hilton is not a humble man.

To someone who pointed out that “Barstow street taco” is a misnomer, Hilton shot back, “It’s what they call it!” To someone who accused him of supporting bland corporations instead of mom-and-pop shops, Hilton responded that he went there because Romero once worked there.

“Not everything in life has to be turned into a political argument!!” he whined.

Hilton and his followers are treating Del Taco-gate as much ado about nada — and yet it tells voters everything they need to know about the man.

Three hard shell beef tacos from Mitla Cafe, the San Bernardino restaurant that indirectly served as the inspiration for Taco Bell and Del Taco.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

Endorsed by President Trump, he has consistently topped the polls this year, mainly because the many Democratic candidates have split the vote. Hilton has outperformed his main Republican rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, by promoting a message of positivity with weak-salsa slogans like “Make California Golden Again” and “Califordable.”

During debates, the former Fox News host has relied on his dry wit and posh tone to make his answers sound stronger than they are. He has especially focused on selling himself to Latinos. Months before announcing his run, we sat down at my wife’s restaurant in Santa Ana as he tried to pick my brain about this crucial swing vote, asking questions I kept telling him I had already answered in my columna.

Hilton is no pendejo. But I have to wonder about his judgment after that Del Taco video.

I have no problem with Hilton campaigning at a Mexican restaurant — it’s a political trope practiced by candidates of all persuasions. It’s unfair to expect a British immigrant who’s been in California only since 2012 to be fully versed in taco culture, as essential to the state as it is. And people shouldn’t bash him for highlighting a California culinary institution that’s one of the better legacy fast food chains out there, even though the Barstow Taco is, well, whatever. (Del Taco’s half-pound bean and cheese burrito, on the other hand, is as silky as a Luther Vandross slow jam.)

A proper hard shell taco is a beautiful thing. Just head out to San Bernardino’s Mitla Cafe, where Hackbarth’s former boss, Glen Bell, learned to make the tacos that turned the two of them into millionaires. But bragging about enjoying a hard shell taco nowadays is like showing up to a street takeover in a horse buggy.

As relevant to modern-day California as tamale pie, hard shell tacos are a reflection of Hilton’s pitch to voters: Instead of offering a bold vision for the future, he offers a return to a past that will never happen again and that wasn’t as great as people make it out to be.

I’ve tried to be as open as possible to Hilton’s campaign. California could benefit from a governor who didn’t emerge from the Sacramento swamp. It might even benefit from a Republican, as in the 2000s when Arnold Schwarzenegger forced Democrats to fight instead of fester.

But Hilton disappoints again and again. He launched his campaign in Huntington Beach, enamored of politicians there who seek to silo their city from the rest of California and humiliate liberals at every opportunity. His embrace of Trump‘s endorsement and refusal to admit that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election expose him as a toady. Hilton’s ongoing boast that he is the candidate for legal immigrants disqualifies my father, who originally came to this country without papers yet has contributed more to the California experiment (and is now a U.S. citizen) than Hilton ever has.

I’ll even be gracious and excuse Hilton for wrongly calling the Del Taco he visited the original one — the background is admittedly confusing. But his Barstow street taco flub is a stand-in for his campaign, which will flop come November if he doesn’t get his Mexican meals straight.

Hilton told me over the phone that it was his first time eating at a Del Taco (he enjoyed the Barstow Taco off-camera but felt their fish taco was better). He didn’t stop by “for the food, frankly,” but rather for its meaning to Romero and to California entrepreneurship.

“The idea of going to the first location of a business that ends up going big is actually pretty cool,” the former restaurateur said, noting that he had shot a video at the San Bernardino location of the first McDonald’s, which is now a museum.

He didn’t get defensive when I told him the Del Taco wasn’t the first one and that what he ordered wasn’t actually a street taco — “I would say I’m learning, and I love learning and I love food, and exploring places and community through food, and I really would love to learn more, for sure.”

Hilton said he does enjoy “real” tacos but couldn’t name any places he favored. He asked for recommendations. I suggested we go get some tacos with my dad, and he immediately agreed.

“So you can explain to him how you’re the candidate of legal immigrants,” I added. “My dad came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.”

Hilton stayed silent for a second. “OK, let’s have that conversation,” he said.

Dear reader: Where should we eat?

When a friend asked if Tom Steyer could stop by my wife Delilah’s downtown Santa Ana restaurant, I had to explain to her who he was.

It’s not political apathy in my honey’s case. She’s just exhausted from running her small business, Alta Baja Market, in these inflationary times. She’s one of the 16% of undecided voters in a recent California Democratic Party poll — a group that may determine which two candidates for governor face each other in the general election.

Delilah agreed that Steyer could visit on Saturday after I told her that many of our friends support the billionaire’s progressive platform.

“Politics is your job, not mine,” she joked as we drove to Alta Baja and I named the other major candidates. The only ones she had heard of were Antonio Villaraigosa (“I liked him as mayor, but he needed to keep his pants on,” referring to his extramarital affairs) and Katie Porter (“Some of my workers like her, but I don’t know what she’s done”). She might be the last person left in the Golden State who hasn’t seen any of Steyer’s television and YouTube ads.

His campaign seems to have stalled in the polls even as he has spent more than $150 million of his own money amid doubts from some voters about whether they want a billionaire to lead the state.

So a visit to Santa Ana, the heart of Latino Orange County, was a good move. At Alta Baja, he could talk to my Mexican American wife and other blue-collar Latinos.

When rival Xavier Becerra came to O.C. a few weeks ago, on the other hand, he appeared at a private fundraiser attended mostly by professional Latinos.

“I just want someone who tells us where our taxes are going and treats this country like a business, and we’re not wasting money,” Delilah said. She’s a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Democrat who has been especially angered by President Trump’s deportation deluge, which left the streets of downtown Santa Ana empty for months last summer. “Because right now, our government is a hot-ass mess.”

I asked what questions she had for Steyer.

“So insurance had to cover all the disasters that happened with the fires,” Delilah replied. “So why is everybody else having to pay for it? And what are you really gonna do to help the state?”

She paused. “Tom is a Democrat, right?”

Delilah prepared for Steyer’s noontime stop as if it were any other day. She has fed the likes of U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer and former Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon. Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is a fan of Alta Baja’s blue cornbread; Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a meet-and-greet there when she ran for president two years ago.

“You know who should ask questions?” Delilah said after she set the till for the day. “Angela.”

That would be 19-year-old Alta Baja employee Angela Nino, who will be voting in her first election.

“She’ll always be telling me, ‘Did you see the debate? Did you see the debate?’ And I always say, ‘No, I’m too tired to watch.’”

Nino soon clocked in.

“Guess who’s coming, Angela?” Delilah said before looking at me. “Is his name Tim or Tom?”

“It’s like I agree with some of his things, but he’s a billionaire,” said the Orange Coast College student and Santa Ana resident when I asked about Steyer. “His answers at debates have been pretty broad so far.”

Delilah smiled.

“You’re the future, girl, so ask him anything.”

Almost everyone who came in as we waited for Steyer was a campaign worker or volunteer. Former state Controller Betty Yee, who ended her campaign for governor last month and endorsed Steyer, sat at a table with her husband. Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who initiated Steyer’s Santa Ana visit, thanked Delilah for the opportunity. He has known her since the start of his political career on the Santa Ana City Council nearly 20 years ago,

“This is a city where our residents were criminalized because of ICE, our downtown suffered because of construction, and all this on the heels of a pandemic,” he told me. “These are the folks Tom needs to listen to.”

Sarmiento’s staffer got his attention. Steyer was here.

The candidate strolled in with a videographer and photographer. He wore his usual casual billionaire outfit — white-and-cardinal Nikes, jeans, checkered shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a colorful Southwestern-style fabric belt.

Steyer went straight to the counter.

“Are you running for governor?” he cracked while shaking Delilah’s hand.

“I don’t want to,” she replied.

“I knew you were a smart woman!”

He listened with wide eyes and a stern face as Delilah complained about a years-long light-rail project in front of Alta Baja “that has been worse for businesses here than COVID.” Insurance rates have gone up 30% in the last year alone, she said.

“Well, look, that’s my whole thing,” Steyer responded in his low, gravelly voice. “I’m willing to take on the big corporations who are ripping off California. And they’re all spending a lot of money against me.”

It was the Steyer I’ve heard on too many commercials: pugnacious, compassionate but spouting a whole bunch of boilerplate. Delilah smiled weakly.

“I appreciate that,” she said. “And we need more of that.”

Then she waved Nino over. Usually shy, the architecture major now channeled her inner Lesley Stahl.

“Why do you have to be governor in order to do something while you have billions of dollars?” she said.

Steyer didn’t flinch as he explained how he has funded ballot propositions and nonprofit initiatives to fight for a more equitable California.

“So I’ve been able to do something, but what I see in California — and what Delilah and I were just talking about — is big corporations actually run the state,” he said.

“That’s true,” Nino conceded.

“You have to take on the big corporations that are screwing everybody. And you can really only do that as governor,” Steyer continued.

“You want to tax the billionaires, is that correct?” Nino asked next, as Steyer nodded. “How come on some [campaign disclosure] forms, it shows that your billions are in different [countries] besides in the U.S.?”

The candidate vigorously shook his head.

“I might have investments outside the United States, but there’s nothing I’m doing to not pay — I pay full California and American taxes on everything, promise. There’s a lot of ways I could avoid taxes, but I don’t. And so, anything that I’m doing overseas is not to avoid taxes. … I give you my word.”

One more from Nino!

“And how can the people trust billionaires when currently they have been very disappointing towards us?”

“I understand why people are skeptical,” Steyer replied. “They couldn’t be more skeptical than I am.”

He argued that other moguls “are supporting every other candidate. Those people hate me — like, they think I stand for something really bad, which is making them pay their fair share,” referring to a proposed November ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires like Steyer (he supports the measure).

“And they’re right,” Steyer concluded. “And so it’s like, they hate me, and that’s fine.”

Nino stayed silent. Delilah thanked Steyer, who was off to visit other local businesses owned by friends of ours. He bought a bottle of rosé, posed for photos with Delilah and Sarmiento and went off — but not before a staffer adjusted the back of his collar.

Delilah and Nino went back to prepping lunch orders. What did they think about Steyer?

“To be honest, I’m so skeptical,” Nino said. “I don’t think he has enough experience as some of the other candidates, and I feel like he could have been more into detail about his policies.”

What about you, honey?

“Gracious, very kind and not pompous, which is what I would expect from most politicians,” Delilah said. “I like that he heard out Angela — that’s important [that] politicians listen to the next generation, and I think everybody should be doing that. But I wasn’t satisfied with my insurance question.”

“And we don’t know if this is a performance,” Nino added, drawing a playful gasp from Delilah. “We’ve seen, like, throughout the years, many political people go into, like, regular [businesses] to seem like, ‘Oh, we’re relatable to the people. We know your struggles.’”

“Do they really?” Delilah interjected.

Nino frowned.

They could just be putting on a show for the cameras, she said.

Eileen Wang, an Arcadia city leader facing charges of acting as an illegal foreign agent of China, resigned Monday after reaching an agreement to resolve the federal case.

Wang, who served as mayor of the San Gabriel Valley suburb, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over charges that she acted under the control of the People’s Republic of China to promote propaganda in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to court filings.

Wang, who was previously elected to the City Council in November 2022, stepped down as mayor on Monday hours after the plea agreement was unsealed. Arcadia officials and Wang’s attorneys said the conduct described by federal authorities occurred before Wang was elected.

Wang appeared in federal court in downtown Los Angeles during a brief hearing Monday, where a judge instructed her lawyers to set a date when she would formally enter a guilty plea.

The maximum sentence for the charge is 10 years in prison.

Dressed in a blue suit jacket and skirt and accompanied by four lawyers, Wang listened to the proceeding through a Mandarin interpreter. She sniffled throughout the hearing, wiping at her eyes and her nose with her hand and a tissue.

The magistrate judge ordered a $25,000 bond and for her to surrender all of her passports and travel documents. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda B. Elbogen asked that the judge order Wang to refrain from any communication with the Chinese government, including consular officials in the U.S.

“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in a statement Monday. “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”

In a statement, Wang’s attorneys, Brian A. Sun and Jason Liang, said “she apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life.”

“Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver. She asks for the community’s understanding and continued support,” her attorneys said.

The city of Arcadia’s website said Wang was “vacating her position” and the process of selecting someone to step in as mayor would begin at the next City Council meeting.

“We understand this news raises serious concerns, and we want to be direct with our community about what we know and where we stand,” City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement. “The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling. We take them seriously.”

From late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, her former fiance, to run a website called U.S. News Center that branded itself as a news source for Chinese Americans, according to the plea agreement unsealed Monday. Both Wang and Sun “executed directives” from Chinese government officials, posting requested articles and reporting back with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, the agreement says.

On June 10, 2021, the agreement says, Wang received a message from a government official about “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue,” which included a link to a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times from the consul general of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles. The consul general had been responding to a Times editorial supporting a boycott of products made with cotton produced in the Xinjiang region of China.

At the time, news reports were highlighting the Chinese government‘s campaign of incarceration, persecution and “reeducation” of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province.

“There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability,” read the message from the Chinese government official, according to the plea agreement.

Minutes after receiving the link, Wang posted the article on her website and responded to the Chinese government official with a link to the article on her website, according to the court filing.

“So fast, thank you everyone,” the government official responded, the court records show.

Prosecutors also say Wang edited articles at the request of officials and shared information showing the reach of the posts.

“Thank you leader,” she wrote on Aug. 20, 2021, after being complimented for a post that was viewed more than 15,000 times, according to the plea agreement.

Wang never disclosed that the Chinese government had directed her to post the content, according to court documents.

Wang’s attorneys stressed in their statement “that the conduct underlying the information and the agreement with the government relates solely to Ms. Wang’s personal life — i.e., a media platform that she once operated with someone whom she believed to be her fiancé — and not to her conduct as an elected public official.”

Prosecutors charged Sun, a resident of Chino Hills, in December 2024 with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. Wang said her relationship with Sun ended in the spring of 2024.

Sun had also served as campaign manager for her City Council campaign to lead Arcadia, a landing spot for many Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants. Prosecutors accused Sun and his Chinese government contacts of cultivating Wang in hopes that she would rise in politics and help them strengthen China’s influence in California.

“We broke up the fiance relationship,” Wang told the City Council after he was charged. “We keep the friendship.”

Sun was sentenced in February to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty in October 2025 to one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

Sun worked as an illegal agent for the People’s Republic of China, submitting reports to high-level government officials about work he was doing on the government’s behalf, according to a federal sentencing memorandum. This activity included combating Falun Gong, a spiritual practice banned in China, and supporters of Taiwanese independence. Sun also was accused of monitoring the then-president of Taiwan during her April 2023 trip to the U.S.

Facing calls for her resignation on the heels of her former fiance’s indictment, Wang vowed at the time not to step away from the council, emphasizing that she was “not responsible for the action of others.”

Wang said in a 2024 interview that she moved to Southern California from China 30 years ago. Her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor and her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at USC, she said.

Wang appeared as usual at last week’s city council meeting, shepherding along discussions on street paving, the upcoming budget and a potential e-bike ordinance. Lazzaretto, the city manager, said in his statement that the city has conducted an internal review related to the charges and found no wrongdoing.

“We can confirm that no City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved,” Lazzaretto said in a statement. “We have found no actions that require reconsideration or that are invalidated as a result of these developments.”

Clara Harter contributed to this report.

In Congress, Katie Porter’s blunt, combative style helped rocket her to progressive stardom. It has also become her biggest vulnerability as she campaigns to be California’s next governor.

Her brusque approach, prosecutorial instincts and suburban mom appeal fueled Porter’s rise during her three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she rattled CEOs and Trump administration leaders and batted away GOP challengers in a competitive Orange County district.

Her tack, however, made her a polarizing force within her own party, where fidelity remains an essential currency of success and power. In Congress, Porter clashed with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and L.A.’s Rep. Maxine Waters.

The same rough edges that endeared Porter to many voters have also alienated some Democratic insiders and interest groups whose support could prove critical in the race to replace outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Then-Rep. Katie Porter meets with parents, doctors and diabetic patients in her Irvine office in 2019.

(Mark Boster / For The Times)

“She came in [to the governor’s race] as an outsider, as a mom, as a fighter. She wasn’t pulled into the establishment,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. “I think that’s why she’s popular with voters, because they want somebody who’s going to fight, and sometimes that ruffles feathers.”

In the campaign for governor, Porter, a single mother of three, has struggled to convert grassroots popularity into broader institutional support. Even after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race amid allegations of sexual assault, she has yet to see a major surge in support or endorsements from Democratic power brokers.

A pair of embarrassing videos continue to hang over her campaign. The videos, which surfaced in October, showed Porter yelling at a staff member and threatening to walk out of a television reporter’s interview.

As former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has ascended and she remained stagnant in polls following Swalwell’s exit, Porter has increasingly sought to redeem her image. She poked fun at the incident with her staffer in an ad, smilingly asking a group of whiteboard-wielding supporters behind her to “please get out of my shot.”

In recent debates, Porter has sought to play up the qualities that made her a standout among resistance-era progressives, needling former hedge fund executive Tom Steyer over his past investments in private prisons and the pressing Becerra for a “yes” or “no” on statewide single-payer healthcare. Porter emphasizes her support for single-payer healthcare, providing free child care and college tuition and making wealthy corporations pay their “fair share” in taxes.

Porter said she wants to increase taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents but doesn’t support the proposed billionaire’s tax ballot measure because it is a “one-time tax” that won’t solve the state’s underlying budget issues.

During a particularly chaotic debate last week, she scolded her opponents’ incessant interruptions and called out what she considered a double standard over her behavior.

“I can’t believe, with [the] interrupting and name-calling and shouting and disrespect for everyone up here who’s stepping into public service that anyone wants to talk about my temperament,” she said during the May 5 debate on CNN.

Though she acknowledged she mishandled both caught-on-tape situations and said she apologized to the staffer, the videos hindered her early momentum and have undercut her efforts to make inroads with potential allies in the race.

Porter speaks at a gubernatorial candidates forum on Sept. 28, 2025, in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Influential lawmakers, labor groups and party insiders have coalesced behind Becerra and Steyer, her top Democratic rivals.

Porter has scored some key endorsements. She is one of three candidates backed by the California Federation of Labor Unions, along with Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She also has support from Teamsters California, the National Union of Healthcare Workers and progressive groups such as Emilys List and California Environmental Voters, which dual-endorsed her and Steyer.

Union support is pivotal for Democratic candidates in California, sending a clear signal that they support the priorities of working-class voters. For Porter, who has proudly refused to accept corporate donations throughout her political career, the labor endorsements also help her attract the small-dollar donations that are essential to her campaign.

While in Congress, Porter proved to be a prodigious fundraiser. In her last reelection campaign for the House of Representatives in 2022, she raised more than $25.6 million in contributions — the second-most in Congress, behind only Bakersfield’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was then the House Republican leader.

Still, her backing from elected Democrats remains comparatively thin. Along with her mentor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), just three members of Congress have endorsed her gubernatorial bid: Reps. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, Dave Min of Irvine and Derek Tran of Huntington Beach. She also picked up an endorsement from Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine) after Swalwell dropped out.

Though none would speak publicly, multiple sources who work in and around the state Capitol expressed concerns about Porter’s temperament and her willingness to work collaboratively with people she disagrees with.

“Katie Porter hurt herself big time because she needs anger management and she doesn’t have the temperament” to be governor, Democratic former Sen. Barbara Boxer said during a recent interview with NewsNation’s Leland Vittert.

Through her campaign spokesperson, Porter’s declined to be interviewed for for this story.

Porter questions Tim Sloan, president and chief executive officer of Wells Fargo, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington in 2019.

(Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg)

Defenders argue the backlash reflects a double standard for women in politics — a salient point in a state that, despite its liberal reputation, has never elected a woman as governor.

“Sacramento sizes up every gubernatorial candidate the same way: Can they win, and is this someone I actually want to work with?” said Elizabeth Ashford, a Democratic consultant who is not working with any of the candidates running for governor. “The videos showed an angry woman, and for a lot of people that translated to ‘I don’t want her as my boss.’

“It’s a double standard that dogs women in politics. Jerry Brown was famous for his loud, unfiltered outbursts and nobody questioned whether he was up to the job,” said Ashford, who served as the former governor’s deputy press secretary.

Gonzalez agreed, arguing that women who stand up for themselves “are often labeled as ‘difficult.’ Probably a lot of people think I’m difficult,” the labor leader added with a laugh.

Born in Iowa, Porter often connects her politics to her family’s financial struggles after losing their farm during the 1980s farm crisis. She earned degrees from Yale and Harvard, where she studied bankruptcy law under Warren. In 2012, while working as a law professor at UC Irvine, Porter was appointed by then-Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris to oversee California’s $18-billion mortgage settlement.

After defeating Republican incumbent Rep. Mimi Walters in 2018, Porter quickly emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable progressives. Armed with a whiteboard and other visual aids in congressional hearings, she confronted banking and pharmaceutical executives over drug prices, consumer debt and corporate profits.

The props, theatrical at times, seemed to aggravate Waters, then the Democratic chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee. On several occasions, Waters sided with Republicans who challenged Porter’s use of visual and audio aids during hearings.

“Please do not raise your board. We’ve talked about this before,” the chairwoman scolded when Porter tried to hold up a “Financial Services Bingo” card during a 2019 hearing on debt collection. (She later got to show the board on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”)

Eager to force change they campaigned on, Porter and other freshmen, including members of “The Squad,” at times clashed with Pelosi and other Democratic leaders.

Porter speaks to volunteers while campaigning in Mission Viejo in 2018.

(Victoria Kim / Los Angeles Times )

Porter has slammed lawmakers, including Democrats, for stock trading and funneling earmark funding to their home districts, arguing that such practices breed corruption and mistrust in Congress. The critiques irked Pelosi, a powerful force in California politics.

In her second term, the Orange County Democrat lost her coveted spot on the Financial Services Committee after she listed it as her third choice and requested a waiver to stay on it. Typically, members prioritize such high-profile committees and request waivers to serve on lesser ones in addition. The move was seen as a risk, the result a check on Porter’s ambition.

“So many of us, regardless of ideology, run on ‘shaking up Washington.’ But then when you actually come here, there’s a lot of consequences for doing that,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told The Times after Porter lost the committee position.

Porter’s willingness to buck party norms also raised eyebrows during her Senate campaign, when she entered the race for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat before Feinstein had announced retirement plans in early 2023. Although then-Rep. Adam Schiff also launched an early campaign, he did so only after privately seeking Feinstein’s blessing. She ultimately finished third in the primary.

Her decision to run for Senate did not ingratiate her with Washington’s Democratic leadership. The party was forced to spend millions to ensure another Democrat was elected to her contested Orange County congressional seat, and Schiff, her top rival in the race, was a close ally of Pelosi — who endorsed him — and helped lead the first impeachment effort against President Trump.

Controversy surrounding Porter’s personal relationships have also surfaced during previous campaigns. In 2024, she obtained a five-year restraining order against a former boyfriend who she said bombarded her and her children with threatening messages.

When a whisper campaign about the end of her marriage threatened her first House run, Porter shared details of her 2013 divorce with the Huffington Post, including that her ex-husband, Matthew Hoffman, physically intimidated and verbally abused her. Hoffman also claimed to be the victim of abuse, including an incident in which Porter allegedly threw hot mashed potatoes at him. Both filed for restraining orders and sought anger management during the divorce.

Former employees have also rallied to her defense. In an open letter last month, 30 former staffers described Porter as a “workhorse” who “asked of us what she expected of herself.”

“She demanded a lot, but she also fought for us, mentored us, and stood by us when life got hard,” the former aides wrote. “We believe the public should understand the full person we know, not a caricature built from a few clips on a bad day.”

Porter has argued that voters are looking for someone willing to challenge powerful interests rather than accommodate them.

Katie Porter is interviewed after the California Gubernatorial debate at Skirball Cultural Center on Wednesday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

“It’s on me to keep campaigning and keep demonstrating that,” she told reporters after a recent gubernatorial debate in San Francisco. “It’s also not lost on me that the last time the Democratic Party had a woman nominee for governor was 1994, when I was in college.”

The affordability crisis is at the forefront of the race to replace term-limited Newsom. As a single parent, Porter argues she is acutely aware of gas and grocery prices — as well as higher-stakes consequences.

She described feeling shocked when, during a recent conversation with her 17-year-old son, he asked if she would visit him if he moved to another state.

“I said, ‘Paul, you love California, why would you leave California?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m thinking I might want to have a family and I might want to have a house, and I know that means I’ll have to leave California,’” Porter recounted at a March forum hosted by the California Assn. of Realtors. “We need to be a state that doesn’t just retain people like my son … but welcomes new families.”

The centerpiece of her proposed “affordability solutions” are free child care, free tuition at UC and CSU schools for students who complete two years of community college, and ending income taxes for those who earn less than $100,000 — an idea she acknowledges she “stole” from Republican candidate Steve Hilton. “I will take a good idea anywhere I can get it,” she said at a recent forum.

To pay for it, Porter would impose a progressive corporate tax, meaning more profitable businesses and corporations would pay a higher rate. A less than 1% tax hike on businesses that earn hundreds of millions in profit would bring in around $8 billion, according to her website.

“I think she deeply and personally understands the everyday struggles that so many Californians are grappling with right now,” said Petrie-Norris, who last month became the first state legislator to endorse Porter.

While Petrie-Norris describes herself as more politically moderate than Porter, the Irvine assemblywoman praised her as a “pragmatic problem-solver” and “proven fighter” who has taken on corporate interests and the Trump administration.

For a while, Porter was one of four women among the major candidates running for governor. One by one they have dropped out of the race, citing difficulties raising money and support.

After sharing the debate stage with five men recently, Porter was asked whether California is ready for a female governor.

“I sure as hell hope so,” she said.

WASHINGTON — As Kamala Harris eyes a possible 2028 presidential bid, there is little outward enthusiasm among her biggest 2024 backers to fund a repeat performance, adding to uncertainty about the former vice president’s prospects in what is sure to be a crowded primary field.

The Times reached out to more than two dozen top donors to the biggest pro-Harris super PAC in 2024. Several of them said they do not plan to support her should she choose to run, or declined to talk about her. Others did not respond.

“I don’t think it’s a helpful narrative [for 2028] to start with the 2024 hangover,” said one fundraiser for Harris’ 2024 campaign, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “There is an enormous appetite for new blood — something fresh, something that really represents the future, not the past.”

That narrative is poised to present Harris’ biggest challenge if she decides to run — particularly if it jeopardizes her ability to pull in crucial funding. Though few in the party want to criticize Harris, few appear inclined to endorse her, and conversations about her prospects often come down to one thing: Democrats’ anxiety about winning.

“She’s run, she’s lost, so the question’s going to be, is there somebody that gives Democratic voters more of a sense that they could win?” said Dick Harpootlian, a longtime South Carolina Democratic strategist. “That’s what all of us are looking for. We want to win in ‘28.”

The chatter among party elites appears at odds with recent polling in Harris’ favor, including in April’s Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris Poll, which showed Harris leading the Democratic field with support from 50% of Democrats.

The former vice president has also been met with enthusiasm from audiences in a series of recent speaking stops — including when she told a friendly crowd at a New York conference in April that she “might” run for president.

Harris remains undecided about whether to mount a run, according to a person familiar with her thinking, who said Friday she has been focused on boosting Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, meeting voters and delivering messages about the economy and affordability.

If she were to run, Harris would expect a crowded primary field to split donors and would be aware of the need to overcome the perception of skeptics, this person said — but noted that 2028 would afford a very different dynamic than the circumstances under which she took the nomination in 2024.

“There’s a bit of a ‘doth protest too much’ quality to some of these complaints about the idea of her running,” said the person close to her. “It may be a backhanded way of acknowledging that she’d be quite formidable if she decided to get in.”

Speculation about whether Harris would run again — and whether she should — has swirled since her truncated 2024 campaign ended in defeat to Donald Trump. Harris’ decision not to run for California governor in a wide-open race was broadly viewed as signaling presidential ambitions, and she reentered the public eye with the publication of a book about the 2024 campaign and an associated speaking tour.

Last month, Harris gave her strongest signal yet that she could seek the party’s nomination again, telling the Rev. Al Sharpton at a gathering of his civil rights organization in New York that she was “thinking about it.”

“I know what the job is and I know what it requires,” Harris said at the time.

Harris’ 2024 loss to Trump and failure to capture any battleground states — after entering the race late following President Biden’s exit — was bruising for Democrats. The defeat is lingering longer for some top donors than it did after Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016, making them extra wary, said one Democratic political consultant.

“Especially in the donor class, everyone feels burnt,” he said. “People just want to turn the page.”

The Times contacted top donors to Future Forward, the Democratic super PAC that spent the most to back Harris in the 2024 election. All the donors contacted gave at least $1 million and some acted as bundlers for the campaign, soliciting big checks from other donors in addition to their own contributions.

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, who gave $1 million to Future Forward in 2024, said he hoped to support a different Californian.

“Gavin is the candidate who can motivate both the left and the center,” Hastings told The Times, referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

A bundler for both Harris and Biden said it comes down to who can give Democrats the best chance to succeed.

“I think it is too early to pick a favorite in the 2028 race, but Kamala Harris will not be my candidate,” this person said. “I don’t think she would appeal to a swing voter, and we need swing voters to win.”

Others, including a few party leaders, deflected questions by citing a focus on this year’s midterm elections. Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who last year praised Newsom’s presidential prospects during a visit by the governor, said Tuesday that Democrats should be zeroed in on 2026.

“I’m not thinking about 2028, and if she were to call me I wouldn’t talk to her about it,” Clyburn told The Times when asked about Harris’ chances.

Enthusiasm for Harris and skepticism about her viability in 2028 aren’t mutually exclusive, said the former Harris fundraiser.

“A lot of people love her and also don’t think that she is the answer for 2028,” the fundraiser said.

The attitudes of the donor class and political elite may be at odds with those of regular Americans, particularly Black and working-class voters, the Democratic political consultant said. Few of the possible candidates have the potential to excite Black voters the way Harris does, he said.

If a candidate, whether Harris or someone else, makes a successful case that they can win, Black voters will be “strategic and optimistic enough” to rally around whoever it is, said Keneshia Grant, a Howard University political scientist.

But, she said, “I don’t think that they are going to take well to work by elites or the donor class to sideline Harris if there is no clear, reasonable, exciting, Obama-level, yes-we-can candidate instead of her.”

Harris speaks the Public Counsel Awards Dinner on April 29 in Beverly Hills.

(Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)

In recent weeks, Harris has spoken at a fundraiser in South Carolina, a party luncheon in Michigan and a dinner in Arkansas. On Thursday, she was in Nevada to rally Democrats ahead of the midterm primary.

She also joined other likely 2028 contenders at the Colorado Speaker Series in Denver and Sharpton’s conference, accepted an award from the nonprofit Public Counsel at a Los Angeles gala and addressed the National Women’s Law Center gala in Washington to a warm reception, as did Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

“She was inspiring, she was hopeful, she pushed back on Trump,” said Jay Parmley, chair of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, where Harris spoke at a party-hosted fundraiser in Greenville on April 15.

South Carolina, a key primary state, could help unlock Harris’ path to the nomination. If Black voters there boosted her to a win, she could build early momentum.

But Parmley said he believed she would have to “get over” the hurdle of convincing voters that she can beat the GOP.

“I don’t think it’s a given she wins here without work,” Parmley said. “She’s going to have to really visit with voters and work just like everybody else.”

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.

“We don’t go in for that kind of crap that you have back in New York–of being obliged to print both sides. We’re going to beat this son of a bitch Sinclair any way we can. . . . We’re going to kill him.”

The speaker: Kyle Palmer, Los Angeles Times political editor, to Turner Catledge of the New York Times.

The time: 1934, when socialist writer Upton Sinclair, who had just swept the Democratic primary for governor of California, threatened to beat handily the GOP candidate, Frank Merriam, in the November election.

Kyle Palmer, the pope of Southern California right-wing politics, was neither kidding nor exaggerating. Nor was he exceptional in his venom toward Upton Sinclair and his mass movement, End Poverty in California (EPIC). According to Greg Mitchell in his fascinating and valuable study, EPIC “was nothing less than a roundabout route to socialism.” On this point, “Political pundits, financial columnists, and White House aides, for once, agreed: Sinclair’s victory represented the high tide of radicalism in the United States.” This tide had to be pushed back, or California would suffocate under the weight of Sinclair’s “maggot-like horde” of supporters, as the Los Angeles Times called EPICers.

In 1934, a year racked by general strikes and epidemic unemployment, the maverick pamphleteer-novelist Sinclair–author of muckraking tracts like “The Jungle” and the most widely translated American writer abroad–was a menace not only to the so-called Vested Interests. Down deep, he embodied a revulsion felt by many Californians toward the capitalist system. EPIC’s program of production-for-use-not-profit, land colonies, barter exchanges and cooperation versus competition was a potentially deadly blow to the American Dream. It was subversive because it spoke to the misery of desperate, Depression-ruined Americans yearning for relief from the day-to-day savagery of a skewed, inefficient system that seemed to be failing everybody but the very rich. At its height, EPIC enrolled 100,000 members from San Diego to Sacramento, and its newspaper sold 2 million copies.

In “The Campaign of the Century,” Greg Mitchell has chosen to focus not on EPIC itself but “on the cataclysmic response to Sinclair’s emergence as the Democratic nominee.” Thus we learn relatively little about EPIC or about Sinclair, but a lot about the nuts and bolts of the “most astonishing . . . smear campaign ever directed against a major candidate.” Our present-day “media politics” with its emphasis on image over substance, was born in the ferocious, fraudulent anti-Sinclair campaign, says Mitchell.

A subtext of Mitchell’s book is how strongly adherents felt about Sinclair and EPIC. They “came from every strata, although nearly all were white. It was not . . . a poor people’s movement. Most of the activists were middle-class and middle-aged . . . Many were down-on-their-luck businessmen.” Any given EPIC club might include “Utopians, technocrats, Townsendites, progressive Republicans, New Deal Democrats, ex-Socialists and secret Communists, all united by a belief in a perfectible society.” No EPIC, aside from clerical staff, earned a cent from the movement. “Members paid a dollar, penny, or a collar button” to join; “Some EPICs hocked the gold fillings in their teeth to raise money.” Although broad-based and decentralized, “EPIC was far from democratic” and indifferent to unions. And Sinclair’s portrait occupied a holy place in many homes.

In any other state, EPIC might never have flown. But California’s populist tradition, open-mindedness (or wackiness), absence of party bosses or deep ethnic loyalties meant that a challenge to established authority was as relatively easy to mount as it was difficult to organize a counter-revolution. At first, the state’s wealthy were so rattled that their political representatives were caught completely off balance by Sinclair’s spectacular rise. Only loonies had expected him to win the primary, and nobody had been crazy enough to predict he would outpoll all six of his opponents together.

But like a great octopus, California’s Republicans and conservative Democrats, equally terrified of EPIC, slowly thrashed up from the murk of politics-as-usual to deal with the “enemy within.” “The prospect of a socialist governing the nation’s most volatile state,” says Mitchell, “sparked nothing less than a revolution in American politics.”

Spurred by “fear and desperation,” ad men like Albert Lasker and especially Clem Whittaker, hired conservative guns, broke the old rules and “virtually invented the modern media campaign.” Whittaker and his associate Leone Baxter introduced the radical idea that free-lance outsiders like themselves, not party chiefs, would “handle every aspect of a political campaign.” Whittaker’s “cozy relationship” with California’s 700 newspaper publishers meant that local editors were happy to run his press releases “as news stories–even as editorials.” The anti-Sinclair “lie factory” twisted and distorted; but worst of all, his enemies quoted from Upton Sinclair’s own works, in which he had attacked everything from wedded bliss (“marriage plus prostitution”) to religion (“a mighty fortress of graft”) and the Boy Scouts. After his defeat, Sinclair confessed wearily and with justice, “I talk too much. I write too much, too.”

By most accounts, Sinclair was a decent, generous, puritanical man of genuine sweetness. What his blurted half-jokes and honest indiscretions failed to supply, Hollywood and Madison Avenue concocted by way of movie propaganda and, probably even more effectively, radio shots–like an anti-Sinclair “One Man’s Family”-type series. Film studio bosses, alarmed by Sinclair’s not-very-serious threat to socialize movie production, colluded with what a Scripps-Howard reporter called a “reign of unreason bordering on hysteria.” Big-time screenwriters like Carey Wilson and directors like Felix Feist (later of “Peyton Place” fame) were enlisted or dragooned to produce Goebbelsesque films, often using faked footage, that drilled home the message: EPIC equals Armageddon. Studio workers were forced to contribute to Frank Merriam’s campaign. Very few Hollywood stars had the guts to refuse. (Holdouts included James Cagney and Jean Harlow.)

Law ‘n’ order also came to the rescue of the anti-Sinclair forces. Election officials, GOP activists and local district attorneys intimidated EPIC supporters away from the polls by challenging the credentials of at least 150,000 voters and threatening to arrest them. All across the state preachers thundered, “Go and Sinclair no more!” and Aimee Semple McPherson, hungry for respectability after her recent kidnaping hoax, turned against Sinclair, despite the pro-EPIC sympathies of her flock.

Finally, the Democrats themselves carved up EPIC. At first friendly to Sinclair, President Roosevelt, needing conservative support for his faltering New Deal, cut a deal with the Republicans. In return for Frank Merriam converting to a pallid form of New Dealism, the party dumped the divisive Sinclair. Frightened Democrats and “third party” anti-EPICers formed around a candidate named Haight, who may have drawn off enough votes to beat the insurgent–but not by all that much. Final results: Merriam 1,100,000; Sinclair 900,000; Haight 300,000. In defeat, Sinclair received twice as many votes as any previous Democratic candidate for governor.

EPIC soon disappeared in a backlash of internal Red-baiting. (The communists and socialists opposed EPIC, but the Communist Party also tried to take it over.) Sinclair stopped muckraking to write the “Lanny Budd” series of best-sellers. Waves of fright and self-interest quickly covered over EPIC’s writing in the sand. Today, who remembers it?

Later, Sinclair insisted that the EPIC campaign had “changed the whole reactionary tone of the state.” EPIC was “the acorn from which evolved the tree of whatever liberalism we have in California,” claimed state Supreme Court justice Stanley Mosk, a Sinclair supporter in ’34. And as a direct result of EPIC and the studio bosses’ much-resented bullying, “politics in Hollywood moved steadily to the left over the next few years.”

Of course, the Right learned, too. “A number of men who would become legends in California politics, on both sides of the ideological fence, virtually cut their teeth on the ’34 campaign,” writes Mitchell. These included Earl Warren (Merriam’s campaign manager), Asa Call, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown (sending what encoded messages to his son today?), Murray Chotiner, Augustus Hawkins, Cuthbert Olson–a whole generation of pols whose experience taught them just how powerful the rich, who own the media, can be when aroused.

Lessons for liberals are harder to come by in this sizzling, rambunctiously useful book. If we take note of this nation’s recent rash of insurgencies–from Carol Moseley Braun to Ross Perot–maybe one lesson is that nothing good ever completely dies, it just goes to sleep for a while.

BOOK MARK: For an excerpt from “The Campaign of the Century,” see the Opinion section, Page 6.

Tom Steyer is trying to sell himself to voters as an agent of change.

He has vowed to take on entrenched political and economic forces to create affordable housing, make the wealthy pay more in taxes, lower energy bills and protect the environment.

But perhaps the biggest change he is selling is his own.

The hedge-fund billionaire turned climate activist has faced criticism throughout his campaign for past investments in coal plants and private prisons, to name a few, that helped build his fortune and gave him the means to spend more than $150 million of his own money in his quest for the governor’s mansion.

Steyer’s prolific spending has blanketed the airwaves with television ads and helped propel him near the top of an unsettled gubernatorial field in the polls.

The 68-year-old San Franciscan has helped put many Democratic candidates in office as one of the party’s biggest political donors in the past two decades, but has never held public office himself.

He spent more than $340 million in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, but dropped out after placing third in the primary in South Carolina, where he had invested heavily.

There is a long tradition of wealthy, self-funding candidates, and the results are mixed at best. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg spent more than $260 million to win three terms as New York City mayor. But he spent more than $1 billion on a 2020 presidential bid and lasted only four days longer in the race than Steyer. Two years later, real estate developer Rick Caruso spent more than $100 million in an effort to become Los Angeles mayor but lost handily to Karen Bass.

Hoping for a better result in his current race, Steyer has staked out a position as the most progressive candidate in the field — touting an endorsement from the Bernie Sanders-affiliated Our Revolution. He’s picked up other key endorsements, too, from the California Teachers Assn., California Nurses Assn. and numerous environmental groups.

But he faces the challenge of convincing enough liberal voters to support a billionaire with controversial past investments the same year a tax on billionaires, currently enjoying strong support, is poised to be on the November ballot.

“This election is about who you can trust to fight for you,” former Rep. Katie Porter said during an April 22 gubernatorial debate in San Francisco. “One candidate is a billionaire who got rich off polluters and ICE prisons and is now using that money to fund his election.”

Steyer said he understands the broad concerns about his wealth and is willing to vote for the billionaires’ tax in November.

“I know that people are skeptical of billionaires, and I’m skeptical of billionaires,” Steyer said Tuesday in an interview with The Times. “But if you look at this race, I’m the only progressive in the race. I’m the person who’s taking on the corporate special interests.”

He pointed to the millions spent by a super PAC supported by the real estate industry and Pacific Gas & Electric — which Steyer has pledged to break up to bring down utility costs — as evidence that he is the candidate most feared by moneyed interests in the state.

“The companies that are running up the costs are fighting like hell, because that’s how they make their money,” he said. “But somebody’s got to stand up to them.”

The departure of former Rep. Eric Swalwell from the race last month after sexual assault allegations doesn’t appear to have resulted in a major surge of support for Steyer. Rather, it is Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, who seems to have gained momentum.

But veteran California pollster Mark Baldassare said that he hasn’t counted out Steyer yet.

Tom Steyer, in 2013, as he was campaigning against the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

(David Paul Morris / Bloomberg)

“It would be easy to say that he’s reached his peak, except for the fact that there are so many undecideds and Steyer has so many resources at his disposal,” said Baldassare, the statewide survey director for the Public Policy Institute of California.

Steyer has poured at least $875 million into federal and state political committees since 2010, according to an analysis conducted for The Times by OpenSecrets, and federal and state campaign finance records. That total includes the nearly half a billion dollars he has spent on his two races.

In 2013, Steyer left his investment firm and launched NextGen Climate, a progressive political action group geared toward addressing climate change. He has given nearly $270 million to a super PAC affiliated with the group, which was later renamed NextGen America.

The committee has spent tens of millions of dollars on campaigns opposing fossil fuel interests and supporting progressive candidates, though Steyer’s financial support for the group has decreased as he has run for office.

The billionaire also established his climate bona fides by opposing the Keystone XL pipeline during the Obama administration, which became a national proxy fight over climate policy, and by backing environmental ballot measures in California.

Among them was a $5-million investment in 2010’s “No on Prop. 23” campaign, which defeated a conservative effort to overturn California’s greenhouse gas emission reduction law.

Two years later, Steyer invested about $29.5 million in Proposition 39, a winning measure to recoup money from corporate tax breaks to help pay for clean energy projects.

Privileged upbringing and a ‘desire to compete’

Steyer’s unconventional path to politics began with a privileged upbringing on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He studied at the elite Buckley School and Philips Exeter Academy before attending college at Yale University, where he captained the men’s soccer team and graduated in 1979.

After a brief stint on Wall Street, he got a master’s degree in business administration at Stanford University, where he met his future wife, Kat Taylor. They wed on the Stanford campus in 1986.

Steyer worked hard — very hard — at making money.

He was one of several “Wall Street Prodigies” featured in a Wall Street Journal profile from the same year he was married.

Steyer’s work began at 5 a.m. in the office and he seldom took days off — he fretted he wouldn’t have time for a honeymoon.

He eschewed the trappings of wealth — driving an eight-year-old Honda — motivated instead by a “desire to compete, excel and keep struggling to do better.”

Steyer began cutting political checks soon after, but his real emergence as a major political donor came during the 2004 presidential campaign, when he pledged to raise more than $100,000 for John Kerry’s campaign and was talked about as a potential political appointee at the U.S. Treasury Department in a Kerry administration.

Steyer hired Kerry to join his sustainable investment company Galvanize in 2024. Steyer stepped down from the company before entering the governor’s race.

The year 2004 was pivotal for another reason.

A group of students at his two alma maters, Yale and Stanford, along with those at a handful of other elite universities, began a campaign to pressure the endowments at their institutions to stop investing with Steyer’s hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management.

They cited concerns about some of the firm’s investments, including a coal burning plant in Indonesia and a joint venture between Farallon and Yale to pump out water from an aquifer in Colorado adjacent to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

“Stated simply, we do not want our universities to profit from investments that harm other communities,” the students wrote in an open letter to Steyer. “We are concerned about the impact some of Farallon’s recent investments have had.”

Steyer told the students he appreciated “the importance of the issues that you raise,” but defended his firm’s work, saying that it acted “responsibly and ethically.”

Looking back on that time now, Steyer said it was a turning point.

“I think that experience really was a wake-up call to me,” he said. “It’s when I started to very seriously consider leaving Farallon. I really felt like if I was going to be the person with my values, I was going to have to leave and be independent and do what was right.”

Three years later, Steyer and his wife began their initial pivot to public service, opening a bank in Oakland that would cater to low-income customers

Tom Steyer, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, greets people at an event in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2019.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

But this initial venture highlighted the inevitable collision course between Steyer’s burgeoning activism and his firm’s investments.

At an event that year with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Steyer and Taylor pledged $1 million in loans to support vulnerable people in Oakland facing foreclosure in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Left unsaid was the fact that Steyer’s firm had extensive financial ties to San Diego’s Accredited Home Lenders, one of the biggest subprime mortgage lenders in the country.

The transformation to climate activist

Steyer and his wife began writing bigger philanthropic checks and in 2010 took the Giving Pledge, promising to donate at least half of their wealth before they died.

In 2009, they gave $40 million to endow the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford, the first of several multimillion-dollar gifts to Stanford and Yale to support climate-focused ventures. They pledged $7 million to create the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, also at Stanford, in 2010. It closed last year after its endowment came to an end.

And in 2011, the couple donated $25 million to Yale to help establish an Energy Sciences Institute focused on developing sustainable energy solutions.

But even as Steyer undertook his public transformation from investor to climate activist, his firm continued to make decisions out of step with his newfound commitment.

In 2011, for example, the firm purchased 1.8 million shares of BP, a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in which a BP-operated project dumped nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Steyer resigned from the firm at the end of 2012, though he still has millions of dollars invested in the firm .

Environmentalists have largely been willing to forgive Steyer’s past investments.

“There’s no question he’d be the most knowledgeable and committed climate advocate that’s ever held really high office in America,” climate activist and author Bill McKibben recently told Politico.

While the nonprofit California Environmental Voters has endorsed both Katie Porter and Tom Steyer in the race, Steyer, in particular, has “taken on Big Oil dollar for dollar, toe to toe, and beaten them,” said Mary Creasman, the group’s chief executive.

“He has made this his career and his investment and his passion, so it’s authentic, and voters see that,” she said.

Leah Stokes, an associate professor of environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara, said she’s impressed by Steyer’s climate track record and progressive campaign platform, noting that he’s been an active presence in California’s climate movement for more than 15 years.

That includes not only his work on ballot initiatives and clean energy technology, but also his focus on biodiversity loss and carbon sequestration at his 1,800-acre TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, where researchers are studying regenerative agriculture.

But Steyer has also played a role in elevating climate into a national political issue — including in the early 2010s when it wasn’t a “politically hot topic,” Stokes said.

“He has been willing to spend an enormous amount of his personal money on elections on climate — whether it’s propositions, whether it’s himself running for president on basically a climate platform, whether it’s the Next Gen giant voter turnout campaign,” she said. “I think he has recognized … that politics is where we have to invest our time if we want to make a difference on the climate crisis.”

Despite concerns raised about Steyer’s early investments into fossil fuels through Farallon, Stokes said she’s more apt to criticize candidates who are taking money from oil companies today, such as Becerra, who accepted a $39,200 donation from Chevron for his gubernatorial campaign.

She was also heartened by the fact that Pacific Gas & Electric has funded a $10-million PAC opposing Steyer, because she said it indicates that he aims to hold utility companies accountable for skyrocketing electricity prices amid soaring profits.

“We could actually have a shot here at having somebody who cares about climate change, who wants to hold utilities accountable, who wants to hold big polluters accountable,” Stokes said. “That would just be transformative.”

Energy costs weigh heavily on voters

Steyer’s focus on climate issues and energy affordability could also be a strategic boon in the governor’s race.

Sixty percent of voters in the state see climate change as a major threat to the country and believe that the government is not doing enough to address it, according to polling from the Public Policy Institute of California.

“Californians connect the dots between what’s going on with extreme climate and wildfires and climate,” said Baldassare, the institute’s survey director.

Recent polling has also shown that voters are very concerned about energy affordability and rising utility costs, with 13% of Americans naming it as the most important financial problem facing their family — a 10-point increase from last year, according to an April Gallup poll.

Overall, energy costs tied housing costs as the second-biggest concern following the high cost of living, the poll found.

In November, Democrats who campaigned heavily around energy affordability swept the field in key races in New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia. Residential electric prices increased nearly 11% between January 2025 and this February, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Voters are supporting candidates who are leaning into these issues,” Creasman said.

Wieder reported from Washington and Smith from Los Angeles.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government.

We’ve got a month left before the June 2 primary election, with mail-in ballots already heading to voters’ mailboxes.

As if on cue, the big campaign money is pouring in from an array of well-funded interests: business groups, labor unions, hotels, taxicab companies and even one candidate’s mother.

To get around the city’s strict fundraising limits, those donors are putting much larger sums into “independent expenditure” campaigns that operate separately from their favored candidates.

Let’s take a look at some of the outsized spending to emerge in recent weeks.

Police union targets Raman

Things had been pretty sleepy in the L.A. mayor’s race, even with Mayor Karen Bass facing challenges from Councilmember Nithya Raman, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt and 11 other opponents.

That all changed after the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file officers, dropped more than $400,000 on ads targeting Raman, who was elected to the council twice with support from Democratic Socialists of America, which isn’t endorsing in the mayoral primary.

Bass has been aligned with the union on a number of issues, supporting the hiring of more cops, signing off on higher police salaries and vetoing a ballot proposal to let Police Chief Jim McDonnell fire officers.

Raman, on the other hand, has been campaigning on her opposition to a package of police pay increases, saying the decision by Bass and the council to approve them was “politically motivated.”

Bass and others said the increases were needed to keep police from leaving a department that has lost 14% of its officers since 2020.

The league tried and failed to unseat Raman two years ago. This time around, the union is texting voters a campaign video highlighting her opposition to a city law barring homeless people from setting up encampments within 500 feet of a school.

The ad, which appears on YouTube, Hulu and other platforms, cites Raman’s recent vote against a new “no-camping” zone in Venice, in an area plagued by assaults and other crimes.

“Raman has voted over 75 times to allow homeless camps next to schools, daycares, parks and other sensitive locations, undermining public safety,” the ad’s narrator says.

Raman responded with her own campaign video saying Bass gave the union “more money than the city could even afford,” forcing city leaders to cut other services “to the bone.”

“This is what happens when a city governs for powerful interests rather than working people,” she said.

The league is planning to spend more than $1 million opposing Raman, and it’s already gotten some help. For example, office building owner Kilroy Realty Group has given $100,000 to the anti-Raman campaign.

A mother of a campaign

Real estate executive Zach Sokoloff has a not-so-secret weapon as he seeks to unseat City Controller Kenneth Mejia: his mom.

Sheryl Sokoloff is the spouse of Jonathan Sokoloff, managing partner of the Los Angeles-based private equity investment firm Leonard Green & Partners. She recently dropped $2.5 million into a committee promoting her son, which has produced digital ads accusing Mejia of performing too few audits.

“Zach Sokoloff will actually do the job as controller,” the ad’s narrator says in one 30-second spot.

Mejia, in an email, called the attacks “baseless” and accused Sokoloff’s family of “using their extraordinary wealth to try to buy the Controller’s position.”

“Unlike my opponent, I do not have any millionaire family members who can bankroll my campaign,” he said. “Just like last time we ran, we’re relying on small dollar donations from LA residents who are inspired by our record of providing unprecedented transparency and accountability on their tax dollars.”

Spending surge in the 11th

We already knew the race for the 11th District, which covers L.A.’s coastal neighborhoods, had gotten outrageously expensive.

Last week, Councilmember Traci Park reported raising nearly $1.3 million. Human rights attorney Faizah Malik, Park’s lone challenger, took in her own impressive haul of $454,000.

Turns out the independent expenditure campaigns in the race are nearly as costly.

Two city employee unions — the Police Protective League and United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 — have spent nearly $900,000 on efforts to get Park reelected. And they’re getting help.

The firefighters, a Park ally since her 2022 campaign, collected $150,000 for their pro-Park effort from Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, a construction trade union. The police union picked up $150,000 from restaurateur Jerry Greenberg and $200,000 from real estate company Douglas Emmett Properties, which gained notoriety for its push to evict tenants from West L.A.’s Barrington Plaza.

Malik, backed by Democratic Socialists of America, accused Park of doing the bidding of her donors at the expense of “everyday working Angelenos,” by supporting police raises and fighting stronger renter protections.

Hotel workers take aim at Park

Meanwhile, a different union is doing its own sizable spend.

Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers, has put nearly $340,000 so far on efforts to promote Malik and tear down Park. The union’s leadership has been furious with Park, who voted against a hike in the minimum wage for tourism workers to $30 per hour.

Park said the wage hike would harm the city’s hospitality industry, costing hotel workers their jobs.

Like the police and the firefighters, Unite Here is not going it alone. The union picked up $50,000 from United Teachers Los Angeles and another $50,000 from Smart Justice California, a group focused on less punitive public safety strategies.

Unite Here has attempted to portray Park, a Democrat, as a Trump sympathizer, highlighting remarks she made to the president when he visited Pacific Palisades in the wake of the Palisades fire. The union also pointed out that she voted against making L.A. a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants.

Park told news radio station KNX in 2024 that the state already has a sanctuary law, and that she considered the ordinance to be an act of “symbolic resistance” — one that would jeopardize federal funding.

On Thursday, Park accused Unite Here of using a picture of her with personnel from the Army Corps of Engineers to falsely imply that she was standing alongside ICE. The Army Corps removed debris from thousands of burned-out properties in the Palisades.

Park, in a statement, called the mail pieces “dishonest and disgusting.”

Unite Here didn’t directly address Park’s allegation, but told The Times that “Local 11 believes that our local elected officials should not collaborate with the Trump administration in any way.”

Speaking of the hotel wage

Unite Here isn’t the only player in the hotel wage fight to leap into this year’s council races.

Two L.A.-based hotels, working with the California Hotel and Lodging Assn., have put a combined $300,000 into a political action committee supporting Maria Lou Calanche, who is seeking to unseat Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez; political aide Jose Ugarte, who is running to replace Councilmember Curren Price; and Park in the 11th.

The group, which goes by the name Fix Los Angles PAC, doesn’t seem to be sweating all the details. Its phone script to voters, which was filed recently with the Ethics Commission, got Calanche’s name wrong, referring to her as Mary instead of Maria.

State of play

— EXPANDING THE VOTE: L.A. voters could be asked in November to take the first step toward giving noncitizens the right to vote in city and school board elections. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, now running for reelection, wants voters to give the council the authority to let noncitizens vote in elections for mayor, council and other city offices, as well as the school board.

— HOME SHARING HOLDOUTS: Bass is looking to relax the city’s rules on home-sharing, by letting residents rent their second homes on a short-term basis through Airbnb and other platforms. Some council members were cool to the idea, saying this week that they fear such a move would shrink the city’s housing supply.

— EYE IN THE SKY: The LAPD deployed drones more than 3,000 times last year, using them mostly for emergency calls or officers’ requests for help, according to a report submitted to the Police Commission. The 3-foot-wide surveillance devices are being used by a department already known for its sizable fleet of helicopters.

— SEIZING CONTROL: Bass and Councilmembers Tim McOsker and Ysabel Jurado want the city of L.A. to obtain majority control over the embattled Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency that delivers services to the region’s unhoused population. That proposal comes a year after the county’s Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million out of LAHSA.

— A GLOOMY OUTLOOK: L.A. voters lack confidence in the ability of city, county and state officials to make housing more affordable, according to a survey conducted by the Los Angeles Business Council.

— READY FOR OUR CLOSE-UP: L.A. plans to install 125 speed cameras by the end of July, in the hope of catching misbehaving drivers. But there are already some takeaways from San Francisco, where the technology is being credited with getting drivers to slow down.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness returned to South Los Angeles, sending outreach workers to areas around 23rd and Broadway, Adams Boulevard at Main Street, and Washington Boulevard at Main Street.
• On the docket next week: The major candidates for mayor are set to square off Wednesday at a forum sponsored by NBC4 and Telemundo 52, in partnership with Loyola Marymount University and the Skirball Cultural 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.

HAVANA — Cubans hunched over tables this month to sign up for the socialist government’s campaign to support national sovereignty and defy the U.S. as tensions between the countries escalate.

They are endorsing “My signature for the Homeland” movement, which President Miguel Díaz-Canel launched earlier this month.

The initiative is mocked by some who question why people stood in line to sign when hunger and poverty are growing across the island, while supporters say it serves as a warning to the U.S. that civilians want peace but will not back down despite recent threats of invasion.

“Anything for the revolution,” said Rodolfo Ruiz, 64, who sells sunglasses and other items out of his home in Havana. He said he signed last week because of President Trump’s ongoing comments over Cuba, “so that he may hear and know that we are willing to defend our sovereignty.”

“Watch out, Trump. Think before you invade Cuba, think carefully. The people are prepared,” Ruiz said.

In January, Trump signed an executive order asserting that the “policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat,” something Cuban officials have repeatedly scoffed at.

Trump has referred to the island as a “failing nation” and suggested a “friendly takeover.”

“We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” he said in mid-April, referring to the war in Iran.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the son of Cuban immigrants who fled before the revolution — has called for “new people in charge” of Cuba.

“It is absurd for the State Department to claim that Cuba — a relatively small, developing country subjected to a brutal economic war — could pose a threat to the world’s greatest military, technological, and economic power,” Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

Díaz-Canel has said he does not want military aggression, but noted that Cuba has a duty to prepare to avoid it, and if necessary, defeat it.

Havana resident Delfina Hernández said she would stand shoulder to shoulder with Cubans to fight a U.S. energy blockade, a sharpening of longtime U.S. sanctions and what many refer to as the “imperialist threat.”

For three days last week, the community center she runs in Havana with her husband received sheets of paper and opened its doors so people over age 16 could sign them. Hernández was the first to do so.

“Cuba is something very sacred to us,” she said. “We are well-armed, and the people of Cuba will fight to the very end. We are going to hit them — and with everything we’ve got.”

Criticism was swift on social media, though, with opponents of the campaign asserting that the “homeland” has not provided them with anything. Some said the government should allow people to sign in favor of things like the ability to choose their president.

The homeland initiative began on April 19 and comes as Cuba celebrates the 65th anniversary of its April 1961 Bay of Pigs victory over some 1,500 Cuban exiles backed by the CIA who failed in their attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s newly formed Communist government.

Alberto Olivera, a visual artist and Hernández’s husband, questioned how Cuba poses a threat to the U.S.

“If it’s a failed revolution, then leave us alone,” he said. “What do they care?” Hernández added.

Olivera recognized that Cubans have unmet needs, adding that he has been hungry at times, but asserted that the “pressure cooker” tactic by the U.S. would not work.

“If I’m a failed state, why are you seeking me out?” he asked.

The Trump administration has demanded that Cuba release political prisoners, implement major economic reforms and change its way of governance — all things Cuba has rejected, saying it’s open to dialogue and cooperation in certain areas as it pushes for the end of a U.S. energy blockade that has deepened the island’s crises.

Both countries have confirmed recent talks, although details remain secret.

As tensions persist, Cuba’s government is gathering signatures at workplaces and neighborhoods across the island of nearly 10 million people, remaining mum on how many it has collected.

It said in a statement that the signatures are meant to condemn “the U.S. blockade and economic war against Cuba,” which it called a “genocidal act,” and to repudiate threats of military aggression while upholding “the inalienable right of Cubans to live in peace.”

Coto writes for the Associated Press.

One judge claims his colleagues have adopted a “gangster mentality” in order to shut him up.

Another compared the state board accusing him of serious misconduct to “the Russian mafia.”

Judicial elections are usually sleepy affairs, subject to little political fanfare or interest. But two battles on the June ballot in Los Angeles have raised the temperature this campaign season and invited questions about the lengths members of the insular local bench will go to protect their own.

Lawyers who aspire to become judge often run for open seats. The challengers in these races, however, say they specifically targeted incumbents they believe are unfit for the office, which carries an annual salary of more than $244,000.

One of the contests could unseat 84-year-old Judge Robert Draper, who is seeking reelection despite having spent the last three years relegated to a room at the Santa Monica courthouse without a computer or caseload, which two other judges described to The Times as a “closet.”

In 2023, then-Presiding Justice Samantha Jessner said Draper was “unable to carry out the duties and responsibilities of a judge” due to deteriorating mental and physical health, according to a letter she sent to the state’s Commission on Judicial Performance.

Draper denied all wrongdoing in an interview with The Times, and said that although he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he remains fit for the bench. He has also been accused of sexual harassment and making improper and biased comments by the judicial commission. He is contesting those claims. A hearing that could result in his removal began Monday and is expected to last into early May.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Thompson at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The other incumbent fighting to save his seat is Judge Pat Connolly, 61, a former prosecutor who has drawn support from several other sitting L.A. County judges. But his opponent, Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Thompson, has called Connolly a “rogue judge” who needs to be replaced.

Connolly has been disciplined multiple times in his 18-year judicial tenure for improper comments toward litigants and, in one case, exhibiting bias against a defense attorney against whom he was weighing contempt charges, according to state judicial commission records.

Thompson, who gained notoriety for his role winning a rape conviction against Harvey Weinstein, purchased the rights to the domain name “patconnolly4judge.com,” which now redirects to one of the commission’s admonishments of Connolly.

“What I see is a man who repeatedly prioritizes his own goodwill over that of the community and the public he is serving … a man who has been repeatedly disciplined for prioritizing his own interests,” said Thompson, who has been endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party.

In a bizarre turn, the race was linked to the recent shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner after conservative influencers posted a picture of a Thompson campaign sign on the Torrance lawn of the suspected gunman, Cole Tomas Allen.

Thompson lives next door to the Allen family and described the suspect’s parents as great neighbors. He said he didn’t know their son and dismissed “internet trolls” for trying to tie his campaign to political violence.

This year’s election has sparked conversations about the unwavering support incumbent judges seem to enjoy among their colleagues.

Despite the concerns about Draper’s health, a political action committee run by fellow judges gave $72,500 to his campaign, state election finance records show. The PAC gave the same amount to Connolly.

Judge Maria Lucy Armendariz, who oversees the PAC, did not return a call seeking comment.

“The PAC has some explaining to do here. Why is there this show of support for someone who is facing so many challenges?” asked Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Loyola Law School. “It doesn’t reflect well on the bench.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tal Khan Valbuena at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Draper’s opponent is Deputy Dist. Atty. Tal Khan Valbuena, a refugee from Pakistan who works in the Hollywood mental health court. Khan Valbuena believes his lived experience as a gay Muslim who has faced bigotry will bring a compassionate perspective to a bench some complain is overrun with old-school tough-on-crime prosecutors.

But he also expressed concern about Draper’s mental decline after meeting him for lunch earlier this year.

“His honor had exemplified disorganized thought behavior, tangential thought … things I see on a day-to-day basis [in mental health court],” Khan Valbuena said, while acknowledging that he is not a doctor.

The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. issued its ratings for every judicial candidate last week. Connolly graded best among the judges in the contentious races, described as “well qualified.” Thompson and Khan Valubena were rated as “qualified.” Draper was one of only three candidates labeled “unqualified.”

In 2022, Judge Eric Taylor said he noticed a sharp change in Draper’s behavior that included sending “abusive” and “incoherent” e-mails to colleagues that contained racist and profane language, according to a letter Taylor sent to the state judicial commission.

“He has demonstrated a flagging handle on reality,” Taylor wrote.

Draper was accused of sexual harassment, making racist remarks and callous behavior all over the course of one hearing. According to the state judicial complaint and testimony at Draper’s removal hearing on Monday, the judge allegedly stroked a female lawyer’s hair after going on a tangent to a Black attorney about “Black history, Black football players, the Civil Rights Act, and the Black Lives Matter movement,” even though the case had nothing to do with those issues.

Judge Robert Draper outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Los Angeles.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Later in chambers that same day, he made crude remarks to a group of female attorneys while reflecting on his time as a civil attorney, recalling how male lawyers would deride female secretaries, insisting they learn to “f— better than they could type,” according to testimony given by attorney Janice Brown at Draper’s hearing.

Brown told the review panel that Draper’s behavior left her “aghast” and “perplexed.”

Draper denied much of what was in the complaint. He says that he never touched a lawyer’s hair, and that the comments about Black culture were meant to express his pride at racial progress in America. He criticized the Commission on Judicial Performance.

“This is like the Russian mafia, it’s like Germany,” he said. “There’s no due process for any judge.”

Draper’s attorney, Ashley Posner, said his client would routinely walk up seven flights of stairs when he was assigned to the downtown Stanley Mosk courthouse and remains sharp.

“Things were set up to portray him in the worst light possible … he’s been portrayed as a bigot. He’s been portrayed as doddering and demented, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” Posner said.

In court on Monday, Posner suggested the complaint was part of a broader campaign to force Draper to retire and accused the L.A. County Superior Court’s leadership of ageism. A court spokesperson said they could not comment on personnel matters.

The race between Connolly and Thompson has also focused heavily on alleged misconduct.

Connolly’s past admonishments by the state commission include complaints that he yelled at attorneys for appearing remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge also told a recently acquitted defendant that he knew the man was guilty, records show.

“I don’t think it’s as much what I’ve said as how I have said it. I think that they have taken issue with the terms that I’ve used,” Connolly said, noting he has never been accused of ethical violations or moral impropriety.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge Pat Connolly at the Compton Courthouse.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

A legal expert raised questions in 2023 about the propriety of Connolly seeking to disqualify a fellow judge from ruling on a petition to resentence a convicted cop killer that Connolly had prosecuted in the late 2000s. The state commission is also currently reviewing two additional complaints against Connolly, according to e-mails seen by The Times. Connolly said he couldn’t comment on either situation.

In an interview with The Times, Connolly said he was surprised by the “venom” Thompson had injected into the race.

He said he sees himself as a fair jurist with a knack for finding creative solutions to cases that balance public safety and alternatives to incarceration. In 2022, court records show, he negotiated a plea deal for an NFL player facing prison time for weapons charges, ordering him to organize sports camps for underprivileged youth.

“I’m one of those who listens to both sides, who gives both sides the opportunity to voice their positions,” he said.

Connolly enjoys the support of many sitting judges and law enforcement leaders, including former Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and the head of the court’s criminal division, Ricardo Ocampo.

Thompson says some of Connolly’s allies on the bench have come after his supporters.

When Thompson launched his campaign, he published an endorsement from L.A. County Superior Court Judge Scott Yang on his campaign website. Within weeks, Thompson said, Yang asked him to take the endorsement down, claiming he was being pressured by other judges.

Yang, who presides over a court in the Antelope Valley, said his colleagues on the bench exhibited a “gangster mentality” when they told him to withdraw his endorsement in a judicial election, according to a text message reviewed by The Times.

“They were going to target him. They were going to run at him. They were potentially going to make false disciplinary reports around him,” Thompson said.

Connolly was not accused of being involved in the alleged harassment and declined to discuss the matter. Yang did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A court spokesperson said they had not received any reports of threats made against Yang, but a law enforcement source said Yang told them he was harassed by fellow judges over his endorsement of Thompson. The source spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the bench.

The conflict has generated whispers among L.A. County judges, one of whom requested anonymity due to concerns of backlash for speaking publicly. Word of the threats against Yang, the judge said, left some fearing they too could face retribution for breaking ranks.

“It’s totally concerning,” the judge said. “How different is that than the deputy gangs?”

The top candidates for California governor clashed over the high costs of gas, housing and homeowner’s insurance in a testy debate Tuesday evening, a fiery exchange that may finally draw voter attention as the June 2 primary election fast approaches.

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose campaign blossomed after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out amid sexual assault and misconduct allegations, came under persistent attack during the 90-minute debate but also went on the offensive.

Former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican who leads all candidates in the most recent opinion polls, ripped Becerra for promising to declare a state of emergency to address rising homeowner’s insurance rates, saying the governor lacks that constitutional authority.

“We can’t have a governor who doesn’t understand how the government works,” Hilton said.

Becerra, who served as California attorney general before joining the Biden administration, quickly defended himself, saying he knows the law better than Hilton does.

“We don’t need a talking head from Fox News to tell us how the government works,” he said.

And that was after Becerra got in an early dig at Hilton, who has been endorsed by President Trump, by referring to Trump as “Hilton’s daddy.”

The debate was broadcast and livestreamed by CBS stations around the state. Hundreds of people watched from Pomona College’s historic Bridges Auditorium, a Renaissance Revival-style landmark with Art Deco flourishes that was once among the premier performance venues in Southern California.

With eight major candidates from both parties participating, CBS moderators billed it as “the largest and most inclusive debate of the election.” Becerra and Hilton were joined by Republican candidate Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Democratic candidates San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, billionaire Tom Steyer, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Some takeaways from the debate:

Candidates didn’t shy away from the top issues

Moderators set the theme for the first half-hour of the debate as “affordability,” a top concern among California voters, and almost immediately the candidates began sniping and talking over one another.

Almost all of them vowed to accelerate home construction in California, pivotal to reducing the state’s high cost of housing.

There was no shortage of ideas for other ways to ease the financial burdens facing Californians, but few specifics on how they would deliver on those promises given the state’s complex and arduous legislative process.

Hilton promised to cap the price of gas at $3 per gallon, and Mahan vowed to suspend the state gas tax. Bianco said Democrats have long overregulated and overtaxed Californians, and the state’s supermajority Democratic Legislature would have to get in line with him and end those things if he’s elected.

Becerra said he would reduce prescription drug prices. Thurmond said he would provide down-payment assistance grants to those trying to own their first home.

Barbs traded over climate-caused emergencies

Anchors and reporters from local CBS stations moderated the debate, including Los Angeles anchor Pat Harvey, Sacramento anchor Tony Lopez, Bay Area anchor Ryan Yamamoto and national investigative correspondent Julie Watts. They were joined by Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College and a member of California’s independent redistricting commission.

Moderators pointed to the surge in catastrophic wildfires across the state in recent years due to climate change, as well as the threat of earthquakes, and asked the candidates how they would respond to future emergencies.

As he did throughout most of the debate, Bianco responded by bashing California’s Democratic leadership, which he said created most of the ills facing the state.

Bianco said the root causes of fire disasters in the state are “not because of climate change” but due to “failed environmental activist policies” that prevented fire departments from clearing highly flammable brush around communities for years.

Mahan, after touting his actions as a Silicon Valley mayor during emergencies, quickly pivoted to take shots at Becerra and his role as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary during the pandemic.

He said Becerra had “never met a crisis that he couldn’t ignore” and accused Becerra of failing to deal with COVID-19, monkeypox and the surge of unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration.

Becerra responded by saying that his agency dealt with the crises by working with all 50 states and the federal government to quickly roll out vaccines and other resources.

“You’re not wearing a mask, are you, Matt? You’re not worried about catching monkeypox, right?” Becerra said.

Steyer also came under attack when he starting discussing his plans to “make polluters pay” for the effects of climate change. Porter criticized the former San Francisco hedge-fund founder for making millions off the oil and gas industry, and using those profits to fund his campaign for governor. Steyer has spent more than $143 million of his own money on his campaign, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the California secretary of state’s office.

“How about profiteers pay? You pay the lowest tax rate on this stage, and yet you made the billions that you’re using to fund your campaign off fossil fuels,” Porter said to Steyer.

Steyer responded that he is a “change agent” candidate opposed by special interests and pointed to campaign committees funded by utility and other industry groups opposing his bid. PG&E, the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Assn. of Realtors have put more than $29 million into a pair of committees to fund attack ads against the billionaire.

Republicans focus on blaming Democrats

Just weeks before the June 2 primary, the race to replace term-limited Newsom remains wide open, with many voters still undecided.

Republicans Hilton and Bianco have led numerous public opinion polls while the large field of Democrats have split the vote, leading to fears among Democrats that the party could get shut out of the general election, despite outnumbering Republicans nearly two-to-one among the state’s registered voters. In California’s open primary, the top two finishers advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

The two Republicans avoided overtly attacking each other at the debate but were regularly the targets of other candidates on the stage.

Becerra, speaking about federal healthcare funding cuts approved by President Trump and congressional Republicans last year, referred to the president’s endorsement of Hilton. “The first thing we have to do is stop Steve Hilton’s daddy,” Becerra said.

Hilton responded jokingly that his father, who was the goalie for the Hungarian national ice hockey team, hadn’t weighed in on the race. And he said Becerra’s comment pointed to what is wrong with California politics — a fixation on Trump despite Democrats controlling the state for more than a decade.

“We’ve had the same people in charge for 16 years now, and it’s such a disaster and such a high cost of living for everyone, and the highest poverty rate in the country and the highest unemployment rate in the country, and the worst business plan,” Hilton said. “All these things going wrong, they can’t do anything except blame Trump. Let’s see how many times you hear that tonight.”

Bianco grew visibly frustrated several times over the debate’s format and his opponents’ answers. At different points, he compared the event to “The Twilight Zone” and called it “the hour and a half that [viewers] are never going to get back.”

Pressed on what he would do differently if elected, the Riverside sheriff also focused on criticizing Democrats and accusing them of lying.

“We have a group of of 20-ish-year-old kids and we’re just sitting here lying to them about broken Democrat policies in California for the last 20 years, and we’re going to sit here and blame a president who’s been president for a year. This is absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

Hilton has seen a bump in his polling numbers since he was endorsed by President Trump earlier this month. A CBS News/YouGov poll of more than 1,400 registered voters released Monday showed Hilton leading with 16%, followed by Steyer with 15%, Becerra with 13%, Bianco with 10%, Porter with 9%, Mahan and Villaraigosa with 4% and Thurmond with 1%. The largest group of voters — 26% — was undecided.

Nixon reported from Sacramento and Mehta reported from Claremont. Times staff writers Kevin Rector, Dakota Smith and Blanca Begert contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday in an investigation over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and confirmed the indictment to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The charge or charges against Comey were not immediately known.

It’s the second criminal case the Justice Department has brought against the longtime Trump foe, who said he assumed the arrangement of shells he saw on a walk, reading “86 47,” was a political message, not a call to violence. Comey is among multiple foes of the Republican president to come under scrutiny by the Justice Department over the last year, as acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche aims to position himself as the right person to hold the job permanently.

Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service in May after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment Tuesday.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by the Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant.”

“A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed will likely spark defense claims that the Trump administration is going out of its way to target Comey, who had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether the Republican president’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.

The former FBI director was indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorized inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist. He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

The department, for instance, is also pursuing a criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan, another key figure in the Russia investigation — one of Trump’s chief grievances and a saga for which he and his supporters have long sought retaliation.

CNN was the first to report the second indictment against Comey.

Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press.

Los Angeles City Council member Traci Park has raised more than $1.2 million for her reelection campaign in the city’s June 2 primary, more than double the amount collected by challenger Faizah Malik, according to finance reports filed this week.

Malik, a civil rights attorney, reported raising roughly $454,000 in her bid for the District 11 seat that skirts along the Westside, including Mar Vista, Pacific Palisades, Venice and Westchester, the reports show.

At nearly $1.7 million, the money raised in the race is the highest for the eight council seats, out of 15 total, on the ballot in the June 2 primary. Any candidate who wins a majority in the election will win the seat outright, otherwise the top two vote-getters will compete in the Nov. 3 general election.

Two of the eight races are open seats to replace termed-out incumbents, and in five other races, incumbents Eunisses Hernandez, Park, Hugo Soto-Martínez, Tim McOsker and Katy Yaroslavsky posted large fundraising leads against their challengers. One incumbent, Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, is running unopposed.

In the west San Fernando Valley’s 3rd District, three candidates are seeking to replace termed-out Councilmember Bob Blumenfield.

Insurance company founder Tim Gaspar was leading the pack in fundraising, reporting nearly $430,000. Barri Worth Girvan, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, has raised about $235,000. Tech entrepreneur Christopher Robert “CR” Celona was far behind with about $12,300.

In Council District 1, which includes Highland Park and Pico-Union, incumbent Hernandez topped the field with about $319,000 in contributions. Challenger Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles police commissioner, reported raising about $182,000.

Among other challengers in the race, Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and longtime City Council aide, reported about $75,000 in contributions. Raul Claros, founder of a nonprofit called California Rising, listed $70,500 in contributions and entrepreneur Nelson Grande reported raising about $55,000.

There are six candidates vying to replace incumbent Curren Price in the 9th District, which includes USC and communities along the Harbor Freeway corridor.

Jose Ugarte, a former deputy chief of staff for Price, led the field in reported financial contributions, amassing $477,000.

Estuardo Mazariegos, head of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Los Angeles, reported roughly $200,000 in contributions and Elmer Roldan, director of a nonprofit, has raised about $114,000.

Entrepreneur Jorge Nuño and therapist Martha Sanchez trailed with about $25,000 and $13,000, respectively. Educator Jorge Hernandez Rosas did not report any contributions.

In the other races:

• Yaroslavsky reported raising about $431,000 for her 5th District seat, which includes Westwood, Palms and Hancock Park. None of her opponents, Henry Mantel and Morgan Oyler, reported raising more than $35,000.
• McOsker reported raising 242,000 for his 15th District seat in San Pedro. Challenger Jordan Rivers, a community organizer, told The Times he did not raise any funds.
• Soto-Martínez reported raising more than $170,000. The three challengers in the race — Colter Carlisle, Dylan Kendall and Rich Sarian — reported a combined $152,000.

The outcome of the Park-Malik contest in District 11 will be determined in the June 2 primary because there are only two candidates in the race.

In a statement, Councilmember Park credited her fundraising lead to her efforts to clear homeless encampments.

“I raised an historic number of donations from local Westside residents because I’ve been on the ground since Day One solving our number one priority: getting people off the streets into housing and treatment and removing dangerous encampments from our neighborhoods,” Park said. “Residents, workers and visitors all see the difference.”

Kendall Mayhew, communications director for Malik’s campaign, said in a statement that Park and her supporters are spending unprecedented money because “we are winning and they simply don’t know what else to do.”

“What our campaign has demonstrated so far, and what we will demonstrate at the ballot box in just a few weeks, is that corporate money cannot defeat an honest, people-powered campaign,” Mayhew said.

The fundraising totals reported this week represent money given by individual donors, who are limited to contributions of no more than $1,000 in this election cycle. While the reports offer a glance at fundraising, money is also coming in through independent expenditures, which have no limit on how much can be given.

For example, in District 1, the L.A. County Federation of Labor has reportedly spent more than $226,000 in support of Hernandez. Calanche is also receiving supporting funds: the Fix Los Angeles PAC Supporting Calanche, Ugarte and Park for City Council 2026 has spent about $46,000 on her campaign to unseat Hernandez.

Bill Cassidy’s roles as a lawmaker, a doctor and a political candidate will collide on Wednesday as he questions Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in two high-stakes Senate hearings.

The Louisiana Republican chairs one of the Senate committees that oversees Kennedy’s department and sits on another, giving him two chances to interrogate the secretary about his plans for an agency responsible for public health programs and research. As a doctor, Cassidy has clashed with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine ideas even though he provided crucial support for the health secretary’s nomination last year.

At the same time, Cassidy is fighting for his political future in next month’s primary in Louisiana, where President Trump has endorsed one of his opponents in an unusual attempt to oust a sitting senator from his own party.

How Cassidy handles the hearings could affect his chances at a pivotal moment of his reelection campaign and set the tone for how Congress oversees the nation’s health agenda at a time of rampant distrust and misinformation.

Cassidy hasn’t faced Kennedy in public since September. In the subsequent months, Kennedy has attempted a dramatic rollback of vaccine recommendations that, if not blocked by an ongoing lawsuit, could undermine protections against diseases like flu, hepatitis B and RSV.

After a backlash, Kennedy has also pivoted to spending more time talking about less controversial topics like healthy eating — albeit with his own spin, including sharing exaggerated claims that various ailments can be cured by diet alone.

Cassidy will have to decide on Wednesday whether to grill Kennedy on vaccines, an issue deeply important to him, or put their differences aside and prioritize loyalty to the Trump administration.

“He’s taken a risk showing any sort of resistance to RFK,” said Claire Leavitt, an assistant professor at Smith College who studies congressional oversight. “He may pay an electoral price for that.”

Cassidy has long advocated for vaccines

Cassidy has spent years walking a political tightrope. He’s one of the few Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during an impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

As a liver doctor, he advocated for babies to receive hepatitis B vaccines shortly after birth, a step that could have prevented the disease in his patients. But when Trump nominated Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, Cassidy supported him. He did so after securing various commitments, including that Kennedy would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring system and support the childhood vaccine schedule.

The vote for Kennedy did not appear to mollify Trump. The president endorsed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, one of Cassidy’s two primary opponents.

Cassidy also faces opposition from Kennedy’s allies in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, a group that includes both anti-vaccine activists and a wide variety of other crusaders for health and the environment. The MAHA PAC, aligned with Kennedy, has pledged $1 million to Letlow’s campaign. While the organization hasn’t publicly said so, some have questioned whether the support is partly in retaliation against Cassidy for criticizing Kennedy’s vaccine policy agenda.

“I’m not really sure what MAHA’s beef is,” Cassidy told reporters earlier this month. “Let me point out that I am the reason that Robert F. Kennedy is now the secretary of HHS. He would not have gotten there otherwise.”

Cassidy argues that he has “strongly supported” the MAHA agenda, especially when it comes to the fight against ultraprocessed foods. However, the physician-turned-senator acknowledged that he and MAHA have “disagreed on vaccines.”

“We’ve seen, frankly, that I am right,” Cassidy added, pointing to recent measles-related deaths of children who were not vaccinated.

At a hearing in September, he slammed Kennedy’s decision to slash funding for mRNA vaccine development. He interrogated Kennedy over his attempt to replace members of a vaccine committee, suggesting the new members could have conflicts of interest. He also raised concerns that Kennedy’s vaccine policy decisions could be making it harder for Americans to get COVID-19 shots.

Later that month, Cassidy convened a hearing featuring former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez, who was ousted by Kennedy less than a month into her tenure after they clashed over vaccine policy, and former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, who resigned in August citing an erosion of science at the agency.

“I want to work with the president to fulfill his campaign promise to reform the CDC and Make America Healthy Again. The president says radical transparency is the way to do that,” Cassidy said at the time.

Experts say Cassidy’s vaccine stance might not hurt him

Political consultants said they expect Cassidy’s primary opponents, Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming, to seize on any sound bites from Wednesday’s hearings that can make Cassidy seem at odds with the Trump administration.

But Dorit Reiss, a vaccine law expert at UC Law San Francisco, said the political risk of advocating for vaccines may not be as strong among Republicans as some people assume.

“He’s probably not alienating voters by focusing on the issue and calling it out,” she said.

Louisiana political consultant Mary-Patricia Wray said she thinks most diehard MAHA voters already know who they are voting for, and it’s probably not Cassidy.

Instead, she said, he may still be able to appeal to Democrats who switch their party registration to vote in the primary, as well as a wide swath of still-undecided Republican voters who care about the same health care affordability issues he advocates for every day in Congress.

“If I was advising Bill Cassidy, I would tell him your goal here is not to get out unscathed,” Wray said. “Your goal is to prove that your consistency on issues regarding public health is an asset in your campaign, not a detriment.”

Election outcome will shape future oversight of HHS

Also at stake if Cassidy doesn’t make it to November’s general election is what will happen to his responsibility to oversee the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

Leavitt, the Smith College professor, said seniority typically plays the most important role in who chairs Senate committees. She said another Republican in today’s increasingly hyperpartisan Congress may not be as willing as Cassidy to check Kennedy’s power.

Reiss, the vaccine law expert, said she wishes Cassidy had done more hearings or introduced legislation to rein in Kennedy. And she said the senator bears the blame for allowing Kennedy to bring unfounded vaccine fears into the government in the first place.

“His original sin, of course, was voting for Kennedy at all,” Reiss said.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Sara Cline contributed to this report.