democrats

WASHINGTON — With virtually no strings attached, Congress is on the verge of providing a sizable infusion of cash to the Department of Homeland Security, powering President Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the remainder of his term in the White House.

The nearly $70-billion package, which cleared the Republican-held Senate in a middle of the night vote and now heads to the House, was declared a “rotten bill” by the Democratic leader and an “ATM for ICE” by pro-immigrant advocates.

But for those aligned with Trump’s campaign promise for the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, it all but guarantees an uninterrupted flow of money to carry out the administration’s immigration enforcement operations — and comes on top of some $170 billion Congress already approved for the department last summer, as part of Trump’s big tax breaks bill.

“We’re going to continue to arrest people, we’re going to continue to detain people and we’re going to keep deporting people,” Trump border advisor Tom Homan told CBS News on Friday.

He hinted at summer sweeps of enforcement actions coming next to New York City.

The work of Congress comes at a pivotal time for the Republican president and his party as they face restless voters before the midterm elections. About 1 in 3 U.S. adults know someone who has been affected by Trump’s immigration operations, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. And as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, most say it’s no longer a great place for immigrants.

The funding package from Congress is just a slim dozen-page bill that carries none of the usual guardrails or directives typically demanded in legislation. It turns loose $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and billions for the Border Patrol, and others, prepaying the department’s operations into 2029.

“Their options are limitless in terms of what they can do with this money,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director at America’s Voice, a longtime advocacy organization for immigrants.

“That is such a hard thing to accept as a taxpaying citizen that our dollars are going to this massive, mass deportation machine, while Americans are struggling to meet healthcare costs, and have access to food and they’re paying so much in gas.”

The administration has sought to shift the debate over its immigration operations, installing new leadership at Homeland Security in the aftermath of violent scenes of immigration enforcement earlier this year and the shooting deaths of Americans Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Rather than the dramatic street sweeps, the administration is working behind the scenes on actions that are stripping immigrant groups of their ability to remain in the U.S., by doing away with Temporary Protected Status or making it more difficult to secure green cards.

The so-called Dreamers, young immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children, have reported delays in renewing their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, exposing them to potential deportation.

But protests on American streets continue, including over detention conditions at the Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey.

At the same time, Homeland Security continues to hire more ICE agents — it’s hosting an employment fair next month in Florida — build more detention facilities and partner with countries around the world to take people who are being deported from the U.S.

In a statement, the department said Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin are “laser focused on ensuring the hardworking men and women” of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are fully funded. It said the package from Congress “will ensure our critical national security operations continue despite any Democrat attempts to hold our great patriotic employees hostage in the future.”

Typically a funding package from Congress would run hundreds pages or more, with a range of specific instructions about how the money can be spent and on what timelines.

Congress, after all, holds the power of the purse, and often uses that constitutional role to put checks on the administration.

But after Democrats refused to fund Homeland Security earlier this year following the violence in Minnesota, Republicans retaliated by using the congressional budget resolution process to muscle the package through on their own, outside the traditional appropriations channels.

It’s the same process both parties have used in the past, most recently on Trump’s 2025 tax cuts bill.

“All this important oversight doesn’t happen,” said Bobby Kogan, a former staff member of the Senate Budget Committee and now at the Center for American Progress, a think tank.

Overnight, Democrats in the Senate worked to exert that authority, offering amendments to ensure Congress had some say in the process. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, for example, sought to protect “Dreamers” from deportation as their DACA renewals are being delayed. But those efforts all failed.

Meanwhile the administration is under enormous pressure to deliver on its promise to boost deportations to some 1 million a year, after the Republican president’s first year numbers fell short.

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, is a leader of the Mass Deportation Coalition that is pushing the Trump administration to stick to its promises.

“Everyone’s talking about it like ICE is about to get another massive cash injection, and that’s not how I see it at all,” he said. “They’re getting like life-support money.”

“We’re not asking them to keep going,” Howell said. “We’re asking them to start.”

Howell said there’s little chance the Trump administration will be able to reach the president’s deportation goals unless it drops its priority to go after what they call the “worst of the worst.”

His group put out a framework earlier this year that proposes more comprehensive sweeps to arrest immigrants, particularly in the workplace. He also wants to see the Trump administration make it more difficult for immigrants who are in the U.S. to use the banking system, get social services and obtain driver’s licenses. Republicans in Congress have offered bills tackling some of those issues.

The administration has been amping up its own rhetoric and recently posted a new website that characterizes immigrants as “aliens” — with outer-space themes — and suggests ways the White House is working to prevent people from staying in the U.S.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

The November runoff for state schools superintendent will pit two school board presidents — one a union-friendly liberal and the other a Trump-aligned conservative — against each other.

Republican, Sonja Shaw finished in first place in this week’s primary with 24.5% of votes counted through June 4. Democrat Richard Barrera had19.3%.

Shaw’s margin seems comfortable even with more ballots to be counted, with Barrera firmly in the runoff. The third-leading vote-getter, Wendy Castaneda Leal, was about 10 percentage points behind him.

The race creates a clear contrast between candidates and their vision for California’s schools.

While Shaw, 43, has not typically spoken to Trump’s immigration policies in relation to schooling, she is in accord with the Trump administration education agenda, including banning trans-athletes from women’s and girls’ sports and notifying parents when a child expresses gender-identity issues at school.

Under Shaw’s leadership, the school board in Chino Valley Unified, located in San Bernardino County, also approved a policy that permits parents to challenge books in school libraries.

Barrera, 59, is the board president of San Diego Unified, the second-largest school system in the state. He is a former union official who has developed strong bonds with the teachers union during his long board tenure.

That history helped him win the endorsement of the California Teachers Assn., which poured about $5 million into an independent campaign on his behalf.

Barrera acknowledges that this support made the difference in his leap ahead of other strong Democratic candidates.

Shaw has framed her campaign as a populist effort against a failed and self-interested status quo establishment.

“I didn’t get into this race because I was a politician,” Shaw said in a statement. “I got into it because I was a mom who saw too many families being ignored, too many classrooms falling behind, and too many elected officials unwilling to stand up for our kids.”

Barrera said he is ready to focus on the job of helping students learn more effectively.

“We see examples of schools that are delivering,” Barrera said. “The answers are all around us. The challenge for us as a state is to learn from educators in the local community about what is beating the odds and then take those practices to scale.”

Barrera speaks of an “assault” by the Trump administration on immigrant families: “I’m going to stand up to that assault.”

Barrera, who is a senior adviser to outgoing state Superintendent Tony Thurmond, praises the record of his boss.

Shaw, in contrast, once threw Thurmond out of her local school board meeting.

Lance Christensen, a conservative education analyst who ran unsuccessfully for the office four years ago against Thurmond, is ready for a spirited campaign that “is about to go nuclear.”

“Sonja Shaw pulled out an impressive primary win as an unabashed parental rights advocate while successfully running her local school district,” Christensen said.

“Should Shaw weather the political maelstrom that is about to hit her with tens of millions of dollars from the entrenched left,” he added, “she will have a bigger bully pulpit to shame the people in power who have made California’s education system the laughing-stock of the nation.”

Veteran Democratic political consultant Larry Levine predicted that, in November, Democrats will consolidate around Barrera just like Republicans did around Shaw in the primary — likely leading to a different order of finish in November.

“She consolidated the Republican vote and the Democrats spread like butter on warm bread,” Levine said. “It will be a far different story in the general. CTA will step up with the money to make sure their candidate wins.”

One of the trailing Democrats — former state Legislative leader Anthony Rendon —has already endorsed Barrera.

Rendon said that Barrera “is qualified, shares my values, and has spent his career fighting for public education. He is the candidate who will stand up to and defeat the dangerous, extremist ideology of Sonja Shaw.”

The state superintendent has limited authority over school districts, which are locally managed. The officeholder instead manages the California Department of Education. This agency guides local school districts and also provides partial oversight. The state superintendent also typically takes advantage of the bully pulpit on education issues.

The office has an uncertain future because Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a proposal to reimagine the office and redistribute some of its duties.

PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner, the insurgent Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, will hold his first major campaign rally Friday night as reports continue emerging about his history with women.

Last weekend, his campaign wrestled with stories about sexually explicit messages that Platner sent to several women while he was married. Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported about his relationships with previous girlfriends. Some viewed him positively but others described him as volatile and insulting.

One woman said Platner twisted her arm during an argument and locked her in a room. Platner called that allegation untrue.

But with Maine’s primary around the corner Tuesday and Democrats desperate to rally behind a candidate who can defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November, there’s been little sign of voters or political allies backing away from Platner, who has pitched himself as an imperfect person who has redeemed himself.

Some dismissed news of the text messages as a private matter, one that should be addressed solely by the married couple. Others argue that the need for Democrats to take back control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans is too important to cast aside imperfect candidates.

Yet they’re also wrestling with the question of whether more controversial information surrounding Platner could come out ahead of the November election.

“I think a lot of people are afraid,” said Deb Dagnan, chair of Maine’s Piscataquis County Democrats. “They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop after he gets the nomination. Then what do we do?”

Key to the Senate

Platner is key to Democrats hopes’ to take back the U.S. Senate this year. Yet he’s been bedeviled by near-constant controversies involving his disclosure of a since-covered tattoo of a Nazi symbol, his history of inflammatory online comments and the texting revelations.

Nevertheless, Platner’s most prominent supporters have continued to back the candidate, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego. Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, as well as Democratic candidates for U.S. House and governor, as a part of a “get out the vote” rally in the coastal resort town.

The event is taking place just days ahead of the state’s June 9 primary election, where Platner is expected to secure the Democratic nomination. His top opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April.

He’ll do so under reignited scrutiny amid reports that he and his wife, Amy Gertner, have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren’t a liability to the campaign. Platner’s campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023.

Genevieve McDonald, a former campaign staffer for Platner, told The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”

Shortly after the news came out, Platner posted a five-minute video taken by Gertner, who avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts but dubbed the broader coverage as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”

Voters worry that more scandals lurk

Gertner’s emotional comments about working on her marriage have resonated with some women, who say they are shocked that a former campaign aide would betray someone’s trust and the issue should remain between the couple.

“It’s none of my business as far as I’m concerned,” said Joanne Mason, a local Democratic leader from south-central Maine. “And I would hope that people wouldn’t judge any one person on their own private marriage.”

Valerie Tate, a Democrat from Belfast, described Gertner’s honesty about trying to work on their mental health and marriage as admirable.

“That is not a scandal,” Tate wrote in an email. “That is integrity. Personal growth is not a disqualification from public life. For many of us, it is precisely what made us worthy of it.”

However, Tate conceded that her mind wasn’t fully at ease. With the public still learning about Platner’s past, there is a chance something could emerge as a dealbreaker for voters.

“Of course, there is that concern as there would be in any race with somebody we don’t know all the dramas and the journeys they’ve been on,” she wrote. “Something could come out that would be disqualifying.”

Past controversies simmer

This isn’t the first time Platner has faced questions about his past. He had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he had covered up after starting his campaign.

Platner has said he didn’t realize the meaning of the tattoo. However, a former girlfriend told the Times he joked about it being a Nazi symbol and called it “my Totenkopf.”

There’s also been much attention on Platner’s former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.

Platner has never held elected office and has fashioned a straight-talking, progressive, populist-style campaign focusing on issues such as income inequality, lack of health care accessibility and the rising cost of housing. In return, he’s attracted thousands at his rallies and campaign events and collected millions in campaign funds to further boost his messaging.

“People want somebody new,” said Paige Zeigler, a former Maine Democratic lawmaker and head of the Waldo County Democrats, on why Platner’s staying power has remained strong. “They want somebody that they feel that they can embrace. And Platner is riding that wave.”

Whittle and Kruesi write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I.

Republicans in the United States Senate have renewed their push to pass a controversial $70bn immigration-enforcement funding bill, a top policy priority for President Donald Trump.

But the effort on Thursday faced a series of hurdles, with Democrats forcing votes on several amendments that highlighted controversies related to the Trump presidency.

The rapid-fire votes on the amendments were dubbed a “vote-a-rama“, and they are slated to include issues ranging from Trump’s White House ballroom to his tariff policies and the US-Israel war on Iran.

“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Early on, Republicans were forced to confront a topic that has dominated headlines in recent weeks: Trump’s proposed $1.776bn “anti-weaponisation” fund.

The fund has been controversial on both sides of the aisle, with critics calling it a slush fund for Trump’s allies.

Several Republicans indicated that the optics of such a fund could be politically catastrophic ahead of November’s midterm elections, and the Department of Justice has since backed away from the scheme.

But Trump himself has avoided saying whether the fund was dead, or just on hold.

It was created as part of a settlement following a lawsuit Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a part of his government, and it was designed to award payouts to alleged victims of politically motivated prosecution.

Senate Democrats have repeatedly called for such a fund to be banned outright, rather than relying on the Trump administration’s commitment not to revive it.

Nevertheless, on Thursday, Senate Republicans rejected the Democrats’ measure to permanently block the fund.

Republican Tom Tillis introduced a second amendment, which would have also banned the settlement fund. Instead, the legislation would have redirected the allocated funds to a separate anti-fraud fund within the Justice Department. That, too, was rejected.

Thursday’s votes on the “anti-weaponisation” fund were just the start of several rounds of voting on issues uncomfortable to the Republican Party.

Schumer, the top Democrat, signalled that other amendments would tackle another part of the IRS settlement: the permanent immunity from tax audits that Trump had secured for himself and his family.

Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement campaign and other issues were also scheduled to be taken up in the day’s amendments.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was not sure whether Republicans would defeat every measure, with some members of the party showing an increasing willingness to stand up to Trump.

“I can’t predict how it comes out,” he said.

Immigration funding bill

The situation on Thursday was the result of a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.

Democrats had pledged not to approve further funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), following the killing of two US citizens during immigration operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber, short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.

They have instead been forced to pursue a lengthy procedural manoeuvre to bypass the filibuster, which has taken weeks.

The $70bn funding bill had been stalled by the Trump administration’s demand to include $1bn for security upgrades for Trump’s White House ballroom project.

The request came after the president had repeatedly said that no taxpayer dollars would go towards the project.

The security funding, which roiled several Republicans, was subsequently dropped before the voting started.

The Senate’s parliamentarian, an official who interprets the chamber’s rules, had previously ruled that adding ballroom funding to the $70bn bill would make it ineligible for the budget reconciliation process, which allows the passage of fiscal-related bills with a simple majority.

If Senate Republicans remain unified, they are expected to pass the funding bill late Thursday night or early Friday.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to take up the bill shortly after.

Well, that didn’t take long.

A day after California’s primary election, President Trump took to social media with baseless claims of election fraud — predictable, but also dangerous.

“Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote,” Trump wrote in one post.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote in another, apparently enamored of his latest juvenile slur.

Never mind that his candidate, Steve Hilton, is in the lead — for now anyway.

California has once again become the main dish on Trump’s buffet of bull-hockey as he continues to undermine democracy and consolidate authoritarian power, using this disingenuous and patently untrue narrative that American elections are rigged by shadowy Democratic forces working in collusion with illegal immigrants.

That last part is called the Great Replacement Theory, the idea that “elites” are replacing white people — and white voters — with Black and brown immigrants in a bid to destroy white culture. It’s at the heart of Trump’s voter fraud allegations.

The twist this time is that Hilton, the man who wants to represent all Californians, seems to be jumping on the election fraud conspiracy train with the president. I get it, there’s the MAGA base to feed, and it’s a base that feasts on outrage and fakery. Serving up resentment glazed with lies and propaganda has been the MAGA playbook for years under Trump, a strategy that no one can deny has been heartbreakingly effective.

But Hilton is a smart man and must certainly know that voter fraud is rare, to the point of being inconsequential to election outcomes. Hilton by his own admission understands voting patterns, and that in this cycle, Republicans have voted early and often by mail, despite Trump’s claims that all vote-by-mail should be suspect. So Hilton understands that early votes have skewed his way, and that later vote tallies will likely favor Democrats.

And Hilton is definitely intelligent enough to expect that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly three to one, he will not keep the top spot in this primary, and a slim chance remains that he will not make it into the top two. That’s just simple math.

So if Hilton truly seeks to represent this state as its top elected executive, now is the time to renounce election fraud myths and stand up to Trump’s lies. If Hilton can’t say that he believes our recent election was free and fair, then he has no business being our governor.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the path he’s taking, even as it seems increasingly likely that he will advance to the general election.

This week, speaking with far-right podcaster and former Turning Point USA creative director Benny Johnson (who was allegedly duped into working for a Russian influence operation), Hilton said that while “so far we’re not seeing any signs” of cheating, “we’re going to be all over it. We’re not going to let them do that.”

Hilton was responding to a question from Johnson on whether Hilton will sue over “cheating.”

On a post-election appearance with Laura Ingraham, the conservative Fox News host who has repeatedly promoted the Great Replacement Theory, Hilton delved into more conspiracy.

“Just to really underline the point that you made about the corruption,” he told Ingraham an anecdote about supposed fraud in a previous election cycle when a “whistleblower” at the post office told him that they were instructed that a handwritten postmark was acceptable when sorting ballots to deliver to the county registrar.

“It’s just unbelievable, and of course, that’s why so many people don’t believe the results, but it just undermines confidence,” he told Ingraham, certainly knowing that the post office forwarding a ballot on to a county registrar in no way means it will be certified or counted. Would we really want the USPS deciding which ballots to deliver? Disingenuous on Hilton’s part at best.

“The whole thing is a joke,” Hilton went on to say of California elections, which of course, is absurd.

Thursday, when I asked Hilton’s team to speak with him about his views on voter fraud, they sent back a response that focused on the slowness of the California vote count; voter rolls Hilton has described as “wildly inaccurate,” which is a wildly inaccurate claim; and two instances of actual fraud with voter registration — not examples of votes that were counted.

To be sure, all those items are important. Any malfeasance should be punished, and the system should always strive to improve.

But how hard is it to simply be against fraud, while accurately acknowledging that it is rare and our current system provides accurate results?

I am against voter registration fraud. I am against vote fraud. I am absolutely pro-democracy, including policies such as mail-in voting that increase participation.

I do not believe that there is widespread fraud in the California primary, or in American elections in general, because the evidence does not support that conspiracy. I do not believe that Democrats are running a decades-long, nationwide conspiracy to replace white voters with votes from Black and brown undocumented immigrants, because that is both false and racist.

Pretty basic stuff, and statements in line with the values and common sense of the majority of Californians Hilton says he will represent.

If Hilton can’t come out and clearly say that Trump is wrong — about fraud and about the Great Replacement Theory — can he really be trusted to represent the values of the Golden State?

WASHINGTON — Initial efforts in the Senate failed Thursday to block the $1.8-billion fund that the Trump administration has sought to establish to pay people who claim the government wronged them, though further attempts were likely to come Thursday afternoon.

Republicans narrowly voted down a Democratic amendment to ban the payout fund and then Democrats killed a Republican amendment, which would have prohibited the use of federal money for the fund but would have sent $1.7 billion to the Justice Department’s fraud division.

It was the second effort in Congress to rebuke President Trump in two days, following the House vote Wednesday to rein in Trump’s war powers in Iran.

The dueling amendments were proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). They were attached to the reconciliation bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, a high priority for Republicans.

The votes came as the Senate began a “vote-a-rama,” during which lawmakers were expected to propose a stream of amendments to the immigration bill on various topics.

The Trump administration’s plan for the payment fund — widely seen as a way for Trump to compensate his political allies, including those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — set off particular ire from some GOP lawmakers.

The plan has fueled growing unrest within parts of Trump’s party over his governance, compounded by the president’s endorsement of primary challengers to Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), as well as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), which angered some Republican senators.

Cassidy, who lost his primary and has since voiced strong opposition to Trump’s $1.8-billion fund, became a key player in the Thursday votes, voting down Schumer’s amendment but supporting Tillis’.

On Wednesday, Cassidy joined with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to argue in a court filing that the $1.8-billion fund circumvents Congress’ authority and violates the Constitution’s spending and appropriations clauses.

“It is an unconstitutional attempt to spend the People’s money without Congressional approval,” Cassidy and Booker wrote in an amicus brief filed in the federal court case challenging the fund.

The fund was created by the Justice Department to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Trump and his sons agreed to drop their personal lawsuit against the government in exchange for the creation of the $1.776-billion fund. Critics immediately questioned the plan, and it drew a rare backlash from Republicans.

In late May, GOP senators derailed plans to vote on the immigration bill over their displeasure with the payout fund and with Trump’s desire to use taxpayer funds for his planned White House ballroom. Senate Republicans removed the ballroom funding from the immigration package Wednesday, another setback for Trump.

The Trump administration sought to back away from its plans for the fund this week, following bipartisan outcry and a federal court ruling that temporarily blocked any payouts from the fund. Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Tuesday the administration would end its plans to move ahead with the concept.

But Trump on Wednesday told reporters he didn’t know whether the fund was dead, calling it “a beautiful thing.”

After Schumer proposed the first amendment to ban the fund Thursday morning, the Senate came to a standstill as three key Republican senators deliberated. Schumer framed his effort to ban the fund Thursday as a way to force a referendum on Trump’s plan.

The amendment “offers Republicans a choice: Do you support Donald Trump’s $2 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund, or do you want to protect the American people and their paychecks?” Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) urged Republicans to reject the amendment, saying Democrats were planning to “play so many games” on Thursday during the marathon session.

“We are going to fund immigration enforcement and border patrol, and I urge my Republican colleagues to stay united on that singular mission,” Moreno said.

The amendment failed after Cassidy voted against it. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska voted in favor.

Schumer’s amendment was uniformly supported by Democrats, including California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla.

Tillis, who also voted against Schumer’s amendment, immediately proposed his amendment. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) urged Democrats to oppose it, saying that the proposal would create “a new slush fund” by giving the money to the Justice Department.

“We heard over the last 48 hours that the acting attorney general said that this fund’s not moving forward. All this amendment does is codify what I believe the policy of the DOJ is,” Tillis said on the floor before voting began on his amendment. “This [fund] is unpopular, this administration has said they’re not moving forward with it; this is an opportunity for us to put it to bed.”

Responded Merkley: “Taking one slush fund and eliminating it and then creating a new slush fund still under control of the attorney general is not the way to go. The way to go is to get rid of these slush funds altogether.”

Trump has faced a recent string of failures, including the House vote Wednesday, a court ruling to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and a record-low approval rating among Americans as concern rises about economic issues, gas prices and Trump’s war with Iran.

On Wednesday, Trump lashed out against the four Republicans who backed the House war powers resolution, calling it “an unpatriotic thing” to do and calling the vote “meaningless.”

“They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves. MAGA!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote.

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

WASHINGTON — The Senate is beginning a long series of votes Thursday on legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, moving toward passage of a three-year fix as Democrats have blocked the money for months in protest.

The roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

First, though, Republicans must beat back a potential gauntlet of amendments that Democrats plan to offer, including to try and permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who he believes have been politically persecuted. Democrats have said their first amendment Thursday morning will be to eliminate the fund and send the immigration spending bill back to committee.

Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security that they eventually scrapped and fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

“The thing we’re trying to do here is to keep the focus on funding for ICE and CBP,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday evening, after the Senate voted to start debating the legislation. “This was narrow and targeted from the very beginning and clean, and we’re trying to maintain it that way.”

But it’s unclear if Republicans will have enough votes to fend off the Democratic amendments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward, and many GOP senators said Wednesday that they were satisfied with his remarks.

Yet Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future on Wednesday afternoon when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.

Democrats, Republicans plan to force votes on settlement

To pass legislation through the budget process called reconciliation, the Senate must first hold a long series of votes. Democrats are using that process to try and ban the settlement by law — and also kill the immigration spending bill.

After Trump’s comments about the fund, Schumer posted on X that “this is EXACTLY why” Democrats would be forcing votes to ban it.

Some Republicans also planned to try and put Blanche’s promise in writing. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said he will offer an amendment to block any attempt at resurrecting the fund.

“We’ve got a sufficient number of Republicans who have been very clear they’ve got concerns there,” said Tillis.

ICE and Border Patrol money has been long fight

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the DHS funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support. But ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding, and Republicans launched a new effort to pass three years of funding for those agencies with no Democratic votes.

Security money for Trump’s ballroom dropped

Work on the legislation was also delayed by Republican opposition to $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, that was added to the original bill.

Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project, and Republicans did not include it in the final bill when it was released on Wednesday.

Thune said he was working with his GOP conference to try and fight off any amendments and ensure he has enough votes for a simple majority to pass the bill in the 53-47 Senate.

“Keep in mind, we’ve got to keep them all together, make sure we’ve got 50 votes for it,” he said.

Republican House leaders said Wednesday they would like to clear the legislation before the end of the week, if the Senate can finish it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that House leaders were having internal conversations about the schedule.

“We just need to make sure everybody’s there,” Scalise said.

Jalonick and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.

As election officials continued tallying ballots Wednesday, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra continued to lead in the unsettled race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, with billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer hoping for a surge in late-arriving votes to push him into one of the top-two spots to advance to the November general election.

Hilton, a British immigrant and former Fox News commentator, told reporters outside the state Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday morning that he was “very encouraged” by the latest results, though he stopped short of declaring victory.

“It does look as if change is coming to California, and that is good news for everyone, every small business, every working family, everyone who wants to see our state set back on track,” he said.

Becerra and Steyer did not hold public events as of Wednesday afternoon.

Election data analyst Paul Mitchell said it would be nearly mathematically impossible for Steyer to close the gap.

“As we start to get more data, the runway is going to get shorter and shorter,” he said.

He said Steyer, to finish in the top two in the primary, would have to get about 30% of the remaining uncounted votes while Becerra would need to be limited to 15%. The self-funded billionaire has “a very high hill to overcome, and the challenge gets steeper and steeper as we get more data from the counties,” Mitchell said.

Once mired near the bottom of a crowded pack of Democrats in opinion polls, Becerra, a former Biden administration cabinet member, rocketed ahead of his rival candidates after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race in April amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The scandal triggered an upswing of voter interest in California’s once sluggish governor’s race and in Becerra, who seized the moment.

“Here in Hollywood’s hometown, we love a good underdog story,” Becerra told cheering supporters at his election night party at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles.

Becerra spoke about his Mexican immigrant parents and becoming the first in his family to attend college. Though a longtime California politician, Becerra said that his campaign for governor was outspent and that he faced calls to drop out of the race.

“The underdog stayed in the fight,” he said. “Like my parents, I never gave up. … Never stopped believing in the beacon-light goodness of California and thankfully, neither did you.”

Steyer, who spent more than $216 million of his wealth on the race, has not conceded defeat.

His campaign manager, Heather Hargreaves, wrote in a letter to supporters Wednesday that “we’re going to give democracy time to work. County election officials are still counting ballots and don’t expect to know how many people voted in total until” Thursday, when officials are required to report the estimated number ballots left to process.

The billionaire former hedge fund owner campaigned against the corporate and special interests that have a powerful presence in Sacramento and often spend heavily in elections, including this year against Steyer.

Billionaires “do everything they can to hoard their wealth and avoid paying taxes, and we see corporations continue to rig the system for themselves — raising your prices to juice their profits. Screw that,” Steyer said at his election watch party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco.

Other candidates in the race included Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Democrats including former Rep. Katie Porter, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

Villaraigosa, Mahan and Porter conceded the race Tuesday night.

California’s 2026 race for governor started slow but ended with a flourish, including the demise of a scandal-ridden Democratic favorite, the anointing of a Republican by Trump and Becerra’s unexpected rise from the depths of the candidate field.

Unlike gubernatorial elections in the last quarter of a century, this year’s race lacked a clear crowd-pleasing front-runner able to win over voters, such as movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jerry Brown, a sage of the California electorate and scion of a storied political family. But it unfolded at a time when the state’s residents are overwhelmed by high housing costs, steep gas prices and overall unaffordability that threatens the “California dream” that once drew millions of people to the state.

“Normal people are not living and breathing politics on a daily basis,” said Tim Rosales, a strategist who ran Republican John Cox’s unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial campaign. In today’s information-saturated environment, Rosales said, the race and its roster of “extremely milquetoast candidates” didn’t break through until the Swalwell scandal grabbed voters’ attention.

The 2026 gubernatorial primary has been one of the most unpredictable and expensive in decades and a race that was shaped early on by a number of heavyweight Democrats staying on the sidelines.

Though supporters urged them to run, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta passed on the race. It was in a state of limbo for months last year as Harris, one of the state’s most high-profile politicians, weighed whether to jump in.

“I don’t ever recall a playing field that looks like this one. Usually there’s a clear front-runner,” said veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow. “It’s easy to say that it reflects a lack of talent [but] that’s absolutely not true. Almost any of the candidates running could make a good governor.”

Still, candidates struggled for months to break through to voters.

In February, polls showed the crowded field of Democrats splitting liberal voters and opening a statistical possibility that the party would be boxed out of November under California’s open, top-two primary, which places all candidates on the same ballot. Only the first- and second-place finishers in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

Just when Swalwell appeared on the cusp of becoming the Democratic front-runner the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other women. Swalwell suspended his campaign.

It was Becerra who benefited the most. In less than two months, he vaulted from polling in the low single digits to the top of the field of candidates, according to surveys conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that were co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

“Becerra caught lightning in a bottle,” Rosales said. “It could have easily gone to any of the other candidates,” but many had baggage. Videos of Porter losing her temper hurt her image, the source of Steyer’s wealth and his unbridled campaign spending weighed on voters’ minds, and Villaraigosa and Mahan were “more centrist than what most Democrats wanted, and so Xavier Becerra was really the safe choice,” Rosales said.

Before Democratic voters began to narrow down their choices, Trump endorsed Hilton in early April. It helped the former Fox News host break away from Bianco, his main GOP rival.

In the days before the primary election, the race solidified into a three-way contest involving Becerra, Steyer and Hilton.

Steyer stepped up his fight in the remaining days, seeking to squeeze into one of the top two spots by battering Becerra in ads and at campaign rallies as a politician propped up by corporate special interests.

“We cannot afford to have a governor who’s been bought off by Big Oil. Period,” he said at a Sunday rally in Los Angeles.

Corporations, along with labor unions and interest groups including the California Assn. of Realtors, had spent more than $18.7 million to boost Becerra, according to the election spending tracker California Target Book. Many of the same groups also gave money to a committee intended to attack Steyer.

As the election neared, Becerra sharpened his attacks against Steyer, calling the billionaire a “liar” and accusing him of trying to buy the election.

“We are not going to let a billionaire or Trump’s handpicked candidate take over this state,” he said during a Sunday rally in Long Beach.

If Becerra faces off with Hilton in November he’ll have a distinct advantage. Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in left-leaning California.

Winning the general election would make the 68-year-old Becerra the first elected Latino governor of California. At roughly 40% of the state’s population, Latinos are California’s largest ethnic group but have not been represented in the governor’s mansion since 1875, when then-Lt. Gov. Romualdo Pacheco was elevated to fill a 10-month vacancy.

Times staff writers Iris Kwok, Susanne Rust, Andrew Khouri and Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The House approved a war powers resolution Wednesday that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying President Trump as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the three-month-long war that has reordered politics at home and abroad.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the war powers resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a quick resolution.

The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, and cheers erupted in the House chamber.

“This reckless and costly war of choice needs to end today,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said earlier in the week.

“All we need are a handful of Republicans to join us and we can end this reckless and costly war of choice — a war that has cost the American taxpayer over $100 billion — that’s extraordinary — and left our country in a weaker position relative to Iran.”

Opposition to war grows

It’s the fourth time the House has tried to curb the U.S. war against Iran, and the first time the House was able to pass the measure. The Senate advanced its own war powers resolution last month when a handful of GOP senators broke ranks with the Republican president in a rare show of political pushback from his party.

Each time Democrats have pushed forward the war powers resolution, the vote tallies have inched higher as political unease with the U.S. war swells. Trump had campaigned for the White House on a promise to end U.S. entanglements abroad and focus more on domestic issues, but the war has shifted attention back to the Middle East.

Johnson insisted Trump is “laser focused” on the domestic front, particularly ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

The speaker said he spent three hours at the White House with the president this week as Trump is calling on allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commerce, especially the flow of oil.

Since the U.S. joined Israel in launching the Feb. 28 strikes on Iran, Americans have seen gas prices spike at the pumps, adding to inflationary pressure on consumer spending.

Iran has been able to interrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital channel for a large segment of the world’s oil, natural gas and related products such as fertilizer.

“We’re working on that final piece,” said Johnson, R-La. “The entire world has an interest in the Strait of Hormuz being reopen for commerce. That what he’s working on.”

While a ceasefire in the conflict was declared in April, it remains uneasy and uncertain. Talks for a more durable end to the fighting have dragged, increasingly complicated by Israel’s broadening war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Meanwhile, military strikes between the U.S and Iran continue to flare.

Congress exerts its war powers authority

The war powers resolution from the House would not immediately stop the war, but it would provide a symbolic if not legal step against further military action.

If approved, it would then go to the Senate, where four Republican senators last month joined Democrats in advancing a similar measure to curtail the U.S. campaign against Iran. The Senate has yet to take a final vote to approve or reject its own war powers resolution.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Wednesday testifying at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the Iranians would think that the administration’s “hands are going to be tied” if Congress approved a war powers resolution. He said they would think ”we won’t be able to do anything to them, so why make a deal?”

It’s not the only action Congress is taking in the national security arena as Democrats, in the minority, work to peel off Republican support for measures beyond the war against Iran.

The House is also voting Wednesday on another Democratic-led effort that would authorize U.S. support for Ukraine’s military operations as it battles Russia and to help reconstruct the war-torn country. The House this week is also expected to consider a war powers resolution to block U.S. action in Lebanon.

While Congress has the authority under the Constitution to declare war, the president also has power as the commander in chief to engage in military action, creating a legal dispute over which branch of government has ultimate say in matters of war and peace.

Under the war powers act, the White House has a 60-day window to seek approval from Congress for military action. The administration, however, has indicated that because a ceasefire has been declared in the current conflict in Iran, the hostilities have ceased.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

After all the buildup, fear and uncertainty, the most wide-open and unpredictable California gubernatorial primary in decades appears to have ended in the most consistent and predictable of ways.

California has never elected a female governor. That won’t change in November.

Voters have never much cared for rich people trying to buy the state’s highest elected office. They still don’t.

The California electorate has typically favored experience over youth, and favored bland and boring over razzle and dazzle. It continues to do so.

And for all the speculation about one political party or the other being shut out in Tuesday’s primary, the November runoff may very well turn out to be a thoroughly conventional Democrat vs. Republican matchup.

Here are five takeaways from a gubernatorial contest that was sedentary and sleepy until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

Flashback!

Three months ago, Xavier Becerra seemed so irrelevant he — along with a clutch of other weak-polling candidates — was conspicuously excluded from a scheduled debate at USC. Today, the Democrat has seemingly punched his ticket to November.

The obvious parallel is with another massive underdog, Gray Davis, who also came from far behind to win the last time a gubernatorial primary held this level of uncertainty and suspense. That was back in 1998.

Like Davis, Becerra has a political persona that could be marketed as a sleep aid. No one will ever mistake either of them for, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Becerra’s even-keeled demeanor seemed the perfect prescription following the overnight implosion of Eric Swalwell’s scandal-scarred campaign while presenting a welcome contrast with the endless Sturm und Drang emanating from Washington, D.C.

Despite California’s star-struck reputation (perpetuated mainly by outsiders), the state has elected far more governors like Davis and Becerra than Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan. In fact, other than Schwarzenegger, who prevailed in an unprecedented recall campaign, every candidate following Reagan has successfully run for statewide office at least once before being chosen governor.

Becerra was elected attorney general before heading to Washington to join the Biden administration; his candidacy offered worn-out voters a safe harbor amid the Trumpian tempest.

Cha-ching!

There are things money can’t buy which, Tom $teyer — er, Steyer — is just the latest to discover.

The hedge fund billionaire turned Democratic activist sank more than $215 million — a record — into his gubernatorial bid, after spending nearly $350 million in a failed 2020 try for president.

With roughly 60% of the vote counted, he was running an unimpressive third and hoping a lopsided surge of still-to-be-counted ballots will push him into the top two.

Half a billion dollars, which makes for a pretty pricey, “Meh.”

California has a long record of rejecting money-bag candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate — a pattern stretching back more than half a century. Given that hostile history, Steyer would enter the runoff as a distinct underdog, notwithstanding the many added millions he is poised to spend.

“These filthy rich people who don’t have to deal with the kind of financial struggles that people have in connection with their daliy lives just don’t feel relatable,” said Garry South, who ran Davis’ successful 1998 campaign against the free-spending Steyer of his day, former airline executive Al Checchi.

Given the relentlessly negative campaign Steyer has waged, besieged voters could count on many more ugly months of brutality on the airwaves, on computer screens and in their mailboxes.

The only happy ones would be TV station managers and political consultants cashing Steyer’s super-sized checks.

A self-fulfilling prophecy

It was never likely. But the mere prospect of Democrats being shut out of the November runoff was enough to guarantee such a scenario would not happen in this reliably blue state.

With a large pack of Democrats running and just two serious Republican contenders, Democratic partisans feared their fractured vote would let the GOP nab both spots in Tuesday’s top-two primary.

Much of the freak-out was fed by polls supposedly showing Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco atop the field. But no candidate ever had much more than a paltry 20% support; for all the heavy breathing, the race was always pretty much a multi-candidate tie.

Fearing the worst, however, voters who normally couldn’t tell a “jungle primary” from a jungle gym began thinking a lot like gimlet-eyed political strategists. Democrats, in particular, held onto their ballots much longer than usual, waiting to see which candidate appeared strongest at the end.

“The decision matrix on this was not just the political insiders, but all the normies who heard there might be two Republicans,” said Paul Mitchell, a Sacramento political data expert who developed a popular online tool handicapping various election scenarios. “They’re talking to friends and families. It was kind of crazy.”

In the end, the race among Democrats became less a contest than a self-fulfilling prophecy. Becerra was seen as the candidate with the best chance of advancing to November, so many voters flocked his way — ensuring he would advance to November.

Now he waits to see whether his opponent will be Hilton or Steyer.

Sacramento still a boy’s club

More than 30 states have elected female governors. A few have done so multiple times. But come January, California — which perceives itself as oh-so-cutting edge on oh-so-many things — will install the 41st in the state’s unbroken line of male governors.

Things might have been different had Kamala Harris jumped into the contest. The former vice president, U.S senator and California attorney general would have been a prohibitive favorite to end that gendered streak. When she opted not to run, there were still a handful of female contenders. But Toni Atkins and Betty Yee eventually fell by the wayside, leaving just Katie Porter.

The former Orange County congresswoman and whiteboard wizard was making her second try for statewide office after a failed 2024 bid for U.S. Senate. Given her wide name recognition and national fundraising base, Porter started as one of the front-runners for governor. But a needlessly combustible TV interview and a leaked video that showed her profanely snapping at one of her aides played into persistent questions about Porter’s temper and temperament.

Unfair? Perhaps.

“There’s expectations that are put on a woman” that are different from those male candidates face, said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC. Toughness in a man can be seen as abrasive or off-putting in a women. Acting with authority can come across — at least to some observers — as overbearing.

“A woman’s version of a leader still has to be at least somewhat feminine,” Romero said. “That’s what our society expects. So you have to be tough, but do it with a smile.”

Clearly, there’s a double standard. There’s also apparently a different standard for the office of governor. California, after all, became the first state in history to send two women to serve at the same time in the U.S. Senate and is home to the first female House speaker, San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi.

But in Sacramento, within the governor’s suite, California’s highest glass ceiling remains firmly intact.

Youth won’t be served

Last fall, over a plate of enchiladas in downtown San José, Mayor Matt Mahan emphatically ruled out a run for governor.

“I have a wonderful marriage,” Mahan said at the time. “I have two wonderful kids. I loved working in the private sector. I’ve got a lot of great friends … I genuinely want to make our city better, and I love the job.”

He should have stuck to those words.

Instead, Mahan and his wealthy Silicon Valley backers talked themselves into a rushed and premature campaign that was never remotely competitive. Investors might have thought they were getting in on the ground floor of the next Amazon. Instead, Mahan’s candidacy was more like Pets.com, a famous e-commerce flop that came to embody the heedless froth of the dot.com bubble.

But it would be equally premature to write Mahan off.

Decades ago, another youthful big-city mayor ran an ill-considered campaign for governor, finishing a distant fourth and failing to muster even double-digit support. That, however, didn’t hurt Pete Wilson’s political career. Four years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate en route to two terms as California governor.

At 43, Mahan has plenty of highway ahead and a good deal of political potential. His time may yet come.

The most important thing political junkies might need this week is patience.

With so many key races expected to be tight, officials are warning it could takes days — perhaps even more than a week — to know the outcome of Tuesday’s primary election.

Here are some important things to watch as the results roll in:

From left; Steve Hilton at the California Republican Convention in San Diego; Tom Steyer campaigning in downtown Santa Ana; and Xavier Becerra in San Diego.

(Los Angeles Times)

1. The fight for the second top spot

Most polls and pundits say Democrat Xavier Becerra is likely to be the top voter-getter in the primary to replace Gavin Newsom as California governor.

Until recently, it was assumed that Republican Fox News host Steve Hilton would also advance, especially after he was endorsed by President Trump.

But a new poll suggested Hilton was in a tight race for second place with Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer, who is spending heavily from his own fortune. If he is successful, California could see a competitive Democrat-versus-Democrat general election come November.

Under California’s election rules, the top two vote-getters move on to the general election regardless of party preference.

Hilton is urging Republicans to unite around him to avoid being shut out. His main GOP opponent is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

A few months ago, Hilton and Bianco led some polls amid a crowded Democratic field, prompting fears that Democrats might be locked out of November’s general election. But those concerns have subsided somewhat with Becerra’s rise in the polls.

More to read:

Left to right: Karen Bass on Friday, April 8, 2022; Spencer Pratt on April 16, 2025; Nithya Raman on March 3, 2026.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times; Jordan Strauss / Invision/AP; Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

2. Is the mayor’s race really a tossup?

It’s rare for the Los Angeles mayor’s race to become a national story. But that has happened this year thanks to a showdown few would have predicted.

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt is a big reason for all the attention, running from the right in a very liberal city. Embattled Mayor Karen Bass is the incumbent, with City Councilwoman Nithya Raman running from the left.

A UC Berkeley-L.A. Times poll released last week found a close race with Bass at 26%, Raman at 25% and Pratt at 22% among likely voters. Other polls have shown Pratt doing better.

Pratt had overshadowed his opponents when it came to social media (and old media) attention. But is that enough to get him into the runoff? Bass has big labor on her side, and we’ll see whether that helps her get out the vote. But Bass is also unpopular, according to polls. Does that give Raman an opening among Democrats who are looking for an alternative?

More to read:

Dan Egelhoff plays with his dog at a “Barbecue, Beer and Ballots” event at Rep. Ken Calvert’s office.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

3. The fallout from California redistricting

When it comes to congressional elections, this should be a good night for Democrats, by design. That’s because California voters last year approved Proposition 50, which redrew congressional districts to favor Democrats.

It was part of a national battle by both red and blue states designed to help their respective parties secure control of Congress. The new California maps give Democrats an advantage in some areas, but it’s still unclear how sweeping the victories will be. There are some notable intra-party battles in “safe” districts as well.

The Times’ data and graphics team has identified a few races to watch:

• Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) lost his seat in redistricting and is now challenging incumbent Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) in the 40th District.
• In San Francisco, several factions of the Democratic Party are vying to replace former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the 11th District.
• California’s 48th Congressional District in San Diego and Riverside counties has traditionally been red. But the sudden retirement of longtime Republican incumbent Darrell Issa and redistricting puts it in play.
• Veteran Rep. Brad Sherman is facing a strong challenge from fellow Democrat Jake Levine in the 32nd District.

More reading:

Want more information about the ballot-counting process? Times reporter Grace Toohey breaks it down, including how to track your mail-in ballot, how races get called and why it takes so long.

Sonja Shaw — a Trump-aligned conservative Republican whose public profile rose as she became identified with culture-war causes, including banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports — has emerged as the leading vote-getter in the June primary for California’s superintendent of public instruction.

With more than 80% of precincts at least partially reporting, Shaw was well ahead of Democrat Richard Barrera, holding a lead that would be difficult to surmount.

Both Shaw and Barrera are school board presidents.

Shaw heads the elected Board of Education for Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, a diverse but substantially conservative inland portion of Southern California.

Barrera heads the school board of San Diego Unified, the state’s second largest school district, serving an area with liberal leanings, but that is also politically diverse.

In the primary Shaw was greatly helped by a candidate field that included seven Democrats — most with a voter and financial base that would make them competitive. Incoming results show they divided votes among themselves.

Shaw managed to consolidate the Republican vote, which put her on top for the primary. A second Republican candidate finished far behind her.

On Tuesday night, Shaw sounded hopeful and confident that her campaign themes were resonating beyond her conservative roots.

“I am humbled and grateful that Californians from every corner of our state have rallied behind this campaign,” Shaw said in a statement. “What we’ve built is more than a campaign. It’s a diverse movement of communities who believe our schools can do better and who are determined to make that happen.”

Among its high-profile actions, the Chino Valley board majority put forward a policy that would require parents to be notified if their child expressed gender-identity issues at school. Shaw and her allies also approved a policy that allows parents to challenge the content of library books.

Positioned in a runoff against one Democrat — in a state where Democrats dominate — makes for a challenging campaign.

“Tonight is not the finish line,” Shaw said. “It’s the beginning of the final stretch.”

Barrera, who was not available for comment late Tuesday night, benefited immensely from a $5 million independent expenditure campaign from the California Teachers Assn., which, in the recent past, has seemed determined to spend whatever it takes to get an ally into the state superintendent’s office.

Barrera, besides his work as a longtime public official, has been a senior aide to current state Superintendent Tony Thurmond. Thurmond could not run again because of term limits and instead mounted an unsuccessful campaign for governor.

The state superintendent has limited authority over school districts, which are locally managed. The officeholder instead manages the California Department of Education. This agency guides local school districts and also provides partial oversight. The state superintendent also typically takes advantage of the bully pulpit on education issues.

The office has an uncertain future because Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a proposal to reimagine the office and redistribute some of its duties.

Buoyed by a new Congressional map favoring their party, California Democrats were eyeing Tuesday’s primary elections as a critical first step toward flipping a handful of House seats and taking back power in Washington.

Results from California’s massive and slow-moving election process were not immediately clear late Tuesday, as polls closed and mail ballots continued to be processed and counted. Still, Democrats were bullish about their chances of advancing candidates to November’s general election in all five districts that were redrawn in their favor as a result of last year’s Proposition 50 ballot measure.

“The path to winning back the House starts with voting in the June 2nd primary,” the California Democratic Party posted online Monday.

Meanwhile, California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin urged Republican voters to make their own voices heard too.

“Like President Trump said, we need to make it too big to rig,” Rankin said on “The Benny Show.” “We need to swamp the vote.”

One of the most closely watched races was in the redrawn 22nd Congressional District in the Central Valley, where incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) is facing challenges from moderate Assemblymember Jasmeet Kaur Bains (D-Delano) and progressive college professor Randy Villegas.

Another closely watched race was in the redrawn 48th Congressional District in San Diego and Riverside counties, where Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) decided to retire rather than run for reelection, and where Republican San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond — who is endorsed by Trump — is running against a pack of Democrats.

Prop. 50 — which Californians passed with nearly 65% of the vote a year ago — was California Democrats’ response to Texas Republicans redrawing their state’s Congressional maps in the GOP’s favor, at President Trump’s behest. It was also the only major Democratic counterpunch in the wider mid-decade redistricting brawl that has spread across the country in the last year.

Experts expect the redistricting battle to deliver a net gain of a handful or more House seats to Republicans. But Democrats could gain even more ground given Trump’s lousy approval ratings and the long history of midterm election losses for the president’s party.

Combined, those factors make the battle for control of the House incredibly close, which in turn makes the five seats up for grabs in California pivotal — and potentially decisive.

Tuesday’s primaries won’t determine if any of those five seats will indeed flip parties in November. However, the primaries will define those head-to-head races to come and better inform the odds of Democrats toppling Republican incumbents, experts said.

In addition to flipping the seats currently held by Valadao and Issa, Democrats are hoping to pick up three additional seats.

In the 1st Congressional District — which after Prop. 50 lost rural reaches of northeast California and picked up liberal North Bay communities — various candidates were vying for the seat long held by the late Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), who died in January. They include Democratic state Sen. Mike McGuire and Republican Assemblymember James Gallagher, who is endorsed by Trump.

Voters from the existing district are also voting in a special election Tuesday to fill the remainder of LaMalfa’s term.

In the 3rd Congressional District, which lost an eastern rural stretch along Nevada and now holds more tightly to the Sacramento suburbs, Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove) — who currently represents a different district — is running to remain in Congress in a new seat.

Meanwhile, the 3rd Congressional District’s incumbent, Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Rocklin), is seeking to do the opposite. He quit the Republican Party, became an independent and is now running for Bera’s current seat in Congressional District 6, which includes the city of Sacramento and Placer County suburbs.

In the 41st Congressional District, which became more liberal after Prop. 50 by losing voters in Riverside County and gaining them in Los Angeles County, a slate of candidates — including Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Whittier), who currently represents a different district — are running to replace Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona). Calvert, a 17-term incumbent, decided to run in the neighboring 40th Congressional District instead.

In the 40th Congressional District, which covers a swath of inland Orange County and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, incumbent Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) is now going head-to-head with Calvert, while also facing several Democratic challengers.

Other districts that were not part of the Prop. 50 shuffle are also attracting attention.

In the 11th Congressional District in San Francisco, several Democratic candidates are vying to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the retiring former House Speaker, including state Sen. Scott Wiener; tech millionaire and Democratic political operative Saikat Chakrabarti; and Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors who Pelosi endorsed.

Democrats are also closely watching several races where younger Democrats and progressives are challenging older incumbent Democrats, and where newer Democratic incumbents are seeking to hold onto their seats in relatively competitive districts.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that he is optimistic about the potential for a resumption in nuclear talks with Iran despite a shaky ceasefire in the war that is looking increasingly in doubt.

Rubio defended the Trump administration’s approach to Iran and other global hot spots in back-to-back hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a House Appropriations subcommittee. He was briefly disrupted by protesters at each session.

In his first public testimony since the Iran war began at the end of February, Rubio said the Iranians have agreed to negotiate on nuclear points that they had not been willing to address in the past but would not offer an assessment on what those talks might produce.

“They have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention,” Rubio told the Senate. He noted, however, that there was no guarantee “it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable” and that negotiations have been made difficult by the instability of Iran’s leadership.

Rubio’s optimism ran counter to pessimistic reports from two semiofficial Iranian news agencies that Iran has stopped communicating with mediators after Israel threatened to bomb Beirut as it fights the Hezbollah militant group. President Trump disputed that Iran has cut off communication with mediators, calling Iranian reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”

Democrats criticize Trump administration’s approach to Iran, and Rubio defends it

Rubio’s wide-ranging testimony was met with fierce objections from Democrats, including tough questions about the status of U.S. foreign assistance to respond to diseases such as the Ebola outbreak in Africa. Rubio insisted that the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development had not affected Washington’s ability to assist with global humanitarian responses.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) blasted Rubio and Trump for foreign aid cuts and overseas intervention. Van Hollen specifically took aim at the U.S. and Israeli decision to strike Iran, accusing the Republican president of entering the war on behalf of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “said he’s been waiting 40 years to do this,” Van Hollen said. “It turns out he finally found a president who was both stupid and reckless enough to join him. Let’s face it, Mr. Secretary, the Trump foreign policy has become a dumpster fire.”

Rubio’s testimony, which was taking place as Israel and Lebanon began a new round of political talks at the State Department with the situation between Israel and Hezbollah still uncertain, did not provide definitive answers on any of the main questions of the day.

He said Iran is not guaranteed a massive payout for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway for global oil shipments, and would have to commit to further concessions on its nuclear program to get significant sanctions relief.

“The more they give, the more they would get,” he said, later adding, “They’re not going to get it as a signing bonus.”

Rubio also said there are indications that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is taking a bigger part in the discussions despite not being seen publicly since the war began.

“I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries,” he said.

Democratic senator says drugs being on boats isn’t a targeting criterion for U.S. strikes

On other issues, Rubio dismissed questions about the legality of Pentagon strikes against dozens of alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, which have killed more than 200 people since early September.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said the military’s targeting criteria for those strikes does not include drugs being present on the boat. He called it “odd” but said he could not share much more because the criteria are classified.

Rubio pushed back, saying every strike has a legal officer who makes a determination on whether a strike is legal. He also said the U.S. military has “walked away from strikes” multiple times because they did not meet the targeting criteria.

The Trump administration says the U.S. is at war with drug cartels, while many Democrats have questioned the legality and effectiveness of the strikes.

The Republican former senator faces a second congressional hearing Tuesday and a pair of others Wednesday about the State Department’s annual budget request, though questions have mostly focused on top foreign policy issues.

Rubio wades into Taiwan arms sales opposed by China

Rubio acknowledged that the Trump administration is holding up a new potential $14-billion arms sale to Taiwan but said it remained under consideration and would not be canceled. He noted that the U.S. recently sold arms to Taiwan in December worth $11 billion.

He said the deal is not under review because of pressure from China, although he said the Chinese bring up the issue in discussions with the United States. Trump also has described it as a great negotiating chip.

“They are constantly talking about Taiwan arms sales, but that in no way is what is holding up our decision-making or the White House’s decision-making,” Rubio said. “It is something the president will have to decide on the timing of when and how that is executed on.”

Protesters chant at Rubio about Cuba

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also was questioned about the Trump administration’s escalatory behavior toward Cuba, as Trump has hinted that the small island country could be the next U.S. target after operations in Iran are wrapped up.

He faced chants from protesters who urged him to “stop killing Cubans” when he entered the Senate briefing room. The protesters were quickly pulled from the room. Their chants also included “Let Cuba live!”

Rubio defended the administration’s approach to Cuba and said it would remain focused on changing the Cuban government’s policies.

“I really don’t believe this system is capable of reform unless new people take over or a new mindset takes hold,” he said.

Despite a series of meetings between U.S. and Cuban officials, Trump and Rubio have renewed threats against the island’s government, which take on greater weight following the administration’s announcement of criminal charges against former President Raúl Castro.

Over his congressional career and now as America’s top diplomat, Rubio has maintained that Cuba is a national security threat due to its ties to U.S. adversaries, and that Trump is intent on addressing it.

Amiri, Lee and Finley write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York.

As primary voters head to the polls Tuesday to determine which candidates will face off in November to become California’s governor and Los Angeles’ mayor, both races are wide open, with a new crop of candidates challenging the Democratic status quo.

For Democrats, little clear consensus has emerged so far on who should lead the city and state into the future.

In California’s crowded gubernatorial race, Democrats have struggled in recent months to settle on a candidate to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom.

After former Rep. Eric Swalwell suspended his campaign in April amid allegations of sexual misconduct, Xavier Becerra, a former Biden cabinet member, inched ahead by positioning himself as the safe, experienced Democratic candidate. Another Democrat, billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, and Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, trail close behind.

In L.A., experience seems to be as much a liability as an advantage.

Mayor Karen Bass finds herself in the extraordinary position, as an incumbent, of fighting to make the runoff as she is assailed from the left and the right. The latest UC Berkeley-L.A. Times poll shows Bass leading with just 26% of the vote, one point ahead of City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a wonkish Democratic socialist, and four points ahead of Republican Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star.

“There’s a clear sense of frustration with the Democratic Party,” said Sara Sadhwani, a professor of politics at Pomona College. The reason a wave of conservative outsiders like Pratt and Hilton are doing so well in such a solidly liberal city and state, Sadhwani said, is that they’re more willing to spell out the challenges that L.A. and California face.

“Democrats tend to be very concerned about not upsetting one coalition or another, so it’s politics as usual with many of the Democratic candidates,” Sadhwani said. “Spencer Pratt has blown a hole in that by just naming the problems that everyday residents and voters are seeing and feeling on the ground.”

On homelessness, many Angelenos are frustrated Bass hasn’t significantly moved the needle.

“We can point to facts and figures that might suggest that things have changed,” Sadhwani said. “But when you walk down the streets of Los Angeles, it doesn’t feel like it, so she hasn’t passed the field test. That’s the problem.”

A growing segment of Angelenos also chafe at the city’s high cost of living. And many are angry about the Bass administration’s lack of preparation and response to the 2025 Palisades fire.

“The Democrats have to account for those challenges,” Sadhwani said. “They have been in power for all of this time.”

California, of course, remains a Democratic stronghold, and polls show state voters are overwhelmingly opposed to President Trump. His second-term agenda — including a sweeping immigration crackdown, tariffs and the war in Iran — only seems to have cemented California’s status as a resistance state.

But after so many years of Democratic dominance, in Sacramento and at Los Angeles City Hall, leaders have to answer for voter frustrations.

The top two vote-getters in California’s nonpartisan primaries will advance to theNovember runoff, unless one candidate manages to pick up more than 50% of the vote.

Republicans have turned out at higher rates than Democrats in early voting. Paul Mitchell, vice president of the Sacramento-based bipartisan firm Political Data Inc., said that older Democrats who reliably turn in their ballots were slower to vote this year, likely because two Republicans were on the gubernatorial ballot and the Democratic field was fractured.

“That has caused them to dive into a lot more strategic voting,” Mitchell said, noting many seemed to be waiting to cast their ballots for the Democrat who looks to have the best chance of moving on to November.

For the GOP, getting a candidate on the November ballot for governor means more than just demonstrating Republicans are players in California. A GOP candidate would bring out more Republicans to vote in the general election, raising the party’s prospects of winning down-ballot races and passing a GOP-led ballot initiative on voter ID.

For Democrats, the midterm races offer the party its first major chance to chart a new path for the future.

As polls show Trump cratering in popularity, Democrats in California and beyond are struggling a year and a half after Kamala Harris’ bruising 2024 defeat to agree on what went wrong.

The Democratic National Committee’s long-awaited autopsy of that election — which said Harris “wrote off rural America,” wrongly assumed identity politics would win over voters of color and failed to develop “defined or consistent” strategy against Trump — has only generated more hand-wringing.

“There is not a clear vision, there is not a clear policy agenda, and the Donald Trump presidency upended the policy world as we knew it,” Sadhwani said. “It’s unclear how any Democrat, including any of the individuals in these two races, is going to navigate the waters into the future. One thing is for certain: We aren’t going back. So, which of these candidates is going to lead us into an uncertain future?”

Referendum on Bass

In L.A., the election is a referendum on Bass, who pledged in 2022 to solve homelessness, cut crime and make the city more affordable.

“How has L.A. changed in four years?” said Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at USC. “The Bass campaign is saying it has changed for the better and she still needs more time. All the other candidates, from very different perspectives, are saying that it’s much worse than it was four years ago, and it’s time for new leadership.”

Bass told The Times she plans to win in November by demonstrating her administration’s progress in clearing homeless encampments and accelerating the building of affordable housing. She has also noted that data shows homicides in the city are at their lowest since 1966.

Challenging Bass from the left is Raman, who was elected in 2020 as the first DSA-backed L.A. City Council member. Pitching herself as the viable progressive in the race, Raman has accused Bass of not doing enough to make the city affordable and critiqued Bass’ spending on Inside Safe, her program to move unhoused people into stable housing. Although Raman presents herself as an outsider, she is a former Bass ally who has chaired the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee for more than three years.

“She’s absolutely a part of the establishment,” Sadhwani said. “She’s been in City Hall longer than Karen Bass.”

As Raman tacked to the center during the campaign to appeal to more moderates and distanced herself from past calls to defund the police, she alienated some DSA members who complained they didn’t know what she stood for. Her three fellow DSA City Council members endorsed Bass.

Pratt is challenging Bass and the entire Democratic status quo.

A former star of “The Hills” who lost his home in the Palisades fire, he has surprised many political observers with his success assailing the city’s handling of the 2025 firestorms. He has called unhoused people drug-addled “zombies” and argued that L.A.’s housing crisis requires heavy-handed policing.

Pratt has raised vastly more campaign contributions than Bass and Raman. He has also generated national online buzz by waging an aggressive social media campaign and inspiring supporters to post a stream of viral AI election campaign ads.

Still, most political experts agree that Bass has the most viable path to victory, starting with a solid base of Black voters and a large share of Latino voters, plus support from powerful unions.

“Under normal circumstances, or at least under historic circumstances, that would be plenty to get her over the finish line,“ said Jim Newton, executive director of UCLA Blueprint magazine and a former political journalist for The Times. “What’s problematic for her is that there are people who are angry with her.”

A reset in California

Newsom has emerged in recent years as the national face of Democratic resistance to Trump, bolstering California’s status through a barrage of lawsuits and all-caps trolling against Trump.

Whatever candidate replaces Newsom, things are going to be different.

The emerging front-runner, Becerra, is a safe-bet career politician who has served as California attorney general and U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services. Asked recently why he had climbed in the polls, Bercerra said he thought voters wanted experience, not “glitz and sizzle.”

He has pledged to issue executive orders declaring California’s housing shortage a state of emergency and directing state agencies to maintain coverage for every Californian affected by federal or Medi-Cal cuts. He also touts his record, as the state’s attorney general, of suing Trump 122 times.

Steyer, a hedge-fund billionaire, calls himself “the most progressive candidate on the ballot.” He has pledged to build one million affordable homes, make the wealthy pay more taxes, and defend the environment — stances that are certain to unsettle Sacramento lobbyists and test the limits of California’s progressivism. But his past investments in coal plants and ICE prisons raise questions for some voters.

“His wealth is in one way his Achilles heel in the election,” Grose said. “Voters think of him as a billionaire more than progressive.”

Republicans seem to have rallied around Hilton — a British immigrant and former top strategist forconservative prime minister David Cameron — who has secured Trump’s backing and is campaigning on the message that California is a failed state in need of radical reform.

Hilton has pledged to cut government spending, make housing more affordable and bring gas prices down. But to achieve some of his goals he would scale back public services and environmental regulations and ramp up domestic production of oil and natural gas — strategies that many Californians might hesitate to get behind.

Whichever candidates make it to the runoff, the California Democratic Party will face questions about its strategy and vision. Less than two months ago, the party chair had urged Becerra to drop out of the race to make way for Swalwell.

“Clearly, the party itself has lost its way in California,” Sadhwani said. “I would not be surprised if the California Democratic Party looks for new leadership after this election.”

Can a Republican win?

Because the top two spots in each contest are up for grabs, elections experts warn that the vote results may not be known for days.

If Republicans make it to the runoff, they face steep odds of being elected in November in a state where Democratic registered voters outnumber Republicans by more than 20 percentage points.

Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist, said neither Hilton nor Pratt was likely to win. But if they made the runoff they could have a huge impact on the political environment by advancing “grievance issues that really put up a spotlight on what I call the blue state incompetence.”

Of all the candidates, Mitchell said, Pratt as an outsider adept at Instagram and TikTok has the greatest opportunity to create a new surge electorate. But he’s also going after the hardest voters to get to turn out: disaffected voters who are upset at the system.

Pratt had more retweets and viral videos than any other candidate, Mitchell said. “But that doesn’t buy him the vote of the disaffected DoorDash driver who believes that the system is broken, and who hasn’t voted in the last five elections.”

If Republicans don’t make it past the primary, Mitchell said, Democrats would likely hit the reset button.

“Pratt running has kind of obfuscated the differences between Raman and Bass,” Mitchell said. “It’s like a WWE match versus a chess match. I think Raman versus Bass would be more of a strategic and nuanced election than Spencer Pratt trying to hit Karen Bass over the head with a chair.”

On the ballot this year is an entirely new congressional map.

Redrawn with the passage of Proposition 50, the new districts favor Democrats in November. But those gains aren’t guaranteed. Candidates have to make it through California’s primary, where the top two vote-getters move on to the general election regardless of party preference.

While many districts shifted only slightly, some Republican districts were split, some Democrat districts were strengthened, and in one district lines were redrawn with no overlap at all with their 2024 boundary.

Several seats are competitive — either with a tight race between Republicans or because the seat is expected to flip from red to blue. With redistricting, only four seats are considered solidly Republican, according to the Cook Political Report, down from the nine GOP seats won in 2024.

The 1st Congressional District — which was redrawn farther south to cover portions of Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, and Yuba counties — is one to likely flip.

Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st District in the Inland Empire was eliminated and completely redrawn in Los Angeles County. Calvert is now challenging Republican incumbent Young Kim in the 40th District. Both are marked as incumbents in the results below.

In its new position, the 41st District was carved, in part, out of the previous 38th District. The current representative for the 38th District, Democrat Linda Sánchez, is running in the 41st District and is marked as an incumbent.

Several seats, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 11th District, are competitive between candidates from differing wings of the Democratic party. While in District 22, Democrats are competing to challenge Republican Rep. David Valadao in a redrawn, Latino-majority swing district.

Also on this page are noncompetitive local districts that may still be of interest to Times’ readers in Southern California.

Not seeing the race you’re looking for? See all of California’s U.S. House races on the statewide election page.

NEW ORLEANS — A sharply divided Louisiana Supreme Court on Monday signed off on abolishing an elected office won by a New Orleans exoneree who had spent nearly 30 years in prison for murder before his conviction was vacated.

The 4-3 decision leaves Calvin Duncan with little path forward to try assuming the role of Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court, a job he won in a landmark election last year before Republican lawmakers raced to eliminate the office this spring.

In a blistering dissent, the court’s Democratic justices said the ruling opened the door to allowing Louisiana lawmakers to subvert the will of voters. The court’s conservative majority disagreed, writing that “this change was entirely within the authority of the Legislature.”

The court also rejected the New Orleans City Council’s attempt to hold a special election, which would have given Duncan the option to run again.

“At a time when our voting rights are under unprecedented attack, this decision clarifies that if we want to live in a democracy, we have to fight for it with every tool our system of government provides,” Duncan said in a statement.

Signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, the bill eliminating the New Orleans clerk’s office was championed by GOP lawmakers as a necessary step toward government efficiency. Supporters denied that it had anything to do with Duncan or his past.

Democrats blasted the change as overreach from a largely white, conservative Legislature that they accused of seeking to thwart the will of a predominantly Black city. Those tensions surfaced again last month when Landry signed a new congressional map that eliminated one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts.

Duncan was convicted of a 1981 murder and was released from prison in 2011. In 2021, an Orleans Parish district judge vacated Duncan’s sentence, finding he had been unjustly convicted and the charges against him were dropped. Duncan is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.

Brook writes for the Associated Press.

The June 2026 election has been dominated by a down-to-the-wire governor’s race that has been filled with drama, scandal and much national attention.

A large group of Democrats are vying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in this very blue state. But the candidates have — until recently — struggled to generate wide excitement, and it’s far from clear who will win. On the Republican side, commentator Steve Hilton has benefited from the divided Democrats (and a Trump endorsement) to remain near the top of the pack in polls.

But the governor’s race is far from the only vital decision voters will make.

Los Angeles residents will vote for mayor in a race that is far from certain. And there are numerous state, county, local and judicial candidates to choose from.

Here is a breakdown:

When is the election?

The election is Tuesday, but early voting has already been already under way.

You can find your polling place here or by calling (800) 345-8683. All polling locations are open on election day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Once it’s cast, you can track your ballot here.

(Photo illustration by Nicole Vas / Los Angeles Times; Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

What are the big statewide races?

Let’s start with the race for governor, of course. With Newsom term-limited, Democrats and Republicans are competing for California’s open gubernatorial seat in what could reshape the state’s political landscape. Democrats went in hoping for easy sailing, but a wide field and no superstar name has left the race something of a tossup, though Xavier Becerra has been rising in recent polls. On the Republican side, Hilton continues to poll strongly.

There is a possibility California could make history: The state has never has elected a woman as governor, and only once has a person of color held the office.

But there are many down-ballot statewide races as well,

(Photo illustration by Nicole Vas / Los Angeles Times; Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

What are the big L.A. races?

The L.A. mayor’s race is grabbing all the attention. Polls show the leading candidates are Mayor Karen Bass, City Councilmember Nithya Raman and community activist and former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt. Those same polls show Bass has struggled in the aftermath of the 2025 firestorms, a big issue for Pratt. Another major topic is affordability, which Raman has taken up.

But there are several other competitive races plus ballot measures.

What are the big L.A. County races?

These contests don’t get the attention of the mayor’s and governor’s races, but L.A. County voters have a lot of choices to make.

What’s left?

California’s decision to redraw its congressional map to flip as many as five House seats to Democrats in November is poised to play a big and potentially decisive role in the nation’s broader, bare-knuckle fight for control of Congress.

Tuesday’s primary races — where the top two candidates will advance to November runoffs — won’t determine which Republicans are ousted in most cases, but they will provide an important first look at voter sentiment and bring the fall’s most crucial head-to-head contests into focus.

“There will be some real cues and signals about what to expect,” said Christian Grose, a redistricting scholar and political science professor at USC. “We’re going to know how strong the Democrats’ chances are going to be based on who advances.”

As one example, Grose pointed to the redrawn 22nd Congressional District in the Central Valley, where incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) is facing challenges from moderate Assemblymember Jasmeet Kaur Bains (D-Delano) and progressive college professor Randy Villegas.

Grose said Bains is probably a stronger challenger than Villegas in a district that’s still a reach for Democrats — even if “either one could probably beat Valadao if 2026 is a big Democratic wave.”

Grose will also be closely watching the race between incumbent Reps. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) and Ken Calvert (R-Corona) in the redrawn Congressional District 40, which covers a swath of inland Orange County and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, including parts of Kim’s and Calvert’s current districts.

The district race wasn’t designed to deliver Democrats a seat, but will produce “one of the first casualties for Republicans from the new map” — months before other expected ousters — if Kim and Calvert don’t both advance.

The national picture

The redistricting war was prompted by President Trump’s unprecedented pressuring of Republican-controlled states to redraw their maps mid-decade for partisan advantage in order to retain control of Congress, given his sinking approval ratings and a history of midterm voters punishing the president’s party.

After Texas Republicans heeded Trump’s call to redraw five districts in their party’s favor, California Democrats responded with Proposition 50, a ballot measure passed by voters in November to sideline the state’s independent redistricting committee and allow Democrats to redraw five congressional districts in their favor.

The war ratcheted up — with more Republican states suddenly considering map changes — after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April that weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its long-standing protections for majority-Black districts in the South.

Republicans have now acted to redraw congressional maps in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee, with varying degrees of success, while a battle in Utah could add a single additional Democratic seat there. Attempts in other states have failed, including by the GOP in South Carolina and Democrats in Virginia.

Experts say the net result from the flurry of redistricting will probably be a gain of a handful or more seats for Republicans — but in a year when Democrats are expected to make gains more broadly, leaving control of the House up for grabs. California’s new map is “a huge deal” precisely because that math is so close, said David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for the independent, nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

“Democrats are modest favorites for House control based on the political environment, but also because of California,” Wasserman said in an interview with The Times. “Picking up these four or five seats is a prerequisite to Democrats getting the majority.”

California seats in play

California has 52 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, by far the most of any state. With their new map, California Democrats are hoping to increase their 43 House seats to 48. That would leave just four seats represented by members of the GOP despite Republicans accounting for a quarter of the state electorate.

But that outcome isn’t guaranteed.

Paul Mitchell, a Democratic redistricting expert who devised California’s new map, said the reconfigured congressional districts had to create a pathway for new Democrats to win additional seats without undermining incumbent Democrats’ reelection. And the result is a map with three pretty safe pickups for Democrats, and two districts that are “100% on the table, ready for Democrats to win,” but will nonetheless “require shoe-leather and grit.”

The redrawn congressional district boundaries enacted by Proposition 50 promise to shake up at least three seats, experts said.

Congressional District 1: Held by the late Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) for 13 years until his death in January, the district is currently rural and conservative, stretching from the Sacramento outskirts through Redding to the Oregon border and California’s northeastern corner. Under the state’s new congressional district map, it loses some of its rural reaches and picks up liberal coastal communities, and favors a Democrat such as state Sen. Mike McGuire, who is one of the leading candidates.

Congressional District 3: The seat is currently held by Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Rocklin) and stretches from the Sacramento suburbs through Lake Tahoe and south along the Nevada border. Under the new map, it holds more tightly to the Sacramento suburbs, favoring a Democrat.

The changes were enough to convince an incumbent Democrat, Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove), to leave his current district — Congressional District 6, which includes the city of Sacramento and the suburbs of Roseville and Rocklin in Placer County — and run in District 3 instead.

Meanwhile, Kiley did the reverse. He quit the Republican Party, became an independent and announced he would be leaving District 3 and running instead in District 6 — the one Bera is leaving — against a slate of new Democratic challengers.

Congressional District 41. The seat is now held by Calvert, a 17-term incumbent, and currently stretches from Corona to the Coachella Valley. The new map made the district more liberal, losing voters in Riverside County and gaining them in Los Angeles County, and Calvert decided to run instead in Kim’s redrawn but still Republican-leaning Congressional District 40 that is just to the west.

The two toughest flips for Democrats, experts said, are Congressional District 22, Valadao’s heavily Latino district in the Central Valley, followed by Congressional District 48 in San Diego and Riverside counties, where Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) decided to retire rather than run for reelection.

Valadao is viewed as especially vulnerable because of his recent support for Medicaid cuts, but he has proved resilient in the past. Meanwhile, his two leading Democratic challengers, Bains and Villegas, are in a bitter fight, with Bains receiving Democratic establishment support and Villegas winning endorsements from prominent progressives.

In Issa’s district, moderate Republican San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond is running against several infighting Democrats, including San Diego Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert and former Obama labor official Ammar Campa-Najjar.

Not new, or over

Jeff Wice, a New York Law School professor who was involved in California redistricting efforts in 2010, said the state “has long played hardball politics on redistricting,” including when then-Rep. Phil Burton, a powerful San Francisco Democrat, bragged more than 40 years ago that the complex congressional boundaries he’d crafted for Democrats were his “contribution to modern art.”

But in five decades studying redistricting, Wice said he has never seen such “politically driven, partisan politics” as are occurring now across the nation, which he said have “no root in law, reason or fairness” — and are only likely to continue.

“This state-by-state war is far from over, and may continue all the way through 2030,” he said. “A lot of it depends on the outcome of this November’s election.”

Wasserman said the country has “entered an era of no-holds-barred redistricting,” and he also sees redistricting efforts continuing — including in California, where they would present a distinct threat to the state’s few remaining Republicans.

Michael Li, senior counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, said California is a “big part of the story” this election cycle, thanks to Proposition 50. “Democrats in California proved to be very determined and resourceful and managed to get that done, and right now California is the big offset to Republican gerrymandering around the country,” he said.

But what will come of it all — in California and across the country — is still to be determined.

“When you’re gerrymandering, you’re making a bet that you know what the politics of the future will look like, and it’s hard to predict,” he said. “It’s a high-risk, high-reward venture.”

As Californians dawdle about casting ballots before Tuesday’s primary, the leading candidates hoping to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom crisscrossed the state making their closing arguments to voters.

With former Biden Cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra surging in recent polls, the two candidates battling to win the second spot in this week’s primary and advance to the November election highlighted the strategic reasons why they believe voters ought to support them.

Republican Steve Hilton — a former conservative commentator who rocketed past his main GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, after President Trump endorsed him in April — urged voters to back him to avoid the possibility of two Democrats facing off in November.

“I want us to fight like we are third. We aren’t going to let this slip away,” Hilton told a few hundred people at the Santa Monica Hilton Hotel & Suites on Sunday morning.

Steve Hilton surged ahead of his GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, after receiving an endorsement from the president.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

The former British political strategist once led the polls, but has slipped slightly behind Becerra. Not too far behind Hilton is billionaire hedge fund founder turned climate change activist Tom Steyer, a Democrat.

During his hour and a half appearance, Hilton veered between his oft-repeated criticisms about 16 years of Democrat-led rule in California to jabs at the top Democrats in the race.

Steyer’s nonstop advertising blitz is “one reason alone to defeat him,” while Becerra is the “living embodiment of more of the same.”

“Our secret weapon? The Democrat candidates,” Hilton said to chuckles.

Asked why voters shouldn’t back Bianco, Hilton said it was simple math. Only the first- and second-place finishers in the June 2 primary will advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

“Every vote for Chad Bianco is a vote for two Democrats in the top two,” he said.

If a GOP gubernatorial candidate fails to make the November ballot, it would depress the Republican vote, harming the party’s down-ballot candidates, as well as handicap a Republican-led ballot initiative that would require voters to show government-issued ID to cast ballots.

California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer takes a picture with a volunteer during a Get Out the Vote rally at Los Angeles Trade Technical College on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Steyer, who has spent a record-breaking $216 million of his wealth on his gubernatorial bid, argued that he is the only candidate in the race who is not beholden to special interests. He hammered Becerra for the support he has received from corporations including Meta, Airbnb, Uber and Chevron. Steyer argued that Becerra, if elected governor, would be more responsive to special interests than financially strapped Californians.

“We’ve seen it in this race. Chevron cuts you a check and you look the other way when they hike prices at the pump. Meta gives you money and your AI plan starts sounding like ChatGPT,” Steyer, sporting a ball cap labeling himself a “class traitor,” told more than 500 supporters at a community college near downtown Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon. “That’s the story of Xavier Becerra.”

Corporations, along with labor unions and interest groups including the California Assn. of Realtors, have spent more than $18.7 million to boost Becerra as of Sunday, according to the election spending tracker California Target Book.

“These companies may be selfish, but they’re not stupid. They don’t give hundreds of thousands of dollars to get someone elected unless they know he’s going to be on their side,” Steyer said.

Though Steyer earned his fortune in part through past investments in private prisons, fossil fuels and private equity, his supporters described him as a reformed billionaire who stepped away from those industries more than a decade ago.

Francesca Fiorentini, a comedian and podcaster, compared Steyer to Charles Dickens’ fictional miser Ebenezer Scrooge.

“At the end of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ nobody turns to Ebenezer and is like, ‘No, I’m not gonna accept your gifts.’ No, they welcome him. They might clown him a little bit, but we need to welcome someone like Tom Steyer,” Fiorentini said. “Tom Steyer is actually listening, he actually cares, he’s actually changing his belief system and he’s acting accordingly.”

Though he mainly went after Becerra, Steyer also made sure to criticize Hilton.

“You are not voting for who’s on the ballot, you’re voting for the California that comes after,” Steyer said. “The California that Steve Hilton is running on sounds exactly like what Trump wants: higher prices, lower wages, and less freedom.”

His campaign underscored his attacks against Becerra by having a handful of supporters dressed as zombies speak outside of Becerra’s Sunday evening rally in Long Beach. Waving signs naming businesses that have supported Becerra, they wore lanyards describing “Big Oil,” “Big Tech” and other corporate sectors as Becerra’s “bestie.”

At a raucous rally, elected officials, labor leaders and reproductive rights advocates were among the speakers who introduced Becerra, who attacked Steyer and Hilton, though not by name.

“We are not going to let a billionaire or Trump’s handpicked candidate take over this state,” he told more than 1,000 people at the city’s convention center. “We are not going to let them gut Medicaid while Californians work hard to build a future. We are not going to let them buy an election…. Not here, not in this state, not on our watch.”

Becerra seemed in awe as he stood in front of the packed room.

“Look around this room. One of our opponents has a billion dollars in a checkbook,” he said. “We have something better… We don’t have the money, but we have the movement. We don’t have the money, but we’ve got the momentum. And in this state, if you’ve got the momentum, you run across the finish line, and you win, baby, you win.”

Becerra also released a new video that ostensibly attacks Hilton as “Trump’s favorite” — a thinly veiled effort to prop up Hilton among Republicans to ensure he finished ahead of Steyer in the primary. Given that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by almost 2 to 1, Becerra would much rather face Hilton than Steyer in the general election.

Newsom’s campaign employed this strategy to boost GOP businessman John Cox in the 2018 gubernatorial election, as did then-Rep. Adam Schiff against Republican Steve Garvey in Schiff’s successful 2024 U.S. Senate race.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has argued that he is the only candidate not beholden to special interests.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Steyer launched an ad this weekend titled “Risky” that implies Becerra could face criminal charges related to the acts of two former advisors who have plead guilty to federal charges related to stealing campaign funds from a dormant Becerra campaign account.

Becerra’s campaign called the ad defamatory in a cease and desist letter sent to the Steyer campaign on Saturday.

Becerra, Hilton and Steyer, the front-runners in the race, barnstormed the state in the final days before the June 2 primary. They devoted much of their attention to voters in Southern California, which is home to many of the state’s 23.2 million registered voters. Lower-polling candidates also stumped in the Southland — San José Mayor Matt Mahan greeted diners at Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter kicked off a union canvassing event in Orange on Saturday.

Unlike recent contests to lead the nation’s most populous state, this year’s gubernatorial contest failed to energize the electorate. Despite a crowded field of candidates with notable resumes, as well as record-breaking spending by Steyer and independent-expenditure committees. Californians only recently tuned in.

Political experts of both parties believe voters malaise was due to fatigue about the nation’s political polarization, as well as Trump administration policies such as federal tariffs that drove up prices everywhere and some that disproportionately affected California, such as immigration raids. Southern Californians were also reeling from the devastating wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena and last year’s special election to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries.

Earlier this year, Democratic leaders worried that their voters would splinter among their candidates, creating a scenario where two Republicans advanced to the general election. They controversially urged their party’s candidates to assess their viability, effectively urging several low-polling candidates to drop out of the race.

Democratic turnout also prompted concerns. As of May 22, mail ballots returned by Democrats were 9.2% lower compared with the 2022 gubernatorial primary, while ballots returned by Republicans were 11.6% higher, according to Political Data Intelligence. But the return rates are shifting — as of Friday, Democrats were 7% behind their 2022 return rate, while Republicans were 6.8% higher.

The most recent polls suggest that the prospect of two Republicans advancing to the general election is nonexistent, and there is now a slim chance that two Democrats win the top two spots in the June 2 primary.

In a typical midterm year, Donna Layne casts her ballot long before election day.

But this time around was different for the 75-year-old Democrat. Late-cycle controversies and fear of a “wasted vote” leading to a lockout for Democrats in the race for California governor meant she didn’t make her final decision until Friday.

California Democrats have been wringing their hands for weeks about who would emerge as front-runners in the crowded race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. The sudden departure of high-profile candidate Eric Swalwell amid sexual assault allegations and California’s jungle primary system, which sends the top two vote-getters to the November general election regardless of their party affiliation, added pressure for Democrats to coalesce around candidates who had the best chance of advancing.

“I was concerned,” Layne said as she slid her ballot into a drop box. “I wanted to make my ballot count and I was afraid that there might be two Republicans because they had been polling pretty high, so I wanted to be strategic about it.”

On Friday morning, voters — predominately Democrats like Layne — trickled into the Orange County Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana to turn in their ballots. A few told The Times they frequently wait to vote until the days leading up to the election so they can watch all the debates and get the most up-to-date information about the candidates.

But most said they hung onto their ballots this year for far longer than usual.

As of Friday, 19% of California Republicans had already cast their ballot, compared with roughly 16% by the same time in the 2022 primary cycle, according to data from Political Data Inc.

An election worker separates ballots from vote by mail envelopes to be tallied at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Ballot Processing Center on Thursday in City of Industry.

(Gary Coronado/For The Times)

Meanwhile, only 14% of the state’s far-more-numerous registered Democrats have returned their ballots, down from 17% at this point in 2022. Only 29% of Democrats age 65 years and older — generally enthusiastic voters — had returned their ballots, down from 33% in 2022, data show.

But that doesn’t mean that Democrats will stay on the sidelines. Data show Democrats have started returning their ballots in earnest over the past several days, a trend that’s likely to continue through election day, said Paul Mitchell, the vice president of Political Data Inc.

“It’s the predominance of this fear that they’ve heard in the media — and that’s largely abated — that a Democrat won’t make it to the runoff,” Mitchell said. “In fact, there’s a growing sense that we could have two Democrats make the runoff, so that fear has — for the political class — gone away, but voters are still clinging to it.”

Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, has risen steadily in recent polls, positioning him well to potentially advance to November. He was the leading candidate in a poll released Thursday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, garnering support from 25% of likely California voters.

Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, a front-runner in the race for governor, shares a light moment with supporters at the UFCW Local 1167 Union Hall in Bloomington, on Friday.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Slightly behind with support from 21% of likely state voters was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator whom President Trump has endorsed. In third place with 19% support was another Democrat: Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder and environmental activist.

With support increasing for Becerra, Hilton and Steyer since the last Berkeley IGS/Times poll in March, the survey provided the clearest indication yet that those candidates have separated themselves from the rest of the field.

Support for Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the only other major Republican candidate in the race, dropped 5 percentage points from the March poll to last week’s, putting him in a distant fourth at 11%. Former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter saw her support drop by almost half to 7%. Other prominent Democrats — San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — were all in the low single digits, the poll found.

Republican candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a news conference outside the CIF State Track Championship in Clovis, where transgender athlete AB Hernandez will be was to compete Friday.

(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)

Roughly a dozen registered Democrats interviewed by The Times said they cast their ballots last week for the person they thought would have the best chance of making it through the state’s jungle primary, even if it wasn’t their ideal candidate.

“I love Katie Porter,” said Connie Wadsley, 78. “I really do, but I just didn’t see her as being able to pull it off. I just don’t think society is ready for a woman governor as much as that pains me to say.”

In the end, Wadsley and her husband, Victor, cast their ballots for Steyer. Becerra, she said, is too much of a career politician for her liking, but Steyer impressed her with his promise not to take corporate money and his position on social justice issues.

“I think we need to shake things up in this state — in this nation,” she said. “Yeah, [Steyer] is a billionaire and I’m not really excited about that, but he truly seems to be spending his money on things that I feel are important.”

For some voters, the sheer volume of gubernatorial candidates — 61 in all — was off-putting. Some even organized gatherings with politically like-minded friends to discuss the best course of action.

“I think it was really overwhelming for a lot of people, especially when they got their ballot and saw all of those names,” said Linda Verraster, co-president of the Democratic Women of South Orange County. “There was this fear of making a mistake — air quotes — that would lead to two Republicans in the runoff.”

Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, and Gov. Gray Davis joke with each other as Davis shows Schwarzenegger the governor’s private office at the Capitol in Sacramento on Oct. 23, 2003.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

The race seems somewhat reminiscent of the 2003 recall election when 135 candidates vied to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis amid the state’s energy crisis. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, won decisively with roughly 48% of the vote.

But this race differs in a few key ways, experts say.

Mainly, while all of the top candidates have impressive resumes, there’s a lack of star power that could help propel someone to the forefront. Instead, Democrats “have an option of like moderate Dem to slightly less-moderate Dem,” said Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.

“There’s a lot of people, but they occupy a very similar lane and I think that’s been a lot of the problem,” he said. “They’re loathe to really critique some of the foundational problems like a real ideological opponent would.”

Verraster put it even more simply: “There’s no unicorn.”

Still, she’ll be happy if either of the two Democratic front-runners — or both — make the ballot.

WASHINGTON — Democrats have spent nearly two years trying to move past the 2024 presidential election. Now, Jill Biden’s new memoir is forcing them to relive it.

Her new book, “View from the East Wing,” which comes out Tuesday, is already drawing sharp rebukes from top Democrats, some of whom say it is a poorly timed and misleading account of the events that led to the demise of her husband’s presidency.

“Unhelpful … Ripping open a healing scab is never helpful,” John Morgan, a Florida trial attorney who was a major fundraiser for Biden’s 2024 campaign, told The Times. “In my opinion, she was the main problem. She loved the life and didn’t want it to end.”

Those type of frustrations erupted last week as the former first lady began promoting her book, including in a sit-down interview with CBS News airing Sunday, in which she said she thought the sitting president was having a stroke as she watched the 2024 presidential debate.

“I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Biden said. The moment “scared me to death,” she added.

For Democrats who had a similar reaction in real time, but who spent months being told by the Biden campaign that their concerns were overblown, her remarks landed like a gut punch. With the midterms around the corner, some bemoaned that Biden was relitigating a sore subject — particularly the question of who knew what about Biden’s aging and cognitive decline.

“What I care about is what happens going forward,” Dan Pfeiffer, a host of “Pod Save America,” a popular progressive podcast, said on the show Thursday. “What bothers me the most is not the timeline of events, but whether Democratic leaders now will ever reckon with the massive breach of trust that came because of how all of that was handled.”

Meghan Hays, a former White House aide to Joe Biden, said on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire” that although she understands that Jill Biden is trying to sell books, her efforts are not helping the party ahead of the midterm elections.

“We have a lot of momentum in our favor … and when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in ‘24, it’s never gonna be a good place for Democrats,” Hays said. “I think it is a tough place to be.”

The Democratic Party found itself trapped in a similar dynamic earlier this month, when the Democratic National Committee released a long-awaited, 192-page report dissecting the 2024 loss. The committee’s chairman, Ken Martin, shared the postelection autopsy after coming under intense pressure from Democratic operatives, and apologized for how he handled its release.

The report faulted Kamala Harris and Democrats’ focus on “identity politics” but did not address Biden’s decision to seek reelection amid health concerns and the rushed selection of Harris to replace him on the ticket.

In her book, the former first lady writes that her goal is to be able to “set the record straight” about what happened during the debate and the months that followed that led to President Trump’s return to the White House, according to the Atlantic, which obtained a copy of the book ahead of its release.

At one point, she writes that she even suspected her husband may have been inadvertently impaired after taking cough syrup. In the CBS interview, Biden maintained that she never saw any signs of cognitive decline while he was the sitting president.

“He was the same, the essence of the same Joe Biden, but yeah, he was slowing down. He was getting older,” she said. “You know, it’s a very intense job. I think it ages you — quickly.”

Morgan, the former Biden fundraiser, said he does not believe the first lady is telling the truth in her memoir.

“If you like fiction it’s good,” Morgan said. He added that her claim that she had never witnessed her husband act in a similar way since the debate “defies the smell test.”

“His keys should have been taken long before that night,” Morgan said.

Michael LaRosa, a former press secretary for the first lady, called Democrats’ reaction to the new memoir “pretty grim.”

“There is a deep reservoir of frustration among ‘formers’ who believe she enables the culture around her and the President rather than challenging it,” LaRosa wrote. “So now they seem to be challenging her.”

Although many Democrats are publicly expressing their annoyance at the conversation Biden has resurfaced, others do not see the former first lady’s comments having an effect on the upcoming elections.

“This is not going to be part of a conversation in the election. It’s going to be part of a conversation in Washington because that is what Washington does, but this is not going to move the needle in New Hampshire or other states where it matters,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist who ran a pro-Biden super PAC during the 2020 election cycle.

Schale was blunt: “She is selling books.”

Even if that is the case, Republicans are taking notice.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, President Trump appeared gleeful to note that Biden was “finally admitting” that she did not know what was wrong with her husband during “our spectacular, and highly rated, 2024 Presidential Debate.”

The president lamented that the former first lady did not compliment his performance.

“In other words, as many have asked, did my strong performance in that debate cause him to plain and simple ‘choke,’ leading to his ignominious defeat, or were other reasons the cause? Nobody else knows the answer to that, BUT I DO!!!” Trump wrote.