Democrats

WASHINGTON — The House is scheduled to be back in session Wednesday with a vote expected in the evening on a spending package that, if approved and signed by President Trump, will end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The legislation, which the Senate passed Monday night, is expected to narrowly pass the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. House Democrats are largely anticipated to oppose the deal, which does not include a core demand: an extension to Affordable Care Act healthcare tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he believes the deal is poised to pass by the end of the day.

“We believe the long national nightmare will be over tonight,” Johnson told reporters in Washington. “It was completely and utterly foolish and pointless.”

House Democrats were scheduled to meet ahead of the floor vote to discuss their vote. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday night that there is a “strong expectation” that Democrats will be “strongly opposed” to the shutdown deal when it comes to final vote.

If the tax credits lapse, premiums will more than double on average for more than 20 million Americans who use the healthcare marketplace, according to independent analysts at the research firm KFF.

The spending bill, if approved, will fund the government through Jan. 30 and reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown. It will also guarantee back pay for federal employees who were furloughed or who were working without pay during the budget impasse.

Passage of the bill would mark a crucial moment on the 43rd day of the shutdown, which left thousands of federal workers without pay, millions of Americans uncertain on whether they would receive food assistance and travelers facing delays at airports across the country.

A vote is expected to begin after 4 p.m. EST — after Johnson swears in Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who was elected seven weeks ago. Once sworn in, Grijalva is set to become the final vote needed to force a floor vote on a petition demanding the Trump administration release files connected to Jeffrey Epstein.

The swearing-in ceremony will soon lay the groundwork for a House vote that Trump has long tried to avoid. It would come as the Epstein saga was reignited on Wednesday morning when Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released new emails in which the late sex trafficker said Trump “knew about the girls” that he was victimizing.

The emails are part of a trove of documents from Epstein’s estate released to the committee.

WASHINGTON — President Trump and Republican lawmakers took a victory lap on Tuesday after securing bipartisan support to reopen the government, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history without ceding ground to any core Democratic demands.

House members were converging on Washington for a final vote expected as early as Wednesday, after 60 senators — including seven Democrats and an independent — advanced the measure on Monday night. Most Democratic lawmakers in the House are expected to oppose the continuing resolution, which does not include an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits that had been a central demand during the shutdown negotiations.

The result, according to independent analysts, is that premiums will more than double on average for more than 20 million Americans who use the healthcare marketplace, rising from an average of $888 to $1,904 for out-of-pocket payments annually, according to KFF.

Democrats in the Senate who voted to reopen the government said they had secured a promise from Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, that they would get a vote on extending the tax credits next month.

But the vote is likely to fail down party lines. And even if it earned some Republican support, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, has made no promises he would give the measure a vote in the lower chamber.

An end to the shutdown comes at a crucial time for the U.S. aviation industry ahead of one of the busiest travel seasons around the Thanksgiving holiday. The prolonged closure of the federal government led federal employees in the sector to call out sick in large numbers, prompting an unprecedented directive from the Federation Aviation Administration that slowed operations at the nation’s biggest airports.

Lawmakers are racing to vote before federal employees working in aviation safety miss yet another paycheck this week, potentially extending frustration within their ranks and causing further delays at airports entering the upcoming holiday week.

It will be the first time the House conducts legislative work in over 50 days, a marathon stretch that has resulted in a backlog of work for lawmakers on a wide range of issues, from appropriations and stock trading regulations to a discharge petition calling for the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

“We look forward to the government reopening this week so Congress can get back to our regular legislative session,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “There will be long days and long nights here for the foreseeable future to make up for all this lost time that was imposed upon us.”

To reopen the government, the spending package needs to pass the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority and Democrats have vowed to vote against a deal that does not address healthcare costs.

Still, Trump and Republican leaders believe they have enough votes to push it through the chamber and reopen the government later in the week.

Trump has called the spending package a “very good” deal and has indicated that he will sign it once it gets to his desk.

At a Veterans Day event on Tuesday, Trump thanked Thune and Johnson for their work on their work to reopen the government. Johnson was in the crowd listening to Trump’s remarks.

“Congratulations to you and to John and to everybody on a very big victory,” Trump said in a speech at Arlington National Cemetery. “We are opening back our country. It should’ve never been closed.”

While Trump lauded the measure as a done deal, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the chamber, said his party would still try to delay or tank the legislation with whatever tools it had left.

“House Democrats will strongly oppose any legislation that does not decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis,” Jeffries said in a CNN interview Tuesday morning.

Just like in the Senate, California Democrats in the House are expected to vote against the shutdown deal because it does not address the expiring healthcare subsidies.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi said the shutdown deal reached in the Senate “fails to meet the needs of America’s working families” and said she stood with House Democratic leaders in opposing the legislation.

“We must continue to fight for a responsible, bipartisan path forward that reopens the government and keeps healthcare affordable for the American people,” Pelosi said in a social media post.

California Republicans in the House, meanwhile, have criticized Democrats for trying to stop the funding agreement from passing.

“These extremists only care about their radical base regardless of the impact to America,” Rep. Ken Calvert of Corona said in a social media post.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) publicly called on Johnson to negotiate with Democrats on healthcare during the shutdown. He said in an interview last month that he thought there was “a lot of room” to address concerns on both sides of the aisle on how to address the rising costs of healthcare.

Kiley said Monday that he was proposing legislation with Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-San José) that proposed extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits for another two years.

He said the bill would “stop massive increase in healthcare costs for 22 million Americans whose premium tax credits are about to expire.”

“Importantly, the extension is temporary and fully paid for, so it can’t increase the deficit,” Kiley said in reference to a frequent concern cited by Republicans that extending the credits would contribute to the national debt.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah judge on Monday rejected a new congressional map drawn by Republican lawmakers, adopting an alternate proposal creating a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Republicans hold all four of Utah’s U.S. House seats and had advanced a map poised to protect them.

Judge Dianna Gibson ruled just before a midnight deadline that the Legislature’s new map “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.”

She had ordered lawmakers to draw a map that complies with standards established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor a party, a practice known as gerrymandering. If they failed, Gibson warned she may consider other maps submitted by plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led her to throw out Utah’s existing map.

Gibson ultimately selected a map drawn by plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government. It keeps Salt Lake County almost entirely within one district, instead of dividing the heavily Democratic population center among all four districts, as was the case previously.

The judge’s ruling throws a curveball for Republicans in a state where they expected a clean sweep as they’re working to add winnable seats elsewhere. Nationally, Democrats need to net three U.S. House seats next year to wrest control of the chamber from the GOP, which is trying to buck a historic pattern of the president’s party losing seats in the midterms.

The newly approved map gives Democrats a much stronger chance to flip a seat in a state that has not had a Democrat in Congress since early 2021.

“This is a win for every Utahn,” said state House and Senate Democrats in a joint statement. “We took an oath to serve the people of Utah, and fair representation is the truest measure of that promise.”

In August, Gibson struck down the Utah congressional map adopted after the 2020 census because the Legislature had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters.

The ruling thrust Utah into a national redistricting battle as President Trump urged other Republican-led states to take up mid-decade redistricting to try to help the GOP retain control of the House in 2026. Some Democratic states are considering new maps of their own, with California voters approving a map last week that gives Democrats a shot at winning five more seats. Republicans are still ahead in the redistricting fight.

Redistricting typically occurs once a decade after a census. There are no federal restrictions to redrawing districts mid-decade, but some states — more led by Democrats than Republicans — set their own limitations. The Utah ruling gives an unexpected boost to Democrats, who have fewer opportunities to gain seats through redistricting.

If Gibson had instead approved the map drawn by lawmakers, all four districts would still lean Republican but two would have become slightly competitive for Democrats. Their proposal gambled on Republicans’ ability to protect all four seats under much slimmer margins rather than create a single-left leaning district.

The ruling came minutes before midnight on the day the state’s top election official said was the latest possible date to enact a new congressional map so county clerks would have enough time to prepare for candidate filings for the 2026 midterms.

Republicans have argued Gibson does not have legal authority to enact a map that wasn’t approved by the Legislature. State Rep. Matt MacPherson called the ruling a “gross abuse of power” and said he has opened a bill to pursue impeachment against Gibson.

Gibson said in her ruling she has an obligation to ensure a lawful map is in place by the deadline.

Schoenbaum writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A deal that could end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history is poised to head to the House, where Democrats are launching a last-ditch effort to block a spending agreement reached in the Senate that does not address healthcare costs.

The push comes as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) urged House members on Monday to start making their way back to Washington in anticipation of the chamber voting on a spending package later in the week. The Senate began taking a series of votes Monday night, a day after Senate Republicans reached a deal with eight senators who caucus with Democrats.

The spending plan, which does not include an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, has frustrated many Democrats who spent seven weeks pressuring Republicans to extend the tax credits. It would, however, fund the government through January, reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown and ensure that federal employees who were furloughed receive back pay.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) also promised senators a vote in December that would put lawmakers on record on the healthcare subsidies. Thune said in a speech Monday that he was “grateful that the end is in sight” with the compromise.

“The American people have suffered long enough,” he said. “Let’s not pointlessly drag this bill out. Let’s get it done, get it over to the House so we can get this government open.”

Senate Democrats who defected have argued that a vote is the best deal they could get as the minority party, and that forcing vulnerable Republicans in the chamber to vote on the issue will help them win ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

As the Senate prepared to vote on the deal Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader of the chamber, continued to reiterate his opposition to what he called a “Republican bill.” Schumer, who has faced backlash from Democrats for losing members of his caucus, said the bill “fails to do anything of substance to fix America’s healthcare crisis.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) speaks to reporters about the government shutdown.

(Mariam Zuhaib / Associated Press)

Thune’s promise to allow a vote in the Senate does not guarantee a favorable outcome for Democrats, who would need to secure Republican votes for passage through the chamber. And the chance to address healthcare costs will be made even harder by Johnson, who has not committed to holding a vote on his chamber in the future.

“I’m not promising anybody anything,” he said. “I’m going to let the process play out.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, told reporters that House Democrats will continue to make the case that extending the subsidies is what Americans are demanding from elected officials, and that there is still a fight to be waged in the chamber — even if it is a long shot.

“What we are going to continue to do as House Democrats is to partner with our allies throughout America is to wage the fight, to stay in the Colosseum,” Jeffries said at a news conference.

Some Republicans have agreed with Democrats during the shutdown that healthcare costs need to be addressed, but it is unlikely that House Democrats will be able to build enough bipartisan support to block the deal in the chamber.

Still, Jeffries said the “loudmouths” in the Republican Party who want to do something about healthcare costs have an opportunity to act now that the House is expected to be back in session.

“They can no longer hide. They can no longer hide,” Jeffries said. “They are not going to be able to hide this week when they return from their vacation.”

Democrats believed that fighting for an extension of healthcare tax credits, even at the expense of shutting down the government, would highlight their messaging on affordability, a political platform that helped lead their party to victory in elections across the country last week.

If the tax credits are allowed to lapse at the end of the year, millions of Americans are expected to see their monthly premiums double.

In California, premiums for federally subsidized plans available through Covered California will soar by 97% on average next year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune answers questions Monday about a possible end to the government shutdown after eight members of the Democratic caucus broke ranks and voted with Republicans.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

California’s U.S. senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, were among the Democrats who voted against the deal to reopen the government because it did not address healthcare costs.

“We owe our constituents better than this. We owe a resolution that makes it possible for them to afford healthcare,” Schiff said in a video Sunday night.

Some Republicans too have warned that their party faces backlash in the midterm elections next year if it doesn’t come up with a more comprehensive health plan.

“We have always been open to finding solutions to reduce the oppressive cost of healthcare under the unaffordable care act,” Johnson said Monday.

A final vote could still take several days. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, for one, has said he supports an expeditious vote to reopen the government, but is insisting on a prior vote on an amendment that would eliminate language from the spending deal he says would “unfairly target Kentucky’s hemp industry.”

Without unanimous consent to proceed, the final Senate vote could end up bogged down by procedural delays.

Johnson, meanwhile, has asked members to return by Wednesday in anticipation of a vote in the latter part of the week. Republicans expect to have the votes to pass it, Johnson said.

Any piece of legislation needs to be approved by both the Senate and House and be signed by the president.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, President Trump said he would support the legislative deal to reopen the government.

“We’re going to be opening up our country,” Trump said. “Too bad it was closed, but we’ll be opening up our country very quickly.”

Trump added that he would abide by a provision that would require his administration to reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown.

“The deal is very good,” he said.

Johnson said he spoke to the president on Sunday night and described Trump as “very anxious” to reopen the government.

“It’s after 40 days of wandering in the wilderness, and making the American people suffer needlessly, that some Senate Democrats finally have stepped forward to end the pain,” Johnson said. “Our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end, and we’re grateful for that.”

Ninety-seven percent of Muslim respondents in a CAIR survey say they voted for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Muslim voters in the United States overwhelmingly favoured Democratic candidates in last week’s elections, amid mounting anger at President Donald Trump’s policies, a new exit poll suggests.

The survey, released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday, shows 97 percent of Muslim voters in New York backed democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Virginia’s Democratic Muslim American Senator Ghazala Hashmi also received 95 percent of the Muslim vote in the state in her successful bid for lieutenant governor, according to the poll.

Non-Muslim, more centrist Democratic candidates received strong backing from Muslim voters as well, the CAIR study showed.

Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill – Democratic congresswomen who won the gubernatorial races – both received about 85 percent support from Muslim voters, according to the survey.

California’s Proposition 50, which approved a congressional map that favours Democrats, won 90 percent support from Muslim voters, the poll suggested.

CAIR said it interviewed 1,626 self-identified Muslim respondents for the survey.

The group said the results showed high turnout from Muslim voters.

“These exit poll results highlight an encouraging truth: American Muslims are showing up, speaking out, and shaping the future of our democracy,” the group said in a statement.

“Across four states, Muslim voters demonstrated remarkable engagement and commitment to the civic process, casting ballots that reflect their growing role as active participants in American life.”

The November 4 election, one year ahead of the 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, offered a boost for Democrats.

But the race for New York, which saw Trump endorse former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, saw a spike of Islamophobic rhetoric, particularly from Republican lawmakers and commentators.

CAIR said Muslim voters showed that they are rising up in “the face of anti-Muslim bigotry” to “build a better future for themselves and their neighbors, proving that participation, not prejudice, defines our nation’s strength”.

The survey’s results show that the Democrats are recovering the support of some Muslim voters who deserted the party in last year’s presidential election due to former President Joe Biden’s uncompromising support for Israel amid the brutal assault on Gaza.

CAIR said it recorded 76 Muslim candidates in last week’s election, 38 of whom won.

In Michigan, the Detroit suburbs of Hamtramck, Dearborn and Dearborn Heights elected Muslim mayors in the polls.

Several Muslim candidates are vying for seats in Congress in next year’s election, including Abdul el-Sayed, who is seeking a US Senate seat in Michigan.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is facing mounting pressure to step aside as leader of the Senate Democratic caucus after eight members voted against his wishes Sunday, joining Republicans in a bid to end the longest government shutdown in history.

The vote was just the latest development in a troubling week for the 74-year-old Schumer, who, after eight years as the top Senate Democrat, has faced growing calls from within the party to make way for a new generation of leadership.

Elections last week revealed the emergence of a growing progressive movement in Schumer’s hometown, where the longtime senator declined to endorse Zohran Mamdani in his successful bid for New York City mayor.

National progressive organizations on Monday urged him to step down and have encouraged a popular congresswoman in the state, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to run for his Senate seat in 2029. Polls show Schumer faces the lowest approval numbers of any national leader in Washington.

His leadership troubles come on the heels of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the first female speaker of the House, announcing her retirement, a decision that generated praise across the political aisle last week reflecting on her shrewd ability to control a sprawling House Democratic caucus during high-stakes votes.

“Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) wrote on X after the Sunday night vote. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, told reporters Monday that he strongly disapproved of the emerging deal in the Senate, where seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the party voted to proceed with government funding.

For seven weeks, House and Senate Democrats said they would not vote for legislation to reopen the government unless they were able to secure an extension of health insurance subsidies. But the deal reached in the Senate indicated how some Democrats gave in on that bottom-line negotiation.

Schumer reiterated his disapproval of the spending deal in a speech from the floor Monday. He criticized the compromise as a “Republican bill” even though members of his party helped broker the deal.

“Republicans now own this healthcare crisis,” Schumer said. “They knew it was coming. We wanted to fix it and they said no, and now it is on them.”

As Schumer delivered his speech, Jeffries spoke to reporters at a news conference on the other side of the Capitol.

Asked whether he thought Schumer remained an effective leader and should remain in his position, Jeffries replied, “yes and yes.”

When pressed to elaborate, Jeffries said “the overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer waged a valiant fight,” and turned his disapproval to the Democrats who voted with Republicans on the bill.

“I am not going to explain what a handful of Senate Democrats have decided to do,” Jeffries said. “That’s their explanation to offer to the American people.”

Now that the effort turns to the House, Jeffries said Democrats in the chamber will try to block a deal that does not address healthcare costs.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom offered harsh criticism of Senate Democrats on Monday, who he said had “rolled over.”

After speaking at the Milken Institute’s Global Investors’ Symposium in São Paulo, Newsom told The Times that the move blunted the momentum his party was experiencing following a string of victories last week.

“You don’t start something unless you’re going to finish,” said Newsom, who next heads to the climate summit known as COP30 in Belém, Brazil. “Why the hell did we do this in the first place? We could have gotten this deal in 20 minutes. … Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on with my party.”

Zach Wahls, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Iowa, said Schumer had “failed to lead this party in one of its most critical moments,” calling for him to step down. And Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, wrote that an effective leader would have been able to keep party members in line.

“Tonight is another example of why we need new leadership,” Moulton wrote on X.

The eight members who voted to reopen the government — 15% of the Senate Democratic caucus — voted directly against Schumer, who voted against the measure.

Wahls speculated that the moderate members who voted with Republicans were privately given Schumer’s blessing to do so.

“The fact that he voted against this deal, while he clearly gave it his blessing in private, is a perfect illustration of why people no longer trust the Democratic Party,” Wahls said, “and as long as he stays in a leadership role, it is going to be impossible for anybody — whether it’s in Iowa or any other swing state — to win a majority.”

Times staff writers Wilner and Ceballos reported from Washington, and Gutierrez contributed from São Paulo.

Democrats just crumbled like soft-bake cookies.

The so-called resistance party has given up the shutdown fight, ensuring that millions of Americans will face Republican-created skyrocketing healthcare costs, and millions more will bury any hope that the minority party will find the substance and leadership to run a viable defense against Trump.

Sunday night, eight turncoat Democrats sold out every American who pays for their own health insurance through the affordable marketplaces set up by President Obama.

As has been thoroughly reported in past weeks, Republicans are dead set on making sure that insurance is entirely out of financial reach for many Americans by refusing to help them pay for the premiums with subsidies that are part of current law, offered to both low- and middle-income families.

Republicans — for reasons hard to fathom other than they hate Obama, and apparently basics such as flu shots — have long desired to kill the ACA and now are on the brink of doing so, in spirit if not actuality, thanks to Democrats.

Trump must be doing his old-man jig in the Oval Office.

The pain this craven cave-in will cause is already evident. Rates for 2026 without the government subsidies have been announced, and premiums have doubled on average, according to nonpartisan health policy researchers KFF. Doubled.

Insurance companies are planning on raising their rates by about 18%, already devastating and symptomatic of the need for a total overhaul of our messed-up system. That increase, coupled with the loss of the subsidies beginning at the start of next year, means a 114% jump in costs for the folks dependent on this insurance. Premiums that cost an average $888 in 2025 will jump to $1,904 in 2026, according to KFF.

But it’s the middle-income people who will really be hit.

“On average, a 60-year-old couple making $85,000 … would see yearly premium payments rise by over $22,600 in 2026,” KFF warns, meaning that instead of paying 8.5% of their entire income toward health insurance, it will now jump to about 25%.

Merry Christmas, America.

While the eight Democrats who broke from their party to allow this to happen are directly responsible (thankfully our California senators are not among them), Democratic leadership should also be held accountable.

A party that can’t keep itself together on the really big votes isn’t a party. It’s a a bunch of people that occasionally have lunch together. Literally, they had one job: Stick together.

The failure of Democratic leadership to make sure its Senate votes didn’t shatter in this intense moment isn’t just shameful, it’s depressing. For all of the condemnation of the Republican members of Congress for failing to uphold their duty to be a check on the power of the presidency, here’s the opposition party rolling over belly up on the pivotal issue of healthcare.

As California Rep. Ro Khanna put it on social media, “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

If the recent elections had any lessons in them, it’s that Democrats — and voters in general — want courage. Love or hate Zohran Mamdani, his win as New York City mayor was due in no small part for daring to forge his own path. Ditto on Gov. Gavin Newsom and Proposition 50.

Mamdani put that sentiment best in his victory speech, promising an age when people can “expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.”

Before you start angry-emailing me, yes, I do understand how much pain the shutdown in causing, especially for furloughed workers and those about to see their SNAP benefits cut off. I feel for every person who doesn’t know how they will pay their bills.

But here are the facts that we can’t forget. Republicans have purposefully made that pain intense in order to break Democrats. Trump has found ways to pay his deportation agents, while simultaneously not paying critical workers such as airport screeners and air traffic controllers, where the chaos created by their absence is both visible and disruptive. He has also threatened to not give back pay to some of those folks when this does end.

And on the give-in-or-don’t-eat front, he’s actually been ordered by courts to pay those SNAP benefits and is fighting it. Republicans could easy band together and demand that money goes out while the rest is hashed out, but they don’t want to. They want people to go hungry so that Democrats will break, and it worked.

But at what cost?

About 24 million people will be hit by these premium increases, leaving up to 4 million unable to keep their insurance. Unable to go to the doctor for routine care. Unable to pay for cancer treatments. Unable to have that lump, that pain, the broken bone looked at. Unable to get their kid a flu shot.

In many ways, this isn’t a California problem. The majority of these folks are in southern, Republican states that refused to expand Medicaid when they had the chance. About 6 in 10 subsidy recipients are represented by Republicans, according to KFF, led by those living in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. But Americans have been clear that we want access to care for all of us, as a right, not an expensive privilege.

Which makes it all the more mystifying that Democrats are so eager to give up, on an issue that unites voters across parties, across demographics, across our seemingly endless divides.

But I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

PALM DESERT — Joy Miedecke, who runs the largest Republican club in the Coachella Valley, handed out scores of “No on Prop. 50” lawn signs before election day.

But Tuesday morning, she knew the ballot measure would pass.

Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to challenge President Trump, easily prevailed last week. The ballot measure, created to level the playing field with Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas and other GOP states, reconfigured California congressional districts to favor Democrats as they try to take back the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterms.

As a consequence, Coachella Valley’s Republicans could soon be represented by anti-Trump Democrats in Washington.

California Republicans, far outnumbered by those on the left, for years have felt ignored in a state where Democrats reign, and the passage of Proposition 50 only adds to the sense of political hopelessness.

“The Democrats get their way because we don’t have enough people,” said Miedecke, of her party’s struggles in California.

Bordered by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains, the desert basin has long been a magnet for conservative retirees and vacationers, including former Republican presidents.

A cluster of palm trees light the evening landscape on Frank Sinatra Drive in Rancho Mirage.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

The local hospital is named after President Eisenhower. President Ford enjoyed the many emerald golf courses in his later years and his wife, former first lady Betty Ford, founded her namesake addiction treatment center in the desert valley.

Voters in Indian Wells, parts of La Quinta and Cahuilla Hills backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Under Prop. 50, some or all of those areas will move to a congressional district led by Democrat Raul Ruiz, an emergency room physician raised in the Coachella Valley, or join with left-leaning San Diego County suburbs in a new meandering district specifically crafted to favor Democratic candidates.

Joy Miedecke of Indio is president of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots. She blames the California GOP for failing to adequately fund opposition to Proposition 50.

“The party is at the bottom,” said Miedecke, 80. “It’s at the very bottom. We have nowhere to go but up.”

Sitting in her club’s retail store on Wednesday, Miedecke blamed the California Republican Party and its allies, saying they failed to raise enough money to blunt Prop. 50’s anti-Trump message.

A life-sized cardboard cutout of California Republican gubernatorial candidate and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco stood near stacks of red MAGA hats and “Alligator Alcatraz” T-shirts. A President Reagan cardboard cutout also greeted visitors.

Volunteer Chris Mahr checks signatures on petitions at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert. Republicans fear Proposition 50’s passage will weaken representation in the Coachella Valley.

Republican voters in the Coachella Valley spent the days after the Nov. 4 special election criticizing the Republican Party and California’s Democratic leadership. In Facebook chat groups, in bars and on neighborhood walks, locals weighed in on the new congressional district lines and the proxy battle between Trump and Newsom.

On Wednesday, gleaming Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades cruised down a main drag, past tidy green lawns before disappearing into residential communities hidden behind sand-colored gates.

Kay Hillery, 89, who lives in an Indian Wells neighborhood known for its architecturally significant Midcentury Modern homes, is bracing for more bad news.

She anticipates that GOP congressional candidates will have a harder time raising money because the new districts marginalize Republicans.

“I am ashamed of the Republicans for not getting out the vote,” said Hillery, who moved to the desert from Arcadia in 1989.

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1. A ceramic figurine of Trump is on display at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots store in Palm Desert. 2. A Trump key chain dangles on top of a large God Bless America button which hangs next to a hair dryer and a Bible inside “Just Marylou” hair salon. 3. Inside the “Just Marylou” hair salon is decorated in Republican posters and slogans.

Voters who backed Prop. 50, however, were reenergized.

“It’s important to take a position when we need to, and we needed to take a position as a state,” said Linda Blank, president of the Indian Wells Preservation Foundation.

Indian Wells is best known for its premiere tennis tournament, top-level golf courses and palm tree-lined roadways. Eisenhower, who lived in Indian Wells part time, is memorialized with a statue outside City Hall.

The heavily Republican city for years hosted the state’s Republican Party convention and donor retreats organized by right-wing libertarians David and Charles Koch. (David Koch died in 2019.)

Following Tuesday’s election, Indian Wells will lose its Republican representative, Ken Calvert, and become part of the newly drawn district that reaches into San Diego County.

That area is represented by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall), but Democrats are trying to oust him by extending his district into bluer neighborhoods.

Michael Ford, left, Sonny Bono, center, and John Gardner Ford, right of Bono, attend the third day of the 1976 Republican National Convention at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo.

(Guy DeLort/Penske Media via Getty Images)

A major portion of the Riverside County desert region once was represented by Rep. Sonny Bono, the singer, who was a Republican. After he was killed in a ski accident in 1998, his wife, Mary Bono, also a Republican, ran for his seat and served in Congress until 2013.

The Coachella Valley is now a political patchwork, home also to the Democratic havens of Palm Springs and Cathedral City and divided towns of Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert.

Today, the region is split into congressional districts held by Calvert, a Republican who lives in far-off Corona, and Democrat Ruiz.

Calvert announced last week that he’ll run in a new district in Orange and Riverside counties. The good news for Calvert is that it’s a heavily Republican district. The bad news is Republican Rep. Young Kim of Anaheim Hills is also running in that district.

Calvert, in an emailed statement, blamed Newsom for disenfranchising Republicans throughout California — who account for 5.7 million of the 22.9 million voters in the state.

“Conservatives deserve to have their voices heard, not be drowned out by partisan moves to advance a one-sided political agenda,” said Calvert. His office didn’t respond when asked about the congressman’s views on Texas’ redistricting actions.

Indian Wells Mayor Bruce Whitman said Calvert was instrumental in directing millions of dollars to a wash project that will help development.

U.S. flags adorn El Paseo Shopping District on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert.

In nearby liberal Palm Springs, city leaders passed a resolution supporting immigrants and celebrated an all-LGBTQ+ city council in 2017.

Indian Wells’ political leadership remains apolitical, Whitman said.

“National issues like sanctuary city resolutions, or resolutions supporting Israel or Palestinians — it’s just not our thing,” he said.

At the Nest bar in Indian Wells, tourists from Canada and Oregon on Wednesday night mingled with silver-haired locals.

As Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” played, 60-something resident John — who declined to give his last name— predicted the redistricting wars would end as a “wash” between California and Texas.

“It’s just a game,” he said, sounding dismissive.

Sandra Schulz of Palm Desert, executive vice president of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots, stands in front of a wall covered with Trump photographs and paintings on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert.

Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley, sees another outcome. Taking away congressional representation from the party’s last remaining conservative bastions leaves the party even less relevant, he said.

The California Republican Party hasn’t done meaningful statewide work since then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left office, Schnur said.

“They decided many years ago that they just weren’t going to engage seriously in state politics anymore,” said Schnur. “If you’re a California Republican, you focus on national politics and you work on local races.”

Tourists look at the Republican items in the store window at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots store on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert.

In 2007, then-Gov. Schwarzenegger spoke at a GOP state party convention in Indian Wells and warned his fellow Republicans that they needed to pivot to the political center and attract more moderates.

Schwarzenegger drew a parallel to the film industry, telling the convention crowd: “We are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats.”

The former governor opposed Prop. 50, but limited his involvement with Republicans in the campaign to defeat the measure.

Indian Wells resident Peter Rammer, 69, a retired tech executive, described himself as a Republican who didn’t always vote along party lines. He is increasingly frustrated with Democrats’ handling of homelessness in California.

He voted against Prop. 50, but predicted the Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia would force the Republican Party to pay more attention to regional issues.

“I’m just not happy with how everything is going on the country right now,” said Rammer, standing outside Indian Wells City Hall. “There’s just so much turmoil, it’s crazy. But Trump — the guy I voted for — causes a lot of it.”

American flags adorn El Paseo Shopping District in staunchly Republican Palm Desert.

Back in Palm Desert, Republican club president Miedecke was focused on the next campaign: Getting the word out about a ballot measure by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego).

It would require voter ID and proof of citizenship in California elections — another polarizing issue.

It is, by both candidates’ admission, a Republican primary race without issues, conflict or many campaign dollars. The low-budget, low-profile contest does not bode well for the eventual nominee’s prospects against Democratic Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman of Tarzana in November.

Attorneys Tom Franklin of Beverly Hills and Edward Brown of Sherman Oaks are competing in the June 7 primary for the GOP nomination in the 43rd Assembly District. The affluent, heavily Democratic district stretches from Studio City to Topanga Canyon and over the Santa Monica Mountains to Beverly Hills, Westwood and Brentwood.

The campaign for the hearts and minds of the district’s 64,237 registered Republicans is being waged at GOP gatherings and door-to-door; neither candidate has raised enough money to mail any brochures or flyers. Both Franklin and Brown seek to contrast themselves with Friedman–who they maintain is too liberal for the district–rather than each other.

“I’m running against Terry Friedman,” Franklin said last week. “I don’t really know Mr. Brown’s interest in the major issues.”

Asked why Republican voters should choose him over Franklin, Brown replied, “I don’t know that they should. I’m not going to lower myself to some kind of mudslinging contest.”

Friedman, meanwhile, responds that his priorities of protecting the Santa Monica Mountains, upgrading education and aiding the elderly and underprivileged “are right in the mainstream of the district.” Democrats enjoy a 54%-to-36% registration advantage, although President Reagan carried the district in 1980 and 1984 and fellow Republican Gov. George Deukmejian won it in 1986.

Inside Track

Franklin, 29, appears to have the inside primary track because he has a base of support among Republicans in Beverly Hills, where he has been active, and has been more visible, according to GOP activists such as Shirley Whitney, chairman of the 43rd District Republican Committee. The committee does not endorse candidates in the primary.

Franklin has served as president of the Beverly Hills Republican Assembly, a 150-member volunteer organization that registers voters and supports candidates, and has been active in GOP politics since he was University of Southern California recruitment chairman for Reagan’s 1980 presidential bid.

The self-styled conservative has also garnered more campaign dollars than Brown, although Friedman has raised 100 times more money than each Republican. Franklin reported raising $1,395 and spending $531 as of March 22, when he filed a campaign statement with the secretary of state. He has a $15-a-person event scheduled Sunday at his parents’ Beverly Hills home but is well short of the pace he needs to attain his original goal of $200,000.

Brown, who says the subject of campaign finances is too personal to discuss, said he has raised less than $500. “I won’t take anything more than $10,” Brown said. “I don’t want to have any special pleading.”

He failed to file a campaign fund-raising report with the secretary of state in mid-March as required by state law, media director Caren Daniels-Meade said. He faces a possible fine, which would be determined by how much he has spent but not reported, she said.

Strongly favored to win a second term, Friedman reported raising $122,575 and having $127,678 on hand in his March 22 campaign statement. He said last week he subsequently took in $40,000 more at a fund-raiser. Many of his contributions are from fellow attorneys.

“Substantially, those are people who know me from my past work as executive director of Bet Tzedek Legal Services,” said Friedman, referring to the Los Angeles legal-service program for low-income elderly. “And from my work on several committees in the Legislature.”

Robert Townsend Leet of Tarzana, a Libertarian candidate, and Marjery Hinds of Los Angeles, the Peace and Freedom candidate, filed March campaign reports with the state stating they had not raised as much as $1,000 and didn’t expect to do so.

Brown, 58, is an ex-Democrat who unsuccessfully sought election to a municipal court judgeship and Congress in the 1960s and to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors in the early 1970s. He describes himself as a conservative who is also concerned about protecting individual constitutional rights.

Bush or Kemp

Franklin and Brown did differ in which candidates they favor for the 1988 Republican presidential primary. Franklin says he supports Vice President George Bush, the apparent nominee; Brown says U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) is his choice.

Franklin and Brown concur, however, in criticizing Friedman’s opposition to a bill to allow local and state police to eavesdrop electronically on suspected drug dealers. Advocates called it a tool to combat gang violence. It passed the Assembly on a bipartisan 48-18 vote last month and was sent to the Senate, which had previously approved a more sweeping bill.

“I don’t think these punks call each other up to decide where they’re going to do a drive-by shooting,” said Friedman, who says the measure is marred by loopholes and inconsistencies and would be financially inefficient. “That’s not how they plan their evil.

“I believe that the police sweeps in South-Central Los Angeles have been much more effective than any attention-grabbing attempt in Sacramento to appear tough on crime.”

Franklin ridiculed Friedman’s reasoning.

“It’s common knowledge that many gang members bring their beepers with them into the classrooms and that’s how they are informed they have a pending drug deal to consummate,” Franklin said. “It just shows how out of the mainstream he is, even in his own party.”

Brown said, “I’d like to bring in the National Guard. Every four or five blocks you’ll have a cop standing there in a little shed and you won’t have any more gangs.”

WASHINGTON — It was the decision that launched a thousand lips.

In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission stopped requiring broadcasters to air contrasting views on controversial issues, a policy known as the Fairness Doctrine. The move is widely credited with triggering the explosive growth of political talk radio.

Now, after conservative talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage helped torpedo a major immigration bill, some in Congress have suggested reinstating the Fairness Doctrine to balance out those powerful syndicated voices.

That has unleashed an armada of opposition on the airwaves, Internet blogs and in Washington, where broadcasters have joined with Republicans to fight what they call an attempt to zip their lips.

Opponents of the Fairness Doctrine said it would make station owners so fearful of balancing viewpoints that they’d simply avoid airing controversial topics — the “chilling effect” on debate that the FCC cited in repealing the rule two decades ago.

“Free speech must be just that — free from government influence, interference and censorship,” David K. Rehr, president of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, wrote to lawmakers.

There’s little chance the fairness doctrine will return in the near future, as FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin publicly opposes it and the White House wrote to broadcasters last week assuring them that Bush would veto any legislation reinstating it. But the issue has renewed debate about how far the government should go in regulating the public airwaves.

Some Democrats say conservative-dominated talk radio enables Republicans to mislead the public on important issues such as the Senate immigration reform bill.

“These are public airwaves and the public should be entitled to a fair presentation,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is considering whether the Fairness Doctrine should be restored.

Republicans say that the policy would result in censorship and warn that it could return if Democrats win the White House in 2008.

“This is a bad idea from a bygone era,” Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) said at a news conference last week with five other Republicans announcing legislation to block reenactment of the policy.

The FCC enacted the Fairness Doctrine in 1949 to ensure the “right of the public to be informed” by presenting “for acceptance or rejection the different attitudes and viewpoints” on controversial issues. The policy was upheld in 1969 by the Supreme Court because the public airwaves were a “scarce resource” that needed to be open to opposing views.

Broadcasters disliked the rule, which put their federal station license at risk if they didn’t air all sides of an issue. Michael Harrison, who hosted a weekend talk show on the former KMET-FM in Los Angeles from 1975 to 1985, said the policy kept him from giving his opinions on controversial topics.

“I would never say that liberals were good and conservatives were bad, or vice versa. We would talk about, “Hey, all politicians are bad,” or “It’s a shame that more people don’t vote,” said Harrison, who publishes Talkers magazine, which covers the talk radio industry. “It was more of a superficial approach to politics.”

The Fairness Doctrine ended during the Reagan administration. In a 1985 report, the FCC concluded the policy inhibited broadcasters from dealing with controversial issues and was no longer needed because of the growth of cable television.

“Many, many broadcasters testified they avoided issues they thought would involve them in complaints,” recalled Dennis Patrick, who was chairman of the FCC in 1987 when it repealed the policy. “The commission concluded that the doctrine was having a chilling effect.”

The decision was controversial. Congress passed a law in 1987 reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but Reagan vetoed it.

Shortly afterward, Limbaugh, then a little-known Sacramento disc jockey, emerged as a conservative voice on radio stations nationwide. Another failed congressional attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine in 1993 was dubbed the “Hush Rush” bill.

A 1997 study in the Journal of Legal Studies found that the percentage of AM radio stations with a news, talk or public affairs format jumped to 28% in 1995 from 7% in 1987. Liberal talk radio efforts, such as Air America, have struggled to get ratings.

The Fairness Doctrine seemed dead and buried. Then in January, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who is running for president, announced that with Democrats back in the House majority, he planned to hold hearings on reviving the policy because media consolidation has made it harder for some voices to be heard.

And this spring, conservative talk show hosts unleashed a campaign against the Senate immigration bill, which would have given the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Their listeners flooded the Capitol with complaints, and the bill failed last month on a procedural vote.

Bill supporters immediately lashed out at talk radio.

“Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with the problem,” said Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). And Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said they favored restoring the Fairness Doctrine.

“We have more power than the U.S. Senate and they know it and they’re fuming,” conservative talk show host Savage said in an interview. The liberal bent of the mainstream media more than compensates for conservative dominance of AM talk radio, he said.

“We’re going to have government snitches listening to shows,” he said. “And what are they going to do, push a button and then wheel someone into the studio and give their viewpoint?”

But Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) said the rest of the media presented a balanced view of controversial issues, and the Fairness Doctrine would simply reimpose that requirement on talk radio.

Hinchey is readying legislation to reinstitute the doctrine as part of a broad package of media ownership reforms.

“It’s important that the American people make decisions for themselves based upon the ability to garner all the information, not just on what somebody wants to give them,” he said.

Republicans have seized on comments like that.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a former radio talk show host, proposed an amendment last month prohibiting the FCC from spending money to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine. It passed 309 to 115 after a parade of Republicans took to the House floor to blast calls to restore the policy. Democrats branded the vote a political stunt. Republicans tried to propose a similar amendment in the Senate last week, but Democrats blocked it .

Republicans vow to continue pressing the issue.

“The American people love a fair fight, and so do I,” Pence said. “But there’s nothing fair about the Fairness Doctrine.”

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WASHINGTON — Senators are working through the weekend for the first time since the government shutdown began more than a month ago, hoping to find a bipartisan resolution that has eluded them as federal workers have gone unpaid, airlines have been forced to cancel flights and SNAP benefits have been delayed for millions of Americans.

As the weekend session was set to begin Saturday, it was uncertain whether Republicans and Democrats could make any headway toward reopening the government and breaking a partisan impasse that had lasted 39 days.

President Trump made clear Saturday that he is unlikely to compromise anytime soon with Democrats, who are demanding an extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits. He posted on social media that the ACA is “the worst Healthcare anywhere in the world” and suggested Congress send money directly to people to buy insurance.

Senate Republican leaders have signaled an openness to an emerging proposal from a small group of moderate Democrats to end the shutdown in exchange for a later vote on the ACA subsidies.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is leading the talks among moderates, said Friday evening that Democrats “need another path forward” after Republicans rejected an offer from Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York to reopen the government and extend the subsidies for a year. “We’re working on it,” she said.

Moderates continue to negotiate

Shaheen and others, negotiating among themselves and with some rank-and-file Republicans, have been discussing bills that would pay for parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things — and extend funding for everything else until December or January. The agreement would only come with the promise of a future healthcare vote rather than a guarantee of extended subsidies.

It was unclear whether enough Democrats would support such a plan. Even with a deal, Trump appears unlikely to support an extension of the health benefits. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also said this week that he would not commit to a healthcare vote.

Republican leaders need only five additional votes to fund the government, and the group involved in the talks has ranged from 10 to 12 Democratic senators.

Some Republicans have said they are open to extending the COVID-19 tax credits as premiums could skyrocket for millions of people, but they want new limits on who can receive the subsidies.

“We have had really good discussions with a lot of the Democrats,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

Republicans eye new package of bills

Trump wants Republicans to end the shutdown quickly and scrap the filibuster, which requires 60 Senate votes for most legislation, so they can bypass Democrats altogether. Vice President JD Vance, a former Ohio senator, endorsed the idea in an online post Saturday, saying Republicans who want to keep the filibuster are “wrong.”

Republicans have rejected Trump’s call, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is eyeing a bipartisan package that mirrors the proposal the moderate Democrats have been sketching out. What Thune might promise on healthcare is unknown; he has refused to negotiate thus far.

The package would replace the House-passed legislation that the Democrats have rejected 14 times since the shutdown began Oct. 1. The current bill would extend government funding only until Nov. 21.

A choice for Democrats

A test vote on new legislation could come in the next few days if Thune decides to move forward.

Then Democrats would have a crucial choice: Keep fighting for a meaningful deal on extending the subsidies that expire in January, while prolonging the pain of the shutdown? Or vote to reopen the government and hope for the best as Republicans promise an eventual healthcare vote — but not a guaranteed outcome.

After a caucus meeting Thursday, most Democrats suggested they would continue to hold out for Trump and Republican leaders to agree to negotiations.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said Democrats are “obviously not unanimous” but “without something on healthcare, the vote is very unlikely to succeed.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said they need to stand strong after overwhelming Democratic victories on election day this week and demand an extension of the subsidies.

Jalonick and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writers Seung Min Kim, Joey Cappelletti, Stephen Groves and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump made historic gains with Latinos when he won reelection last year, boosting Republicans’ confidence that their economic message was helping them make inroads with a group of voters who had long leaned toward Democrats.

But in this week’s election, Democrats in key states were able to disrupt that rightward shift by gaining back Latino support, exit polls showed.

In New Jersey and Virginia, the Democrats running for governor made gains in counties with large Latino populations, and overall won two-thirds of the Latino vote in their states, according to an NBC News poll.

And in California, a CNN exit poll showed about 70% of Latinos voting in favor of Proposition 50, a Democratic redistricting initiative designed to counter Trump’s plans to reshape congressional maps in an effort to keep GOP control of the House.

The results mark the first concrete example at the ballot box of Latino voters turning away from the GOP — a shift foreshadowed by recent polling as their concerns about the economy and immigration raids have grown.

Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill celebrates with supporters after being elected New Jersey governor.

(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

If the trend continues, it could spell trouble for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections, said Gary Segura, a professor of public policy, political science and Chicana/o studies at UCLA. This could be especially true in California and Texas, where both parties are banking on Latino voters to help them pick up seats in the House, Segura said.

“A year is a long time in politics, but certainly the vote on Prop. 50 is a very, very good sign for the Democrats’ ability to pick up the newly drawn congressional districts,” Segura said. “I think Latino voters will be really instrumental in the outcome.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are feeling optimistic that their warnings about Trump’s immigration crackdown and a bad economy are resonating with Latinos.

Republicans are wondering to what degree the party can maintain support among Latinos without Trump on the ticket. In 2024, Trump won roughly 48% of the Latino vote nationally — a record for any Republican presidential candidate.

Some Republicans saw this week’s trends among Latino voters as a “wakeup call.”

“The Hispanic vote is not guaranteed. Hispanics married President Donald Trump but are only dating the GOP,” Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida said in a social media video the day after the election. “I’ve been warning it: If the GOP does not deliver, we will lose the Hispanic vote all over the country.”

Economic issues a main driver

Last year Trump was able to leverage widespread frustration with the economy to win the support of Latinos. He promised to create jobs and lower the costs of living.

But polling shows that a majority of Latino voters now disapprove of how Trump and the Republicans in control of Congress are handling the economy. Half of Latinos said they expected Trump’s economic policies to leave them worse off a year from now in a Unidos poll released last week.

In New Jersey, that sentiment was exemplified by voters like Rumaldo Gomez. He told MSNBC he voted for Trump last year but this week went for for the Democratic candidate for governor, Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

“Now, I look at Trump different,” Gomez said. “The economy does not look good.”

Gomez added he is “very sad” about immigration raids led by the Trump administration that have split up hardworking families.

While Latino voters fear being affected by immigration enforcement actions, polling suggests they are more concerned about cost of living, jobs and housing. The Unidos poll showed immigration ranking fifth on the list of concerns.

In New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats’ double-digit victories were built on promises to reduce the cost of living, while blaming Trump for their economic pain.

Marcus Robinson, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats “expanded margins and flipped key counties by earning back Latino voters who know Trump’s economy leaves them behind.”

“These results show that Latino communities want progress, not a return to chaos and broken promises,” he said.

Republicans see a different Trump issue

GOP strategist Matt Terrill, who was chief of staff for then-Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said the election results are not a referendum on Trump.

Latino voters swung left because Trump wasn’t on the ballot, he said.

Last year “it wasn’t Latino voters turning out for the Republican party, it was Latino voters turning out for President Trump,” he said. “Like him or not, he’s able to fire up voters that the Republican party traditionally does not get.”

With Trump barred by the Constitution from running for a third term, Republicans are left to wonder if they can get the Latino vote back when he is not on the ballot. Terrill believes Republicans need to hammer on the issue of affordability as a top priority.

Mike Madrid, a “never Trump” Republican and former political director of the California Republican Party, has a different theory.

“They’re abandoning both parties,” Madrid said of Latinos. “They abandoned the Republican party for the same reasons they abandoned the Democratic party in November: not addressing economic concerns.”

The economy has long been the top concern for Latinos, Madrid said, yet both parties continue to frame the Latino political agenda around immigration.

“Latinos aren’t voting for Democrats or Republicans — they’re voting against Democrats and against Republicans,” Madrid said. “It’s a very big difference. The partisans are all looking at us as if we’re this peculiar exotic little creature.”

The work ahead

Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor in Virginia in part because of big gains in Latino-heavy communities. One of the biggest gains was in Manassas Park, where more than 40% of residents are Latino. She won the city by 42 points, doubling the Democrats’ performance there in last year’s election.

The shift toward Democrats happened because Latinos believed Trump when he promised to bring down high costs of living and that he would only go after violent criminals in immigration raids, said Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, who worked with Spanberger’s campaign on outreach to Spanish-language media.

Instead, she argued, Trump betrayed them.

Cardona said Medicaid cuts under Trump’s massive spending package this year, along with the reduction of supplemental nutrition assistance amid the government shutdown, have Latinos families panicking.

“What Republicans misguidedly and mistakenly thought was a realignment of Latino voters just turned out to be a blip,” she said. “Latinos should never be considered a base vote.”

Political scientists caution that the election outcomes this week are not necessarily indicative of how races will play out a year from now.

“It’s just one election, but certainly the seeds have been planted for strong Latino Democratic turnouts in 2026,” said Brad Jones, a political science professor at UC Davis.

Now, both parties need to explain how they expect to carry out their promises if elected.

“They can’t sit on their laurels and say, ‘well surely the Latinos are coming back because the economy is bad and immigration enforcement is bad,’” Jones said. “The job of the Democratic party is now to reach out to Latino voters in ways that are more than just symbolic.”

CHICAGO — When I turned on my phone after landing at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday, texts poured in from friends and colleagues warning that I was about to enter a region under siege.

Many sent a video from that morning of immigration agents running into a day care facility in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood to pull out a teacher. It was the latest attack against the metropolis by President Trump’s deportation Leviathan, whose so-called Operation Midway Blitz this fall has made its earlier occupation of Los Angeles look like a play date.

Armed agents have sauntered through downtown and manned a flotilla of boats on the Chicago River. They shot and killed a fleeing immigrant and raided an apartment building with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter. In nearby Broadview, home to the region’s main ICE detention facility, rooftop migra shot pepper balls at protesters below, including a pastor. They even tear-gassed a neighborhood that was about to host a Halloween children’s parade, for chrissakes.

From Back of the Yards to Cicero, Brighton Park to Evanston, immigration agents have sown terror throughout Chicagoland with such glee that a federal judge declared that it “shocks the conscience” and issued an injunction limiting their use of force — which they no doubt will ignore.

I was in town to speak to students at the University of Chicago about the importance of reporting on things one may not like. Heaven knows that’s been my 2025. But as I waited to deplane, I checked my email and found something I’ve sorely needed this year:

Hope.

On Tuesday, Democrats won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, telling Trump to “Turn. The. Volume. Up” during a soaring victory speech.

Back home in California, 64% of voters favored Proposition 50, the ballot initiative crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom to create up to five Democratic-leaning congressional districts in response to Trump’s gerrymandering in Texas.

It was a humiliating rebuke of Trumpism. And the tip of the Democratic spear? Latinos.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic governor-elect in New Jersey, takes a photo during an election-night party. Democrats reclaimed political momentum Tuesday with gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia, early signs that voter unease with the economy in President Trump’s second term could give them a path to winning control of Congress next year.

(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In New Jersey, where Trump received 46% of the Latino vote in 2024, a CNN exit poll showed just 31% of Latinos siding with the losing GOP candidate for governor. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in Virginia went against Cuban American Atty. General Jason Miyares, a Republican who also lost. The CNN poll also found that more than 70% of California Latinos voted for Proposition 50, a year after GOP Latino legislators made historic gains in Sacramento.

At the same time, support for Trump has dropped among Latinos. Only 25% of Latinos surveyed in October by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research viewed Trump favorably — a cratering from the 45% who liked him in April. Even more telling, two-thirds of Latino men thought negatively of Trump — despite 51% of that demographic choosing him in 2024.

Latinos’ leftward shift on election night already set off as many thought pieces as Trump did when he captured 48% of the Latino vote — the most a Republican presidential candidate has earned, despite his long history of slurring, maligning and insulting America’s largest minority. Democrats, who have long depended on Latino voters, were shocked, and GOP leaders were delighted, feeling that a demographic that had long eluded them was finally, truly within reach.

This week Latinos sent a loud message: You had your chance, y nada.

House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to play off his party’s collapse among Latinos to NBC News, sniffling, “I do believe that the demographic shift that we were able to see and experience in the 2024 election will hold.”

Mike: time to bring the Republican Party out of its Stockholm syndrome. Your guy has blown it with Latinos. Let him keep doubling down on his madness, and Latinos will continue to flip on ustedes like a tortilla.

Trump’s 2024 victory was the culmination of an extraordinary shift in the Latino electorate that few saw coming — but I did. As I’ve written ad nauseam since 2016, Latinos were beginning to favor the GOP on issues like limited government, immigration restrictions and transgender athletes in high school sports because Democrats were taking them for granted, obsessing over woke shibboleths while neglecting blue-collar issues like gas prices and high taxes.

A voter holds a sign in Spanish while riding with other voters to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center as part of a 2024 event organized by LUCHA (Living United For Change In Arizona) for Latinx voters and volunteers in Arizona.

(Anna Watts/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

All this was was happening as the Biden administration made it easier for newly arrived undocumented immigrants to remain, angering those who have been here for decades without similar help. The long-standing tendency for Latinos to sympathize with the latest Latin Americans to cross over eroded, and some became more receptive to Trump’s apocalyptic words against open borders.

Last year 63% of Latinos in California considered undocumented immigrants to be a “burden,” according to a poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

That happened to be the same percentage of California voters who favored Prop. 187, the infamous 1994 initiative that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and showed the GOP that xenophobic politics can work.

After the 2024 election, Latinos seemed to be joining earlier Catholic immigrants who were once cast as invaders — Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans — on the road to assimilation and the waiting arms of the Republican party. All Trump had to do was improve the economy and clamp down on the border. If he did the former, Latinos would have been largely supportive of the latter, as long as deportations focused on newcomers.

Instead, Trump wasted his opportunity.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents knock on the door of a residence during a targeted enforcement operation in Chicago.

(Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The economy remains stagnant. Trump effectively declared war on Latin America with tariffs real and threatened and by bombing Venezuelan and Colombian boats suspected of carrying drugs without asking permission from Congress.

Trump officials keep issuing punitive policies that crush the dreams of Latinos, like a crackdown on English fluency in the trucking industry and ending federal grants that helped colleges and universities recruit and retain Latino students.

Federal agents leave the area of North A Street as residents and community members protest an early morning federal enforcement action in Oxnard.

(Julie Leopo/For The Times)

But Trump’s biggest mistake has been his indiscriminate deportation raids. His toxic alphabet soup of immigration enforcement agencies — HSI, ERO, CPB, ICE — largely has ignored the so-called “worst of the worst” in favor of tamale ladies, fruteros and longtime residents. Nearly three-quarters of immigrants in ICE detention as of September have no criminal convictions, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Trump’s deportation deluge has rained down across the country as his administration repeatedly has exhibited white supremacist tendencies, from effectively blocking all new refugees except South African Boers to pumping out social media garbage extolling a mythical America where white makes right and Latinos exist only as blurry mug shots of alleged illegal immigrants.

A federal agent holds his weapon as law enforcement officers conduct a raid on street vendors. New Yorkers witnessing the attempted detainments began protesting and attempted to block agents.

(Michael Nigro/LightRocket via Getty Images)

No wonder 65% of Latinos feel it’s a “bad time” to be Latino in the U.S. — a 25-percentage-point drop in optimism from March of last year, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll done with Telemundo and released this week.

Trump even is losing credibility among Latino Republicans, with a September 2024 AP-NORC poll finding that 83% of them had a “very” or “somewhat” positive view of the president last year.

Now? Sixty-six percent.

Trump very well can win back some of those Latinos in 2026 if the economy improves. But every time his migra goons tackle innocents, another Latino will turn on him and get ready to fight back.

At the University of Chicago, orange whistles hung around a bronze bust just outside the room where I spoke. They’ve become a symbol of resistance to Trump’s invasion of the City of Strong Shoulders, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.

A bronze bust with whistles around it inside Swift Hall at the University of Chicago. They’ve become a symbol of resistance, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.

(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)

I grabbed one as a memento of my time here and also as a reminder of what’s happening with Latinos right now. Nationwide, we’re warning everyone from the front lines — the streets, the ballot box, the courtroom, everywhere — about the excesses of Trump and warning him what happens if he doesn’t listen.

So, Trump: Turn. The. Volume. Up.

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration are increasingly anxious that an ongoing standoff with Democrats over reopening the government may drag into Thanksgiving week, one of the country’s busiest travel periods.

Already, hundreds of flights have been canceled since the Federal Aviation Administration issued an unprecedented directive limiting flight operations at the nation’s biggest airports, including in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Washington, D.C.

Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, told Fox News on Thursday that the administration is prepared to mitigate safety concerns if the shutdown continues into the holiday week, leaving air traffic controllers without compensation over multiple payroll cycles. But “will you fly on time? Will your flight actually go? That is yet to be seen,” the secretary said.

While under 3% of flights have currently been grounded, that number could rise to 20% by the holiday week, he added.

“It’s really hard — really hard — to navigate a full month of no pay, missing two pay periods. So I think you’re going to have more significant disruptions in the airspace,” Duffy said. “And as we come into Thanksgiving, if we’re still in a shutdown posture, it’s gonna be rough out there. Really rough.”

Senate Republicans said they are willing to work through the weekend, up through Veterans Day, to come up with an agreement with Democrats that could end the government shutdown, which is already the longest in history.

But congressional Democrats believe their leverage has only grown to extract more concessions from the Trump administration as the shutdown goes on.

A strong showing in races across the country in Tuesday’s elections buoyed optimism among Democrats that the party finally has some momentum, as it focuses its messaging on affordability and a growing cost-of-living crisis for the middle class.

Democrats have withheld the votes needed to reopen the government over Republican refusals to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits. As a result, Americans who get their healthcare through the ACA marketplace have begun seeing dramatic premium hikes since open enrollment began on Nov. 1 — further fueling Democratic confidence that Republicans will face a political backlash for their shutdown stance.

Now, Democratic demands have expanded, insisting Republicans guarantee that federal workers get paid back for their time furloughed or working without pay — and that those who were fired get their jobs back.

A bill introduced by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, called the “Shutdown Fairness Act,” would ensure that federal workers receive back pay during a government funding lapse. But Democrats have objected to a vote on the measure that’s not tied to their other demands, on ACA tax breaks and the status of fired workers.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, has proposed passing a clean continuing resolution already passed by the House followed by separate votes on three bills that would fund the government through the year. But his Democratic counterpart said Friday he wants to attach a vote on extending the ACA tax credits to an extension of government funding.

Democrats, joined by some Republicans, are also demanding protections built in to any government spending bills that would safeguard federal programs against the Trump administration withholding funds appropriated by Congress, a process known as impoundment.

President Trump, for his part, blamed the ongoing shutdown for Tuesday’s election results earlier this week, telling Republican lawmakers that polling shows the continuing crisis is hurting their party. But he also continues to advocate for Thune to do away with the filibuster, a core Senate rule requiring 60 votes for bills that fall outside the budget reconciliation process, and simply reopen the government with a vote down party lines.

“If the filibuster is terminated, we will have the most productive three years in the history of our country,” Trump told reporters on Friday at a White House event. “If the filibuster is not terminated, then we will be in a slog, with the Democrats.”

So far, Thune has rejected that request. But the majority leader said Thursday that “the pain this shutdown has caused is only getting worse,” warning that 40 million Americans risk food insecurity as funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program lapses.

The Trump administration lost a court case this week arguing that it could withhold SNAP benefits, a program that was significantly defunded in the president’s “one big beautiful bill” act earlier this year.

“Will the far left not be satisfied until federal workers and military families are getting their Thanksgiving dinner from a food bank? Because that’s where we’re headed,” Thune added.

SACRAMENTO — A new poll shows that former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter’s support in the 2026 governor’s race dropped after she tangled with a television reporter during a heated interview in October, an incident that rival candidates used to question her temperament.

Porter was the clear front-runner over the summer, but by late October she dropped behind Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, according to a poll released Friday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

Still, nearly half of the registered voters surveyed remain undecided, evidence that few Californians are paying attention to a race that remains wide open and was eclipsed in recent months by the costly and successful congressional redistricting battle that became a referendum on President Trump. Porter remains the most favored Democratic candidate, which is significant in a state that has not elected a Republican governor since 2006.

“She’s the leading Democrat among the various ones that are in there right now,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll. “But it’s because nobody really on the Democratic side has really jumped out of the pack. It’s kind of a political vacuum at the moment.”

The governor’s race was frozen in stasis for most of the year, first as Californians waited for former Vice President Kamala Harris to decide whether she was going to jump into the race. It wasn’t until late July that Harris announced, no, she was not running. Then, weeks later, Californians became captivated by a special election to reconfigure the state’s congressional districts — which set off a furious, expensive and high-stakes political battle that could help decide which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now that the special election is over, gubernatorial candidates can “rev up the public to pay attention,” DiCamillo said.

“It’s the time for someone to break through,” he said.

But it won’t be U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla. The senator would have been the top Democrat in the race, but not a heavy favorite, if he decided to jump in, the poll found. Voters gave him the highest favorability rating among all current and potential contenders in the governor’s race. After months of speculation, however, Padilla on Tuesday announced he would forgo a run for governor.

The new poll found that Bianco was supported by 13% of voters in the state, followed by Porter at 11%. The Berkeley poll in August showed that Porter led all candidates with 17% support, with Bianco in second place at 10%.

A Bianco representative said his lead in the polls was evidence that his campaign was resonating with voters.

“It is abundantly clear that Californians are demanding a new path forward,” campaign manager Erica Melendrez said. “Sheriff Bianco represents a safe California, an affordable California, an educated California and a leader with integrity and character that ALL Californians can be proud of.”

DiCamillo said Porter’s 6% drop over those three months was significant, given that the California governor’s race is so tight, but cautioned that it’s still early in the 2026 campaign season and a lot of shifting will happen before the June gubernatorial primary.

Porter’s campaign declined to comment on the drop in support and noted instead that she still led the Democratic field.

“Poll after poll continues to show Katie as the strongest Democrat in the race, driven by a growing coalition of grassroots supporters — not powerful special interests,” spokesperson Peter Opitz said. “Californians know her record of taking on Donald Trump and trust her to tackle our cost crisis, from skyrocketing rent and housing costs to rising healthcare premiums and unaffordable child care.”

Porter came under fire in October after an outburst during an interview with CBS reporter Julie Watts. When the Sacramento-based journalist asked Porter what she would say to Californians who voted for Trump, the UC Irvine law professor responded that she didn’t need their support.

After Watts asked follow-up questions, Porter accused the reporter of being “unnecessarily argumentative,” held up her hands and later said, “I don’t want this all on camera.”

The next day, a 2021 video emerged of Porter berating a staff member during a videoconference with a member of the Biden administration. “Get out of my f— shot!” Porter said to the young woman after she came into view in the background. Porter’s comments in the video were first reported by Politico.

Porter later acknowledged that she mishandled the television news interview, but explained that she felt the reporter’s questioning implied she should cater to Trump’s supporters. Porter also said she apologized to her staff member, saying her remarks were “inappropriate,” that she values her staff and could have handled that situation better.

Her Democratic gubernatorial rivals seized on the videos. Former state Controller Betty Yee called on Porter to drop out of the race, and businessman Stephen Cloobeck and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attacked her in ads about the uproar.

While difficult to assess, the negative news coverage and publicity surrounding those incidents appear to have taken a toll on Porter’s reputation. No other candidate experienced a similar shift in support.

According to the new poll, 26% of California voters had a favorable opinion of Porter, compared with 33% who saw her unfavorably — with the remainder having no opinion. That’s a major drop from when she was running for the U.S. Senate last year, when 45% of voters had a favorable opinion in February 2024 and 27% were sour on her.

Political scientist Eric Schickler, co-director of the Berkeley institute that conducted the poll, said Porter looks vulnerable, and that makes the governor’s race a more attractive contest for current candidates and those who may be considering joining it.

Aside from Porter and Bianco, the poll found that 8% of voters favored former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat; the same percentage backed conservative commentator Steve Hilton. Villaraigosa had support from 5% of voters, Yee 3%, and California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond 1%. Cloobeck and former Democratic legislator Ian Calderon registered less than 1%.

Another potential candidate — billionaire developer Rick Caruso — was backed by 3% of voters, the poll found. Caruso said Monday night that he still was considering running for either governor or Los Angeles mayor and will decide in a few weeks.

Schickler said the results of Tuesday’s election may be a sign that moderate or business-friendly Democrats — including Caruso — may not fare so well in a state as Democratic as California. Voters across the nation delivered a sharp rebuke to Trump, electing Democrats in major races in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia and passing Proposition 50, the California ballot measure designed to help Democrats take control of the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 election.

“Somebody like Caruso, his narrative would probably look a lot stronger if Democrats still seemed on the defensive and in disarray,” Schickler said. “But after Prop. 50 passing, big Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia, I think the argument for a need to change what we’re doing dramatically, at least in a state like California, is less likely to resonate.”

The Berkeley IGS/Times poll surveyed 8,141 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from Oct. 20 to 27. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

SAN FRANCISCO — It is a delicate situation: Democratic Rep. Sala Burton, whose district encompasses 75% of this city, is battling cancer. And various politicians–some of them her friends–are openly lining up support to go after her seat, should it suddenly come open.

Politics are always lively in the city that has produced such powerful operators as Burton’s late husband, Phillip, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy. But the next election in the 5th Congressional District–whenever it comes–promises to be especially intense because it will pit increasingly powerful gay and neighborhood activists against the old Democratic machine built by Phil Burton and Brown.

“This thing is the talk of the town,” said Paul Ambrosino, a young San Francisco political consultant. “There’s really only been one hot race for this seat since Phil Burton won it 20 years ago. So nobody knows precisely what the values of the voters are or how the various voting blocs might respond.”

Sala Burton, 61, underwent surgery for colon cancer in August and recently went back into George Washington University Hospital. She met Saturday with relatives and friends in Washington and announced that she hopes to finish out her term but will not seek reelection in 1988.

“It’s an awful situation,” said Paul Pelosi, whose wife, Nancy, a San Francisco socialite and longtime Democratic activist, is a close friend of Sala Burton and wants to succeed her when she leaves Congress.

“I really believe Sala is going to get better,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview. “I will seek her seat in 1988 if she does not run.”

Pelosi, former chairwoman of the California Democratic Party, is well-connected to numerous national Democratic figures and has helped many of them raise money. She could expect them to return the favor, and she would also get help from former Rep. John Burton, Sala Burton’s brother-in-law, and from Brown and McCarthy, who have been close to Pelosi for years.

Until recently, that kind of support from the Democratic establishment would have made Pelosi the heavy favorite. But that is no longer the case, according to political consultants familiar with the district.

65% Democratic

With 65% of its voters registered Democratic, the 5th Congressional District has long been a stronghold of liberal, pro-labor forces.

But its working-class character has been altered in recent years by the influx of young, upwardly mobile professionals, or Yuppies. In the 1984 Democratic presidential primary, for example, Yuppie favorite Gary Hart of Colorado stunned the supporters of former Vice President Walter Mondale by winning five of the six national convention delegates.

Gays and neighborhood groups are increasingly active in the district.

What this means, according to consultants in the city, is that an establishment candidate like Pelosi would face a major battle for the 5th District from Harry Britt, a gay activist and champion of renters’ rights who who has served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors since 1979. He has announced that he will run if Burton’s seat becomes open.

“The (Burton) machine expects us to always give them their votes, but this time it’s different,” said Dick Pabich, Britt’s political consultant, who explained that better leadership on the AIDS issue is the major goal of the gay community.

AIDS a ‘Top Priority’

“If Harry won, his top priority in Congress would be AIDS,” Pabich said. “Some members of Congress, like (Los Angeles Democratic Rep. Henry) Waxman have been helpful on this, but there is no one back there really out front in a leadership role on AIDS.”

San Francisco political consultant Clint Reilly said: “The gays feel they have paid their dues, that they’ve come of age. They believe it is their turn, and Britt is their candidate. I would expect money to pour in from gays all over the country if there is a special election for this seat.”

Political consultants say Britt would go into a special election with a significant bloc of gay votes, a bloc that would be magnified in importance if turnout is low, as expected.

Also mentioned as possible candidates for the Burton seat are Supervisors Bill Maher and Carol Ruth Silver, both Democrats.

Even Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who is in the last year of her tenure, has considered running for the seat while she bides her time for a possible statewide candidacy later. Some of her advisers have urged her to run if Burton resigns, even if that comes before the end of Feinstein’s term as mayor. But Deputy Mayor Hadley Rolfe said: “She wants to finish out her last year as mayor; it’s very important to her.”

Should Burton not be able to finish out her term, Gov. George Deukmejian would have to call a special election. It would be preceded by an open primary, meaning that Democrats and Republicans could vote for candidates of either party.

That could be significant, according to Reilly, because if the Republicans do not come up with a credible candidate of their own, one of the Democratic candidates could benefit from a bloc of the Republican votes if they could be motivated to turn out.

SAN FRANCISCO — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a trailblazing San Francisco Democrat who leveraged decades of power in the U.S. House to become one of the most influential political leaders of her generation, will not run for reelection in 2026, she said Thursday.

The former House speaker, 85, who has been in Congress since 1987 and oversaw both of President Trump’s first-term impeachments, had been pushing off her 2026 decision until after Tuesday’s vote on Proposition 50, a ballot measure she backed and helped bankroll to redraw California’s congressional maps in her party’s favor.

With the measure’s resounding passage, Pelosi said it was time to start clearing the path for another Democrat to represent San Francisco — one of the nation’s most liberal bastions — in Congress, as some are already vying to do.

“With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative,” Pelosi said in a nearly six-minute video she posted online Thursday morning, in which she also recounted major achievements from her long career.

Pelosi did not immediately endorse a would-be successor, but challenged her constituents to stay engaged.

“As we go forward, my message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she said. “We have made history, we have made progress, we have always led the way — and now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy, and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”

Pelosi’s announcement drew immediate reaction across the political world, with Democrats lauding her dedication and accomplishments and President Trump, a frequent target and critic of hers, ridiculing her as a “highly overrated politician.”

Pelosi has not faced a serious challenge for her seat since President Reagan was in office, and has won recent elections by wide margins. Just a year ago, she won reelection with 81% of the vote.

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However, Pelosi was facing two hard-to-ignore challengers from her own party in next year’s Democratic primary: state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), 55, a prolific and ambitious lawmaker with a strong base of support in the city, and Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a Democratic political operative and tech millionaire who is infusing his campaign with personal cash.

Their challenges come amid a shifting tide against gerontocracy in Democratic politics more broadly, as many in the party’s base have increasingly questioned the ability of its longtime leaders — especially those in their 70s and 80s — to sustain an energetic and effective resistance to President Trump and his MAGA agenda.

In announcing his candidacy for Pelosi’s seat last month after years of deferring to her, Wiener said he simply couldn’t wait any longer. “The world is changing, the Democratic Party is changing, and it’s time,” he said.

Chakrabarti — who helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) topple another older Democratic incumbent with a message of generational change in 2018 — said voters in San Francisco “need a whole different approach” to governing after years of longtime party leaders failing to deliver.

In an interview Thursday, Wiener called Pelosi an “icon” who delivered for San Francisco in more ways than most people can comprehend, with whom he shared a “deep love” for the city. He also recounted, in particular, Pelosi’s early advocacy for AIDS treatment and care in the 1980s, and the impact it had on him personally.

“I remember vividly what it felt like as a closeted gay teenager, having a sense that the country had abandoned people like me, and that the country didn’t care if people like me died. I was 17, and that was my perception of my place in the world,” Wiener said. “Nancy Pelosi showed that that wasn’t true, that there were people in positions of power who gave a damn about gay men and LGBTQ people and people living with HIV and those of us at risk for HIV — and that was really powerful.”

Chakrabarti, in a statement Thursday, thanked Pelosi for her “decades of service that defined a generation of politics” and for “doing something truly rare in Washington: making room for the next one.”

While anticipated by many, Pelosi’s decision nonetheless reverberated through political circles, including as yet another major sign that a new political era is dawning for the political left — as also evidenced by the stunning rise of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist elected Tuesday as New York City’s next mayor.

Known as a relentless and savvy party tactician, Pelosi had fought off concerns about her age in the past, including when she chose to run again last year. The first woman ever elected speaker in 2007, Pelosi has long cultivated and maintained a spry image belying her age by walking the halls of Congress in signature four-inch stilettos, and by keeping up a rigorous schedule of flying between work in Washington and constituent events in her home district.

However, that veneer has worn down in recent years, including when she broke her hip during a fall in Europe in December.

That occurred just after fellow octogenarian President Biden sparked intense speculation about his age and cognitive abilities with his disastrous debate performance against Trump in June of last year. The performance led to Biden being pushed to drop out of the race — in part by Pelosi — and to Vice President Kamala Harris moving to the top of the ticket and losing badly to Trump in November.

Democrats have also watched other older liberal leaders age and die in power in recent years, including the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another San Francisco power player in Washington. When Ginsburg died in office at 87, it handed Trump a third Supreme Court appointment. When Feinstein died in office ill at 90, it was amid swirling questions about her competency to serve.

By bowing out of the 2026 race, Pelosi — who stepped down from party leadership in 2022 — diminished her own potential for an ungraceful last chapter in office. But she did not concede that her current effectiveness has diminished one bit.

Pelosi was one of the most vocal and early proponents of Proposition 50, which amends the state constitution to give state Democrats the power through 2030 to redraw California’s congressional districts in their favor.

The measure was in response to Republicans in red states such as Texas redrawing maps in their favor, at Trump’s direction. Pelosi championed it as critical to preserving Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next year and checking Trump through the second half of his second term, something she and others suggested will be vital for the survival of American democracy.

On Tuesday, California voters resoundingly approved Proposition 50.

In her video, Pelosi noted a litany of accomplishments during her time in office, crediting them not to herself but to her constituents, to labor groups, to nonprofits and private entrepreneurs, to the city’s vibrant diversity and flair for innovation.

She noted bringing federal resources to the city to recover after the Loma Prieta earthquake, and San Francisco’s leading role in tackling the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis through partnerships with UC San Francisco and San Francisco General, which “pioneered comprehensive community based care, prevention and research” still used today.

She mentioned passing the Ryan White CARE Act and the Affordable Care Act, building out various San Francisco and California public transportation systems, building affordable housing and protecting the environment — all using federal dollars her position helped her to secure.

“It seems prophetic now that the slogan of my very first campaign in 1987 was, ‘A voice that will be heard,’ and it was you who made those words come true. It was the faith that you had placed in me, and the latitude that you have given me, that enabled me to shatter the marble ceiling and be the first woman speaker of the House, whose voice would certainly be heard,” Pelosi said. “It was an historic moment for our country, and it was momentous for our community — empowering me to bring home billions of dollars for our city and our state.”

After her announcement, Trump ridiculed her, telling Fox News that her decision not to seek reelection was “a great thing for America” and calling her “evil, corrupt, and only focused on bad things for our country.”

“She was rapidly losing control of her party and it was never coming back,” Trump told the outlet, according to a segment shared by the White House. “I’m very honored she impeached me twice, and failed miserably twice.”

The House succeeded in impeaching Trump twice, but the Senate acquitted him both times.

Pelosi’s fellow Democrats, by contrast, heaped praise on her as a one-of-a-kind force in U.S. politics — a savvy tactician, a prolific legislator and a mentor to an entire generation of fellow Democrats.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a longtime Pelosi ally who helped her impeach Trump, called Pelosi “the greatest Speaker in American history” as a result of “her tenacity, intellect, strategic acumen and fierce advocacy.”

“She has been an indelible part of every major progressive accomplishment in the 21st Century — her work in Congress delivered affordable health care to millions, created countless jobs, raised families out of poverty, cleaned up pollution, brought LGBTQ+ rights into the mainstream, and pulled our economy back from the brink of destruction not once, but twice,” Schiff said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Pelosi “has inspired generations,” that her “courage and conviction to San Francisco, California, and our nation has set the standard for what public service should be,” and that her impact on the country was “unmatched.”

“Wishing you the best in this new chapter — you’ve more than earned it,” Newsom wrote above Pelosi’s online video.

WASHINGTON — Elections this week that energized Democrats and angered President Trump have cast a chill over efforts to end the record-breaking government shutdown, raising fresh doubts about the possibility of a breakthrough despite the punishing toll of federal closures on the country.

Trump has increased pressure on Senate Republicans to end the shutdown — now at 37 days, the longest in U.S. history — calling it a “big factor, negative” in the poor GOP showings across the country. Democrats saw Trump’s comments as a reason to hold firm, believing his involvement in talks could lead to a deal on extending health care subsidies, a key sticking point to win their support.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune opened what’s seen as a pivotal day in efforts to end the government shutdown by saying the next step hinges on a response from Democrats to an offer on the table.

“It’s in their court. It’s up to them,” Thune told reporters Thursday.

But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer held firm in opening remarks Thursday, saying voters “fired a political torpedo at Trump and Republicans” in Tuesday’s election.

“Donald Trump clearly is feeling pressure to bring this shutdown to an end. Well, I have good news for the president: Meet with Democrats, reopen the government,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Trump is refusing to meet with Democrats, insisting they must open the government first. But complicating the GOP’s strategy, Trump is increasingly fixated instead on pushing Republicans to scrap the Senate filibuster to speed reopening — a step many GOP senators reject out of hand. He kept up the pressure in a video Wednesday, saying the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to pass legislation should be “terminated.”

“This is much bigger than the shutdown,” Trump said. “This is the survival of our country.”

Senate Democrats face pressures of their own, both from unions eager for the shutdown to end and from allied groups that want them to hold firm. Many see the Democrats’ decisive gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey as validation of their strategy to hold the government closed until expiring health care subsidies are addressed.

“It would be very strange for the American people to have weighed in, in support of Democrats standing up and fighting for them, and within days for us to surrender without having achieved any of the things that we’ve been fighting for,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

Meanwhile, talks grind on, but the shutdown’s toll deepens. On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced plans to reduce air traffic by 10% across 40 high-volume markets beginning Friday to maintain safety amid staffing shortages. Millions of people have already been affected by halted government programs and missed federal paychecks — with more expected as another round of paydays approaches next week.

Progressives see election wins as reason to fight

Grassroots Democratic groups nationwide touted Tuesday’s election results as voter approval of the shutdown strategy — and warned lawmakers against cutting a deal too soon.

“Moderate Senate Democrats who are looking for an off-ramp right now are completely missing the moment,” said Katie Bethell, political director of MoveOn, a progressive group. “Voters have sent a resounding message: We want leaders who fight for us, and we want solutions that make life more affordable.”

Some Senate Democrats echoed that sentiment. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats and a leading voice in the progressive movement, said Democrats “have got to remain strong” and should secure assurances on extending health care subsidies — including “a commitment from the speaker of the House that he will support the legislation and that the president will sign.”

Still, how firmly the party remains dug in remains to be seen. Some Democrats have been working with Republicans to find a way out of the standoff, and they held firm after the election that it had not impacted their approach.

“I don’t feel that the elections changed where I was,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. “I still feel I want to get out of the shutdown.”

Some Republicans also shared in Trump’s concerns that the shutdown is becoming a drag on the party.

“Polls show that most voters blame Republicans more than Democrats,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. “That’s understandable given who controls the levers of power.”

Trump sets another shutdown record

While some Democrats saw Trump’s comments on the shutdown Wednesday as evidence he’d soon get more involved, he’s largely stayed out of the fray. Instead, the talks have intensified among a loose coalition of centrist senators trying to negotiate an end to the shutdown.

Trump has refused to negotiate with Democrats over their demands to salvage expiring health insurance subsidies until they agree to reopen the government. But skeptical Democrats question whether the Republican president will keep his word, particularly after his administration restricted SNAP food aid despite court orders to ensure funds are available to prevent hunger.

Trump’s approach to the shutdown stands in marked contrast to his first term, when the government was partially closed for 35 days over his demands for money to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall. At that time, he met publicly and negotiated with congressional leaders. Unable to secure the money, he relented in 2019.

This time, it’s not just Trump declining to engage in talks. The congressional leaders are at a standoff, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent lawmakers home in September after they approved their own funding bill, refusing further negotiations.

Johnson dismissed the party’s election losses and said he’s looking forward to a midterm election in 2026 that’ll more reflect Trump’s tenure.

In the meantime, food aid, child care money and countless other government services are being seriously interrupted. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or are expected to work without pay.

Senators search for potential deal

Central to any resolution will be a series of agreements that would need to be upheld not only by the Senate but also by the House and the White House, which is not at all certain in Washington.

Asked if the House would guarantee a vote on extending health care subsidies if the Senate struck a deal, Johnson said Thursday, “I’m not promising anybody anything.”

Senators from both major parties, particularly the members of the powerful Appropriations Committee, are pushing to ensure the normal government funding process in Congress can be put back on track. Among the goals is guaranteeing upcoming votes on a smaller package of bills to fund various aspects of government such as agricultural programs and military construction projects at bases.

More difficult, a substantial number of senators also want some resolution to the standoff over the funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.

With insurance premium notices being sent, millions of people are experiencing sticker shock on skyrocketing prices. The loss of enhanced federal subsidies, which were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and come in the form of tax credits, are expected to leave many people unable to buy health insurance.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has promised Democrats at least a vote on their preferred health care proposal, on a date certain, as part of any deal to reopen government. But that’s not enough for some senators, who see the health care deadlock as part of their broader concerns with Trump’s direction for the country.

Cappelletti, Mascaro and Jalonick write for the Associated Press.

Republican infighting crescendoed in the aftermath of California voters overwhelmingly approving Democratic-friendly redistricting plan this week that may undercut the GOP’s control of Congress and derail President Trump’s polarizing agenda.

The state GOP chairwoman was urged to resign and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the state’s independent redistricting commission, was called “cowardly” by one top GOP leader for not being more involved in the campaign.

Leaders of the Republican-backed committees opposing the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, were questioned about how they spent nearly $58 million in the special election after such a dismal outcome.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the once prodigious Republican fundraiser, reportedly vowed earlier in the campaign that he could raise $100 million for the opposition but ended up delivering a small fraction of that amount.

Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), a conservative firebrand, called on state GOP chair Corrin Rankin to step down and faulted other Republican leaders and longtime party operatives for the ballot measure’s failure, calling them “derelict of duty and untrustworthy and incompetent.”

“Unless serious changes are made at the party, the midterms are going to be a complete disaster,” DeMaio said, also faulting the other groups opposing the effort. “We need accountability. There needs to be a reckoning because otherwise the lessons won’t be learned. The old guard needs to go. The old guard has failed us too many times. This is the latest failure.”

Rankin pushed back against the criticism, saying the state party was the most active GOP force in the final stretch of the election. Raising $11 million during the final three weeks of the campaign, the party spent it on mailers, digital ads and text messages, as well as organizing phone banks and precinct walking, she said.

Former Speaker of the House and California Republican Kevin McCarthy speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19, 2023.

(Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images)

“We left it all on the field,” Rankin said Wednesday morning at a Sacramento press conference about a federal lawsuit California Republicans filed arguing that Proposition 50 is unconstitutional. “We were the last man standing … to reach out to Republicans and make sure they turned out.”

Responding to criticism that their effort was disorganized, including opposition campaign mailers being sent to voters who had already cast ballots, Rankin said the party would conduct a post-election review of its efforts. But she added that she was extremely proud of the work her team did in the “rushed special election.”

Barring successful legal challenges, the new California congressional districts enacted under Proposition 50 will go into effect before the 2026 election. The new district maps favor Democratic candidates and were crafted to unseat five Republican incumbents, which could erase Republicans’ narrow edge in the the U.S. House of Representatives.

If Democrats win control of the body, Trump policy agenda will likely be stymied and the president and members of his administration cold face multiple congressional investigations.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats proposed Proposition 50 in response to Trump urging elected officials in Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to the House next year.

The new California congressional boundaries voters approved Tuesday could give Democrats the opportunity to pick up five seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.

Proposition 50 will change how California determines the boundaries of congressional districts. The measure asked voters to approve new congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission.

Some Republicans lamented that Schwarzenegger was not more involved in the election. The movie star championed the creation of the independent commission in 2010, his final year in office. He campaigned for the creation of similar bodies to fight partisan drawing of district lines across the nation after leaving office.

Shawn Steel, one of California’s three representatives on the Republican National Committee, called Schwarzenegger “a cowardly politician.”

“Arnold decided to sit it out,” Steel said. “Arnold just kind of raised the flag and immediately went under the desk.”

Steel said that the former governor failed to follow through on the messages he repeatedly delivered about the importance of independent redistricting.

“He could have had his name on the ballot as a ballot opponent,” Steel said. “He turned it down. So I’d say, with Arnold, just disappointing, but not surprised. That’s his political legacy.”

Schwarzenegger’s team pushed back at this criticism as misinformed.

“We were clear from the beginning that he was not going to be a part of the campaign and was going to speak his mind,” said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for the former governor. “His message was very clear and non-partisan. When one campaign couldn’t even criticize gerrymandering in Texas, it was probably hard for voters to believe they actually cared about fairness.”

Schwarzenegger spoke out against Proposition 50 a handful of times during the election, including at an appearance at USC that was turned into a television ad by one of the anti-Proposition 50 committees that appeared to go dark before election day.

On election day, he emailed followers about gut health, electrolytes, protein bars, fitness and conversations to increase happiness. There was no apparent mention of the Tuesday election.

The Democratic-led California Legislature in August voted to place Proposition 50 on the November ballot, costing nearly $300 million, and setting off a sprint to Tuesday’s special election.

The opponents were vastly outspent by the ballot measure’s supporters, who contributed nearly $136 million to various efforts. That financial advantage, combined with Democrats’ overwhelming edge in voter registration in California, were main contributors to the ballot measure’s success. When introduced in August, Proposition 50 had tepid support and its prospects appeared uncertain.

Nearly 64% of the nearly 8.3 million voters who cast ballots supported Proposition 50, while 36% opposed it as of Wednesday night, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.

In addition to the state Republican Party, two main campaign committees opposed Proposition 50, including the one backed by McCarthy. A separate group was funded by more than $32 million from major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffet’s right-hand man, and who bankrolled the creation of the independent congressional redistricting commission in 2010.

Representatives of the two committees, who defended their work Tuesday night after the election was called moments after the polls closed, saying they could not overcome the vast financial disadvantage and that the proposition’s supporters must be held to their promises to voters such as pushing for national redistricting reform, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday.

Newsom’s committee supporting Proposition 50 had prominent Democrats stumping for the effort, including former President Obama starring in ads supporting the measure.

That’s in stark contrast to the opposition efforts. Trump was largely absent, possibly because he is deeply unpopular among Californians and the president does not like to be associated with losing causes.

WASHINGTON — The government shutdown has entered its 36th day, breaking the record as the longest ever and disrupting the lives of millions of Americans with program cuts, flight delays and federal workers nationwide left without paychecks.

President Trump has refused to negotiate with Democrats over their demands to salvage expiring health insurance subsidies until they agree to reopen the government. But skeptical Democrats question whether the Republican president will keep his word, particularly after the administration restricted SNAP food aid despite court orders to ensure funds are available to prevent hunger.

Trump, whose first term at the White House set the previous government shutdown record, said this one was a “big factor, negative” in the GOP’s election losses Tuesday and he repeated his demands for Republicans to end the Senate filibuster as a way to reopen the government — something senators have refused to do.

“We must get the government back open soon,” Trump said during a breakfast meeting Wednesday with GOP senators at the White House.

Trump pushed for ending the Senate rule, which requires a 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation, as a way to steamroll the Democratic minority on the shutdown and pass a long list of other GOP priorities. Republicans now hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Democrats have been able to block legislation that would fund the government, having voted more than a dozen times against.

“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump told the senators.

That push is likely to go unmet by Republican senators but could spur them to deal with the Democrats.

Trump has remained largely on the sidelines throughout the shutdown, keeping a robust schedule of global travel and events, including at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Instead, talks have intensified among a loose coalition of centrist senators trying to negotiate an end to the stalemate.

Expectations are high that the logjam would break once election results were fully tallied in the off-year races widely watched as a gauge of voter sentiment over Trump’s second term. Democrats swept key contests, emboldening progressive senators who want to keep fighting for healthcare funds. Moderate Democrats have been more ready to compromise.

The top Democrats in Congress demanded that Trump meet with Capitol Hill leaders to negotiate an end to the shutdown and address healthcare.

“The election results ought to send a much-needed bolt of lightning to Donald Trump that he should meet with us to end this crisis,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Trump sets another shutdown record

Trump’s approach to the shutdown stands in marked contrast to his first term, when the government was partially closed for 35 days over his demands for money to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall. At that time, he met publicly and negotiated with congressional leaders. Unable to secure the money, he relented in 2019.

This time, it’s not just Trump declining to engage in talks. The congressional leaders are at a standoff and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent lawmakers home in September after they approved their own funding bill, refusing further negotiations.

A “sad landmark,” Johnson said at a news conference Wednesday. He dismissed the party’s election losses and said he is looking forward to a midterm election in 2026 that will more reflect Trump’s tenure.

In the meantime, food aid, child-care money and countless other government services are being seriously interrupted. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or expected to come to work without pay.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted there could be chaos in the sky next week if air traffic controllers miss another paycheck. Labor unions put pressure on lawmakers to reopen the government.

“Can this be over now?” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said as he returned from the White House breakfast. “Have the American people suffered enough?”

Thune also said there is not support in the Senate to change the filibuster. “It’s not happening,” he said.

Senators search for potential deal

Central to any resolution will be a series of agreements that would need to be upheld not only by the Senate, but also the House, and the White House, which is not at all certain in Washington.

Senators from both parties, particularly the members of the powerful Appropriations Committee, are pushing to ensure the normal government funding process in Congress can be put back on track.

Among the goals is guaranteeing upcoming votes on a smaller package of bills where there is already widespread bipartisan agreement to fund various aspects of government such as agricultural programs and military construction projects at bases.

“I certainly think that three-bill package is primed to do a lot of good things for the American people,” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who has been in talks.

Healthcare costs skyrocket for millions

More difficult, a substantial number of senators also want some resolution to the standoff over the funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.

With insurance premium notices being sent, millions of people are experiencing sticker shock on skyrocketing prices. The loss of enhanced federal subsidies, which were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and come in the form of tax credits, are expected to leave many people unable to buy health insurance.

Republicans are reluctant to fund the healthcare program, also known as Obamacare, without changes, but negotiating a compromise with Democrats is expected to take time, if a deal can be reached at all.

Thune has promised Democrats at least a vote on their preferred healthcare proposal, on a date certain, as part of any deal to reopen government. But that’s not enough for some senators, who see the healthcare deadlock as part of their broader concerns with Trump’s direction for the country.

Mascaro and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti and Matt Brown contributed to this report.