election

WASHINGTON — Democrats heralded a new era in American politics Wednesday after voters broke Republicans’ control of government and delivered a pivotal rebuke of President Trump.

Victories that handed Democrats control of the House and Senate on Tuesday night came in historic form, with margins outstripping expectations, posting double-digit shifts to the left by nearly every voting bloc. In some of the reddest states in the union, even Republican redistricting efforts designed to shield districts from competition were not enough to prevent Democratic inroads.

The sweeping wins were driven by a rare coalition of voters across nearly all walks of American life, in cities and countryside, from the rural Midwest and Deep South to a traditionally conservative mid-Atlantic. Not since voters were repulsed by President Nixon after the Watergate scandal half a century ago has the popular vote swung so decisively in a single election cycle.

The wave was so comprehensive that it handed Democrats wins that for decades have been unthinkable — flipping Senate seats in Kansas, South Carolina and Texas — and gained a majority of governor’s seats for the first time in a generation. How large their House majority would be remained to be seen as states continued counting votes.

Statehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania flipped for Democrats — and, as ballots were counted, Texas hung in the balance — while the party wrested at least five gubernatorial seats from Republican control.

“The only thing unusual here is scale,” said Andrew Sinclair, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “It is not at all unusual in American political history to see a poorly led party lose badly in the next election.”

“To build anything enduring out of this election,” he added, “Democrats are going to have to do the hard work of having honest conversations with each other about how such a diverse group of people can cooperate and deliver results.”

The seismic routing appeared to validate the populist messages Democrats — in many cases, both progressives and moderates — ran on, from lowering costs to addressing healthcare and housing issues to confronting the power of corporations in American society.

Party leaders vowed the morning after to respond to voters’ mandate on affordability and to check executive power, as members of both parties predicted the results would reshape politics for years into the future.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called it “a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America not only now but on into the future.”

He pledged Democratic senators would be intent on working for their constituents and delivering on promises to relieve Americans’ economic “anguish” and clean up government corruption. He also nodded to the responsibility the party now shoulders.

“With this majority, Americans have given we Democrats the opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of their trust, and that’s our most important job,” Schumer said.

In every demographic, whether cut by gender, race, age, education or region, voters shifted to the left compared to 2024, in most cases by double digits, according to New York Times data. Men 18 to 44 moved to the left by 31 points, Latinos by 28 points, voters under 30 by 32 points.

The nation also elected several historic “firsts,” including the first Muslim senator, the first openly gay male senator and the first Black female governor, in spite of Republican campaign attacks around identity. And Democrats defied Republican redistricting efforts in at least 11 districts, including four in Florida,four in Texas,one each in Ohio, Alabama and North Carolina.

The results showed the success of economic populist messages, said Alex Jacquez, a Democratic consultant and former policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“The throughline for all the Democrats [who won] is the corporate-friendliness era of moderation is over and we are much more squarely in the prairie populism of the 80s and 90s,” Jacquez said. “You saw a real resurgence of that.”

The unambiguous nature of the victory helped repel the notion that Republicans might attempt to challenge election results, as Trump had telegraphed as a possibility before the election.

Republicans swiftly began trading blame as they parsed the results.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely 2028 presidential contender, predicted the results could “reverberate for the next decade or most,” saying the routing was worse than anticipated.

It was “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans across the country,” DeSantis told reporters Wednesday.

Republicans will now face questions about the party’s future direction, and how they prevent a repeat of Tuesday’s wave in 2028. President Trump signaled his willingness to accept the election results and work with Democrats, while evading blame for himself.

“For Republicans, it is clear that President Trump has led the party to disaster — again,” Sinclair said. “Looking to the future, Republicans should reconsider following his style of governance and his policy agenda.”

Democrats will now have to deliver on the affordability and accountability agenda. With full control of Congress, they will be able to send legislation to Trump’s desk, and could force him to sign bills or make unpopular vetoes. Schumer told reporters Wednesday that the party would work to lower costs “with the president or without him, period.”

“It is critically important now that Democrats, now that we’ve been given the keys to the car here, we’re able to drive it,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who won reelection Tuesday, said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.”

Shapiro, a likely presidential contender, projected confidence in the new majorities and said Democrats would need to show that they “can legislate, bring down costs, end these wars.”

The mood among Democrats was quickly turning to “resolute” amid the jubilation, said consultant Andrew DeStefano. Party operatives want to build lasting power, he said, not become just another swing in the electoral pendulum.

“Folks don’t want this to be the latest ping-pong volley,” DeStefano said. “Laser focused on how we can deliver on some achievable concrete policy.”

The Dodgers lost four straight playoff games to the Milwaukee Brewers in a humiliating end to their season.

But this was worse.

Steve Hilton lost to Xavier Becerra in the race for governor before “Jeopardy” aired.

But this was worse.

President Trump lost early, late and often Tuesday night in the midterm elections.

In contests across the country — for governor, for Senate, for the House — he had told people to vote as if he was on the ballot.

They did, and Democrats ran the table, taking the House and then the Senate.

Trump lost big, inspected the wreckage, and claimed the problem was lousy candidates.

Has he lost a step? I would have expected him to say the election was stolen. All of the elections.

But maybe he realized that for all intents and purposes, his political career is over. Trump was trounced, the country triumphed, and the long national nightmare is over, but for the rest of his lame duck presidency.

I don’t think we were witnessing a national love affair with Democrats, nor do I think Tuesday night’s winning political party has all the answers on any of the day’s pressing matters. The Dems have their own problems, including an identity crisis and a shortage of bankable presidential prospects.

But the country’s voters signaled loud and clear that they’re tired of:

The lies.

The insults and name-calling.

The hatred.

The chaos.

The self-dealing.

The lack of civility.

The absence of humility.

Last week I turned on the news and saw Trump making fun of the name of newly elected Michigan Sen. Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim.

An awful thing to see a president do, but here’s what’s worse:

I wasn’t surprised.

Then I saw him say at a political rally that he had looked at a man’s rear end, “and I’ve never done that before…Off the record, women, yes, men no, OK?”

Again, no surprise.

He once mocked the physical appearance of a female presidential primary foe, as well as the wife of a male foe, and insisted for years that the first Black president was secretly from Africa.

Trump had always been able to get away with this sort of numbskullery. His true believers were willing to put up with it as long as he seemed true to his promise of working on their behalf. Until they could no longer deny that he was only working on his own behalf.

The cryptocurrency profiteering. The bloody ballroom. The gold-plating of the White House.

All of it while working people, including staunch supporters, struggled to understand the goofball tariffs and wondered when the promise of lower grocery prices would be delivered.

Trump and the Republicans might have prevailed Tuesday night if not for the war in Iran, which everyone is still paying for at the gas pump. The president who promised we’d stay out of international conflicts went all in, for no good reason, then said it was over, we won, except that it’s not over, and we didn’t win.

And there’s no exit plan.

But so what?

It’s not like Trump is paying for gas. His golf cart is probably electric.

In the beginning, as a Republican populist who tapped into justifiable voter disapproval of Democratic leadership, Trump was onto something when he first ran for president. The scapegoating of immigrants was odious even then, but in 2016, at a Trump campaign rally in Arizona, I caught a glimpse of his appeal to adoring fans who cheered the presidential candidate’s vow to build a border wall, strengthen the military and make America great again. A struggling low-wage worker told me Trump was the best hope for a new day.

“We’re going to come back and rebuild our country,” Trump told the approving crowd that day in Arizona. “You will never be disappointed with me. … You are going to be so proud of your president.”

The act worked for way longer than I would have predicted. But 10 years later, and halfway through a second presidency, the gig is up. Voters said yes, they are disappointed, and no, they’re not so proud.

We thought we were having a mid-term election.

It turned out to be a political wake.

But also an awakening.

Red states voted for blue candidates in a nearly total Trump rebuke.

As I watched the returns Tuesday night, I thought about my daughter–an earth science grad student–and her generation. She’s 23, which means that for almost half her life, Trump has been a political force. Imagine being that young and living in a country that twice elected one of the most divisive and scabrous figures in history.

A man who attacked judges, invaded American cities, insisted ad nauseum that a lost election was stolen, pardoned the Jan. 6 barbarians, exonerated political donors and allies, called climate change a con job, gutted environmental protections and upended America’s global in scientific research.

It’s easy to understand why younger generations have lost faith in elections, both primary parties and the political/corporate establishment.

But on Tuesday, voters of all ages turned out and said enough already, in states red and blue.

The man who so bitterly divided us might ultimately have united us, at least for an evening.

That doesn’t mean that there is consensus on much of anything. Surely calamity awaits, just beyond the shadows, and new species of political trolls are being spawned as we live and breathe. But there was hope, on election night, in the collective declaration that we deserve and demand better.

Trump once said he was so popular and powerful, he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York, shoot somebody, and not lose any voters.

It might have been true once.

But he’s lost them now.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Democrats in the United States have scored a major victory in midterm elections, taking control of both chambers of Congress in a stinging rebuke of President Donald Trump and his Republican Party.

The results are being carefully watched outside the US, as foreign leaders consider how the new political reality in Washington could affect US foreign policy – from the conflict with Iran to the Russia-Ukraine war and trade relations.

Trump himself has acknowledged the US-Israel war on Iran likely impacted his party’s poor performance in the elections, saying voters were probably not ready “for the short-term consequence of the price of gasoline”.

Here are the latest reactions from world leaders, as the scale of the Democratic victory continues to emerge:

Iran

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also the chief negotiator in talks with the US, said voters had rejected conflict.

“Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message,” wrote Ghalibaf in a post on X.

“If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare,” he added.

Israel

There was no immediate reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally whose coalition lost its own majority in Israel’s parliament in elections last week.

However, opposition figure Yair Golan, whose party is in a coalition seeking to replace Netanyahu, said the US vote reveals “just how toxic Netanyahu has become” among US Democrats and Republicans alike.

He warned that if Netanyahu and his far-right government remain in power, Israel would be on “a path toward international sanctions, global isolation, and a confrontation with the United States – our most important friend and ally.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, also part of the anti-Netanyahu coalition, said the US vote effectively ruled out “any possibility of a unity government led by Netanyahu”.

European Union

European Parliament Vice President Christel Schaldemose said the US results left her “cautiously optimistic on Europe’s behalf”.

“Not because everything now ⁠⁠changes for the better, but because it could benefit the support for Ukraine, the green transition, and ⁠⁠relations with the rest of the world,” said Schaldemose in a post on X.

“But the EU must continue the course of standing stronger and standing on its own two feet. That’s not up for debate,” she added.

United Kingdom

Health Minister James Frith stressed that the UK would maintain steady, strong ties with Washington despite an apparent “seismic shift in domestic politics for the Americans”.

“The change of emphasis of power in the States is frequent,” Frith told British media. “But the mainstay of the relationship with the UK Government, as its closest ally, is unwavering and unchanging.”

“So I don’t expect it to change the nature of the relationship at all; it remains very strong,” he added.

France

Finance Minister Roland Lescure said France would wait to see whether Trump, who remains in control of US foreign policy, adjusts his approach.

“Either he decides to rise above the fray – acknowledging that ‌‌changes are necessary, particularly regarding gasoline prices, which directly ‌‌affect people – and, I might add, he tones down his international involvement, or he does not,” Lescure told French TV. “Frankly, this is something we will need to keep an eye on in the ⁠⁠coming days.”

Spain

Left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the US Democrats’ landslide victory was emblematic of the “unravelling” of the global far right.

“It happened in Brazil. It just happened in the US. And it will soon happen in Spain,” said Sanchez, whose own premiership is at stake in snap elections he called for November 29 .

Sanchez said US voters had rejected policies that “only ‌‌impoverish”, as well as hate, sexism, climate change denialism and “the privileges of the elites”.

Greece

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said US-Greek relations would not be affected by the election results.

“Greek-American relations will remain strong,” he told local media. “The United States is our strategic ally, and this will continue for major projects ⁠⁠and all major agreements. Nothing will be affected by this outcome. It is obvious that we respect every outcome. The conclusions are clear.”

Russia

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stressed the need to wait for the final results of US elections to come into focus, but noted that leaders in the US Democratic Party had a “sharply negative” approach to relations with Moscow.

Russia’s position on Ukraine and broader foreign policy “is not based on short-term considerations and, naturally, does not depend on the fluctuations of the political barometer in other countries,” Ryabkov was quoted by Russian state media as saying.

“We will continue our work in accordance with the directives of the President of the Russian Federation,” he added.

China

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing would continue its “constructive strategic relationship” with the US, stressing that US elections are a “domestic affair”.

“China is willing to work with the US to safeguard and implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, strengthen communication, properly manage differences and expand cooperation, build a constructive strategic relationship based on respect and equality,” Mao told reporters in Beijing.

Japan

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said whatever the outcome of the US vote, “the Japan-US alliance the is the cornerstone of Japan’s foreign and security policy.”

“As the international situation becomes turbulent and increasingly uncertain, a strong Japan-US alliance is essential for maximising Japan’s national interests and for peace and stability in the international community,” Kihara said at a press briefing.

South Africa

⁠President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has clashed with Trump over the US president’s promotion of debunked claims of a white genocide in South Africa, said the election marks “a new era in world relations”.

“We have seen that the ⁠⁠Democrats have taken ⁠⁠control of the Senate and of ⁠⁠the House, and ⁠⁠the ⁠⁠people of America have spoken,” Ramaphosa told ‌‌reporters.

Hollywood Park was winning one fight and losing another, both by slim margins, as vote counting continued Tuesday night on two ballot measures in Inglewood.

According to results posted by the Los Angeles County registrar shortly after 10:30 p.m., Measure AT was losing, 51.9% to 48.1%, a margin of 583 votes; and Measure BB was losing 51% to 49%, a margin of 307.

Measure AT would mean more ticket taxes for big events in Inglewood, home to SoFi Stadium, Intuit Dome and the Forum. The City of Inglewood wants that.

Measure BB would bar the city from allowing billboard advertising on sidewalks, medians and the like. Owners of those sports and entertainment venues, who have their own sponsorship deals, are backing that measure.

Meanwhile, City Council member Gloria D. Gray led incumbent Mayor James T. Butts Jr., 34.6% to 29.8%, putting them on an early track for a runoff election in March.

Los Angeles County does not provide a timeline for when the election results will be listed as final.

The ballot measures were spawned by a feud between Inglewood and Hollywood Park, the nearly 300-acre development anchored by SoFi Stadium and owned by Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

The fight started last year over billboards. Inglewood signed a deal with WOW Media for 60 digital signs carrying 108 screens, some of them bus-shelter-sized kiosks. Others are street displays up to 22 feet tall on sidewalks and medians.

SoFi Stadium, Intuit Dome and the Forum sued to block the deal, arguing the signs would undercut their individual sponsors who paid for exclusivity. A judge sided with the city and an appeal is underway.

Measure BB, short for “Billboard Blight,” aimed to restrict billboard advertising on public property. It qualified with nearly 13,000 signatures.

The WOW deal runs 20 years with two 10-year options, so it could be around for 40 years.

“It’s biblical in length,” said John Shallman, the political strategist managing the “Yes on BB” campaign. “You go back 40 years. We didn’t even have the Internet. We didn’t have cell phones.”

Skip Miller, lead attorney for the city, said the kiosks “blend in with the surrounding areas” and connect to a network that provides traffic and safety information.

The billboards are subject to Inglewood Ballot Measure BB, which calls for the halt of advertising on them.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Measure AT, backed by the city, would lift a $15-million cap on the 10% admission tax the stadium pays. Hollywood Park sees it as punishment for challenging the billboard deal.

The billboard fight led to a bigger one. Last month, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled void the 2015 development agreement that cleared the way for SoFi Stadium, citing a 2018 Moreno Valley decision.

Under the 2015 agreement, Hollywood Park paid up front for roads, water lines, streetlights and event-day police and emergency services, with the city agreeing to eventually reimburse Kroenke for those expenses. Now that the agreement has been voided, the city argues it isn’t required to pay.

Nov. 3, 2026 10:52 AM PT

We are tracking all races across Los Angeles County, in dozens of cities, communities and school districts.

Of note in this year’s elections are a neck-and-neck Los Angeles mayoral race, a rematch for the L.A. County sheriff and nearly 100 city council seats (two of which are in L.A.). Less prominent races cover water district boards, school district trustees and the judge’s bench. Angelenos were asked to vote on propositions, measures and charter amendments — many of which involve funding programs with bonds or new taxes — at both the county and city levels.

With a few exceptions, the Associated Press does not call local city and county races. The county has 30 days to submit certified results to the secretary of state.

Countywide

Only three races are on the ballot for all of L.A. County.

Alex Villanueva is seeking to reclaim his position leading the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. He is running against the incumbent, Robert Luna, who unseated him in 2022.

Measure A would require binding arbitration if talks between county officials and unions representing sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, lifeguards and other public safety groups reach an impasse.

A “Yes” on Measure E would do two things: enshrine previously approved Board of Supervisors ethics reforms into the county charter, and fix a problem created by a 2024 measure that invalidated a previously approved jail alternatives funding proposal.

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Cities and communities

Six of L.A. County’s 88 cities have mayoral races, including Los Angeles, Compton, El Monte, Inglewood, Lawndale and Monrovia.

Also on the ballot are city council races and measures that would issue bonds or create taxes to fund a variety of government services.

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School districts

Across L.A. County, dozens of school and community college districts have board seats and bond measures on the ballot.

Superior Court judges

Angelenos have four Superior Court judges on their ballots.

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Water districts

Multiple water district board members will be decided by voters in Los Angeles. In several districts where voters could select multiple candidates, the two with the most votes win.

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Other races

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Nov. 3, 2026 10:52 AM PT

The 2026 elections in the city of Los Angeles include mayor, City Council, city attorney and eight ballot measures.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, Nithya Raman, have spent $13 million on their mayoral campaigns. In the latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, the mayor and City Council member were locked in a dead heat, with 40% of likely L.A. voters supporting each of them. And 19% still undecided.

The race for city attorney has gained outsize attention as California Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy, with strong support from the left, has campaigned against L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney. In late-October polls about 45% of likely voters were undecided.

Voters in the city of Los Angeles also weighed in on ballot measures and City Charter amendments covering everything from taxes and fire resources to governance of airports and the port and the quality of parks.

Mayor

City attorney

City Council

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Ballot measures

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Nov. 3, 2026 10:52 AM PT

A total of 23,450,456 ballots were issued to registered voters across California. Voters have the option of returning ballots by mail or in a drop box or voting in person. California also allows for same-day registration. The majority of returned ballots will be counted by the end of election night.

After the polls close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, of those ballots are delivered to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, where they are verified and tallied. County registrars are deliberate and expeditious with the vote count, even as they handle millions of votes under increasing political scrutiny.

Nearly two thirds of registered voters in California are concerned that the federal government might try to stop the vote count before all ballots are counted, an October UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times found.

Each county is responsible for collecting and counting ballots on election night and in the following weeks. The registrars then communicate those results, in batches, to the secretary of state. The counties with the most voters — Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange and Riverside — are prepared to process hundreds of thousands of ballots.

In Los Angeles County, the operation to deliver ballots to the processing center involves eight helicopters flying in ballots from Lancaster, Palmdale, Catalina and other far reaches of the county.

Where the votes still are being counted

The Associated Press surveys the numbers posted by local election officials and estimates how many votes were cast in each race using vote returns and other data.

One factor considered by analysts in calling a race early is where the remaining uncounted ballots are from. For example, if a Republican stronghold still has a large number of ballots to process, it may indicate a different outcome than if the ballots left to be counted were from a more left-leaning area.

The county has 30 days to submit certified results to the secretary of state. The Associated Press’ Estimated Expected Vote Percentage will remain at 99% until the state certifies the election on Dec. 11.

How many ballots have been processed so far

The speed of California’s vote count is determined by the state’s grace period for mail-in ballots. For a week after the polls close, county registrars will continue to accept and count ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3.

Ballots with certain errors such as signatures on the return envelopes not matching the ones on the voter rolls have the opportunity to be corrected. Voters have until two days before certification to correct, or cure, their ballot.

Counties must provide the secretary of state an estimate of their remaining unprocessed ballots. Once available, The Times will track those reports as counties update the state each day.

Nov. 3, 2026 10:53 AM PT

The national fight over who controls the House of Representatives has made its way to California.

The congressional map, redrawn with the passage of Proposition 50, includes new districts that favor Democrats. Many districts shifted only slightly, some Republican districts were split, some Democrat districts were strengthened, and in one district, lines were redrawn with no overlap at all with their 2024 boundaries.

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

In the Central Valley, Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat Randy Villegas are competing for the 22nd District. The boundaries of the Republican-held seat were adjusted in the new map to add about 100,000 Fresno residents. The district covers swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, along with a piece of Madera County.

The 48th District, a seat previously held by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, is another one that could flip, according to the Cook Political Report ratings. Democrat Marni von Wilpert is running against Republican Jim Desmond in the district stretching across San Diego and Riverside counties.

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

Polls to start closing in waves across the country, with the earliest closures at 23:00 GMT in Indiana and Kentucky.

Today’s the day, and the race is a dead heat: The final poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (cosponsored by The Times) found that 40% of likely L.A. voters said they supported incumbent Karen Bass, while another 40% supported progressive challenger Nithya Raman for L.A. mayor.

That leaves 19% undecided — and it might be those voters that celebrities are trying to reach with their recent endorsements. Jane Fonda, Yvette Nicole Brown, Anthony Anderson, Cedric the Entertainer, Samuel L. Jackson, Kym Whitley, D.L. Hughley, Dustin Lance Black, George Lopez and Stevie Wonder have all voiced public support for Bass. Meanwhile Bob Odenkirk, Mindy Kaling, Adam Scott, Joel Kim Booster, Caleb Hearon, Poppy Liu, P. J. Byrne, Adam Conover, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Jaboukie Young-White have done the same for Raman.

“Battling the nationwide homeless epidemic is the hardest job in American government,” Jackson said. “Karen Bass walked toward it in one day. Her opponent chaired the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee and canceled meetings on it. It’s easy to run a pilot in one district and call it a model. Try doing it in 15 districts with Washington cutting your funding while the whole country watches. That’s the job, and Karen Bass has done it.”

In the other camp, Kaling said: “There’s one issue that I can speak to from experience: Keeping Hollywood jobs in Los Angeles. Yes, it’s actors and directors, but I’m also talking about the crew, electricians, grips, hair and makeup artists, drivers, set builders, editors — and then there’s the restaurants, the dry cleaners and the small businesses that depend on productions being here. And Nithya’s plan is to fight for that work to stay in town. She wants stronger, dependable state tax incentives, and a film office that actively works to keep production in town.”

There have also been a few gray areas: Bass posted a video of drag queen Trixie Mattel‘s voting PSA to her account, but Mattel didn’t explicitly endorse her as a candidate. “I watch, like, 18 hours of news a day, so it was kind of crazy sitting next to Karen; she’s like my third roommate in my house,” Mattel said. “So shout out to Karen.”

Luxury real estate broker Jason Oppenheim, best known for his role on the reality series “Selling Sunset,” had a discussion with Raman, cross-posted to both of their accounts, and also interviewed her on Graham Stephan’s podcast, “The Iced Coffee Hour.” And Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly held an off-the-record meeting with Raman and figures from Hollywood and other industries at his L.A. office.

Bass’ supporters rolled out a series of coordinated, collaborative videos from her social media accounts somewhat regularly over the past two weeks, several with matching formatting (including Fonda, Anderson, Cedric, Hughley and Lopez). Some of the videos also featured Bass.

In the most-liked celebrity endorsement included here, posted Monday, Lopez said: “Karen Bass is like that tía that shows up with a huge pot of pozole before anybody’s even hungry. She’s gonna keep fighting for us, but también we have to fight for her.”

Raman’s campaign, on the other hand, had a more organic approach, incorporating celebrities into specific events, like National Coming Out Day with Booster (and the drag queen Pickle), “Dungeons & Dragons for the City” fundraiser with gamemaster Brennan Lee Mulligan and an Election Eve Party with Young-White (and comedians Kiran Deol, Jared Goldstein and Brittani Nichols).

Hearon shouted her out while hosting Chappell Roan’s Super Graphic Spectacular fundraiser for the singer’s Midwest Princess Project supporting trans youth and LGBTQ+ communities, and Byrne posted an Instagram story with his son after casting his ballot for Raman.

Raman’s most-liked celebrity endorsement included here was not cross-posted to her account, but rather came from Mulligan’s own get-out-the-vote video. “I am supporting Nithya Raman for mayor in Los Angeles, Marissa Roy for city attorney,” he said with an “I Voted” sticker on his forehead. “And I would say this as well: There’s great candidates all over the country.”

Other celebrities simply encouraged fans to fulfill their civic duty and vote without backing any candidates, while others focused on the California gubernatorial election and key Senate races.

Nov. 3, 2026 11:26 AM PT

OKLAHOMA CITY — Federal authorities charged an Oklahoma City man with sending hundreds of letters containing nonhazardous white powder to public officials ahead of the 2024 and 2026 elections.

The powders turned out to be yeast or flour, though not all letters have been fully tested, the FBI said in a court filing made public Tuesday.

Robin Martin is charged with conveying a hoax and mailing threatening communications. Martin was arrested Monday and was expected to make an appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City.

Online records do not list an attorney who could comment on his behalf, and several relatives didn’t immediately respond to social media messages seeking comment.

Federal authorities announced last month that they were investigating letters with “suspicious substances” that had been mailed to congressional and election offices nationwide and urged recipients to treat the mailings as “potentially hazardous.”

The packages led to the evacuation in October of election offices in Louisiana and Oklahoma. Numerous states, from Idaho to Florida, said their election offices either received letters or had them intercepted by the Postal Service.

Investigators believe more than 700 mailings appeared to be associated with the same sender. They were addressed to election officials, members of Congress, pollsters, news media and federal law enforcement, FBI agent David Cole said in an affidavit.

The investigation stretched back to 2024 when multiple election officials in every state reported mail with a white substance and a three-page letter declaring war, the FBI said. Some bore ominous messages that could only be read under ultraviolet light.

The sender wrote a return address as “U.S.T.E.A., United States Traitor Elimination Army, Takoma Park, MD.”

A common message in the 2024 and 2026 mailings was a warning to recipients about upcoming arrests for treason “or worse!!”

The FBI said it has video evidence of Martin’s car stopping in October at mailboxes at Postal Service sites in Oklahoma City, Dallas and San Antonio. Investigators also gleaned his fingerprints from a letter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel, whose first name was written as “Kashyap.”

The Democratic Socialists of America apparently assisted the FBI in the investigation. The FBI said it believes Martin, posing as someone using the name George Livingston, posted a message to a DSA email list in October, warning that members were traitors and eligible for arrest for treason if they vote in the Nov. 3 election.

White and Hollingsworth write for the Associated Press. AP journalist Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed reporting.

The Justice Department sent a last-minute surge of election monitors into Los Angeles Tuesday morning, hours after losing the latest legal tug-of-war over California’s 20,000 contested ballots.

In a pair of decisions late Monday night, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published and then quickly rescinded a decision that would have allowed the Trump administration to prosecute election workers who processed contested ballots, even after their demands to segregate them were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Then, as dawn broke on Election Day, the Justice Department announced it was sending out “1,000 election monitors and observers” across the U.S. in what it called “the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history.”

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Detroit were among the dozens of jurisdictions where monitors were sent under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — legislation the President Trump has worked tirelessly to gut across both his administrations.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the federal monitors “will be at polling locations,” but that the department is not “giving out precinct details.”

The move was widely seen as an intimidation tactic.

“They’re not doing this to make sure that there are free and fair elections,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the Supreme Court. “They’re doing this for nakedly partisan reasons, and the federal government shouldn’t be allowed do that.”

California officials were quick to hit back.

“We’ll have our observers on site keeping an eye on your monitors to ensure the integrity of California’s free, fair, safe, secure, accurate, and reliable elections,” Bonta vowed on social media as the spat escalated early Tuesday morning.

The Justice Department said it would also send monitors to San Diego, Sacramento and Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sudden influx of election monitors and the dramatic about-face in appellate court are the latest wild swings in the Golden State’s protracted midterm brawl with the federal government — a fight that has captured national attention amid growing concerns of election interference by the Trump administration.

“On the eve of Election Day, Defendants insist they must be free to use their prosecutorial powers to do what they could not through their applications for injunctions in this court and the Supreme Court,” 9th Circuit Chief Judge Mary Helen Murguia wrote in her dissent to the initial 2-1 ruling, which appeared just after 8 p.m. Monday night.

“The district court properly attempted to put a stop to Defendants’ efforts to intimidate election workers into abandoning lawful state election procedures through spurious threats of prosecution,” Murguia wrote.

By 11 p.m. the decision had been reversed, with the court setting aside its previous ruling while it reviewed the case with a larger en banc panel.

It was the latest legal blow for the administration in what had been a months long effort to claw back ballots it claims may have been issued to noncitizens, while publicly threatening to prosecute election workers who process them when its efforts were rebuffed in court.

Last week, the Justice Department sent criminal grand jury subpoenas to election workers in Los Angeles seeking reams of data related to efforts to comply with its demands.

Unions and voting rights groups sued in federal court, saying the efforts amounted to “a coordinated campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce” civil servants into holding back legitimate ballots.

On Friday, after the 9th Circuit had ruled for California in the ballot claw-back case, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco issued a blistering order blocking the Justice Department from dangling criminal liability over elections workers or demanding voters be stripped from the rolls.

“In the lead-up to the election, high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in administering the ongoing midterm 2026 election,” Thompson wrote.

“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” the judge wrote.

Then, on Monday afternoon, mere minutes after it was asked to consider the question, the Supreme Court returned an unsigned decision in California’s favor, appearing, at least briefly, to foreclose further efforts to stop those ballots being counted.

“This latest decision should put an end to the Administration’s attempt to disrupt California’s elections through emergency court orders,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in response to the Supreme Court decision Monday.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the late-breaking 9th Circuit decision spurred a flurry of confusion and conjecture just hours before polls were set to open in the country’s most populous state.

In the wake of the court rulings, Segall and others said the Trump administration’s move to deploy election monitors was part of a troubling pattern. The law professor worried the Supreme Court could weaponize what remains of the Voting Rights Act to benefit the president and his party.

“So far they’ve said we’re going to cut the legs off [the Act] so as not to help Democrats, but the next iteration of this will be to use the Voting Rights Act to help the Republican Party,” he said.

Nearly two-thirds of California voters are worried that the Trump administration may try to halt the vote count early, stoking disquieting levels of election anxiety on the eve of the midterms, a new poll shows.

Those fears arise as the Justice Department continues its aggressive efforts to challenge or wrest control over state voting processes, including threatening to prosecute uncooperative elections officials in California, after years of baseless claims of widespread election fraud by the Republican president.

Among California voters, 63% worry that the federal government may attempt to stop the counting of votes in California and other states in the days following Tuesday’s election, according to the poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times. Around half of voters — 49% — are not confident that the state’s election will be free of federal interference, the survey found.

“Both of the items, together, I think should raise alarms for threats against democracy in California,” said Matt Barreto, director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project.

California voters also have grievances with the state’s ballot propositions, a slate of 14 measures that include new taxes on billionaires and funding for cancer research. More than 8 in 10 of the state’s likely voters said that this year’s propositions were worded in a way that made them hard to understand and that special interests groups have too much influence over which propositions appear on the ballot.

Those concerns were shared across partisan lines, unlike how Californians felt about the threats posed to integrity of elections by the Trump administration. The high level of fear in the state reflects the fact that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 in California.

While 58% of Democrats are not confident the election will be free of federal interference, 27% of Republicans feel the same way, according to the poll. Similarly, 85% of Democrats are worried about the vote count being halted, compared with 22% of Republicans. A majority of California voters not affiliated with either party also expressed fears of interference by the Trump administration.

“I think voters are reflecting the reality,” Barreto said. “For the past month, the president and the Department of Justice have been attempting to directly interfere and take over California elections and voters are aware of that.”

The Department of Justice has sued California requesting the state set aside some 20,000 ballots the federal government has flagged as being potentially from noncitizens. Federal prosecutors have threatened criminal actions against election officials who refuse to comply. On Monday, the Trump administration escalated its effort to discount the flagged California ballots to the Supreme Court, which rejected its request to set aside the ballots.

Over the weekend, Newsom sent a letter to U.S. District Court judges across California sharing his “grave concerns federal agents will seek search warrants to seize ballots and ballot materials before the election results are certified” and urging judges not to comply.

Newsom wrote that President Trump’s history of weaponizing the Department of Justice to carry out his partisan agenda supports “legitimate concerns about further attempts to disenfranchise voters and undermine election integrity.” Newsom said this could include an attempt to prevent the certification of California’s election.

Concerns have also been raised about the presence of immigration agents around voting centers and performing door knocks and street stops to try to identify voter fraud.

Court rulings have recently dealt a series of blows to the Trump administrations efforts to intervene in the state’s voting process. Nonetheless, distress over election integrity remains extremely high, according to the poll.

Fears of federal meddling in the election are slightly higher among voters of color; 64% of Black voters and 54% of Latino voters said they are not confident the election will be free of interference, compared with 44% of white non-Hispanic voters, according to the poll.

Voters of color tend to lean more liberal, but the historic and ongoing efforts to disenfranchise minorities probably also contribute to this disparity, Barreto said.

Black voters have been a target of voter suppression efforts from the post-Civil War Reconstruction era through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he said. More recently, the Trump administration has singled out Latino Californians, accusing them of being noncitizens and voting illegally.

Professor Eric Schickler, co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, described the level of alarm over election integrity in California and across the nation as without precedent.

He noted that both parties are distrustful about different things, with Republicans focused on allegations of fraudulent voting and Democrats fearful that the federal government may attempt to overturn results.

The last time America saw extreme political polarization paired with widespread claims of illegitimacy over election outcomes was during the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, when there were widespread accusations of voter suppression in the South and of people voting illegally in the North, he said.

“That hasn’t happened really in the United States for well over a century now,” Schickler said, “so what we’re seeing now is really unusual, especially for a modern and long-lived democracy.”

Schickler said his highest level of concern with possible federal efforts to halt California’s vote count would be with congressional races. A handful of California races could play a pivotal role in deciding which party takes control of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, he said current polling data do not indicate that a Democratic path to victory in the lower house will rely on Golden State voters.

Trump in the past has criticized California for being one of the slowest states in the nation to finish tabulating its election results due to its large population and high number of voters who mail in their ballots. He’s also complained about late arriving ballots. Votes processed after election day in California typically contain a higher proportion of Democratic ballots than those processed on election night.

In addition, to highlight the unprecedented anxiety many California voters are feeling, the poll also shines a light on frustrations voters have with the state’s ballot propositions. Among likely voters, 82% agree that the wording of this year’s propositions made them hard to understand and 82% also agree that special interest groups have largely taken over which initiatives qualify.

In addition, 62% of likely voters feel that there are too many propositions on this year’s ballot. There are 14 statewide propositions, with many voters also seeing additional initiatives at a county and city level.

“The initiative is meant to be an outlet for voters when special interest groups lead legislators to fail to respond to their concerns,” Schickler said. “But now most voters believe the initiative process is itself too beholden to special interests.”

In the last 20 years, California’s ballot initiative campaigns have become increasingly controlled by large corporations or union groups. Part of this is due to the fact that it takes at least $50 million to run an effective campaign capable of reaching the state’s 23 million registered voters, making it challenging, but not impossible, to run a grassroots campaign, Barreto said.

The poll surveyed 2,787 registered voters in California from Oct. 19 to 25 in English and Spanish and has an overall estimated margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. Among likely voters, the estimated margin of error is about 3 percentage points in either direction.

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

For all their dominance, California Democrats will emerge from Tuesday’s election facing considerable challenges.

As polls show nearly 6 out of 10 Californians believe the state is going in the wrong direction and even more anticipate bad financial times ahead, the state’s new governor and legislators will have to confront some chronic problems, including a severe budget deficit, housing unaffordability, homelessness, and rising energy and insurance costs.

They will also have to grapple with difficult decisions on whether the state can provide Medi-Cal healthcare to low-income residents, how to make the state more resilient to climate change, and who pays for wildfire damage.

“There’s not going to be a long honeymoon period,” said Mark Baldassare, the survey director at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Californians are in a “pretty grumpy mood,” Baldassare said. Although their dissatisfaction is mostly hyperpartisan, with Democrats pointing the finger at President Trump and Congress as Republicans blame Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sacramento legislators, he said, a majority of Californians are worried about the state of the economy and want to see better government performance.

A construction worker on a new home under construction at the Taylor Morrison Avalon at Cypress.

(Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Affordability and housing

For voters, a key concern is unaffordability. More than half of Californians rank cost of living, inflation and the economy — along with housing cost and availability — as the most important issues facing California today.

The state has long suffered from a housing shortage, driven largely by local zoning restrictions, high construction costs and lengthy permitting bureaucracy. Newsom made housing a centerpiece of his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, initially pledging to build 3.5 million homes by 2025. He has largely fallen short of that goal.

Since Newsom took office in 2019, about 692,000 homes have been built across the state.

“I don’t know if anyone sees a new direction to go,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego. California Democrats have passed a slew of laws designed to solve the housing crisis and spur home building, he said, but although they have helped at the margins, prices keep creeping up.

The median price of a California home has risen from about $570,000 in 2018 to $900,000 in 2026.

Even if California’s housing woes are partly a product of its successful economy, Kousser said, “that’s no solace for anyone trying to make the rent or have a place to live, so these will remain defining problems for the next governor.”

Before the governor can do anything, voters will decide whether to pass a series of consequential propositions on housing and taxes.

Proposition 1 would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion for low-income and veteran housing, and Proposition 37 would allow the state to amass a $25-billion down payment assistance program for middle-class households. Proposition 45 would enable the state to overhaul the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up reviews for housing, roads and water projects — a proposal that leaves many torn between protecting the environment and wanting more affordable housing.

“There are going to be a series of difficult choices that Californians will have to make,” Baldassare said.

Budget woes

One of the governor’s first challenges out of the gate will be submitting a state budget in January to legislators.

This fiscal year, California has an estimated $18.5-billion operating deficit, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. By the end of the year, the office predicts the state’s “wall of debt” to balloon to about $29 billion — even as the state’s economy and revenue have grown.

Lee Ohanian, a professor of economics at UCLA, said the major issue California faces is that the state budget has expanded about 75% in the last eight years. This translates to a 40% increase when adjusted for inflation.

California’s budget growth is particularly alarming, Ohanian said, considering politicians have had limited success in addressing major challenges such as homelessness and had delayed maintenance of public road and water infrastructure.

“It would have been one thing if that 75% increase had fixed all those issues,” Ohanian said. “But the next governor and state Legislature are going to be faced with some of the same exigencies that we’ve had for a very long time and they may struggle to pay for those repairs and that deferred maintenance. The question is: Where is the money going to come from?”

In many cases, Ohanian said, California’s ballooning budget has not resulted in higher quality of public services. The state’s school budget per classroom is over $500,000 a year, he noted, well above the national average. But only about 38% of California students met or exceeded state standards in mathematics.

“The Democratic Party just needs to at some point have a come to-Jesus moment,” Ohanian said. “With the amount of money we’re spending, we can do better.”

Leisure Picon, 35, with her 3-year-old daughter, Ivanka Mendoza, for a doctor’s appointment in Lynwood

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Healthcare for the masses?

After pledging in 2018 to bring universal healthcare to California, Newsom set about expanding the state’s Medi-Cal program that began under his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown.

In 2024, California expanded Medi-Cal to cover all income-eligible adults, regardless of immigration status.

Spending on Medi-Cal now accounts for 40% of the state’s total spending and is expected to reach $219 billion this fiscal year — more than double what it was a decade ago. But as the state faces massive cuts in federal Medicaid funding, rising healthcare costs and budget shortfalls, it has begun to roll back that commitment.

Last year, Newsom and state legislators agreed to freeze new enrollment for Medi-Cal benefits for adult immigrants without legal status. Next year, many adults under 60 enrolled in the program will also face a $30 monthly premium.

Democrat Xavier Becerra, who polls predict will beat Republican Steve Hilton by a wide margin, has promised to protect Californians’ health by “cracking down on fraud” and “cutting waste.” Becerra has significant healthcare experience after serving as secretary of Health and Human Services under President Biden, but he has yet to provide specific policy details.

More or less taxes? And who pays?

As Californians become more concerned about affordability, Baldassare said, they are becoming increasingly fiscally conservative. Polls now show a majority of Californians now say that they’d rather pay lower taxes and have fewer services.

But at the same time, about 6 in 10 likely voters also say the wealthiest Californians should pay more taxes.

“There’s a more liberal orientation, but that doesn’t translate into people saying ‘I want to pay higher taxes and have more services,’” Baldassare said. “It just is ‘I want to have more services. I want to be sure that we’re going to have healthcare’… but looking to others to take that fiscal responsibility.”

The midterms offered Californians a chance to weigh in on who should pay. The measure that grabbed the most headlines was Proposition 40, the so-called billionaire tax that would authorize the state to impose a new one-time tax on residents with assets over $1 billion.

But Californians also got to vote on a string of other tax measures that could affect the state’s budget. Propositions 41 and 42 would constrain state government’s ability to raise potential taxes on assets in the future, and Proposition 43 would make it more difficult for special taxes to be increased by local governments.

Proposition 3 would make permanent a temporary tax increase enacted in 2012 on individuals who earn at least $371,000 a year to fund schools and healthcare. Kousser described the original 2012 tax increase as a game-changer that allowed the state to redistribute wealth from rich to poor regions.

“If that political deal falls apart,” he said, “the state will face much more strain.”

Embers blow down a street as the Palisades fire ravages a neighborhood amid high winds in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

(Ethan Swope / Associated Press)

Who pays for wildfires?

As California contends with ever more catastrophic wildfires, Democratic politicians have so far failed to agree on who should be financially liable when a fire is sparked by electrical equipment: Wildfire victims? Insurers? Utility company investors? Ratepayers?

Earlier this year, Newsom pushed a controversial plan to limit utility companies’ liability, arguing that holding them fully financially responsible would raise the state’s already high power bills and thwart utilities’ ability to modernize and meet state clean-energy mandates.

But Newsom’s deal would have shifted more of the cost to property insurers, risking the prospect of rising insurance premiums. After wildfire victims dubbed the plan a corporate bailout, Newsom abandoned most of it and tried to push a compromise that would help fire victims receive quicker compensation. That deal also fell through, however, when the Assembly declined to vote on it

Political experts agree it will be a tricky issue to resolve.

The utility companies are not popular, said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist. Yet to shore up utilities’ risk profile and prevent upward pressure on utility rates, he said, the state will probably have to grant some liability caps.

“We’re going to pay for it through utility rates, or insurance rates, or subsidies from the government,” Stutzman said. “Those are basically the three options — and none of those are going to be that pleasant for the governor or for the Legislature.”

Artificial intelligence

With momentum building for regulating AI, California is in a unique position as the hub of the technology boom.

Politicians in Sacramento face intense lobbying from major tech companies and venture capitalists as they seek to limit AI’s potential for disruption and misinformation without stifling an industry that’s fueling the state’s economic growth — and has provided a critical stream of tax revenue to the state.

But some political experts say the issue may not prove as thorny for California as issues like housing or wildfires.

Most voters oppose data centers in their areas and support AI safeguards. Even some AI pioneers are calling out for more regulation. In recent weeks, Anthropic and OpenAI have written open letters to Newsom urging stronger safety requirements.

“That creates an unparalleled political opportunity for a governor and the state to lead the nation in addressing the issues,” Kousser said.

The election night highs for Palestinian citizens of Israel – Arab-led parties won a record 19 seats – turned into a week of delegitimising rhetoric from Israeli politicians.

Nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra’am and the Joint List, a 64 percent increase on 2022, and adding them to opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc would give an anti-Netanyahu coalition 67 seats; without them, only a unity deal between the main Zionist blocs or another election is possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud alleged the election had been “stolen” by Palestinian parties with unproven claims of Qatari financing. Qatar denied such accusations, as police sources told The Times of Israel that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. By Sunday, election committee chairman Noam Sohlberg declared the election “conducted properly”.

However, the rhetoric delegitimising the Palestinian vote is now being reflected in the coalition negotiations under way. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party, has ruled out Palestinian partners, and Eisenkot has presented four conditions for anyone joining his coalition that would be anathema to the Palestinian parties, including recognising Israel as “a Jewish, democratic, liberal, and egalitarian state”, and mandatory national service for all citizens, including Palestinians.

However, Palestinian politicians continue to express a willingness to back an Eisenkot government from outside – if only to enable the departure of Netanyahu and the far right. Meanwhile, thousands rallied in Tel Aviv for a coalition that includes the parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.

10 days of siege in Hebron

While the Israeli electorate was consumed by the election’s unclear results, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank continued enduring a variety of sieges, most prominently in Hebron. By October 29, Al Jazeera’s data unit counted 10 entrances sealed and about 5,000 people displaced. The city saw at least 120 arrests and 13 businesses demolished by Friday, when the army also blew up the homes of two men it blamed for an attack. Palestinian officials accused the government of using the operation to win settler votes; no Israeli official has said so outright.

On November 2, Governor Khaled Dudin announced the army had withdrawn from Hebron, and that displaced families could return. The Jerusalem Post reported that the army’s chief of staff recommended leaving Hebron before the election, but that Netanyahu refused.

But even with the operation over, the damage remains following more than 120 arrests and daily economic losses the governor put at 10 million to 12 million shekels ($3.2m to $3.8m) in a city responsible for about 40 percent of Palestinian industrial output.

Sieges in homes, expulsions from land

But Hebron was only the largest of many closures that continue to plague the West Bank. In Masafer Yatta, at least 12 villages were cut off, and the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that forces detained 10 teachers from the Jinba school on Sunday.

Yousef Shanaran – who has been besieged in his home with his family in Wadi Rakhim for four weeks now – told Al Jazeera on Monday that settlers have now poisoned the well outside his family home, which the family already was unable to access for days at a time due to the siege. “No water, no food, nothing at all I’ve got,” he said. “Nobody is allowed to bring anything to us.”

These sieges continue as settlers, and increasingly Israeli forces, disrupt the olive harvest across the West Bank. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 397 settler attacks causing casualties or damage in the first 26 days of October – a monthly high since OCHA began tracking such incidents in 2006.

Across villages, a familiar pattern has emerged: settlers attack pickers, the army declares a closed military zone and orders the farmers out, and the harvest is lost.

Amid reports of detentions and deportations of solidarity activists who came to the West Bank to assist in the olive harvest in recent days, activists accused settlers of assaulting three activist journalists at Umm al-Khair, and Israel revoked Brad Lander’s travel authorisation after he was detained while harvesting olives two weeks ago.

Gaza: Deadly ‘ceasefire’ continues

In Gaza, attacks continued on a daily basis as the UN human rights office warned on October 30 that Palestinians are being pushed into an ever smaller area, calling the “Yellow Line” a “kill zone” that is moving westward.

By November 2, the Ministry of Health put the death toll since last year’s ceasefire at 1,593. Sunday was the deadliest day of the week, with at least eight killed. Among those reported killed over the past week:

• Government and police personnel were among those killed. On October 28, a drone strike on a Ministry of Economy facility in al-Mawasi, Rafah, where staff and security personnel had gathered, killed five people, including Ministry of Agriculture official Wajdi Abu Bakr, who died on Sunday from injuries sustained in the attack.
• On November 1, a drone strike in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, killed five men whom Gaza’s Interior Ministry said were police officers.
• Israeli attacks also killed children. Six-year-old Tahani Shalalfeh died of a gunshot wound in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, on October 27, and Yamen Saqr, eight, died on October 30 of wounds from Israeli fire in Khan Younis, according to Wafa and local activists. The young child Zain Owais was reported killed on November 1 with his father, Mohammed Ali Owais, and a third man in a strike near Taj Mall in Gaza City.
• On October 27, a young man was killed in an air strike in west Rafah, and a member of the Bseiso family died of earlier wounds in Gaza City, Gaza Now reported. Mohammad al-Bayouk was killed in Khan Younis on October 28, and Mohammed al-Najjar was killed near Jabalia on Thursday.
• On Friday, the body of a 47-year-old man killed in an air strike at al-Waha, north of Gaza City, was recovered, Wafa reported.
• Ibrahim Saeed died on Sunday of wounds from tank fire in al-Musaddar, and Yusuf Abu Younis died Monday of wounds from a drone strike in Khan Younis the day before, according to local activist Hamza al-Masri.
• On Monday, Mahmoud Qaffa and Asaad Qeshta were killed in separate air strikes in Khan Younis and Ibrahim al-Saayida, 40, in al-Musaddar, according to Wafa and Haaretz.

Israeli authorities claimed many of those killed this week were Hamas fighters, though no evidence was provided. Among those were Diaa Abu al-Rous, killed north of Nuseirat on Saturday, and Mohammed Qudeih, killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis the same day, who the military claimed were members of Hamas’s Nukhba Forces; Palestinian reports describe Abu al-Rous as a teacher.

Such killings take place with winter closing in and humanitarian conditions struggling to improve: two infant girls died of burns in a tent fire in al-Mawasi on Friday, and the shelter picture is dire, with Gaza’s Social Development Ministry saying about 200,000 tents are needed, yet only dozens have arrived due to Israeli entry restrictions.

With no hospitals in Gaza fully functioning, the Red Crescent warned on Monday that the health system is at risk of collapse after 26 hospitals went out of service – with fuel shortages threatening the remaining facilities.

Top officials in California are bracing for unprecedented election interference from the Trump administration in coming days, including potential ballot seizures.

They are warning the public about such actions in striking messages casting President Trump and U.S. Department of Justice officials as threats to the vote and to American democracy. They have begged federal judges to reject warrant requests and hold the line against lawless probes. They have deployed armies of election lawyers and volunteer monitors, particularly to areas where congressional races could be close.

“California is dead serious about the security of [Tuesday’s] midterm elections. If Trump tries to meddle with California’s ballots, you can be sure as hell that we’ll prosecute those who help him,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. “Californians deserve a free and fair election, and that is exactly what we’ll deliver.”

Those efforts, echoing others from Democrats in Congress and liberal officials in other political battlegrounds, are like nothing seen before in the U.S., and in response to an equally extraordinary campaign by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections based on claims — espoused by Trump for years — that voting in places such as California has been corrupted by widespread fraud.

On Monday, Justice Department officials redoubled their effort to block about 20,000 California ballots from voters who they allege may be noncitizens by appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, after lower courts rejected the request — and as another judge in a separate challenge barred them Monday from demanding California officials segregate the same ballots. The Supreme Court denied the request.

They and local partners also rolled out criminal charges against seven noncitizens accused of illegally voting or registering — bringing the total number of lawful permanent residents recently charged with election-related offenses in the state to 35.

Beyond California, the Trump administration is trying to preemptively negate any win by the Democrat in the Alaska Senate race, based on claims that the presence on ballots of a third candidate with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) is confusing voters.

The incumbent senator is identified as such on the ballot, and Alaska courts have already rejected similar challenges. A federal judge dismissed the administration’s suit Sunday.

The White House and the Justice Department have said they are simply trying to ensure American citizens’ votes aren’t diluted by illegitimate votes from noncitizens, and that Democrats aren’t able to steal the Alaska race by intentionally confusing voters.

But Democratic leaders have alleged that the lawsuits are part of a broader Trump administration effort to establish a “pretext” to challenge the outcome of Tuesday’s midterm elections if they don’t like the results.

On Saturday, Newsom wrote to federal district court judges across the state, urging them to deny any Trump administration requests for judicial warrants that would allow them “to seize ballots, election records, or certified voting technology while an election is underway and before the results are certified.”

Newsom wrote that he has “grave concerns” that federal agents will “quickly pivot” to making such requests in criminal courts given their mounting losses on other fronts.

The state’s “strict chain of custody, documentation, and retention laws related to ballots and ballot materials ensure any evidence of alleged wrongdoing tied to ballots or ballot materials is preserved and appropriately supervised by a court, so there is no legitimate law enforcement reason to seize ballots, ballot materials, and equipment needed to process and tabulate ballots,” Newsom wrote.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office has been fighting the Trump administration in court — has also been increasingly vocal about his belief that Trump will take increasingly drastic steps to try to control the election results.

“He’s intent on pulling out all the stops, engaging in whatever type of lying, cheating, and stealing is necessary to get the outcome he wants. He starts with the outcome and he backs it out from there, and will do anything seemingly necessary to try to get to the outcome that he wants — instead of letting the facts, and the law, and the votes determine what the outcome is,” Bonta said in an interview on MS NOW that he posted Sunday.

Elections experts point to the administration’s many losses in court as evidence that its efforts are not working, and said most voters won’t experience any problems with casting their ballots.

They said they do have concerns about future efforts by the administration to intervene, including through dramatic steps such as ballot seizures, but whether it takes such steps may hinge on whether the balance of power in the House or Senate depends on the outcome of a small enough number of close races.

If the expected “blue wave” is large and races are not particularly close, it will be more difficult for the Trump administration to sway the outcome in its favor and less likely it will even try to do so — even if Trump publicly rejects the outcome as illegitimate.

In announcing the latest charges, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, and San Luis Obispo County Dist. Atty. Dan Dow said the fight is not partisan. Six of the charges were federal; the seventh was brought by Dow locally.

Dow, the county’s district attorney since 2014 who has denied previous claims that he harbors anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments, last week announced that he was investigating a subset of “63 suspected non-citizens registered to vote” in the county from the broader federal list of 20,000 names statewide. On Monday, he appeared alongside Essayli to announce the one person charged in his county — and said more such cases could be coming.

He said California’s system, which requires registering voters to attest to the fact that they are citizens, is an “honor system” that doesn’t work.

One of those charged federally was Moria Dahan, 35, an Israeli national living in West Hills. Dahan was charged with making false statements on her naturalization application to become a U.S. citizen. Prosecutors alleged she illegally registered to vote, voted in person in 2024, and later falsely stated on naturalization papers, under penalty of perjury, that she had never claimed to be a U.S. citizen or registered to vote in a U.S. election.

Tiffany Feder, Dahan’s attorney, described the issue as a mix-up, and said her client never intended to illegally participate in voting. She said Dahan “was targeted through a very extensive scheme to induce her to register and vote,” and like other green card holders with limited English skills, believed the forms she was filling out were official and required.

“The truth is that the moment we discovered this, at her interview, we promptly withdrew her application for naturalization,” Feder said.

California has more than 23.4 million registered voters — meaning the 20,000 flagged individuals would account for less than one-tenth of 1% of all voters in the state, and the 35 charged a tiny sliver of that. State officials and election experts have pointed to the small numbers of arrests, despite a sweeping probe to find such voters by Essayli and others, as proof such fraud is rare.

Essayli argued the exact opposite Monday — saying the charges were just a “sampling” from the broader list of 20,000 individuals, and part of an effort to force state officials to take that list seriously by moving forward with local law enforcement partners such as Dow instead of waiting on the courts.

“Our goal is not to charge all 20,000 people,” Essayli said. “Our goal is to get California to not count the votes of noncitizens.”

WASHINGTON — After spending a month asking voters to treat the midterms as a vote on him, President Trump closed his monthlong campaign sprint on Monday sounding like a man bracing for defeat.

“For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” Trump said. “But we gave this a very strong shot.”

Still, Trump said he hopes Americans are “ready to do the right thing” and insisted that Republicans could hold on to Congress if voters who buoyed his 2024 victory turn out again. He urged voters to do so, calling this election “the most important midterm, I believe, in our lifetime.” The alternative, he warned, will be a “radical agenda” in Washington as he finishes his last two years in office.

“With your vote, we will decide if these extremists will be given power or not,” Trump said, claiming that the Democratic Party has “nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history.”

The message capped a dizzying campaign push in which Trump made himself the focus of the midterms as he held dozens of rallies in mostly Republican states. In those rallies, he promised $5,000 checks and brighter days ahead to Americans who vote to keep Republicans in control of Congress. But heading into Tuesday, most polls are predicting a Democratic wave amid a voter backlash to Trump’s handling of the economy and a war in Iran.

Democrats are heavily favored to retake power of the House and are leading in all the key states that would be the likeliest to decide which party will control of the Senate, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll released Sunday. But polling can be flawed, as evidenced by forecasts that underestimated Trump’s support in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Trump’s approval rating is near historic lows this time around, the poll found. A separate NBC News poll released Sunday found nearly two-thirds of voters are seeking a change from the direction Trump is leading the country.

This year, early voting has already seen strong turnout, outpacing the last midterm election cycle, a trend that could mean bad news for Republicans. If a Democratic surge materializes, party leaders have vowed to use their potential congressional powers to investigate Trump and his family’s business dealings, with a focus on alleged corruption and economic harm to the American people.

Trump told Fox News on Sunday that if Democrats win control of both chambers he will “become Mr. Veto” and “make deals” with them, but hopes he won’t have to “worry about that.”

On the eve of the election, Trump’s message once again seemed to acknowledged that possibility, but his focus was largely focused on the numerous beautification projects his administration is leading in the nation’s capital.

President Trump holds up an image of algae in the Reflecting Pool as he delivers remarks Monday.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

His final pitch to voters was made in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a landmark his administration has spent months trying, and at times failing, to repair. For the first 20 minutes, he did not mention the election at all. Instead, he flipped through photos of the damaged pool, describing in detail how crews resurfaced and re-caulked its granite, and worked to address the “tremendous algae” that covered the pool.

“Look, it is not an easy thing. The algae is brutal. It forms easily and I don’t think you’ll see too much,” Trump said as he showed a picture of the algae layered over the water. “The green, that’s not grass, that’s algae. It took over the entire pool.”

The renovation has not gone as promised. When he took on the project in April, he said contractors he knew would refinish the pool within weeks for about $1.5 million. The work wrapped up behind schedule at more than 10 times that cost, after algae blooms and a peeling blue liner forced crews to drain it again in July. Trump blamed vandals for the issues, but federal prosecutors in Washington attributed the problems to shoddy workmanship.

Trump spent time listing numerous other renovation projects around the capital, arguing that the construction work shows how his presidency is delivering for the American people.

“Our country is strong, respected and prosperous once more and our capital is cleaner and safer and more spectacular than ever,” Trump said.

His focus on renovation projects drew the attention of Democrats, who argued his message was out of touch with what American voters want from leaders now.

“This is just [what] the median voter wants to hear — an update on various capital improvement projects in the District of Columbia,” Ashley Schapitl, a former Biden Treasury official, posted on X.

It was not the first time Democrats had poked fun at the president’s for being too focused on construction projects. At a rally last week, former President Obama said Trump “should be on HGTV,” ridiculing his ballroom project and the changes he has made to the Rose Garden and the Oval Office.

“He has the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said. “There’s just gold everywhere.”

Trump has bristled at such criticism, insisting that renovations relax him and that he gets them done quickly.

His message on Monday struck a similarly dismissive tone as in other campaign events. Even as voters say they are struggling with the cost of living, Trump has insisted the economy is “booming” and brushed off higher gas prices as a “very small price to pay” for the war in Iran.

The contrast was on display over the weekend at a glitzy Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. As hundreds gathered in the club’s ballroom, eating Alaskan king crab and caviar, Trump showed off the crowd to reporters.

“Look at all my rich members,” Trump told reporters. “They spent all day getting ready. Look at these guys.”

The success of Palestinian-led parties – who won 15% of the vote in Israel’s elections – has created a conundrum for Israel’s leadership: partner with non-Zionists or accept political gridlock. While the bloc led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the most support from Israeli voters, it didn’t win enough seats in Israel’s parliament (Knesset) to build a ruling coalition so far.

Israeli politician Ofer Cassif, a member of one of the Palestinian-led parties, tells host Steve Clemons that the Israeli people “need to understand that the future must be a future of Jewish-Palestinian partnership and not another form of exclusion.”

WASHINGTON  — On the day before the midterm election, Trump administration lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene and set aside ballots from 20,000 California voters who the administration says may not be citizens.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer filed an emergency appeal on Monday.

“The Court should issue a limited injunction directing California to stop commingling suspected illegal ballots with legal ones,” he wrote, “pending completion of the United States’ appeal to the 9th Circuit and further review in this Court.”

He said the court should require “California to segregate mail ballots from persons whom the United States has identified as likely non-citizens. The court should also enter an administrative injunction to that effect while it considers this application.”

It’s not clear whether the court will see this as an emergency.

The appeal goes first to Justice Elena Kagan. She could ask for a response from California, which would take days.

So far, the administration has lost before a federal judge in Los Angeles and twice at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Those judges said that Trump’s lawyers were wrong on the Constitution and that their complaint came too late for this election.

In May, more than 23 million Californians were registered to vote, and the majority lean in favor of Democrats. But Trump claimed again last week “there are hundreds of thousands of bad ballots, bad votes, in California. Millions, in my opinion.”

In mid-October, the Trump administration sued and said federal courts should require California and Los Angeles County to “set aside vote-by-mail ballots from persons identified by the federal government likely to be non-citizens.”

Federal law says that within 90 days of an election, officials may not “systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”

Separately, the Supreme Court also has repeatedly frowned on “late-breaking, court-ordered rule changes” involving elections.

The California court cases have also put a spotlight on the state vs. federal divide in election law.

Usually, federal laws are deemed to be the “supreme law” and override state laws that are in conflict. No one disputes U.S. prosecutors may bring criminal fraud charges against noncitizens who violate a federal law by registering with a state to vote and casting an illegal ballot.

But election rules and procedures are different. The Constitution says “the Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state,” unless Congress acts by law to “alter” its regulations.

The 9th Circuit judges in Friday’s opinion said that “this clause expressly dictates which sovereign has the authority to prescribe the manner in which congressional elections are conducted.”

“If the United States believes different procedures are necessary for vote-by-mail ballots, we believe it should take that suggestion to Congress, not the courts,” said Judges Mark J. Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel P. Sanchez, a Biden appointee.

Dissenting Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, a Trump appointee, called the administration’s proposal to separate the 20,000 ballots a “reasonable request” and a “modest remedy” for the problem of illegal voting.

The majority cited a 2013 opinion written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“The Elections Clause functions as a default provision,” he wrote. “It invests the states with responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections,” unless Congress adopts a different rule.

Scalia spoke for a 7-2 majority that rejected an Arizona law that required voters to show documentary proof of their citizenship when registering to vote. In the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, Congress said voters may register to vote by filling out a form and attesting under oath they are citizens.

California does the same under state law.

Scalia said the federal voter registration law did not allow Arizona to adopt new and stricter rules.

In dissent, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito said they would go farther to protect the states from federal interference in elections.

“Given states’ exclusive authority to set voter qualifications and to determine whether those qualifications are met,” Thomas said the Arizona restriction should have been upheld.
“The Constitution reserves for the States the power to decide who is qualified to vote in federal elections,” Alito added.

Last month, Trump’s prosecutors brought fraud charges against 28 lawful immigrants in California who are alleged to have registered or voted in the past even though they are not citizens. They did so under a 1996 immigration law which made it “unlawful for any alien” to vote in a federal election.

The notion of segregating potentially suspect ballots is not a new issue for the Supreme Court.

In November 2020, Alito agreed with Pennsylvania state officials and said they should set aside late-arriving mail ballots to be counted separately.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state election officials and the state Supreme Court agreed to waive part of the state’s law and allow for counting mail ballots that arrived up to three days late.

Republicans strongly objected. That led to Alito’s order. But in the end, the small number of late votes made no difference because the Democratic candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, decisively won Pennsylvania’s votes and defeated Trump.

The California dispute is different because the state has not changed its voting rules or election procedures. Instead, it is the Trump administration that sought a late change in California’s voting rules and election procedures.

The last day to register to vote online for the Nov. 3 general election was Oct. 19. You still can register to vote, however, through the “same day” voter registration process.

Here’s what you need to know.

Who can register to vote in California?

You must be a United States citizen and a California resident, 18 years or older on election day, not serving a state or federal prison term for a felony and not deemed mentally incompetent by a court.

How to register via the ‘same day’ voter registration process

If you missed the registration deadline, you can register as a conditional voter through the same-day voter registration process.

Eligible citizens who need to register or re-register to vote within 14 days of an election can complete this process at county elections offices, polling places or vote centers.

You’ll need to re-register to vote if you’ve changed your:

• name
• residence address or mailing address
• political party

If you’ve become a U.S. citizen fewer than 15 days before the election, you may register to vote by visiting your county elections office anytime before the polls close on election day. You must bring proof that you are a U.S. citizen and sign a form saying you are eligible to vote in California.

For more information, contact your county elections office; a complete list of contact information for each county office can be found here.

What documentation will I need to complete the registration process?

The application requires a state driver’s license or California identification card number, or you can use the last four numbers on your Social Security card.

If you don’t have any of those, you still can register. You’ll be assigned a unique identifier to validate your registration.

Here’s how that information is verified:

• California ID numbers are matched with Department of Motor Vehicles records.
• Social Security numbers are matched with Social Security Administration records.
• Unique identifiers are verified by election officials.

What if I need a guide or voting instructions in another language?

Voters can choose to get election information in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Thai or Vietnamese by calling the phone numbers listed here or by using these online options to get help.

Where can I complete the ‘same day’ voter registration process?

You can visit an early voting location. Now through Nov. 2, in-person voting centers are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office.

You also can complete the same-day voter registration process on election day. All polling locations are open on election day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

What’s a provisional ballot and when will my vote be counted?

With same-day registration, you are “conditionally” registered to vote and your ballot is provisional.

The provisional ballot is a regular ballot that is placed in a special envelope prior to being put in the ballot box.

This just means that elections officials must confirm that you are registered to vote in that county and that you did not already vote in that election. After that information is confirmed, your ballot will be processed and counted.

More election news

On Tuesday, Americans head to the polls for the United States midterm elections, held halfway through a president’s four-year term. Voters will choose all 435 members of the US House of Representatives and 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats. The voting will decide which party controls Congress for the next two years.

Although the president’s name won’t appear on the ballot, the vote is widely seen as a verdict on the presidency, and the president’s party almost always pays the price.

In 18 of the 20 midterms held from 1946 to 2022, voters took House seats away from the party in control of the White House. The average loss was 26 seats. Only Bill Clinton’s Democrats in 1998 and George W Bush’s Republicans in 2002 bucked the trend.

Political scientists call this the “presidential penalty”, or the “midterm penalty”. The president’s party tends to lose seats simply because it holds power as voters use the midterms to put a check on the White House.

The House: 18 losses in 20 midterms

The chart below shows how many House seats the president’s party has won or lost in each midterm since 1946 from Harry S Truman to Joe Biden.

Democratic presidents have suffered the biggest midterm defeats since 1946. On average, their party has lost about 29 House seats in a midterm, compared with about 23 under Republican presidents.

The largest loss came in 2010, two years after Barack Obama became the first African American elected president, when Democrats lost 64 House seats and Republicans took control of the chamber. The Democrats under Truman lost 56 seats in 1946, and under Clinton, they lost 54 in 1994, each time losing control of the House.

The worst Republican defeats came under Dwight D Eisenhower when the party lost 50 seats in 1958 and Gerald Ford when it lost 48 in 1974. Donald Trump’s first midterm in 2018 cost Republicans 42 seats and control of the House.

Big losses often cost the president’s party its majority. In seven of the 20 midterms since 1946 (1946, 1954, 1994, 2006, 2010, 2018 and 2022), the House changed hands.

The Senate: 13 losses in 20 midterms

The president’s party has lost Senate seats in 13 of the 20 midterms since 1946 but lost control of the chamber in only six: 1946, 1954, 1986, 1994, 2006 and 2014.

Unlike the House of Representatives, where every seat is up for election every two years, only about a third of the Senate’s 100 seats are contested in each cycle because senators serve six-year terms and their elections are staggered. That means which states are voting can matter as much as the national mood.

Eisenhower’s Republicans suffered the biggest Senate loss in the period, giving up 13 seats in 1958. Truman’s Democrats lost 12 in 1946, and Obama’s Democrats lost nine in 2014, handing control of the chamber to Republicans.

At times, the two chambers have moved in opposite directions. In 1982, Ronald Reagan’s Republicans lost 26 House seats but gained one in the Senate. In 2018, Trump’s Republicans lost the House but added a Senate seat, and in 2022, Biden’s Democrats lost the House while gaining one seat in the Senate.

These split results show that a backlash against the president does not land evenly across Congress. A party can hold its ground on a favourable Senate map while losing competitive House districts.

What does it mean to lose the House or Senate?

Losing seats and losing control are not the same thing. Lyndon Johnson’s Democrats lost 47 House seats in 1966 but kept their majority. Twenty years later, Reagan’s Republicans lost only four House seats but lost the Senate after an eight-seat setback.

Control of the chambers decides who sets the agenda and passes legislation. A bill must pass both chambers before it reaches the president for his approval or veto, so an opposition majority in either can block the president’s plans.

A House majority can also mean a party is able to launch investigations and impeach a president while a Senate majority can reject the president’s nominees, including federal judges, who serve for life.

This year, Democrats need to gain three seats to win the House and four to win the Senate. A 50-50 split in the Senate would leave Republicans in control because Vice President JD Vance may cast tie-breaking votes.