The “blue tsunami” in the 2026 midterm elections flipped control of both the House and the Senate last week, bringing a wave of Democrats, some with backgrounds in the arts.
The influx of newly elected officials — artists, musicians, dancers and even a former Prada model among them — comes just weeks before Congress will take another look at the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget, which requests $1.5 trillion in defense spending and, once again, seeks to nix funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Last year, Congress intervened against some of the arts cuts, but that didn’t stop the administration from terminating hundreds of NEA grants worth more than $27 million nationwide.
Next year’s massive reconfiguration of power, however, brings with it a number of elected officials with creative backgrounds, some of whom even incorporated music, dance and art into their campaigns and promises to constituents.
U.S. Representative-elect Claire Valdez, says art is the first language she knew. “It is a language that crosses all kinds of divides and gives voice to something that is otherwise inexpressible and has tremendous power to change,” she said. “I think that transformation is needed now more than ever.”
Here’s a look at some of the elected officials who have a little razzle-dazzle on their resumes.
Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand
Then-model Rob Sand walks the runway in the Prada menswear spring 2003 ready to wear runway show in Milan, Italy.
(Davide Maestri / Penske Media via Getty Images)
It’s been 20 years since Iowa chose a Democrat to govern the state, but Iowans just elected a former Prada model to strut into office next year. The New York Times profiled Sand in 2019, noting that the Brown University and University of Iowa College of Law graduate doesn’t like to talk about his days modeling in Paris and Milan. Back then, he worked his way through college and ultimately earned a J.D. degree.
The cat’s out of the bag, though, and Sand seems to have surrendered to the social media attention and even leaned in. “I’m disappointed to learn images of me modeling for Prada are circulating,” he wrote alongside a grayscale fashion editorial. “Because this shot from Italian Vogue is much better.” He also launched a “My Model Governor” tee, featuring a chic twenty-something Sand showing off his sought-after bone structure.
It’s been about two decades since Sand, repped by IMG Models at the time, graced the catwalk for Giuliano Fujiwara and other high fashion designers. After college, he traded the runway for a courtroom, and in 2018, was elected state auditor as a Democrat, serving two terms. The now 44-year-old governor-elect appealed to Iowan voters using a campaign centered on public education, affordable living, anti-corruption and bipartisanship. His campaign slogan is: “Not redder or bluer, but better and truer.” He’s a Jesus-loving hunting enthusiast whose first job was catching chickens, and he insists that he’s more interested in public service than two-party politics.
Texas’ new Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson
Texas state Sen. Nathan Johnson speaks against a bill that would add new abortion restrictions in Austin, Texas.
(Eric Gay / Associated Press)
From the top of the ballot to the bottom, Republicans lost their long-held grip on Texas last week. Democrat Nathan Johnson was elected Texas attorney general, an office held by Republicans for 28 years. This isn’t the first time Johnson flipped Texas either. Back in 2018, he was elected to the Texas state Senate, and while he’s impressed Texans with promises to root out corruption, restore traditional consumer protection and shift away from the high-profile culture wars of prior officeholders, he claims glory for something else:
“In the 2000s, I wrote the musical scores wall-to-wall of 67 episodes of ‘Dragon Ball Z’ and five of the movies,” he told Texas Sen. Taylor Rehmet in a video posted to Facebook. “It was a lot of fun … And even then, it got me street cred with my kids’ friends, and it gave me a creative outlet and a cultural connection that very few people had the opportunity to have.”
The Texas Attorney General-elect worked on “Dragon Ball Z: The World’s Strongest,” “Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might,” “Dragon Ball Z: Broly — Second Coming,” “Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn” and “Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon.” He also ran a music production company and composed classical stage music.
Speaking to Texas Standard after the midterm results were in, Johnson chalked up the blue wave to a “national revolt against meanness, against hateful speech and divisiveness.”
“People indulge in those sorts of things when everything else is feeling great,” he said. “But at a time when corruption is confronting us in the face and people are super anxious about their economic future, there was a whole-scale rejection of Republican leadership.”
U.S. Representative-elect Bobby Pulido
Bobby Pulido, a Latin Grammy winner, sings during his last concert, La Última Desvelada, at the Bert Ogden Arena.
(Gabriel V. Cardenas/For The Times)
Another Democrat elected in the Lone Star state is the Latin Grammy-winning Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, who will represent Texas’ 15th Congressional District. Pulido said he’s willing to trade his three-decade stage career and take a hefty pay cut to step into public service. He won 62% of the total vote of Texans across the Rio Grande Valley and central Texas on a platform of affordability, healthcare access, immigration reform and reconnecting with working-class Latino voters.
“I give you my word tonight that I will never forget where I came from,” Pulido recently said during an Oct. concert, “La Última Desvelada” (The Last Restless Night), in his hometown of Edinburg, Texas, per TejanoNation. “I did music for me, but I’m running for Congress for you … Because I’m not going to Washington to serve a political party, I’m going to serve you.”
Pulido defeated Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz, who took jabs at his showbiz background during her campaign. “This election isn’t about who you want performing at your niece’s quinceañera,” she said earlier this year, according to the Texas Tribune.
The Tejano star responded by performing at quinceañeras across the congressional district, which only boosted his popularity in the region. “In south Texas, a quinceañera isn’t just a pachanga. It’s a rite of passage that brings family and neighbors together,” said Pulido in a TikTok clip in March. “And honestly, that’s exactly what this campaign is about. We want to bring people together, not tear them apart.”
U.S. Representative-electClaire Valdez
Congressional candidate Claire Valdez won her race against Brooklyn borough President Antonio Reynoso in the New York 7th District to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.).
(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
Valdez, a visual artist and union organizer, was elected to represent New York’s 7th Congressional District with a campaign message that espoused the need for artists to “change our political, our economic, and our social order.” Valdez’s political aspirations are personal: She moved to New York to pursue a career as an artist and quickly realized the financial realities of making art under capitalism. Art should never be a luxury for the rich, she argues, but a necessity for all.
“This district represents more artists than almost any other district in the country, and yet we live in a city where it’s almost impossible to have the studio space, the time off, the money, the resources, the healthcare to make the art that we need in our society to shine,” Valdez said in a campaign speech earlier this year.
“I did not come to politics through electoral ambitions … I came to this place via my union. My union taught me that when people come together, we can organize for incredible things. We can move literal mountains, and we can beat back all the other people who make our lives a living hell, who have made this city unaffordable and impossible to thrive in, impossible to be an artist in. We deserve and demand a life of dignity, beauty for every single person, no matter where you are from. That’s what’s on the table, my friends.”
Valdez worked as a program assistant in the visual arts department at Columbia University, where she became a union leader. In 2024, she was elected to the New York State Assembly to represent the 37th District in Queens. Last week, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani backed the candidate, who won 83% of the vote.
Los Angeles Mayor-electNithya Raman
Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman arrives with supporters standing nearby to claim victory in the Los Angeles mayoral race.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman was first elected to the L.A. City Council in 2020, and last week, she became the first challenger to defeat an incumbent Los Angeles mayor in more than two decades. While Raman didn’t turn L.A. blue, the democratic socialist did beat Mayor Karen Bass, a more moderate Democrat, turning the city a deeper, more progressive shade of blue.
Raman campaigned on a platform centered on housing affordability, public transit expansion, street safety, and a major overhaul of how the city approaches homelessness, but she also has a unique inside perspective on issues that plague Angelenos who work in entertainment. Her husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, is a television writer and producer, with a resume stacked with popular shows including “Modern Family” and “30 Rock.” The two met as undergrads at Harvard, where Raman was active in the university’s arts scene, and contributed to student productions as a designer and choreographer. The two broke up but reconnected on the picket line during the 2007-08 Writers Guild Strike.
According to a profile in the Harvard Crimson, Raman studied classical dance with renowned Bharatanatyam dancer Leela Samson in Chennai, India, and toured with her dance company after she graduated in the early aughts. The mayor-elect told the outlet that she still follows dance when her schedule allows.
“I don’t just watch Indian classical dance, I watch all kinds of dance,” Raman said. “I’m a dance aficionado, and when I’m not busy on the campaign trail, I try and attend dance programs and performances.”
Raman took the stage late on election night during her party on the plaza outside the Greek Theatre, and asked the crowd: “Will you all get on the dance floor with me?” In response to the applause, she said, “Yes, we will dance. We will dance!”
Just 23 days after breaking his arm, Kalyn Ponga returned to inspire New Zealand to a 34-10 victory in a pulsating encounter with Tonga as they reached their first World Cup final since 2013.
Ponga had been named initially in reserve and then as one of the interchange players in the build-up to this contest – and the expectation was that he would be eased back into action and play a limited role.
Instead, head coach Stacey Jones stunned many with his decision to include Ponga in New Zealand’s starting 13 but was repaid in full as the Newcastle Knights talisman starred on home turf at the McDonald Jones Stadium, in New South Wales,
Ponga’s impact from full-back was almost immediate as he sent Briton Nikora over in the right corner inside four minutes.
He was also involved in the Kiwis’ second try of the game – as his contest with his opposite number Lehi Hopoate was crucial to Dane Gagai grounding the ball.
And while the swirling wind made conditions almost unplayable at times, he repeatedly gathered high kicks and made several telling defensive contributions.
One of those included throwing himself in the way of Tonga’s juggernaut second row Demitric Vaimauga to prevent a certain try, while his ability to stall Hopoate’s run and prevent him from offloading to Isaiya Katoa stopped another at a key stage with New Zealand only 12-10 ahead.
The prelude to this fixture was almost every bit as gripping as the main event.
Tonga’s traditional war dance, the Sipi Tau, was met by New Zealand’s Haka and a long stand-off between the players provided the perfect backdrop to a contest brimming with athleticism, power and superb ball-handling skills.
For the second week running, Tonga fans turned out in force with the stands a sea of red.
And they witnessed their side’s participation in a wonderful advert for rugby league with Jojo Fifita scoring two excellent tries.
However, the match ultimately swung away from them in a five-minute period after the break when New Zealand’s outstanding centre Casey McLean surged over in the left corner and the wily Jahrome Hughes darted in to score.
On this occasion, Kristian Woolf’s team, who effectively torpedoed England’s hopes of reaching the last four with a 30-12 in their opening match on 17 October, were unable to stage the same sort of fightback that helped them defeat their Pacific Island rivals Samoa last weekend.
With the scoreboard, time and a gale-force wind against Tonga, Xavier Willison punished them further when they failed to gather a short drop out.
And when Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad superbly grounded Erin Clark’s kick, it put the gloss on a fine New Zealand performance.
Amid a hum of speculation about how the mass commutation could help or hurt his presidential prospects in 2028, the Democratic politician sent a clear, defining message to Americans about where he stands and the type of leader they could expect.
“If my job is just to read the polls, you can have an AI chatbot as governor,” Newsom said in an interview Friday. “I was hired for my judgment, and like it or hate it, that was why I think I was given this privilege, and that’s the responsibility of a leader. My job’s leadership, not stewardship. It’s not management. It’s to lead.
The Democratic governor said those kinds of decisions are “sort of embedded in my DNA.” About a decade ago he said he was pushed to describe his core motivation. Though he admits it sounds trite, the governor said: “It’s to stand up for ideals and strike out against injustice.”
The death penalty, he said, is not handed out equally. He quoted Bryan Stevenson, the founder of Equal Justice Initiative, who said you’re better off being rich and guilty than poor and innocent.
“I couldn’t not have done this,” Newsom said. “There was an easy out, but … I would the rest of my life felt, you know, ashamed of myself.”
Commuting the death sentences of all 548 state prisoners awaiting execution pushes the bounds of his authority once again. California voters have twice rejected ballot measures to abolish the death penalty, first in 2012 and again in 2016, and Newsom’s decision overrides the will of the courts and state laws that permit capital punishment.
Under the state Constitution, Newsom has the power to commute about 40% of the death sentences on his own. The rest of the cases, which involve prisoners who had a felony conviction on their record prior to receiving a death sentence, or racked up additional crimes while awaiting execution, require approval from the California Supreme Court — a constitutional check to ensure the governor’s actions are not an abuse of power.
The court rejected 10 commutations handed out by Gov. Jerry Brown in his last full month in office — all of which involved people convicted of multiple felonies — and did not provide an explanation for the action.
Despite Newsom’s push to commute all death sentences, capital punishment remains legal in California and prosecutors can continue seeking that punishment.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman speaks during a news conference at the Hall of Justice last month.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said until the law is changed, his office “will continue to evaluate every death penalty-eligible case with the rigor, care and restraint these decisions demand.”
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper urged Newsom to reconsider the commutations.
“Deputy Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis Jr. should be alive today, enjoying long and healthy lives with their families,” Cooper said in a statement. “Instead, the man who murdered them has now escaped his sentence.”
Others accused the governor of reducing the death penalty sentences to seek an advantage in the 2028 presidential election.
“The people of California deserve leaders who put politics and personal ambition aside and pursue truth, accountability, and justice with courage, integrity, and transparency,” said Michael Hestrin, Riverside County district attorney, in a statement. “Instead they have been presented with a decision that demonstrates a profound disregard for the victims, their families, and the prosecutors who dedicated themselves to seeking justice on their behalf.”
Luis Bracamontes looks up in Sacramento Superior Court in 2018 as the verdict is read in the killing of two law enforcement officers. Bracamontes was found guilty.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
A poll conducted in August by the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of voters nationally favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder.
Political analysts suggest that reducing the sentences adds to Newsom’s credentials as a progressive leader and aligns him with Democratic primary voters on the issue if he runs for president. Republicans, however, could take advantage of Newsom’s action and cast him as a soft-on-crime liberal who is out of touch with most Americans, which risks turning away moderate voters.
But others cautioned that national political elections are hard to predict.
Gar Culbert, chair of the political science department at Cal State Los Angeles, said it would be politically advantageous for Newsom to try to appeal to the Democratic Party’s base as he considers a run for president. Culbert said he doesn’t believe the death penalty will be a substantial issue in a general election when, if Newsom becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, his Republican challenger would attack his record as California governor regardless.
“It’s possible he’s not being strategic,” Culbert said. “Maybe he doesn’t have to be strategic because he just might think it’s the right thing to do.”
The governor first issued a moratorium on executions about two months after he took office in 2019, saying capital punishment is discriminatory and unjust. Without the moratorium, 45 people would be subject to execution now, according to his office.
Daniel Zingale worked for Newsom as a senior advisor in the governor’s office at the start of his first term. Part of Zingale’s job at the time was to consider how the governor’s actions would be received by the public.
“The only piece of data he was not interested in in that process were the polls,” Zingale said. “His view, and I agree with this, is this is not an issue that you can leverage politically.”
Newsom’s decision to commute the sentences won’t have much practical effect in a state that has not executed a prisoner since 2006. At Newsom’s command, the death chamber was dismantled at San Quentin State Prison, now San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, after he issued his moratorium.
His successor, Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, has also said he will continue the pause on executions.
There was no immediate need to offer commutations to save the lives of the inmates.
Taking no action would have been the safe bet, Newsom said in an interview about his decision a day after he made the announcement. Many people around him, he said, advised him to do nothing.
He also understands that commuting the sentences could make him vulnerable if he runs for president.
“I’m not an idiot. The ads write themselves,” Newsom said. “But I just also would be fake. I wouldn’t be myself and if I’m going to be up there and not be myself, I couldn’t do that.”
With the clock ticking on his time in office, the governor said he also doesn’t want to leave with regrets.
“I don’t want to be one of the elders on some panel talking about what I would have, could have, should have done,” Newsom said. “I’ve spent my life trying not to be that person. I’ve been willing to take risks. I’ve been willing to go first on so many issues.
“If others aren’t willing to do it, you know what? I’ll raise my hand, and I’m happy, honestly, to take the hits.”
HOUSTON — The mayor of Houston on Friday said the city would limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, heralding “a new model” of immigration enforcement after Democrats won power in Texas for the first time in decades.
Mayor John Whitmire said the city would go after immigrants “that pose a danger, not those that are going about their family business, work and education.”
A traffic incident “will not even … you write a citation or you warn them and they go about their way. No contact with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) over nonviolent, non-jailable offenses. It reduces the fear and anxiety.”
Details of the change were to be spelled out in an executive order but the move by the nation’s fourth-largest city is one of the first steps to curb ICE’s powers since Tuesday’s election.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Houston has sparked protests after an ICE officer fatally shot a Mexican homebuilder this summer and another struck a man with a car.
A grand jury last week indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors say Morales intentionally rammed his car into Miguel Parra Hernandez, whose leg was broken. ICE has asserted that Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, an account that prosecutors say is contradicted by video.
ITV bosses are said to be left scrambling to come up with ideas as This Morning faces the possibility of being off air for a second day following a power outage at the studios
This Morning could be off air for the rest of the week(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
It was first revealed by Lorraine Kelly that her show wouldn’t air due to the outage, although she explained that bosses were hopeful that normal scheduling would resume as soon as possible. However, This Morning and Loose Women were then cancelled due to the outage.
Good Morning Britain was extended by an additional half hour to fill the void. However, sources now claim that bosses behind the scenes are worried that the power issues will not be resolved in time for tomorrow’s daytime schedule.
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“It appears to be a wider area outage rather than just the studio, and it’s not an easy fix,” a source told The Sun. They added: “Daytime is worried about plans going south for the rest of the week. Lots of work and planning could go to waste.”
Earlier today, ITV addressed the scheduling issues caused by the power cut. In a statement, the network said: “Following a power cut overnight in the wider area where our Covent Garden studio is based, we are unable to broadcast Lorraine, This Morning and Loose Women live today. We will return to our normal schedule as soon as possible.”
The trouble began this morning when Lorraine Kelly was the first to reveal ITV were having issues with their daytime shows. She revealed she was on the way to work when she was told there was a power outage and her show couldn’t run.
Meanwhile, Lorraine said on social media: “Hello there, I’m on my way to work, but there’s been a little bit of a hoo-ha. There’s a power outage at the studio, so my show won’t be on today. But you can still watch GMB.
“They’re going to fix it around 11 o’clockish. So, This Morning will still be on as well, just a bit later. It’s a bit of a shame. I was really looking forward to Sharleen Spiteri from Texas, but we shall reschedule, and it’ll all be fine. I will see you tomorrow!”
Although it was originally planned for This Morning to be delayed, it was subsequently replaced by best bits from past episodes of This Morning. Loose Women was also completely off air.
Fans were left fuming by the outage, and had hoped it would be fixed in time for both This Morning and Loose Women but that wasn’t the case. “Ahh, the gremlins have got in! #ThisMorning,” one fan wrote, as another added: “@itv all over the place today.. no #lorraine cutting #gmb off.”
Mike Madrid was prepping to interview Xavier Becerra on Olvera Street last month when the immensity of the moment hit him.
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That morning, Becerra held a rally for his gubernatorial campaign in the birthplace of Los Angeles alongside California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and the leader of the state Senate, Monique Limón, that doubled as a referendum on where Latinos stood politically.
Never before have Latinos occupied the top spots in both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s mansion simultaneously, Rivas told the cheering crowd. Becerra reminded the audience that the moment was fraught for Latinos, though. Federal agents were still detaining undocumented immigrants across the state, and Latino residents — the state’s largest ethnic group at 41% — were suffering under the crushing cost of food, gas and housing.
“[Latinos] are here, we are present and we will fight,” Becerra said. “But right now, our fight is to get the vote out, to make sure everyone understands that our power lies in our vote.”
Gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra purchases an agua fresca from Taqueria Vista Hermosa in Mercado La Paloma on June 9.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Madrid, a longtime political commentator and strategist, had set up his recording equipment at the Pico House, formerly a historic hotel named after the last Mexican governor of California. He recalled how Pio Pico, who helped found the California Republican Party but ended up dying destitute, opened the structure in 1870 as a testament to what Latinos had contributed to their state. But they would eventually be seen as a relic of the bygone days when Mexicans ruled — days that gringos imagined would never return.
The symbolism of a Becerra victory would be “kind of a big deal,” Madrid said, representing a back to the future opportunity for an ethnic group that ruled California until the United States won the Mexican-American War, then was relegated to political irrelevance for over a century before finally being at the doorstep of the governor’s mansion again. Becerra would become California’s first Latino governor in modern times and the second since Romualdo Pacheco served for 10 months in 1875.
Now that the race has been called, Becerra’s victory signifies how much Latinos have advanced since Pico’s days. But it’s also anticlimactic.
As California’s Latino population grew and their political power eventually did too, the days when such a victory would have been an inspiring surprise are long gone. Becerra is now just one of many Latino political captains who steer the Golden State.
Xavier Becerra, right, fist bumps with Roy Kuroyawagi, owner of Japangeles, during a tour of businesses in Little Tokyo on Aug. 18.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero became the first Latina to occupy that role when Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her in 2023. The state’s senior U.S. senator, Alex Padilla, is the son of Mexican immigrants who settled in the San Fernando Valley. Rep. Pete Aguilar, a fourth-generation Mexican American from Redlands, is the third most powerful Democrat in Congress as the head of the party’s House caucus. Lorena Gonzalez, daughter of a Mexican immigrant father and white mother, leads the California Labor Federation, a longtime kingmaker in state politics.
And now, with Becerra at the helm, they will have to govern at a precarious moment, inheriting a state with existential problems affecting everyone, everywhere.
Droughts, El Niño, an eroding coast and the year-round threat of wildfires, much of it accelerated by climate change. Stagnant population growth that threatens to shrink the number of congressional seats. A presidential administration that keeps fighting California in federal court and has attempted to block the votes of 20,000 Californians it alleges are noncitizens. A restive population that Madrid predicts won’t let Becerra bask in his historic win.
“This is what you’ve always wanted. Here’s the keys to the car,” he cracked. “You’re responsible for it now. Who you’re going to blame if things don’t get better — Trump?”
Jody Agius Vallejo, associate director of USC’s Equity Research Institute, said she hopes that California’s new caretakers remember the struggles of getting to the summit — that they represent the dreams and battles of generations of politicians, voters and activists — as they embark on whatever’s next.
“You use these narratives [of Latino personal and collective struggle] to get elected,” she said. “Use them to understand what people need, and govern for them.”
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1.Patricia Guerrero, left, is sworn-in to the California Supreme Court in 2022 by Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Nathaniel Levine / The Sacramento Bee via Associated Press)2.Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., questions Attorney General Pam Bondi as she testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee in 2025.(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)3.Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., speaks at a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing in 2026.(Allison Robbert / Associated Press)4.Lorena Gonzalez at podium with California Attorney General Rob Bonta during a news conference in Los Angeles in 2024. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
Many voters were already shrugging about the significance of Becerra’s likely victory — especially Latinos. Only 45% of Latino voters in California felt “proud” about the prospect of a Latino governor, according to a Berkeley IGS poll released last week.
Those results aren’t surprising to Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach-area state senator who chairs California’s Latino Legislative Caucus. She praised Becerra’s victory as the culmination of decades of political organizing. But voters care more about results than identity, she said — something the Latino political class has been slow to realize.
“People will say, ‘OK, that’s great [he’s Latino], but how are you fighting back?’” she said. “I just think we need to lead now and not advertise we’re Latinos.”
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Xavier Becerra waves goodbye after a visit to Hoover St. Elementary School in March 2001.
(Kim D. Johnson / Associated Press)
Becerra has long been a poster child for Latino political firsts, representing L.A.’s Eastside in the state Assembly and Congress for 27 years before Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him to be California’s first Latino attorney general in 2017. Three years later, Becerra became the country’s first Latino Health and Human Services secretary under President Biden.
Becerra has rarely highlighted his latinidad while never shying away from his background as the child of Mexican immigrants. He told Madrid at the end of their interview at the Pico House that Californians should be prouder of his working class roots than his ethnicity.
Some have complained that Becerra is an unworthy, boring torchbearer for Latinos — not dynamic enough to meet a moment where many hoped for a firebrand. But in many ways, his style is a callback to the past.
When Latino politicians first began winning local and state legislative elections in the decades after World War II, they “were constantly about, ‘How do I mobilize the Latino vote without alienating the white vote, and how do I get support from the establishment which is white?’” said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University and a longtime chronicler of California politics.
Latinos were the majority of the population in some areas during that era, but politicians couldn’t rely solely on them to win, because they still didn’t represent a majority of voters. That changed by the late 1980s, as immigration brought millions of Latinos to California.
Mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, center, and Assemblywoman Karen Bass, left, dance to gospel music sung by the McCoy Memorial Baptist choir during an endorsement celebration in 2005.
(Stefano Paltera / For The Times)
That set the stage for politicians who “didn’t need the external validation anymore” of white voters or power brokers, Guerra said. “They could now say, ‘I am a Latino candidate with a Latino agenda, because I represent a Latino district.’”
By 1996, two years after the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 galvanized Latino activism, a record number of newly registered Latino voters in Orange County helped Loretta Sanchez upset longtime Republican Rep. Bob Dornan, the first welt of purple in a famously red county. That same year, Cruz Bustamante became the first Latino Assembly speaker, then lieutenant governor — the first Latino elected to statewide office in California since Pacheco ascended to the same position in the 1870s. In 2005, Antonio Villaraigosa was elected mayor of Los Angeles, sparking national headlines as the first Latino to occupy that position in modern times.
The Latino political firsts kept coming over the next 20 years, now reaching a pinnacle with Becerra’s win. Guerra said that “incremental” approach made Latinos mainstream to the point where the novelty of another milestone quickly wore off.
“Do you want a transformative moment? Absolutely,” he said. “But those come few and far in between. Incremental comes every two years.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra takes a selfie with supporters after a campaign stop on May 21 at the Wende Museum in Culver City.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Becerra started his campaign for governor far behind in the polls, surging after Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out due to sexual assault allegations. Becerra’s campaign leaned into his milquetoast persona and crowned him Tío Xavier — Uncle Xavier — to market him as a non-threatening moderate who happened to be Latino.
Madrid, a lifelong Republican, voted for Becerra because of GOP candidate Steve Hilton’s refusal to denounce MAGA. He also thinks Becerra can “resurrect a healthy economy for the working class” — something he accuses Democrats of “abandon[ing] for a generation.” The “burden” is on California’s Latino leaders to show they can serve not just their own community but everyone, he said.
On Monday, Becerra mingled with eaters at Homegirl Cafe in Chinatown, looking anodyne in a white shirt, wire-framed glasses and tan khakis as supporters asked for selfies or a hug.
Half-hearted shouts of “¡Sí se puede!” gave way to authentically boisterous chants of “Be-ce-rra!”
The heavy favorite for governor took questions in the packed dining room and didn’t flinch when I asked him to reflect on the fact that Latinos will head every branch of California government if he wins.
“We’re all fortunate when a state like California gives all of us opportunities to be in position of authority,” Becerra replied.
He nodded at Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who stood by his side.
“But we gotta do it right,” he said. “And it’s on me to be a good governor — not to be a good Latino governor, but to be a good governor.”
WASHINGTON — As the scale of the Republican Party’s losses came into focus late Tuesday, President Trump watched from the White House and went looking for someone to blame.
First it was Fox News. Just before midnight, with Democrats projected to seize control of the House, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the network “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.” Then it was the fact that he had not been on the ballot, otherwise, he said, “we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
Minutes later, Trump was on the phone with the same network he had just accused of sabotaging his party. And over a 22-minute interview, conducted before the Senate had been called for Democrats, his tone shifted from grievance to something closer to acceptance, though never to the idea that the election results were a rebuke on his administration.
“Congratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. They’ve been looking for this one for 11 years and they finally got it,” the president said. “But I don’t view it as a hit on me. I think we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the president in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we’ve done.”
Reflecting on the losses, Trump largely put the onus on the candidates, some of whom he said he only endorsed for the good of the party.
“I was trying to get people that, frankly, let’s say that I didn’t get along with. But for the purposes of the party I went along with it,” he said.
Trump said his supporters “didn’t like the candidates,” and that some of the nominees had failed to “inspire” the MAGA base, which over a span of 30 days he tried to engage in campaign rallies in Republican strongholds, including South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, where Democrats pulled off upsets against the GOP candidates.
As Trump reflected on the election results, he offered a narrow acknowledgment that his war with Iran has played a role, saying voters “probably don’t agree with the short-term consequences” such as higher gas prices.
“It’s a short-term problem but for long term-gain,” he said, and then argued that history would judge his actions in the Middle East as “much more important than this evening.”
Looking ahead to what the election results mean for the last two years of his presidency with Democrats in control, Trump said he is willing to work with them — but that he will not hesitate to use the power of the veto.
“I have the power of veto, one of the strongest powers that a president has and they’ll send over things that are insane and I will veto them,” he said.”After a couple of months of vetoes they will call, and they’ll say, how do we get this stuff done? And we’ll work together.”
Trump said he has “a lot of friends who are Democrats.” He said he talked to five Democrats – two senators and three representatives – on Tuesday night and that three others were about to call him.
In the end, Trump said Democrats “fought hard” and did a “good job.”
A ballot measure that would funnel more money to the Los Angeles city Fire Department by raising sales taxes by a half-cent was leading in early returns Tuesday night, along with seven other ballot measures before city voters.
“I’m humbled by the support of the voters,” said Doug Coates, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, which spearheaded the measure. “We showed up and we did what we needed to do … Thank you to the voters.”
Partial returns also showed L.A. voters turning thumbs up on a City Charter amendment that would allow the City Council to meet just once a week, instead of the thrice-weekly meetings now required.
Measure FD would increase the city’s retail sales tax from 10.25 cents to 10.75 cents per dollar spent, with all of the extra revenue going to the Fire Department. The city still would be required to fund firefighters at its normal rate, meaning the measure would add an estimated $345 million annually to the department’s budget.
Proponents of the measure include the union representing rank-and-file firefighters, who say the department is underfunded. The tax fund is needed to lower response times across the city and increase the number of firefighters, according to the union.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a nonprofit that advocates for lower taxes, opposed the measure. The organization raised concerns that this would be the third sales tax hike since 2024, costing an average of $86 per person and $345 for a family of four in additional sales taxes each year.
It also was opposed by the union representing Los Angeles Police Department officers, which objected to limiting the revenue to one city department.
The measure that would allow the City Council to meet just once a week was included in Charter Amendment EE. Most City Council members supported it, with Councilmember Tim McOsker noting his time is better spent working in his district.
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez opposed the measure, arguing that having fewer public forums is a disservice to constituents, who would have less time to meaningfully engage with their representatives. She also worried fewer meetings would mean council members would rush through deliberations.
The amendment also would make smaller changes to how the city governs, including giving more power to independent inspectors to conduct audits of the L.A. Police and Fire Departments, and increase the penalties for campaign finance violations.
The number of signatures needed for a ballot referendum also would rise, and ethics commissioners would be barred from City Council or the L.A. Unified Board of Education for five years.
The six other measures were leading by wider margins.
Proposition TE was ahead in early results. Measure ULA, also known as the “mansion tax,” imposes additional taxes on L.A. property sales above $5.4 million. Proposition TE would allow Palisades fire victims who own homes in the area to avoid the tax as long as they sell the property within five years of the disaster.
Charter Amendment LA, which aims to streamline how the city delivers basic services for infrastructure in need of repair, was leading in early results. The measure would reduce the power of the city Board of Public Works and possibly lead to eliminating it.
Charter Amendment PL took a big lead in partial early returns. The measure folds in five proposals, including to consolidate the city’s planning department, to facilitate building and opening businesses in the city.
Charter Amendment PRK, which would double the minimum amount of money earmarked for the Department of Recreation and Parks, had a big early lead in early results. If it passes, the department could receive a minimum of $986 million annually by 2036, up from the current rate that would generate $493 million by that year.
A measure that would make changes to the city’s airports, harbor and Department of Water and Power had a big lead in early results. Charter Amendment PRT would require the Los Angeles World Airport’s board of commissioners to include two members who live in Van Nuys and three who live around LAX.
Charter Amendment SC, which makes small clarifying changes to language surrounding campaign finance rules for the LAUSD Board of Education, also led in early results. Those changes would affect campaign contribution limits, filing deadlines, public disclosures and fundraising windows.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says a new X-plane will be announced at the Max Power exhibition at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this coming weekend. He insisted, however, that this is unrelated to an SR-71 Blackbird that mysteriously disappeared from public display earlier this year. Isaacman also deflected a direct question about that SR-71 and the possibility that it could fly again, quipping that “we’re just cleaning it, man.”
Isaacman made his new remarks about the SR-71 that had been on display, commonly referred to by the tail number 844, and NASA’s broader X-plane plans on a new edition of NASASpaceflight’s The Flame Trench podcast, which was posted online last Friday. 844 had been on display at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, which is co-located at Edwards Air Force Base in California, following its retirement in 1999. This particular SR-71 had been the last flying Blackbird.
SR-71 tail number 844 seen in NASA service in the 1990s. NASA
“I gotta ask, has 844 been powered on yet?” Eric Johnson, a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educator and streamer, who was also on the podcast, asked Isaacman.
“So, we’re just cleaning it, man,” Isaacman said in response, with a smile and a small laugh. “It was so dusty out there in the desert, and it just felt like it needed a cleaning.”
“We’re just cleaning it man”
Amid speculation that it could be returning to flight, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman teases to NSF that NASA is “just cleaning” their SR-71 Blackbird… pic.twitter.com/t8uBwaK4s1
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman showed this image during a presentation last week while talking about plans for new X-planes. NASA
“Since I didn’t answer your question that you asked before, I will give you some insight that we will announce a new X-plane at it [Max Power], and it is not the one you’re thinking about,” the NASA director said in an ensuing discussion on the podcast about that event, which is set to kick off on Saturday. “I am gonna deliver on the promise there will be more X-planes.”
Isaacman has openly pledged to revitalize NASA’s X-plane portfolio on several occasions, including during a town hall with NASA staff on just his second day on the job in December 2025.
MAX POWER at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center | Nov. 7-8, 2026
While on The Flame Trench podcast, Isaacman also noted that he had just been out to Armstrong recently, primarily to mark the naming of Troy Asher as the facility’s new director.
“They know to speed up when we go past the outdoor museum. They definitely don’t want me out –” the head of NASA said of that recent trip, before Johnson interjected with a tongue-in-cheek remark that they didn’t want him “cleaning more planes, right?”
“I was like, is there anything else?” Isaacman added immediately afterward. “You know the F-16 VISTA, pretty cool plane. Got some cool jets.”
The “F-16 VISTA” mentioned here is the Variable Stability In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft, a heavily modified two-seat F-16D Viper fighter that is now designated as an X-plane, the X-62A. The X-62A is in active U.S. Air Force service as a testbed based at Edwards. NASA’s museum at Armstrong does have several other retired jet-powered X-planes on display, including a delta-winged F-16XL and an X-29 with its distinctive reverse-swept wings.
The X-62A VISTA test jet. USAF A stock picture of the X-62A VISTA test jet. USAFA satellite image taken in 2018 showing SR-71, tail number 844, as well as other retired X-planes, on display outside of the Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. Google Earth
As noted, Isaacman is an outspoken advocate for new X-planes, including types that could be capable of supersonic or even hypersonic flight. This has been reflected in NASA budget proposals and the prior announcement of a new Aeronautics Flight Accelerator (AFA) initiative.
At the aforementioned conference in September, Isaacman had also pushed back on the idea that the silhouette he had shown in his presentation was of an SR-71, despite it having a host of features in line with the Blackbird’s iconic shape. He declined to elaborate further at that time, but did say that “NASA is getting back in the business of flying high and fast again.”
“NASA has a long history of building and flying experimental aircraft that push the boundaries of what is possible,” NASA told TWZ at that time when asked for more information. “As Administrator Isaacman has said, we want to see more X-planes flying in the years ahead, developing the technologies that will allow us to fly higher, farther, and faster than we have in decades. We look forward to sharing more as those efforts progress.”
“NASA has a long history of pushing the boundaries of experimental aviation, and we continue to explore opportunities to build on that legacy,” the agency told us again following the initial story on the disappearance of 844 from Aviation Week. “As Administrator Isaacman has said, we want to see NASA flying higher, farther, and faster than we have in decades. We recognize the interest in the SR-71 and its remarkable history at NASA but have no additional information to share regarding the aircraft at this time.”
TWZ has reached back out to NASA today in light of Isaacman’s latest comments.
SR-71 tail number 844 during its service with NASA. This picture was taken on October 31, 1997, during a flight in support of the NASA/Rocketdyne/Lockheed Martin Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment (LASRE). NASA
“One of the reasons why there’s interest in this speed regime, it was neglected for a number of years. The focus was on hypersonics. If you proposed anything going back, say, 15 years in the Mach 3.5 speed regime, it was ignored,” Tim Conners, an engineer who worked on the SR-71 program at NASA, told us in an exclusive interview published last month. “The glitz and glamour was on hypersonics. Hypersonics is great tactically for certain scenarios, but the weaknesses of hypersonics are now becoming apparent.”
“And as far as countermeasures, hypersonics still has a place. Don’t get me wrong, but every system cannot be hypersonic from an affordability standpoint. So, now you’ve seen it over the last, say, five years. A lot of systems are coming back on the scene that operate in the Mach 2 to Mach 4 regime, and there’s a reason they’re all fitting in there, right?” Conners, who is now technical director for advanced weapons systems at Tiberius Aerospace, continued. “You stay below the speed limit that requires more exotic metallics. You stay in the titanium regime. You can fly, of course, up to [Mach] 3.5 with brief excursions up to about [Mach] 4, so that is tactically relevant against a lot of military targets and defensive systems. So here it is. You know we now have a potential flying test bed that can carry engines in the J58 size class.”
SR-71 LASRE in Flight over California’s Mojave Desert
“They probably are not going to do this for — or trying to do this — for aerodynamic reasons. You can do CFD [computational fluid dynamics]-based modeling in this speed regime all day long and very accurately in this day and age. It does not take a lot of time or money to do that,” he also added. “What you cannot do is an accurate representation of a new type of engine integrated into a high-speed airframe. You can do the conceptual modeling of it. Of course, it’s difficult to get the final installed answer, especially if it involves an engine that operates at long duration. That is where I think they’re going with this. I believe that they’re developing basically a high-speed engine test bed. That would make the most sense to me.”
TWZhas also laid out in detail how the process itself of making an SR-71 flyable could be immensely valuable, including for informing follow-on developments. As we have noted in the past, it is possible that what NASA is doing with 844 now could be intended as a stepping stone to a new X-plane. There is also a potential for the aircraft to re-emerge in a substantially reworked form, potentially configured for pilot-optional or even completely uncrewed operation. However, any such conversion effort would be a different kind of major undertaking.
An SR-71 undergoing maintenance. NASA
How any of this may or may not relate to the plans for the new X-plane that Isaacman mentioned remains to be seen. Even within the context of high-speed flight, NASA is publicly pursuing advanced technology developments in various different directions.
The main face of the agency’s X-plane work currently is the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) jet, which has now flown 41 test flights since taking to the skies for the first time in October 2025. The X-59, which will also be present at Max Power, has been able to reach a top speed of Mach 1.53 and get up to an altitude of 56,000 feet in the course of that testing. The central goal of the QueSST program is to prove out technologies that could eventually enable commercial supersonic flight over land with a substantially reduced sonic boom. With this in mind, the X-59 has been in no way designed for the kind of extreme speeds the SR-71 is capable of reaching.
Max Power is “turning into a big exposition. I think you’re going to have a lot of stuff on display there, from space to VTOLs [vertical takeoff and landing designs], [and] drones. And for sure an air show will be a component to it,” NASA’s Isaacman said on The Flame Trench podcast. “From here forward, we might be trying to make a run at putting some real infrastructure on that next to that runway [at the Kennedy Space Center], and trying to create our own kind of Paris/Farnborough type, Dubai type, event here.”
In the meantime, what we do know now for sure is that we are set to get details about at least one new NASA X-plane this coming weekend at Max Power. There may also be new hints about what the future holds for SR-71 tail number 844.
WASHINGTON — Control of Congress hangs in the balance as Americans head to the polls Tuesday to vote in a historic set of midterm elections that will determine how power is divided for the rest of President Trump’s time in office.
A robust turnout appeared possible, after months of polls suggesting voters’ frustration with cost-of-living issues may drive them to the polls. More than 59 million Americans had already cast ballots in early voting, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.
The campaign has largely been marked by Democrats’ unexpected traction in red states, resulting in Senate races that have been far more competitive than anticipated. Whether that translates into losses for Republicans could become a nail-biter Tuesday night.
Polling shows Democrats poised to make significant gains in the U.S. House and well-positioned for swing Senate races, but analysts say the Senate majority could go either way. Several gubernatorial seats are also open, and some contests have become unexpectedly close, including in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Florida.
Eyes will be on a handful of bellwether House races as the polls begin closing, with a Kentucky district expected to be the first to offer clues as to how good a night it may be for Democrats.
For weeks, the midterms have appeared poised to deliver a referendum on Trump’s second term and the state of the economy. Americans’ approval of the president has sunk to historic lows as they have cited concerns about affordability, corruption and immigration as driving factors for their votes.
On Monday and over the weekend, candidates made their final pushes to persuade voters.
Democrats, hoping to clench voter support for a “blue wave,” hammered home their arguments about affordability, corruption and the perceived toll of Trump’s governance, aiming to sway non-Democratic voters.
“This election is a battle between the powers that be and the powers that ought to be,” Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico of Texas said at a Sunday night rally. “We are standing with the powers that ought to be — the teachers and the nurses, the farmers and the ranchers, the grandmother who is facing eviction.”
Republicans, anticipating losses in the House, focused on delivering dire warnings to voters about Democratic candidates, whom they have portrayed throughout the campaign as extreme, dangerous and in some cases a threat to the American way of life.
“This race is about defending our state and our country, but it’s also about safeguarding our way of life,” Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican nominee for Senate, said Sunday. “Texas has never been this close to slipping away. We’ve never been this close to losing everything that we hold dear — our jobs, our livelihoods, our way of life.”
As voters cast ballots Tuesday, the Justice Department’s election monitors fanned out at polling sites across the country. Thousands of volunteers nationwide were also mobilized to be poll monitors, a backlash to the idea of potential federal election interference.
Trump sent out a flurry of last-minute social media endorsements for Republican congressional candidates and called in to the “Fox and Friends” show to make a final case. Democratic candidates dropped last-minute ads urging voters to head to the polls.
On November 3, as Americans vote in the midterm elections, the United States faces a defining test of presidential power, constitutional accountability and democratic resilience. The election will determine control of Congress, but its stakes extend far beyond partisan fortunes. At issue is whether constitutional checks and balances can constrain President Donald Trump, whether election officials can withstand political pressure, and whether the government will respect the voters’ verdict when the outcome threatens its interests.
The battle for control of elections
The administration’s efforts to reshape election procedures have encountered substantial judicial resistance. According to an October 20 review by the Brennan Center for Justice, at least 34 federal district court decisions had temporarily or permanently blocked administration initiatives involving election procedures and demands for voter registration records. The rulings included decisions by judges appointed by presidents of both parties, including Trump himself.
These decisions demonstrate that judicial oversight remains an important constitutional safeguard. Yet repeated litigation exposes a vulnerability: courts often intervene only after disputed measures have been introduced, leaving states to challenge policies that can generate uncertainty close to Election Day.
The controversy intensified on October 26, when a federal appeals court declined to order California to set aside ballots from approximately 20,000 registered voters whom the Justice Department alleges may be noncitizens. The court ruled that the lower court had not been given adequate opportunity to consider the government’s request. The underlying dispute remained unresolved.
The administration maintains that its actions protect electoral integrity. But investigating credible allegations of wrongdoing is fundamentally different from restricting eligible voters on the basis of unverified suspicions. Election security requires accurate voter rolls, but it equally requires protecting citizens from erroneous challenges.
Repeated allegations of fraud can undermine confidence even when evidence fails to establish that an election has been compromised. The danger is that routine election administration becomes suspect in the public mind, regardless of the facts.
Congress as a constitutional check
Republicans hold narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress, placing control of the House and potentially the Senate within reach of Democrats.
A Democratic House majority would strengthen the opposition’s ability to investigate administration policies, subpoena officials and scrutinise executive decisions. Immigration enforcement, election procedures, federal spending and the implementation of executive orders could face intensified oversight.
Such scrutiny could expose misconduct where evidence supports it and compel officials to explain decisions otherwise shielded from meaningful examination. Yet investigations do not automatically produce accountability. Subpoenas can trigger prolonged legal battles, and congressional hearings alone cannot force policy changes.
Control of the Senate would give Democrats greater influence over presidential nominations and judicial appointments. Nevertheless, Trump would retain his veto power and substantial executive authority. Even unified Democratic control of Congress would not automatically reverse his agenda.
The deeper question is whether Congress will exercise its constitutional responsibilities independently or allow partisan loyalty to take precedence over institutional accountability. Checks and balances cannot function effectively if one branch declines to challenge another when circumstances demand it.
The test after election day
Perhaps the most consequential confrontation will come after the ballots are cast.
Trump’s response to his 2020 presidential defeat remains a critical precedent. He challenged the result, made unsubstantiated allegations of fraud, and pressured Georgia officials to find enough votes to reverse his loss. On January 6, 2021, a mob attacked the Capitol as Congress met to certify the presidential election.
That history does not establish that similar events will recur in 2026. It does, however, make scrutiny of potential election disputes essential.
The danger may lie not in a single intervention capable of changing the result, but in successive confrontations: challenges to ballot counting, pressure on state officials, demands for investigations and attempts to portray ordinary procedures as evidence of fraud. Even unsuccessful efforts can delay resolution and weaken public confidence.
Candidates have every right to pursue legitimate legal challenges. Courts must consider credible evidence, and election officials must correct documented irregularities. But allegations are not proof, and no president can simply declare an unfavourable result invalid.
An election can also be damaged without a single vote being changed. Intimidation of election workers, unfounded accusations and efforts to discredit established procedures can erode public acceptance of legitimate outcomes.
The distinction between lawful scrutiny and political interference is therefore fundamental. Electoral integrity depends on evidence, consistent procedures and respect for the law – not on whether the outcome favours the governing party.
Courts cannot defend democracy alone
Judicial intervention demonstrates that constitutional safeguards remain operational. Courts can invalidate unlawful executive actions, but they cannot independently administer elections across thousands of jurisdictions or guarantee that political leaders will respect every ruling.
Nor can judicial decisions alone restore public confidence after sustained efforts to discredit electoral institutions. Democracy depends on Congress exercising oversight, election officials counting ballots accurately, courts acting impartially and political leaders respecting lawful outcomes.
The willingness of judges appointed by presidents of both parties to rule against administration initiatives reinforces a fundamental principle: constitutional protections cannot depend on partisan alignment. Their effectiveness rests on whether institutions apply the same rules regardless of who benefits.
The broader danger is institutional erosion. Repeated confrontations can weaken public confidence, discourage election workers and normalise the idea that constitutional constraints are obstacles to political power rather than obligations governing its exercise.
A verdict beyond the ballots
The November 3 midterms will not resolve the struggle over presidential power. If Republicans retain Congress, Trump will continue to benefit from congressional majorities, although judicial and state-level checks will remain. If Democrats gain one or both chambers, the administration will face greater scrutiny, but substantial executive authority will persist.
Neither outcome guarantees effective constitutional government. The decisive issue is whether institutions exercise their lawful responsibilities and whether political leaders accept that presidential power is neither unlimited nor permanent.
American democracy has survived profound crises, but resilience should not be confused with invulnerability. Checks and balances work only when institutions enforce them and political leaders respect their limits.
The midterms are therefore about more than congressional arithmetic. They will test whether votes are counted according to law, disputes are resolved through established procedures and electoral outcomes are respected regardless of partisan consequences.
The ballots will determine who controls Congress. What follows will reveal whether American institutions can still uphold a principle fundamental to democratic government: no president stands above the law, no party owns the electoral process, and no exercise of political power is beyond accountability.
On November 3, Americans will vote to determine the composition of Congress. The aftermath will test something more enduring: whether the constitutional restraints that have sustained American democracy remain binding when their enforcement carries the highest political stakes.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Attacks the latest to disrupt electricity supplies; army reports new defections from paramilitary RSF.
Published On 2 Nov 20262 Nov 2026
Drone strikes are reported to have hit three electricity substations in eastern and northern Sudan, the latest attacks in a concentrated campaign.
The attacks on Monday, which caused widespread power outages across parts of the country, brought the number of strikes reported to target Sudan’s electricity network to 18 over the past week.
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Sudan’s military government has claimed that Ethiopia is aiding the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – which it has been fighting since April 2023 – in carrying out the attacks.
Facilities in New Halfa and Aroma in eastern Kassala state were hit early on Monday, while the al-Ghazali substation in Sudan’s Northern State was also targeted, according to local media.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show fires at the facilities, with civil defence teams trying to extinguish the fires. Al Jazeera was not able to immediately verify the footage and reports.
On Sunday, Sudan’s government said it had filed complaints against Ethiopia with the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, accusing Addis Ababa of involvement in the ongoing campaign of attacks on civilian infrastructure and power stations.
The Sudanese army also reported on Monday that a group of RSF members had defected by surrendering to its forces in Damazin, the capital of southeastern Blue Nile state.
The announcement follows a declaration, in video footage obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, by senior RSF commander Siddiq Ander that he had defected.
In a statement, the army said that the development was the latest in increasing defections from the paramilitary group in Blue Nile state.
It added that the group’s commander had provided information concerning the management of military operations in Damazin, including “Ethiopian support” for the RSF.
WASHINGTON — Next week’s elections are widely seen as a referendum on President Trump, his team and his party, with most voters telling pollsters they seek a check on his power. But the midterms will also serve as a reckoning for one of the least productive sessions of Congress in a century.
A stunningly low 10% of Americans approve of the job performance of Congress, which has passed fewer bills and conducted less oversight than any of its predecessors in modern history, according to scholars of the legislative branch.
The biggest achievement of unified Republican control has also become one of its biggest liabilities. Deeply unpopular when signed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has only grown more controversial, with most Americans still unclear on what’s in it — and those who do know largely disapproving of the law, which cut taxes for businesses and billionaires while adding trillions to the national debt.
A summer Politico poll found that just 8% of Americans believe the law has improved their bottom line. The bill cut billions of dollars for food stamps and over a trillion in health programs and Medicaid.
Two other significant bills passed by this Congress — the Epstein Files Transparency Act and a housing reform package targeting corporate purchases of single-family homes — ultimately became law over Trump’s opposition, leaving Republicans little credit for bipartisan wins.
“It’s not a partisan statement to say that the current Congress will go down in history as one of the most ineffective in history,” said Charles Stewart III, director of the Election Data and Science Lab at MIT. “It may not be the most ineffective, but it’s down there.”
Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that congressional performance can be measured by several criteria, including the quantity and quality of legislation, its oversight of the executive branch, investigations of government and private-sector failures, and its defense of congressional powers and ethical standards.
By all accounts, he said, “the 119th Congress is an abysmal failure, perhaps the worst I have seen in well over five decades of immersion in the legislative branch.”
Senate pages walk through the halls outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol on Oct. 1, 2026. The Senate had completed its last votes in the middle of the night before going on recess through Nov. 9.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
A recent Fox News poll found that government corruption is voters’ top concern this year, surpassing even the economy. Yet the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to deliver meaningful oversight. The enrichment of Trump, his family, allies and aides has gone uninvestigated, while Senate Republicans continue to block legislation targeting insider trading by members of Congress.
It has been a running theme from Democrats working to unseat Republican incumbents, with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York — slated to become speaker of the House if Democrats win control of the chamber — repeatedly characterizing the current session as a “do-nothing” Congress.
Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola speaks at a campaign event Oct. 29, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska.
(Chloe Anderson / Associated Press)
In Alaska, Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate, accused her GOP opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, of doing nothing to stop Trump’s tariff policies or his war with Iran. Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio has attacked the Republican incumbent Jon Husted for his procedural attempts to end debate over legislation on the Epstein files. And Democrat Adam Hamilton has targeted Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas for voting for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that jeopardized funding to rural hospitals.
Defending the record of his majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has highlighted a decline in prescription drug prices, the elimination of “wasteful spending” on various federal programs and bipartisan housing reform. Only so much can be accomplished with a razor-thin majority in the chamber, Johnson has said.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) listens as U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) lends his support at a campaign rally on Oct. 29, 2026, in Platteville, Wis. Van Orden is in a rematch from 2024 with Democrat Rebecca Cooke for the state’s 3rd District seat.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
Trump has vowed on the campaign trail that, if kept in power, a Republican Congress would pass a $5,000 dividend to each American, despite its thin record to date.
Critics of the speaker say Johnson’s deference to Trump — and relinquishing of congressional authority to the executive branch — has unilaterally ceded power, souring voters on unified government.
But Stewart, who also co-directs a voting technology project with Caltech, said Congress’ problems run deeper than its current record.
Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) speaks during a campaign stop at the Palmetto State Armory on Oct. 30, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. Graham is running about even in the polls against her opponent, South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
“Not only is Congress not pushing back against the administration, or even innovating in policy, but its members also don’t seem especially interested in serving their constituents on the small-ball aspects of representation,” Stewart said.
“It’s hard to say members of this Congress are connecting with their constituents as they did in decades past,” he added. “We’ll see if that lack of constituency connection will have an impact on the results.”
A federal appeals court for the second time Friday denied a Trump administration request to block 20,000 ballots from California voters the administration alleges may be noncitizens — ruling that the administration had failed to show that “such extraordinary relief, during an ongoing election, is clearly required by law.”
The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — composed of two appointees of President Trump and one of President Biden — ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Constitution gives the state and Congress the power to decide how elections are run, and that allowing the Trump administration to “misuse” federal statutes to “prescribe” how California must process ballots would “override the plain and manifest dictates of the Constitution itself.”
“Because Congress has not exercised the specific power granted to it under the Elections Clause to override California’s established laws for challenging ballots or removing ineligible voters, the State Legislature’s statutory scheme remains the only method to do so,” the judges found.
The panel’s majority — comprised of Trump appointee Mark J. Bennett and Biden appointee Gabriel P. Sanchez — wrote that “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.”
They also wrote that separate federal law prescribes sweeping changes to voter lists 90 days prior to an election, especially given questions about the reliability of the Trump administration’s list of purported noncitizens.
“The suspect reliability of these lists found by the district court reflects the concern Congress sought to mitigate with the 90-day quiet period,” they wrote.
Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, the other Trump appointee on the panel, dissented — arguing that his colleagues erred in denying a basic request by the Trump administration to ensure only citizens are voting.
“The federal government proposes a modest remedy — stopping California from mixing the ballots of citizens and suspected noncitizens,” Bumatay wrote. “This solution would not cancel any vote but would allow time to verify the eligibility of suspected noncitizens. The district court, and now our court, denies this reasonable request.”
SALT LAKE CITY — Luka Doncic raised three fingers toward the Utah crowd. Fans were left counting more than just his points.
Doncic hit three clutch three-pointers late in the fourth quarter and took a momentum-swinging charge to lead the Lakers to a nail-biting 132-123 victory over the Utah Jazz on Sunday at Delta Center. Doncic led the Lakers (3-0) with 52 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds as the team fought back from an 18-point second-quarter deficit.
Guard Austin Reaves hit a dagger three with 34 seconds remaining to give the Lakers a seven-point lead. As Doncic salted the game away from the free-throw line, he was serenaded with chants of “MVP!” Reaves finished with 29 points.
“Getting MVP chants in someone else’s arena is crazy,” center Walker Kessler said. “But, you know, obviously deserving.”
Kessler knows this arena well. It’s where he spent the first four years of his career. But the center was quiet in his return to Salt Lake City. After he joined the Lakers in a massive sign-and-trade deal that cost the Lakers two first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps and a four-year, $130-million contract, Kessler was held to just two points on one-of-two shooting with seven rebounds.
Kessler received a mixed reception from the crowd, which included a large number of fans in Lakers colors. The Jazz didn’t play a highlight reel during the game to welcome the center back, as many teams often do for a player who returns on an opposing team.
Kessler had averaged 24 points and 8.5 rebounds per game during the Lakers’ first two games and shot a blazing 84.6% from the field while feasting off lob passes from Doncic and Reaves.
When asked whether Kessler’s return would spark extra motivation for the Jazz, Utah coach Will Hardy dispelled any suggestions of revenge.
“In no way is tonight about Walker,” Hardy said. “Like it’s not a, ‘Oh wow Walker’s here so we better play harder.’ We’re gonna demand the same standard that we did in our last game. Some of the story lines I don’t quite understand. Like we have a lot of love for Walker. He’s somebody that we have a great relationship with and a lot of shared experience.”
Kessler admitted he “let my emotions get the best of me” in his return Utah, which he described as “a special place.”
“Kind of got too amped and then just couldn’t find the ball,” Kessler said. “Couldn’t find the rhythm, just kind of was off a couple fouls that were tough, a couple blocks I usually [make]. It’s one of those nights. But fortunately basketball is not a one-man sport.”
The Lakers showed they have one of the best duos in the league.
Reaves was held scoreless during the first quarter, but awoke for 15 points in the second. The undrafted guard has so far lived up to the massive contract extension he signed in June, averaging 26.7 points per game on 63.9% shooting with 6.2 assists per game.
“AR so far in these three games has just been Mr. Consistency,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said.
Reaves started the comeback. Doncic completed it. In less than 30 seconds, Doncic watched a fadeaway jumper circle the rim before dropping through for a three-point play, then ripped the ball out of Ace Bailey’s arms for a steal before hitting a three at the buzzer to put the Lakers up by three at halftime.
The Slovenian superstar was coming off an admittedly “terrible” game in which he had 23 points, seven assists and 11 turnovers in the Lakers’ home win over the Clippers. Redick said Doncic is still finding his rhythm after not playing with the Slovenian national team over the summer as he typically does.
Doncic made just two of his first eight three-point attempts Sunday. He looked right back in rhythm when he splashed the tying three with 4:06 remaining in the fourth quarter and pushed his palms toward the ground to quiet the crowd.
The final shot before halftime showed Redick that Doncic has his groove back.
“When he’s in the flow state, he gets into, like, showman mode,” Redick said. “He’s on stage performing … it’s always really fun to watch.”
Doncic gave the friendly road crowd his best moves. Lying on his back watching one his shots roll through the net, he shimmied his shoulders before teammates pulled him to his feet. When he splashed the tying three with 4:06 remaining in the fourth, he wagged his finger. On the next possession, he let out a scream when he stepped in front of Keyonte George to take a charge. After putting the Lakers up by six with 1:40 remaining with one of his signature step-back threes, Doncic held three up three fingers to the crowd.
Doncic went nearly seven months without hearing that roar. Not playing with the national team left him out of competition for one of the longest stretches of his career. He doesn’t think he’s back to full form yet.
“I’m still getting there honestly,” Doncic said. “This is the first time I didn’t play basketball in six or seven months, which is a long time. So I’m not used to it.”
He still looked right at home hearing “MVP” chants from a road crowd.
ByMichael R. Sisak, Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer and Larry Neumeister
Associated Press
NEW YORK — The Trump administration last year illegally fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Maurene Comey, who was an assistant U.S. attorney for a decade, was illegally fired in July 2025 despite her work on some of the nation’s highest-profile cases and consistently receiving “the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike,” Judge Jesse M. Furman found.
After her firing, Comey sued the Justice Department and others, saying her termination violated the constitutional separation of powers, the 1st Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment.
She asserted that she was fired because she was the daughter of James Comey, whom President Trump has long viewed as an enemy, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, the judge noted.
Furman rejected the government’s claim that Comey could be fired because federal prosecutors exercise the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers.
He said the government’s claim that Congress is barred from regulating the removal of federal prosecutors “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”
Furman added: “Indeed, to accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.”
The firing violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act and her 5th Amendment due process and statutory rights, the judge ruled.
Furman reserved judgment on Comey’s 1st Amendment claim pending further arguments to be submitted by each side, though he said he was inclined to dismiss the claim because it was largely moot since she is now in private practice and no longer seeks actual reinstatement.
The judge granted Comey retroactive reinstatement and back pay from the date of her firing through Dec. 20 to “make her whole” and ensure that she doesn’t suffer adverse employment consequences for the “unlawful termination.”
Comey’s lawyers, Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vanamali and Margaret Donovan, lauded the ruling.
“This hard-earned victory belongs to Ms. Comey, to all civil servants, and to all fighting for the rule of law,” they said in a statement. “As the Court correctly held, to accept the government’s argument about unlimited executive power ‘would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.’ This decision reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances: the President is not above the law.”
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The Justice Department during the Trump administration has fired scores of career employees, including prosecutors and FBI agents, who participated in investigations of President Trump or who were perceived as opposed to the administration’s agenda. Some of those firings have also resulted in federal lawsuits.
The firing of Maurene Comey was seen as particularly personal, given her father’s longtime adversarial relationship with Trump.
The president fired James Comey as FBI director in May 2017 as the bureau was investigating ties between Russia and the Republican’s successful 2016 campaign for the White House. Trump in the years since has repeatedly called for Comey to be jailed, and his Justice Department has worked with mixed success to make that happen.
An earlier criminal case accusing James Comey of having lied to Congress in 2020 was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case he has sought to dismiss that some legal experts have greeted with skepticism.
Sisak, Tucker, Durkin Richer and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. Tucker and Durkin Richer reported from Washington.
Storms Boelo and Austen kill a man in Scotland and cut power to thousands of homes in the UK, France and Germany.
Published On 26 Oct 202626 Oct 2026
A pair of storms battering northern Europe have killed one man, cut power to more than 150,000 homes, and disrupted flights and phone networks.
More than 82,000 homes in the United Kingdom, nearly 60,000 in France, and at least 10,000 in Germany had no electricity on Sunday after storms Boelo and Austen passed through the region within 24 hours, according to authorities in the countries.
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A falling tree killed a man, 60, in southwestern Scotland on Sunday, while another falling tree injured two women in central Scotland, the Press Association reported.
Winds of up to 135 km/h (84 mph) were recorded in the Argyll and Bute regions of western Scotland. Trees and power cables brought down by the storm blocked roads and rail lines across Scotland and northern England.
In Brighton, on England’s southern coast, Austen blew away an unused pier on Friday.
Authorities have warned of flood risk in regions of both Scotland and England.
The Met Office, the UK’s national forecaster, warned that Boelo would bring a danger to life from flying debris and crashing waves and said people should stay indoors as much as possible.
From France to Germany
Across the English Channel, Europe battled its first big storm of the autumn, with strong winds inflicting widespread power cuts.
French energy company Enedis said that at Austen’s peak on Saturday, some 288,000 homes had no electricity. Some 59,000 remained without power at midday Sunday, mainly in Normandy and Brittany.
A marathon runner in the midst of a race in northern France was lightly injured by a tree knocked over in strong winds.
In Germany, Austen cut power to 10,000 homes in and around the southwestern town of Freiburg-Breisgau on Sunday. The town’s main hospital said it had to limit service to emergency cases because of the blackout, which also cut the mobile phone network.
German police said two people were seriously hurt on Saturday by scaffolding blown away by Austen’s strong winds at a market in the town of Nastatten.
The storms also hit the Netherlands and Belgium, where falling trees injured four people in Brussels on Saturday.
In the Netherlands, north of the island of Schiermonnikoog, three crew members on board a freight ship were injured in the storms, according to the country’s coastguard. Two of them were winched off and taken by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland.
The storms caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled or diverted across northern Europe, including at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, one of the continent’s busiest hubs.
Experts have warned of more extreme weather events due to climate change.
The Metropolitan Police were called to Dollis Road in Finchley at around 12:40 GMT to reports a tree had fallen onto a moving car, and the man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Chief Inspector Guy Ellwood, from the North West Command Unit, said: “This is a deeply tragic incident and our thoughts are with the loved ones of the young man who lost his life.”
A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said it sent incident response officers, paramedics from its hazardous area response team, and a trauma team from London’s Air Ambulance to the scene.
Earlier, Police Scotland said a man died after being hit by a falling tree in southern near Castle Douglas.
During Storm Boelo and the earlier Storm Austen, which hit the UK on Friday, 838,700 properties across the country faced power cuts, according to the ENA.
Wind gusts peaked on Sunday morning at 85mph in Machrihanish, in Argyll and Bute, and 84mph in both Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, and Capel Curig in north Wales.
An amber wind warning issued by the Met Office was in place until 21:00 on Sunday across Scotland and parts of northern England.
A yellow warning that also covered other areas of the north of England, including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as well as parts of the East and West Midlands and North Wales, also expired at 21:00.
The Met Office urged people to “stay indoors as much as possible”, adding: “If you do go out, try not to walk, or shelter, close to buildings and trees.”
The strongest gusts have continued to spread eastwards across the UK on Sunday.
Orleans, France – Marine Le Pen took to the stage with a clear message: She would lead France’s “renaissance” as the country sank into crisis – and she would do so soon.
The far-right figure’s words were met with cheers from thousands of supporters gathered in Orleans in central France on Sunday, as she launched her presidential campaign against a backdrop of mass demonstrations and widespread social and economic discontent.
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“Marine présidente!” the crowd chanted, waving French flags beneath a sea of red and blue lights. Organisers said 8,500 supporters had gathered in a venue transformed into a fort for the event.
Standing tall on stage in a pink blazer, her hair impeccably coiffed, Le Pen spoke with the confidence of a leader who believes the presidency is within reach.
Riding high in the polls, with candidates from the right, left and centre trailing behind her, she presented the election as a historic opportunity to restore France’s past glory.
“This is a story to be written, a destiny to be fulfilled,” she told the crowd, which erupted in cheers.
Her pitch was a promise to restore authority and security in a country she portrayed as having lost control.
“We are going to re-establish the rule of law,” she said, drawing loud applause from supporters wearing “Marine présidente” T-shirts.
Manon Funeau, 21, a business school student, was among the supporters.
“What they propose are values that resonate with me, that vibrate within me,” she said. “Honestly, I feel at home here.”
Le Pen’s speech comes as the country is at a crossroads. France has been shaken by a wave of protests since mid-September, a movement sparked by high school students in a Paris suburb that grew into a nationwide mobilisation tapping into widespread discontent.
Over the past two weekends, largely peaceful protests have been accompanied by episodes of violence on a scale rarely seen in recent years.
On October 17, shops were looted and ransacked, and more than 2,000 people were arrested as hundreds of thousands took to the streets of French cities. A similar dynamic unfolded the following weekend, though on a smaller scale. The protests show little sign of abating, with calls for further demonstrations already circulating.
The unrest has given Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) an opportunity to play one of its favourite cards: presenting itself as the guarantor of law and order. It has fuelled criticism of President Emmanuel Macron over his handling of public security, allowing Le Pen to accuse him of incompetence and the far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon – a contender in the coming elections – of encouraging the violence.
‘My country is drifting off course’
“I believe that my country is currently drifting off course,” said Nadede, a 56-year-old who began voting for RN in 2024 over what she said was the country’s growing lack of security. She did not spell out any specific event.
“I think that the only person capable of setting it back on the right track is Marine Le Pen – especially since, up until now, everyone else who has run for office has struggled to do so,” she said.
Outside the convention hall, the scale of the security operation offered a glimpse of the tensions surrounding the event. Police checks began at departure stations in Paris and continued on arrival, while officers in full gear moved through train carriages during the journey.
Orleans itself had been brought to a near standstill. All businesses were shut and public transport suspended.
Standing almost alone in the city’s main square was the statue of Joan of Arc, surrounded only by fences. A day earlier, about 3,000 police officers had been deployed to prevent unrest as anti-RN protesters gathered against what they say is a xenophobic and racist party.
Orleans was no casual choice. For a party that has long sought to cast itself as the guardian of French identity and national sovereignty, the city is inseparable from the story of Joan of Arc, the 15th-century heroine who helped lift the English siege of Orléans in 1429 and became a symbol of France’s resistance and liberation.
For decades, the far right has claimed her as an emblem of national pride, invoking the image of a warrior who came to save France from foreign domination. Le Pen herself has drawn parallels between Joan’s mission and her political ambitions.
Eric Ciotti, Nice mayor and president of the Union des Droites (UDR) parliamentary group; French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament from the French far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally – RN) party and candidate for the 2027 French presidential election; and Jordan Bardella, president of the RN party, stand on stage during a rally to launch the presidential campaign, after the party’s Congress in Orleans, France, October 25, 2026 [Nicolas Economou/Reuters]
The crowd at the RN Congress offered a glimpse of how the party has expanded its appeal to a wider section of society: from young people from urban centres to middle-class workers who used to vote for the centrist party.
Only a few years ago, the party was still considered on the fringes of French politics. Its growth has been driven in part by a carefully crafted strategy known as dédiabolisation, or de-demonisation, developed over the past two decades to broaden the party’s base while tempering its rhetoric and distancing it from positions that had made it toxic to many voters.
The party has long been associated with racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was convicted of hate speech, including for describing Nazi gas chambers as “a detail of history”. He was expelled from the party in 2015.
Far right ‘gaining ground’
Marine Le Pen has sought to broaden RN’s appeal, combining restrictive immigration policies with promises of social protection. The party has gained ground in working-class areas traditionally associated with the left, including former Communist strongholds, by presenting itself as a defender of public services and the purchasing power of everyday people.
While RN has long abandoned some of its most radical proposals, including leaving the Eurozone and pursuing a fully fledged “Frexit”, the election of such a eurosceptic to the helm of the European Union’s second-largest economy would send shockwaves. She has pledged a referendum to challenge the primacy of EU law over migration policy, as well as an annual 11-billion-euro ($12.3bn) reduction in France’s contribution to the bloc.
The party’s membership has nearly tripled, with approximately 112,000 members now paying their dues, up from fewer than 37,000 in 2022.
“The party has been gaining ground at every level: mayors, deputies, senators. Usually, when a movement seems on the rise, people join,” said Baptiste Roger-Lacan, a historian and political analyst with a focus on far-right parties in Europe. “It also shows how it is less and less socially damaging to be a member of the RN.”
But the party’s programme “is still fraught with fiscal absurdity”, Roger-Lacan said. “They still want to implement racist laws, which are bound to provoke widespread anger, and their diplomatic agenda is still pro-Russian and anti-EU – even if they don’t advocate Frexit any more.”
Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s second-in-command and Le Pen protégé – an impeccably dressed 31-year-old who looks like a cross between the Wolf of Wall Street and Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent – also spoke at the event.
“No one should be intimidated by their political opinions,” he said, speaking ahead of his mentor.
Some observers say the October 17 protests and their aftermath have proved a gift to RN, allowing the party to not only reinforce its law-and-order message but also to shift attention away from recent difficulties.
In September, investigative outlet Mediapart published allegations that Bardella had expressed anti-Semitic views in private messages dating back to his teenage years. He denied the allegations and announced legal action against the journalists.
The episode posed a challenge for a party that has spent years trying to shed its xenophobic image and recast itself as a supporter of Israel.
Bardella has also reportedly differed with Le Pen over the party’s economic agenda and whether to make her proposed ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in public spaces a central campaign issue.
Yet, at the Congress, those tensions appeared to have been set aside, at least publicly.
“Marine president – a Bardella government” was the slogan, projecting unity as Le Pen launched her presidential bid and Bardella positioned himself as her prospective head of government.
You know the one I’m talking about — Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack on opponent Amy Acton using her clearly troubled mother, who failed to protect Acton as a child from her rapist stepfather and instead abandoned her kids to stay with the now-deceased pedophile.
Wow. Even in 2026, that’s a lot.
The ad, released last week on the internet and set for a television blitz through the election, has sparked condemnation even from Republicans. Some anyway. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance (a close friend of Ramaswamy’s) have defended it, much to the chagrin of decent people everywhere who have labeled this a make-it-or-break-it moment for the Grand Old Party.
Trump called getting Acton’s mom on camera “hitting pay dirt.”
“Why shouldn’t somebody use that?” Trump said Friday. “To me, that’s something that’s very much fair game.”
Trump’s right, in his world anyway. His faithful may not like the ad, but it’s not a deal-breaker.
The appalled, left and right, are wrong on this one — this is not a turning point for the Republican Party or the moment it realized its soul was in the frying pan.
When Ramaswamy loses — and he’s likely going to lose, if polls are right — it won’t be because Republican voters finally believe the party has sunk too low, lost its way or lacks morals. And when the postmortem happens on the right, it won’t examine whether exploiting victims of sex abuse is a smart move. (Full disclosure: One of my relatives is an advisor of Ramaswamy.)
Instead, the ad will eventually be seen as a great gift to Donald Trump for two reasons.
First, it allows Ramaswamy — his endorsed candidate — to lose without it being the president’s fault for starting a war, tanking the economy and generally being entirely unpopular with average Americans. Get ready, because if Ramaswamy goes down, Trump will spin it that Democrats and the corrupt media misrepresented the ad and lied about Ramaswamy. Not Trump’s fault, just further proof of why his battle is righteous.
Second, it allows him to test the loyalty of his MAGA acolytes ahead of 2028, and folks, I’m sorry to say it’s a test they are likely to pass with flying colors. Vance laid this out clearly in his defense, reserving his scorn for Republicans who dared to be anything but steadfast.
“Stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” Vance said in response to a question about the ad. He added he was “disgusted” that his fellow Republicans were seemingly more upset about the ad “than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.”
For all the angst about sexual abuse, even of minors, the forever Trumpers honestly don’t care as long as their candidates win and maintain power. Just ask Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Ask E. Jean Kelly. Ask Victim A in the Matt Gaetz allegations, or Christine Blasey Ford if you can remember that far back. The list goes on.
MAGA diehards may holler and stomp about how much they hate pedophiles, but they hate Democrats more. Trump has told these voters to ignore the ad and vote Ramaswamy. I predict more of them do it than decency permits — because we’ve seen this MAGA mental split before, where they somehow set aside all of their so-called outrage when Trump tells them to do something.
These voters are clear that the Trump regime presents a real opportunity to remake the country into a conservative bastion in ways that will be hard to undo, and they will overlook even the indecency of exploiting childhood rape.
“I love how Vivek does not hesitate to call out wrongdoings,” wrote another.
Others tried to turn the topic to their conspiracies about Rep. Ilhan Omar and Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, two bogeyman of the right for their race and religion. The responses of Trumpers to his post were exactly on brand — deflecting or blaming media and disinformation for skewing the issue. (Trump and Ramaswamy are claiming that the ad isn’t about sexual abuse, but only about whether Acton is truthful.)
With that veneer of justification, it’s likely his most devout base in Ohio, led by the 20% of voters who consider themselves white evangelicals, will stick with their guy. Nearly 8 in 10 white evangelical Protestants support Trump, and they are motivated voters who have disconnected the Trump reality from the Trump promise for years.
Despite all the outrage across the country about the ad, it’s likely the final tally in Ohio will remain largely as it would have been before the kerfuffle. Ramaswamy was down in the polls before he dove into the muck of the past few days. A reliable Cook’s poll put Acton ahead 49% to 44% — one of the reasons Ramaswamy was desperate enough to try this last-ditch smear.
I’ll bet an Ohio buckeye the final count isn’t far outside that margin, with no sign of a massive drop in Republican support of Ramaswamy, despite all the posturing and hand-wringing. If he loses, it is likely more about the surging racism against Indian Americans, especially with young conservatives, than one ugly ad.
But those Republicans who denounced the ad will face the president’s punishment. The ad is not a mistake. It is an inadvertent test. By embracing the ad even as it’s disparaged nationally, the president is discovering exactly who he can, and can’t, trust as he heads into the two most difficult years of his decadelong rule — the part where he stops pretending to be anything but what he is, a corrupt and greedy man intent on maximizing power and wealth. The part where he challenges elections.
We are watching the last of the old-guard Republicans being purged thanks to the ad. Republicans who have gathered up the tattered shreds of their integrity and courage over this ad are shredding them to nothing on this moment, giving Trump insight into who might stand up to him when the protection of our democracy is on the line.
Trump has started lashing out already, making sure those potential last-round conscientious objectors are damaged.
After current Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine called for Ramaswamy to stop airing the spot, labeling it “deeply troubling,” Trump attacked him — even though DeWine said he continued to support Ramaswamy as his replacement. (DeWine is facing term limits.)
“Mike DeWine, who I unfortunately helped get elected years ago, when he was losing by 16 points prior to my doing a Rally for him was, as usual, disloyal to the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on social media.
DeWine was far from alone.
Trump’s days of conning himself into a coalition are behind him — well into his second term, is now consolidating power behind his core, public opinion be damned.
The independent voters that may indeed not vote or change votes because of the ad were just as likely to switch over gas prices or wars.
The ad was never for them, but rather just for this outrage, this push to motivate the base with just the sort of grimy bullying Trump does best — I believe him when he says he wishes he could make an ad like this. Trump will rally in Ohio this week with Ramaswamy, and it’s likely most Republicans will somehow have transmuted their outrage into support by the time he appears in person.
His base understands his support of the ad is an expression of power. His base understands the trade they are making. His base doesn’t care what happened to Acton, because she will never give them the America they want.
His base likes the ad, even if they won’t admit it.
Brett Pesce scored the go-ahead goal and Jake Allen made 12 saves as the New Jersey Devils beat the Kings 3-1 on Saturday for their third straight win.
Anthony Mantha and Artemy Gritsyuk also scored for the Devils, who also beat Colorado and the Ducks on their current homestand. New Jersey has won five of six. Allen improved to 5-2-0 this season.
Scott Laughton scored for the Kings, which saw its two-game winning streak snapped. Forsberg made 23 saves.
Pesce beat goaltender Anton Forsberg at 8:08 of the third period after the defenseman found a clear lane through traffic in the Kings’ zone. Luke Evangelista and Gritsyuk assisted on Pesce’s first goal this season.
Before the game, the Devils introduced newly acquired goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. The 33-year-old Hellebuyck won 345 games in 11 seasons with Winnipeg and is a three-time winner of the Vezina Trophy.
New Jersey included goaltender Nico Daws, who won against the Ducks on Thursday, in the trade for Hellebuyck on Friday. Remi Poirier, who has yet to play an NHL game, dressed as Allen’s backup on Saturday.
Laughton scored at 15:57 of the second, driving the puck past Allen for his second goal.
Mantha tied the game about three minutes later with his third goal.
Gritsyuk scored his team-leading sixth goal into an empty net at 18:55.
The Kings had a power-play chance when New Jersey’s Timo Meier was called for tripping at 12:59 of the third but were unable to tie the game.
The Kings were coming off road wins over Washington and the New York Islanders to start its four-game trip after losing its first six games.
Up next for the Kings: at the New York Rangers on Monday.
Serbia is voting in an early election, where the most powerful politician in the country, in charge for 14 years, has a serious rival for the first time – students. Aleksandar Vučić, who stepped down from his second mandate as president is now running for prime minister. Al Jazeera’s Nataša Kovačev explains.
