president biden

SACRAMENTO — Atty. General Rob Bonta said Monday that he anticipates the Trump administration, which last week announced plans to use federal election monitors in California, will use false reports of voting irregularities to challenge the results of the Nov. 4 special election.

Bonta, California’s top law enforcement officer, said on a call with reporters that he is “100%” concerned about false accusations of wrongdoing at the polling places.

Bonta said it would be “naive” to assume Trump would accept the results of the Nov. 4 election given his history of lying about election outcomes, including his loss to President Biden in 2020.

The attorney general also warned that Trump’s tactics may be a preview of what the country might see in the 2026 election, when control of the U.S. House of Representatives — and the fate of Trump’s controversial political agenda — will be at stake.

“All indications, all arrows, show that this is a tee-up for something more dangerous in the 2026, midterms and maybe beyond,” Bonta said.

The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced it would send election monitors to five California counties where voters are casting ballots in the Proposition 50 election to decide whether to redraw state’s congressional boundaries.

Federal election monitors will visit sites across Southern California and in the Central Valley, in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, the Justice Department said last week.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move an “intimidation tactic” aimed at suppressing support for Proposition 50 and inappropriate federal interference in a state election.

While federal monitoring is routine, particularly in federal elections, it recently has been viewed with heightened skepticism from both parties. When the Justice Department under President Biden announced monitoring in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states during last November’s presidential election, some Republican-led states balked and sought to block the effort.

Democrats have been highly suspect of the Trump administration’s plans for monitoring elections, in part because of Trump’s relentless denial of past election losses — including his own to Biden in 2020 — and his appointment of fellow election deniers to high-ranking positions in his administration, including in the Justice Department.

The California Republican Party requested the election monitors and cited several concerns about voting patterns and issues in several counties, according to a letter it sent to the Dept. of Justice.

Bonta, in his remarks Monday questioned the GOP claims, and denied the existence of any widespread fraud that would require federal election monitors. He compared the monitors to Trump’s decision to dispatch the National Guard to Democratic-led cities, despite an outcry from local politicians who said the troops were not necessary.

More broadly, Bonta told reporters that the Trump administration appears to be ready to fight the Nov. 4 results if Prop. 50 passes.

“People vote and you accept the will of the voters — that’s what democracy is. But that’s not what they’re teeing themselves up to do based on everything that we’ve seen, everything that’s been said,” said Bonta, describing Trump’s recent call on social media for Republicans to “wake up.”

Bonta also said that the state would dispatch observers — potentially from his office, the secretary of state and county registrars — to watch the federal monitors at polling places.

Early voting has already started in California, with voters deciding whether to temporarily reconfigure the state’s congressional district boundaries. The Democratic-led California Legislature placed the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot in an effort to increase their party’s numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives .

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other backers of the measure have said they generally support independent redistricting processes and will push for nonpartisan commissions nationwide, but argued that Democrats must fight back against Trump’s current efforts to have Republican states reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP retains control of Congress after the 2026 election.

Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the U.S. Dept. of Justice, declined to comment on Bonta’s remarks. Baldassarre also declined to say how many election monitors would work in California.

Federal election monitors observe polling places to ensure compliance with the federal voting rights laws, and are trained to observe and act as “flies on the wall,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, in an interview last week.

“Generally, what you do is walk inside, stay off to the side, well away from where any voters are, and take some notes,” said Becker, an attorney who formerly worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

There are certain first names that are also businesses that tap into the Angeleno collective unconsciousness and bring a smile of familiarity even to those who’ve never patronized the place.

Tommy’s Burgers, especially. Frederick’s of Hollywood. Phillippe the Original. Nate’n Al’s. Lupe’s and Lucy’s.

And, of course, Leonardo’s.

The nightclub chain with five spots across Southern California has entertained patrons since 1972. Its cumbia nights, Mexican regional music performances and a general air of puro pinche parri bridged the gap in the cultural life of Latino L.A. between the days of the Million Dollar Theater and today’s corrido tumbado stars.

Its namesake, Leonardo Lopez, came to Santa Monica from Mexico in the late 1960s, at age 17, to work as a dishwasher and proceeded to create a cultural empire.

On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council honored him in a celebration that reflected the joy and diversity — but especially the resilience — of Latino LA.

His family members count at least 40 businesses among them, including restaurants, banquet halls, concert venues, equestrian sports teams, political firms that work Southern California’s corridors of power, and the Pico Rivera Sports Arena, Southern California’s cathedral of Mexican horse culture. They were one of the main forces in the 2023 fight that carved out exemptions for traditional Mexican horse competitions such as charrería and escaramuza when the L.A. City Council banned rodeos.

“Our family is like a pyramid, with every person supporting each other at every level,” said Leonardo’s son, Fernando. “And my dad is at the very top.”

A resplendent celebration

He and about 40 other relatives went to Friday’s City Council meeting to see their patriarch recognized. They strode through City Hall’s august corridors in charro outfits and Stetsons, berets and hipster glasses, leopard-print blouses and sharp ties — the diversity of the Mexican American experience in an era where too many people want to demonize them.

Leonardo was the most resplendent of them all, sporting an outfit with his initials embroidered on his sleeves and his back. A silver cross on his billowing red necktie gleamed as much as his smile.

“You work and work and work to hope you do something good, and it’s a blessing when others recognize you for it,” Lopez told me in Spanish as we waited in a packed conference room for the council meeting to start. He gestured to everyone. “But this is the true blessing in my life.”

Sitting at the head of a long table, Lopez doted on his grandson but also greeted well-wishers like Esbardo Carreño. He’s a historian who works for the government of Durango, the state where Lopez was born in 1950.

“Don Leonardo came with a bigger vision than others,” Carreño said in Spanish. “But he never left his people back home,” noting how Lopez has funded restoration projects in Durango’s eponymous capital, a welcome arch at the entrance to the entrepreneur’s hometown of La Noria and more.

“My tío and dad and my other tíos made it in L.A. because there was no Plan B,” said Lopez’s nephew, Lalo Lopez. He was shepherding guests toward his uncle while also talking up a fundraiser later that evening at the Sports Arena for L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. “That’s a lesson all us kids learned fast.”

Spanish-language reporters pulled Don Leonardo into the City Hall press room for an impromptu conference, where he talked about his career and offered child-rearing advice.

“Get them busy early,” he joked, “so they don’t have that free time to do bad things.”

Lopez motioned to Fernando and his son Fernando Jr. — both wearing charro suits — to join him at the podium.

“I got them to follow me” to be proud of their Mexican heritage. “Today, it’s the reverse — now I follow them!”

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez then grabbed Lopez. The meeting was about to start.

Always the sharpest-dressed member of the council, Rodriguez didn’t disappoint with a taupe-toned tejana that perfectly complemented her gray-streaked hair, black-framed glasses and white outfit.

Her introduction of Lopez was even better.

“His spaces have created a place where we [Latinos] can be authentically who we are,” said Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley. She praised Lopez’s life’s work as an important balm and corrective “at a time especially when our community is under attack.”

“I want to thank you, Don Leonardo, for being that example of how we can really be the force of resilience and strength in the wake of adversity,” the council member concluded. “It’s a reminder to everyone who’s feeling down that we will persevere.”

Lopez offered a few words of thanks in English, tipping his sombrero to council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who had previously honored him in 2017 when each council member recognized an immigrant entrepreneur in their district.

Harris-Dawson returned the respect.

“You are such angels in this city — L.A. is not L.A. without the Lopez family,” he said, noting how two Leonardo’s stood in his South L.A. district and “y’all never left” even as other live music venues did. Harris-Dawson told attendees how the Lopez family had long catered jazz festivals and youth sports leagues without ever asking for anything in return.

“The only time I’ve seen you closed was that weekend of the terrible ICE raids,” Harris-Dawson said. “And you all were back the next week ready to go and you had security out. … Thank you all for treating us like family.”

The Lopez clan gathered around their jefe at the podium for one final photo op. Doctors and contractors, retirees and high schoolers: an all-American family and as Angeleno as they come. See ustedes soon at — where else? — Leonardo’s.

Today’s top stories

Colorado River water flows in the Central Arizona Project aqueduct beside a neighborhood in Phoenix.

(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)

The dwindling Colorado River

• A group of experts say Western states urgently need to cut water use to avert a deepening crisis on the Colorado River.
• The river’s major reservoirs are less than one-third full, and another dry winter would push reservoirs toward critically low levels.
• They say the Trump administration should act to ensure reductions in water use.

Trump’s $1.2-billion call to remake UCLA

• A Times review of the Trump administration’s settlement proposal to UCLA lays out sweeping demands on numerous aspects of campus life.
• The government has fined UCLA nearly $1.2 billion to settle allegations of civil rights violations.
• Hiring, admissions and the definitions of gender are among the areas the Department of Justice seeks to change.

A looming fight over vaccines

• After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted vaccine experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California is now making its own vaccine guidance.
• The CDC is no longer a trusted source for vaccine guidance, some experts now say.
• California and medical groups are urging more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 compared with the Trump administration.

Your utility bills

The Emmys were last night

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

• There will be cooling in all L.A. rentals by 2032. Here’s how contributors Sophia M. Charan and Hye Min Park suggest you survive the heat until then.
• Wait, what happened to saving the children? California columnist Anita Chabria points out that California congressmen dodge the issue.

This morning’s must-read

Other must-reads

For your downtime

(Amir Mrzae / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

And finally … your photo of the day

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Allen J. Schaben of ctor Kathy Bates on the red carpet at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. See Allen’s photos from the awards show here.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Fox 11 anchor Elex Michaelson is one of the nice guys in L.A. media. His tough-but-fair-and-especially-polite lines of questioning made him a natural to help moderate debates for the L.A. mayoral and sheriff’s races three years ago. The 38-year-old Agoura Hills native is so nice that he’s known not just for his work but also … his mom’s cookies and brownies.

Michaelson gifts every guest who treks up to Fox 11’s West L.A. studios for his weekly public affairs show “The Issue Is” a box of the desserts. We’re talking former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, billionaire Rick Caruso, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi and dozens of other political heavyweights on both sides of the proverbial aisle. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) once brought a bag of Porto’s to Michaelson’s team in gratitude for all the cookies and brownies he had received over the years. Former Congress member and current California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter sent Elex’s mom, Crystal, a handwritten thank-you note.

“Every single time I see [L.A. County Sheriff] Robert Luna, he brings them up without fail,” Michaelson said with pride in a phone interview.

One not-so-famous person who has been lucky enough to enjoy them? Me.

Elex recently gave me a box when I appeared on “The Issue Is” just after U.S. Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino, who took time off from bloviating about the border to accept the goodies because even la migra gets sweets, I guess.

Crystal Michaelson’s cookies and brownies are worthy of a stall at the Hollywood farmers market, and I’m not saying that just so I can appear on “The Issue Is” again soon.

The cookies last time around were blondies studded with chocolate chips and M&Ms. Slightly toasted on the outside, chewy on the inside, thick yet airy and spiked with an extra dash of vanilla, the blondies were beautiful. Just as delicious were the brownies, all about the firm, dark-chocolate-derived fudge that crackled with each bite. Both featured a generous sprinkling of sea salt, the crystals perfectly cutting through all the sugar and butter.

They didn’t last the drive back to Orange County.

Cookie diplomacy at the highest level of California politics

When Elex took his mom to a holiday party hosted by then-Vice President Kamala Harris some years back, most of the movers and shakers greeted her with the same enthusiasm they showed her son because of what she bakes.

“I’m not really a baker!” insisted Crystal, an artist by trade. She makes the goodies every Thursday afternoon, the day before “The Issue Is” tapes, with an occasional assist by Elex. “But it’s turned into a whole thing!”

The tradition dates back to elementary school, when Crystal treated Elex’s teachers and classmates to them as “a thank you.” Elex took some to the first and last day of his college internship for Fox 11 to hand out to the newsroom, then repeated the gesture when he worked at XETV in San Diego and ABC 7 in Los Angeles before returning to Fox 11.

“Their first and last impression of me,” he said, “were these cookies.”

Michaelson repeated the move every day for the first week of “The Issue Is.” The inaugural guests were Newsom, then-Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (now California’s junior U.S. senator), and commentator Areva Martin.

“Everyone loved the cookies so much that they joked, ‘We won’t return unless we get more cookies,’” Michaelson said.

The crew insisted they get treated to them one more week, “and my mom just never really stopped since then,” even baking and shipping them to regular guests during the COVID era as a Christmas gift.

“One of the only things that seems to unite Republicans and Democrats [in California] is these cookies and brownies,” Elex said. “There’s nothing like the unifying power of food to bring people together to not just talk, but listen to each other.”

Crystal gets a shout-out in the show’s closing credits for “cookies, brownies and moral support.” She learned the recipes as a teen, from a family friend. They’re baked in a Pyrex baking dish, sliced into squares, then put in cardboard boxes that she decorates by writing, “The Issue Is … ”

People have suggested Crystal sell them, but she declines: “I’m not a baker.”

For now, she’s flattered by all the attention — Newsom once wrote a letter on his official letterhead raving about them. The only issue she sees with them …is Elex.

“He eats them too much,” Crystal said. “I’ve said before that maybe I should make them a little bit healthier. And everyone said, ‘No, don’t do that!’”

Today’s top stories

(Christian Murdock / Associated Press)

In-N-Out leaves California

• Billionaire In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder announced last month her move from California to Tennessee.
• The departures of several major companies from California have contributed to a narrative that the state is unfriendly to businesses.
• But despite challenges, including steep taxes, the state remains the fourth-largest economy in the world, boasts a diverse pool of talent and is a hub of technological innovation, economists said.

L.A.’s water wars

• Los Angeles gets 2% of its water supply from creeks that feed Mono Lake.
• Environmental advocates are calling for the city to take less water to help the lake reach a healthy level.
• The fully exposed tufa spires show L.A. remains far from meeting its obligation to restore the lake’s health.

Olympic drama

• A proposed ballot measure could force a citywide vote on L.A. 2028 Olympic venues.
• Organizers with the hotel workers union turned in a ballot proposal to require citywide voter approval of “event centers,” including sports facilities and concert halls.
• City officials fear the proposal, if it reaches the ballot and voters approve it, would force elections on several 2028 Olympic venues.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

• In America’s hardest-fought congressional district, voters seem to agree on one thing, says columnist Mark Z. Barabak: Release the Epstein files.
• Under Trump, the U.S. has returned to treating violence against women as a “private matter,” argues contributor Karen Musalo.

This morning’s must-reads

Other must-reads

For your downtime

(Eckhaus Latta CAAM at Art + Practice)

Going out

Staying in

And finally … your photo of the day

Image July 2025 Substack Spa Reading

(Tyler Matthew Oyer / For The Times)

Today’s photo of the day is from photographer Tyler Matthew Oyer of a 200-person literary reading inside of a pool at the Korean Spa.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Hunter Biden finally made news outside the MAGA mediasphere for something that’s usually the work of Fox News and other deep state disseminators: He verbally bashed the Democratic Party, CNN’s Jake Tapper, former Obama aides and even Hollywood’s devastatingly handsome ambassador George Clooney.

President Biden’s son, whose very name inspires a Pavlovian response among right-wing conspiracy theorists, appears to have pulled a page from the opposition’s playbook when during two recent interviews he leaned into grievance politics, repeatedly hurled expletives and condemned those who “did not remain loyal” to his father.

Hunter Biden’s first round of interviews since the 2024 election started out tame enough when last week on a new podcast hosted by Jaime Harrison, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he said that Democrats lost to Donald Trump because they abandoned his father. There was no “grand conspiracy” to hide his father’s health issues, he said. “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That’s my position. We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.”

Fair enough. Then it was on to Clooney, one of the first high-profile figures on the left to call for Biden to step aside from his reelection campaign after a disastrous debate performance. Hunter Biden disparagingly referred to the actor as “a brand” and told Harrison, “Do you think in Middle America, that voter in Green Bay, Wis., gives a s— what George Clooney thinks about who she should vote for?”

Then came the knockout punch. In a separate, three-hour-plus interview released Monday with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, he said of the star: “George Clooney is not a f— actor. He is a f—, I don’t know what he is. He’s a brand. … F— him and everybody around him.”

George Clooney was among Kennedy Center honorees welcomed by President Biden at the White House on Dec. 4, 2022.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Hunter Biden also had some words for senior Biden aide Anita Dunn. “The Anita Dunns of the world, who’s made $40 [million], $50 million off the Democratic Party, they’re all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times, how to pass more legislation than any president in history, how to have a better midterm election than anyone in history and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever run.” Former Obama aide and political analyst David Axelrod was also on the list. He said Axelrod “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.”

And if the above sentiments were attributed to the current president’s sons, who’ve characterized the Democratic Party as Nazis and referred to those who were protesting immigration sweeps by the patently offensive term “mongoloids”? Meh, it’s just another Monday. But Hunter Biden, like most public-facing Democrats, is held to a different standard. When they go low, we go high. Remember that sage advice that worked for Democrats back in the late aughts and early 2010s but now sounds like advice pulled from a 1950s guide to etiquette? The younger Biden not only deviated from that lefty code but also mirrored his tormentors, then unleashed his ire onto his own party.

Hunter Biden‘s own reckless actions over the years made him grist for all manner of right-wing helmed investigations. Then there are the stupid conspiracies, whether it’s the missing laptop or that mysterious bag of cocaine found in the White House. Hard to keep track, but the younger Biden went there during his recent interview. “I have been clean and sober since June of 2019. I have not touched a drop of alcohol or a drug, and I’m incredibly proud of that,” he told Callaghan. “And why would I bring cocaine into the White House and stick it into a cubby outside of the Situation Room in the West Wing?”

But he also attributed at least one recent alleged conspiracy to those outside the right-wing cabal or, more specifically, to Jake Tapper. The CNN anchor co-wrote “Original Sin,” a provocative book that claimed President Biden’s confidants worked to conceal his declining health from the public.

Hunter Biden argued that it was nonsense and that the “ability to keep a secret in Washington is zero.”
“What sells, Jaime?” he asked Harrison. “What sells is the idea of a conspiracy.” And the public spectacle of flaming your enemy’s enemy.

TikTok is preparing to release a new app in the U.S. as it awaits a potential sale that would maintain its presence for millions of users in the country, according to media reports.

The popular video app, owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, is under pressure to sell its U.S. operations by Sept. 17 or face a nationwide ban, due to security concerns raised by U.S. government officials over the firm’s ties to China.

TikTok is planning to make the new app available on Sept. 5, according to tech news site The Information. The existing app could stop working in March 2026 and when that happens, American users would need to download the new app in order to continue to use TikTok, the publication said.

TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

Analysts expect that the new app will attempt to address the government’s security concerns. Officials have raised the specter of TikTok sharing user data with the Chinese government, which the company denies.

Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research, said he believes TikTok will remain popular in the U.S. even after a sale. TikTok is used by more than 170 million Americans as a way to entertain and educate themselves by watching videos on the app. Small businesses, influencers and major corporations also post content on TikTok to market products.

“There will be a transition period from the old app to the new app,” Wang said. “The question is how will data be migrated, and I’m sure they will have a solution for that.”

President Trump last month gave a 90-day extension until Sept. 17 to ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations. The original deadline was Jan. 19, after a law was signed by Trump’s predecessor, President Biden, last year, but the deadline has since been extended by Trump several times. TikTok has said that the law “offers no support for the idea” that its Chinese ownership poses national security risks.

Potential buyers of ByteDance’s TikTok U.S. operations include Oracle Corp. (co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison), Amazon and an investment group led by Frank McCourt, a former Dodgers owner whose bid includes “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, analysts said. San Francisco artificial intelligence company Perplexity said in March that it wants to “rebuild the TikTok algorithm.”

Any deal would need the approval of the Chinese government. Analysts said it is unlikely a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations would include its algorithm — seen as one of the most valuable parts of TikTok — which surfaces videos of interest to its users.

Trump on Friday told reporters that he planned to discuss a TikTok deal with China this week, but declined to name the potential buyer, according to the New York Times.

“I think the deal is good for China, and it’s good for us,” Trump said. “It’s money, it’s a lot of money.”

Trump’s first administration pushed for a TikTok ban, but the president since had a change of heart. He has met with TikTok executives at Mar-a-Lago, mused about TikTok’s popularity with young people and bragged online about his significant following on the platform.

During his campaign for a second term, Trump positioned himself as a TikTok advocate, saying “those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump.”

Several TikTok creators told The Times that they have diversified where they post their content and believe their fans will follow them to other platforms if TikTok were to be banned.

WASHINGTON — Just over a quarter of Republicans accept President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, according to a new survey that underscores the instability of American democracy and the growing partisan divide over the legitimacy of elections.

“There was a hope there would see growing acceptance of Biden’s victory over time, as people moved away from the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement after Jan. 6. Instead, we saw the numbers stay in place,” said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist and one of the founders of Bright Line Watch, an organization that monitors the health of U.S. democracy.

Sinking confidence in election outcomes appears to have been fueled by former President Trump’s “Big Lie” — his continued claims of voter fraud in key states, even though such allegations were repeatedly discredited in numerous lawsuits and audits. The fallout of such lies was especially evident on Jan. 6, when thousands of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in a brazen attempt to halt lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s victory.

Since then, many Republican officeholders and some of the biggest voices in conservative media have clung to the notion that the election was stolen from Trump.

Bright Line Watch’s November survey, released Thursday morning, shows that only 27% of Republicans accept Biden as the rightful winner — the exact same figure as in the group’s February poll — compared with 94% of Democrats who do.

The survey also shows that the 2020 election and its aftermath have hardened partisan attitudes about future elections, leaving Republicans less confident that their votes will be counted accurately in 2022.

Even amid Trump’s constant rhetoric during the 2020 campaign about a potentially rigged outcome, Democrats and Republicans had roughly equal confidence in October 2020 that the coming election would be decided fairly, with 59% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans believing that would be the case.

But the new survey reveals that a partisan gap has opened up in response to that question. Now, 80% of Democrats believe next year’s midterm election will be fair, with just 42% of Republicans saying the same.

“That’s a really scary fact for our democracy right now, that so many Republican voters don’t have confidence in the election,” said Susan Stokes, another founder of Bright Line Watch and a political scientist at the University of Chicago.

As Trump and so many Republicans have sowed mistrust in last year’s election results, they have used their misinformation campaign to justify new laws in several GOP-controlled states to restrict ballot access and, in some cases, allow partisan lawmakers to overrule election officials in determining outcomes.

That could lead to a scenario in which Democratic voters, even those who understand their party is facing stiff political headwinds next year, lose confidence in the legitimacy of the 2022 electoral results.

“This is an asymmetric moment. Republicans are leading the assault on our democracy,” Nyhan said. “At same time, you can imagine a world where an election is decided because of genuinely dubious election administration practices, and Democrats would become quite distrustful of such an election in the aftermath, and rightfully so.

“You can see a situation where neither side trusts the election results,” he continued. “The potential for a spiral of illegitimacy is real, and that’s not sustainable for our democracy in the long term.”

At the federal level, Democrats have been unable to agree on a legislative response that would protect voting rights, largely because they have the most slender of Senate majorities. Two centrists in the caucus, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), oppose changing Senate rules to enable Democrats to pass a voting rights law with just 50 votes. And they continue to call for a bipartisan agreement even though few Republicans have been willing to compromise in what has become a zero-sum policy battleground.

The November survey, which questioned 2,750 individuals, also found that partisans tend to overestimate the antidemocratic leanings of the other side, like a reflection of the increasingly partisan nature of cable news and the proliferation of incendiary politically oriented posts and memes across social media platforms.

Compared to past Bright Line Watch surveys, fewer respondents expressed support for political violence. Only 9% condoned making threats, 8% were OK with verbal harassment, and just 4% said they accepted the kind of mob violence that occurred on Jan. 6.

But researchers worry those numbers may not reflect how many partisans might be led to take or support extreme actions that they claim to oppose, with the justification that they need to overcome alleged extremism by the opposing side.

“It’s still millions of Americans condoning violence, and that makes for a very explosive environment and is quite dangerous,” Stokes said. “What people are saying to themselves is: ‘Whatever my side is doing, it’s worth it, because the other side is so terrible.’

“It’s not at all hard to imagine a lot of people in the public going along with a real stealing of the election next time because they have come to believe the other side stole it — or even if they don’t, it’s so important to keep the other side out, it doesn’t matter how you do it.”

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday questioning both President Trump’s decision to deploy federal troops to Los Angeles and the court’s right to review it, teeing up what is likely to be a fierce new challenge to presidential power in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A panel of three judges — two appointed by President Trump, one by President Biden — pressed hard on the administration’s central assertion that the president had nearly unlimited discretion to deploy the military on American streets.

But they also appeared to cast doubt on last week’s ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that control of the National Guard must immediately return to California authorities. A pause on that decision remains in effect while the judges deliberate, with a decision expected as soon as this week.

“The crucial question … is whether the judges seem inclined to accept Trump’s argument that he alone gets to decide if the statutory requirements for nationalizing the California national guard are met,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The questions at the heart of the case test the limits of presidential authority, which the U.S. Supreme Court has vastly expanded in recent years.

When one of the Trump appointees, Judge Mark J. Bennett of Honolulu, asked if a president could call up the National Guard in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in response to unrest in California and be confident that decision was “entirely unreviewable” by the courts, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett Shumate replied unequivocally: “Yes.”

“That couldn’t be any more clear,” Shumate said. “The president gets to decide how many forces are necessary to quell rebellion and execute federal laws.”

“It’s not for the court to abuse its authority just because there may be hypothetical cases in the future where the president might have abused his authority,” he added.

California Deputy Solicitor General Samuel Harbourt said that interpretation was dangerously broad and risked harm to American democratic norms if upheld.

“We don’t have a problem with according the president some level of appropriate deference,” Harbourt said. “The problem … is that there’s really nothing to defer to here.”

The Trump administration said it deployed troops to L.A. to ensure immigration enforcement agents could make arrests and conduct deportations, arguing demonstrations downtown against that activity amounted to “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

State and local officials said the move was unjustified and nakedly political — an assessment shared by Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer, whose ruling last week would have handed control of most troops back to California leaders.

Breyer heard the challenge in California’s Northern District, but saw his decision appealed and put on hold within hours by the 9th Circuit.

The appellate court’s stay left the Trump administration in command of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines in L.A. through the weekend, when demonstrators flooded streets as part of the nationwide “No Kings” protests.

The events were largely peaceful, with just more than three dozen demonstrators arrested in L.A. Saturday and none on Sunday — compared to more than 500 taken into custody during the unrest of the previous week.

Hundreds of Marines still stationed in L.A.”will provide logistical support” processing ICE detainees, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Tuesday. Under last week’s executive order, National Guard troops will remain deployed for 60 days.

Arguing before the appellate panel Tuesday, Shumate said the military presence was necessary to defend against ongoing “mob violence” in L.A. streets.

“Federal personnel in Los Angeles continue to face sustained mob violence in Los Angeles,” the administration’s lawyer said. “Unfortunately, local authorities are either unable or unwilling to protect federal personnel and property.”

Harbourt struck back at those claims.

“[Violence] is of profound concern to the leaders of the state,” the California deputy solicitor general said. “But the state is dealing with it.”

However, the three judges seemed less interested in the facts on the ground in Los Angeles than in the legal question of who gets to decide how to respond.

“In the normal course, the level of resistance encountered by federal law enforcement officers is not zero, right?” Judge Eric D. Miller of Seattle asked. “So does that mean … you could invoke this whenever?”

While the appellate court weighed those arguments, California officials sought to bolster the state’s case in district court in filings Monday and early Tuesday.

“The actions of the President and the Secretary of Defense amount to an unprecedented and dangerous assertion of executive power,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta wrote in a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Marines push back anti-ICE protesters in front of the Federal Building during “No Kings Day” in Downtown on Saturday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

“The President asserts that [the law] authorizes him to federalize State National Guard units and deploy armed soldiers into the streets of American cities and towns whenever he perceives ‘opposition’ or ‘disobedience of a legal command,’” the motion continued. “He then asserts that no court can review that decision, assigning himself virtually unchecked power.”

The president boasted he would “liberate Los Angeles,” during a speech to troops at Fort Bragg last week.

In court, Bonta called the deployment a “military occupation of the nation’s second-largest city.”

Los Angeles officials also weighed in, saying in an amicus brief filed Monday by the City Attorney’s office that the military deployment “complicates” efforts to keep Angelenos safe.

“The domestic use of the military is corrosive,” the brief said. “Every day that this deployment continues sows fear among City residents, erodes their trust in the City, and escalates the conflicts they have with local law enforcement.”

The appellate court largely sidestepped that question, though Bennett and Judge Jennifer Sung in Portland appeared moved by Harbourt’s argument that keeping guard troops in L.A. kept them from other critical duties, including fighting wildfires.

“The judges were sensitive to that, and so if they’re ultimately going to land on a ‘no’ for the troops, they’ll do it sooner rather than later,” said professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond. “If they’re persuaded I think they’ll move fast.”

With the issue all but certain to face further litigation and a fast-track to the Supreme Court, observers said the 9th Circuit’s decision will influence how the next set of judges interpret the case — a process that could drag on for months.

“Both sides seem in a hurry to have a decision, but all [the Supreme Court] can do this late in the term is hear an emergency appeal,” Tobias said. “Any full-dress ruling would likely not come until the next term.”