Despite being close to terming out of office, and also otherwise occupied with his ever-emerging presidential run, Gov. Gavin Newsom last week found time to announce a consequential, if controversial, move that has the potential to vastly improve educational outcomes for California kids: switching out an independent, voter-chosen leader for a hired gun.
In legislation signed last week, Newsom basically eviscerated the role of the elected superintendent of public instruction and instead shifted oversight of our K-12 schools to a newly created education commissioner — to be appointed by the governor.
It’s to Newsom’s credit that he’s setting up his successor to helm a system that at least has a chance at coherence, even if it raises the stakes for the next governor to deliver.
For years — decades, really — streamlining the governing structure of schools “has been proposed by Republicans and Democrats and bipartisan and nonpartisan commissions,” Linda Darling-Hammond told me. She’s a professor emeritus at Stanford University, an advisor to the governor and, by any measure, one of the preeminent education policy experts in the country.
“It’s not at all political. It is really about making the system run well,” she said. “The world is changing, the economy is changing. There’s just a need to be very efficient and effective in making policy and then implementing that policy.”
“Run well” is the key there. California operates the biggest and most diverse school system in the country. We’ve got roughly 10,000 regular schools (depending on how you count), including about 1,200 charter schools, around 1,00 school districts and 58 counties, each with their own slice of local control over those schools, according to the Department of Education.
That’s about 5.7 million students, nearly 300,000 teachers and $150 billion in costs (counting the new funding in the next budget).
To be kind, this system does not always run well. That’s in no small part because oversight and control are fragmented, overlapping and confusing. Currently, the State Board of Education sets policies, but the elected superintendent implements them through the Department of Education. Then control runs downhill to individual school districts, filtering through local school boards and even principals.
The board can’t control how the superintendent does their job, and vice versa. In fact, they don’t always agree, despite (or because of) the shotgun wedding nature of their relationship. At times, it can feel like they are working against each other. Never mind the complexities of local control.
This has been especially true in recent years as Newsom and the Legislature have pushed through big changes, such as the new prekindergarten grade, that have required massive coordination and effort. At the local level, administrators often complain there is little clarity on what is expected of them and, too often, outright conflict.
“The idea of having policy in one place and implementation in the other is really crazy,” Michael Kirst told me. He’s professor emeritus of education at Stanford and the longest-serving president of California’s State Board of Education, serving under both of Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial stints.
Newsom’s proposed system promises “much clearer, cleaner accountability,” Kirst said.
Expertise counts
It also has the benefit of putting an actual education expert in charge of schools. Because the superintendent role is elected, it has too often been coveted by career politicians looking for a landing spot. Its incumbent, Tony Thurmond, had a background in social work before running for various offices, but that kind of experience isn’t always the case. Neither is experience running a major organization with thousands of employees.
While Newsom’s plan leaves many, if not most, of the details to be ironed out later (a frustrating strategy he’s used more than once to keep the ball rolling on policy without having the drag of actual detail), it does promise to put in someone with the kind of high-level educational policy experience that should be required when managing this vast and important endeavor.
Kirst points out that this will be a “powerful position” charged with making sure our schools are indeed run well, and at the end of the day, it gives us one person to blame if they don’t: the governor.
So if schools don’t improve and our kids don’t learn, voters will know exactly who failed.
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WASHINGTON — The sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, the veteran South Carolina Republican lawmaker, is scrambling the state’s U.S. Senate race as Republicans face a fast primary election to replace him on the ballot.
Graham, 71, who died Saturday after what the D.C. medical examiner called an aorta rupture, was seeking a fifth term in the Senate. Even as his political allies publicly mourned his loss, jockeying began over the vacancy, and President Trump signaled an intention to weigh in.
“I have somebody that I think would be great, but I don’t want to say it now because it’s just, you know, it’s too soon with Lindsey,” Trump, who ordered American flags to be lowered to half-staff in Graham’s honor, said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “I don’t want to even talk about anybody, but I do have somebody that I think is really good.”
Graham’s death eats into Republicans’ voting majority in the Senate, as does the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has been hospitalized for weeks. It adds new uncertainty for the GOP at a time when the party is contending with Trump’s declining popularity among Americans and tensions have been high among Senate Republicans at odds with Trump.
Graham’s death creates the second major shakeup of a Senate race in a week, following Democratic candidate Graham Platner’s dropping out in Maine. Like that state’s Democrats, South Carolina Republicans now face a snap process for choosing a new nominee four months before the November midterms.
But whereas Maine Democrats are expected to decide Platner’s replacement at a convention in two weeks, South Carolina Republican voters will choose Graham’s replacement next month at the ballot box.
Whether the absence of an incumbent could tighten the race or force the GOP to funnel extra money into it remains to be seen. South Carolina is a reliably red state and Graham’s seat was not widely seen as competitive; the race has been rated as solidly Republican by Cook Political Report.
“I expect we’ll have a good November,” said Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, but, he added: “You never take anything for granted, and that’s the last thing I would do in a situation like this.”
McKissick remembered Graham as dedicated to helping his party across levels and in sometimes little-noticed ways, assisting county organizations and down-ballot candidates.
“His time [was] spent on so many issues that were incredibly important to our party,” McKissick said. “He was a staunch pro-life senator with no equal.”
To replace him on the November ballot, the party must hold a special election, according to state election law. Republicans who want to vie for the seat will be able to file starting July 21, and the primary election will be Aug. 11, with a possible Aug. 25 runoff.
Graham was opposed by Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, who in a statement Sunday called the senator “a man of great faith who proudly served our nation.”
“I hope that South Carolinians will join me in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude to Senator Lindsey Graham for his service to the great state of South Carolina,” Andrews wrote.
Because it is now an open seat, that changes the race, said Jay Parmley, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party.
It will require the “rejiggering” of campaign strategy built around opposing Graham, but the Democrats’ big-picture approach of countering Trump and MAGA Republican values will stand regardless of who becomes the new nominee, Parmley said. He predicted the race would be competitive.
“This absolutely is in play,” Parmley said of the seat. “I think it was in play before … but now, I think it’s game on.”
Democrats must retain their seats in three competitive states and flip seats in at least four others. The party has largely focused on Maine, Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas for possible flips.
South Carolina remains a stretch for Democrats, so Graham’s death likely doesn’t change the party’s calculus, said Democratic strategist Andrew DeStefano.
“The math is still very clear and doable,” DeStefano said. “I would rather be Dems than Republicans right now, even with the Senate math and even playing in some tough states.”
Under South Carolina law, Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, can appoint someone to fill Graham’s vacant seat until January. In a statement, McMaster said Graham was “irreplaceable,” calling him “the fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America.”
If a member of the South Carolina congressional delegation were to be appointed to the seat, it would erode the party’s slim margin in that chamber — something some House Republicans were reportedly seeking to avoid. At least one, Rep. Joe Wilson, said Sunday he had told Trump would not seek the seat in order to preserve the House majority.
In Kentucky, McConnell is set to retire at the end of this term, and a race is underway to fill his vacant seat in November. If he were to die before the new session of Congress begins in January, it could set off a legal fight over an untested Kentucky state law requiring a special election to fill a Senate vacancy, but would not affect the November race.
On Sunday, McConnell said in a statement he had been hospitalized after a fall. Little information had been released from his office about his condition, causing questions to swirl. “Just tell us what’s going on,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, urged Saturday on X.
In Maine, Democrats last week announced a July 25 convention where 601 county delegates and state party members will select a nominee to replace Platner.
“The circumstances are different between the two states,” said David Farmer, a Maine-based Democratic strategist, “but it’s certainly shaping up to be a strange midterm election with enormous stakes for the country.”
As the fight for control of the U.S. Senate grows increasingly competitive, eyes are turning north to Alaska and a contest pitting, among its contestants, Dan Sullivan vs. Dan Sullivan — and, no, it’s not about a candidate living a double life or wrestling demons within himself.
Confused?
That may be the point.
Daniel S. Sullivan is Alaska’s two-term Republican senator. He’s seeking reelection in November.
Daniel J. Sullivan is a retired school teacher and political novice. He calls himself an independent Republican cut from the same polar-fleece lining as the state’s maverick GOP senator, Lisa Murkowski.
Political handicappers give Daniel J. Sullivan little chance of winning the highly competitive race. So is there some other reason he’s running? Is his presence on the ballot intended to draw enough befuddled voters away from the incumbent to elect his Democratic challenger, former Rep. Mary Peltola?
That’s what Republicans think. And you don’t have to be standing on the banks of the Kenai River to smell something fishy.
When Daniel J. Sullivan launched his campaign in May, he did so as plain old “Dan Sullivan,” with a website closely resembling that of the incumbent. The press release announcing his candidacy was written by one “Amber Lee.” There is an Alaska political strategist named Amber Lee who has supported Peltola in the past.
(For such a sparsely populated state, there sure are a lot of doppelgangers in this political saga.)
Election officials say Daniel J. Sullivan asked to appear on the ballot as a Republican, even though he hadn’t previously been affiliated with the party. In fact, over the years he’d contributed money to Democrats, including Peltola. He also asked to be identified on the ballot as “Dan S. Sullivan” before changing his mind, an attorney for the state told Alaska’s Supreme Court, which took up the matter late last month.
“That’s not an innocent mistake, or random mistake,” Chris Murray told the justices. “There’s a lot of other letters in the alphabet that could have been a typo.”
The political consultant Amber Lee declined to comment when reached by the Anchorage Daily News. She did not respond to an email from your friendly political columnist.
For his part, Daniel J. Sullivan denied any malice or mischievous intent.
“This is my choice,” he told the Associated Press. He said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign — “zero, none, zilch” — and denied anyone from the state Democratic Party or any national Democratic operatives had contacted him to run.
Peltola’s campaign has adamantly denied any involvement. So, too, have the Alaska Democratic Party and the Democrat’s national Senate campaign committee.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) attends meetings at the U.S. Capitol in 2025.
(Francis Chung / Politico via Associated Press)
But the state’s high court overturned that decision, instructing elections officials to figure out a way to keep Daniel J. Sullivan’s name on the ballot “within the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law.”
It’s been nearly 20 years since the state sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, but this election looks to offer the party its best shot in years, thanks to Peltola.
Jessica Taylor, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, called her “the ideal recruit,” given Peltola’s fundraising prowess and her ability to outperform other Democrats by avoiding the toxic taint of the national party. (Peltola’s slogan —”Fish, family and freedom” — is about as far removed from the Whole Foods-shopping, Prius-driving Democratic image as it gets.)
Democrats need to win four seats in November to take control of the Senate, from a menu that includes Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas while, at the same time, hanging on to contested Senate seats in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. The Cook Political Report rates Alaska as one of the few toss-up races in the bunch.
The state has a ranked-choice election system in which the top four vote-getters advance to November. Ivan Moore, who does nonpartisan polling in Alaska, said that system virtually ensures Sullivan and Sullivan will face off against each other in a runoff that includes Peltola. At that point, Moore suggested, the choice to most voters will be clear.
Under the solution devised by state election officials, the senator will be listed as “Sullivan, Dan S.” and as “(Registered Republican) Incumbent.” His challenger will be identified as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.” with no party affiliation.
“I imagine there’s some people out there who don’t know what the word ‘incumbent’ means,” Moore said. “But I find it pretty hard to believe that people who are dead set on voting for Dan S. Sullivan, the senator, are going to go in the voting booth and vote for the wrong person when Dan S. has the word ‘incumbent’ next to his name and Dan J. doesn’t have any party affiliation.”
Political hijinks are nothing new. But the level of partisan gamesmanship seems to be growing as the old saying about all being far in love and war is increasingly applied to campaigns and elections.
Redistricting, or redrawing the nation’s congressional lines to reflect changes in population, used to occur once a decade following the national census. But spurred by President Trump, the last year has seen an arms race among states, including California, which gerrymandered their political maps to boost a preferred party and, essentially, decide House races before a single ballot is cast.
Politics, another old saying goes, ain’t beanbag.
But it doesn’t have to be this slanted and cynical. There’s no need for fishy-smelling candidates like Daniel J. Sullivan.
PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner on Friday submitted his paperwork to formally withdraw from Maine’s U.S. Senate race, officially ending an upstart yet troubled campaign, the dissolution of which threatens Democrats’ pursuit of chamber control.
Platner’s paperwork was received by the Maine secretary of state’s office and reflected shortly thereafter in its online withdrawal list.
In a letter to the secretary of state’s office, which Platner also posted on social media, he wrote that the Mainers who had nominated him “voted for a new kind of politics” that is “representative of people down here in the real world — not billionaires, oligarchs, or the political establishment.”
It was the same outsider chord that had been a trademark of his tumultuous campaign, in which Platner drew backing from progressive leaders including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California. Both are among many who have since withdrawn their endorsements.
“I seek to further the movement we have built together and the future we believe in,” he went on, without elaborating.
Maine is considered a key state for control of the narrowly divided Senate, and Democrats were desperate for a candidate capable of defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
The formal withdrawal comes two days after Platner said he would quit the race, facing an allegation of sexual assault that he has denied. Maine Democrats are seeking a new nominee, and several candidates have already begun jockeying for position.
State law includes a provision for Democrats to replace Platner before the general election, but the replacement must by named by July 27.
Just before Platner’s Wednesday announcement, more than 100 state Democratic Party committee members signed off on holding a nominating convention, in the event of his withdrawal, to choose the nominee. The state party has not publicly released details of when the convention will be held. Officials with the party did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Several Democrats have announced plans to run for the Senate nomination this week. They include three candidates who lost the June primary for governor — former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson.
Others who have announced runs include Maine Beer Co. co-founder Dan Kleban; former 2nd Congressional District candidates Jordan Wood and Paige Loud; and former Maine Senate candidates David Costello and Andrea LaFlamme. State Rep. Valli Geiger has also expressed interest in the post but has not formally announced.
Kinnard and Whittle write for the Associated Press.
MADISON, Wis. — Over the last month, Democratic socialists have notched victories in the liberal strongholds of New York City, Washington, D.C., and Denver.
Now Francesca Hong, a single mother who has worked as a dishwasher and line cook, is trying to do the same with her campaign for governor in Wisconsin, a swing state known for razor-thin election margins where winning over moderate, independent voters is crucial.
Hong’s candidacy has turned the Democratic primary on Aug. 11 into the latest test of just how far left voters are willing to go in the November midterms.
“We do this in Wisconsin, we’re going to change politics across the country,” the 37-year-old Hong said as she headed into the final month of campaigning. “People who are frustrated and have a lot more to lose — and I’m one of those people — are ready to coalesce around someone they can believe in.”
John Ravdabaugh, an undecided independent voter, came away impressed after hearing Hong speak at the retirement home where he lives. Even though the democratic socialist label concerns him, Ravdabaugh said he would consider voting for Hong.
“Every system reaches a point where change is necessary,” he said.
Whoever wins the primary will advance to almost certainly face Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, one of the most conservative members of the House, who has President Trump’s endorsement. Tiffany has only token opposition in the primary.
The governor’s race is integral to Democrats’ hopes of earning full control of Wisconsin state government for the first time since 2010, and it will send a signal about where the country’s politics are headed by shaping a key political battleground that helps decide presidential campaigns.
Trump-backed Republican derides Democratic rivals as ‘crazy’
Tiffany has focused much of his criticism on Hong and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, another Democratic candidate for governor.
“This November, the choice is common sense or crazy,” Tiffany posted on social media in June. Tiffany included screenshots of a Barnes post where he voiced support for cutting prison populations by half and Hong’s posts where she advocates for defunding and abolishing the police.
As a candidate, Hong has not backed away from her calls to defund and abolish the police. Hong also supports increasing taxes on the wealthy and creating a state-owned bank to help pay for free health care and free child care, a $20 minimum wage, and a moratorium on data center construction.
Hong dismisses concerns that she’s too liberal to win over key independent voters in a state Trump carried twice and narrowly lost a third time.
“I worry that’s a miscalculation of where voters are at in our state, that we’re underestimating what people want,” Hong said in an interview.
There’s a history of socialism in Milwaukee
Last month, democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, setting herself up to clinch the office in November.
Then three congressional candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, another democratic socialist, defeated establishment-backed politicians.
And just last week, democratic socialist Melat Kiros beat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the Colorado primary, a stunning victory for the 29-year-old, first-time candidate against an incumbent who took office before she was born.
But those victories have been in either congressional or mayoral races in large urban centers, a far different landscape than Wisconsin.
In 1910, during socialism’s heyday in the United States, Milwaukee sent the first socialist to Congress and was the first major American city to elect a socialist mayor. Milwaukee elected two more socialist mayors before 1960.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, perhaps the best known democratic socialist, won all but one county in Wisconsin in the 2016 Democratic primary. In 2023, two state lawmakers from Milwaukee revived the socialist caucus in the Legislature, which had been dormant since 1935.
Hong, the first Asian American elected to the state Assembly in 2020, is one of four members of that caucus.
Barnes, 39, served four years in the state Assembly before his four years as lieutenant governor under Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. In 2022, Barnes came within 27,000 votes of ousting Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.
“I’ve been around longer than anybody fighting these fights,” said Barnes, who grew up in Milwaukee and is vying to become Wisconsin’s first Black governor.
He played down the idea that democratic socialists are surging.
“People aren’t looking for labels, necessarily,” he said. “People are looking for bold solutions.”
Longtime Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki, who is not working for any of the Democrats running this year, said Barnes has an advantage as the most well-known candidate in the race.
“I have believed from the day since Mandela Barnes got into the race, he’s the favorite,” Zepecki said. “It is his race to lose.”
Hong rival leans into electability argument
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, a former nurse and health care executive who is also running for the Democratic nomination, said she’ll have broader appeal in November. She cites her experience in the private sector and her flipping of a state Assembly seat in a conservative Milwaukee suburb, and she emphasizes her ideas for lowering costs for working people.
“I’m not worried about other candidates in this race,” Rodriguez said in an interview. “What I’m worried about is making my argument to Wisconsinites about why I’m the best person to lead the state, how I am going to fight for them.”
She launched a $1 million television ad campaign this week that features her in nursing scrubs talking about taking on Tiffany and lowering health care costs.
Other Democratic candidates are state Sen. Kelda Roys, who has the endorsement of the statewide teachers union, and Joel Brennan, a former top aide to Evers.
Missy Hughes, the state’s former economic development director, dropped out of the race in June and endorsed Rodriguez. David Crowley, the top elected official in Milwaukee County, dropped out this week and also backed Rodriguez.
Mainstream Democrats worry about winning in November
More moderate Democrats worry that nominating Hong could hurt them in the general election, especially in Wisconsin where independent voters are key in statewide races that are often decided by tiny margins.
Neera Tanden, who leads the Center for American Progress, said “it’s especially important in the age of Trump” to select viable candidates.
“In Wisconsin, whoever wins the general election will be the person overseeing elections in 2028 and whether people are seated in 2029.”
Evers won his two races for governor by just over 1 percentage point in 2018 and just over 3 points in 2022. Trump won Wisconsin by less than a point in 2024, and lost by less than a point in 2020.
Dave Smith, 72, a retired doctor from Madison who heard Hong speak Tuesday, said the democratic socialist label will be tough for voters of his generation to accept.
“The platform, much of that resonates well,” said Smith, who is undecided whom he will vote for in the Democratic primary. “My vote will likely go to who is the most electable in the fall.”
Bauer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The Maine Democratic Party has voted to hold a convention now that Democrat Graham Platner has announced he’ll drop out of the state’s U.S. Senate race after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault.
Platner, who denies the allegation, faced considerable pressure from his own party to quit the race. The first-time candidate also was accused of trying to influence how his replacement is selected — a claim he also denied. He announced his decision to leave the race Wednesday.
His exit leaves a crucial U.S. Senate race unsettled just months before the November midterm elections. The Maine Democratic Party, which by law is responsible for naming a replacement, announced it’ll move forward with holding a nominating convention to choose a new nominee. Meanwhile, potential contenders have already begun teasing their interest.
Here’s what we know about the Maine Senate race and what could be next:
The clock was ticking
According to Maine law, there’s a narrow provision for replacing general election candidates. Platner needed to step aside voluntarily by 5 p.m. July 13 before other contenders could have been considered.
Once he formally withdraws, the law then says the Maine Democratic Party can choose a replacement, which must be done by July 27.
The state Democratic Party held an emergency meeting Wednesday, where more than 100 state committee members signed off on holding a nominating convention in the event of a vacancy.
“There is an unprecedented amount of energy and enthusiasm among Maine Democrats, driven in part by many of the dedicated volunteers and supporters who were inspired by Graham Platner’s campaign,” Maine Democratic leaders said in a joint statement.
It’s incredibly rare for a general election candidate to bow out of a race, in Maine or elsewhere.
Platner campaign denies trying to influence the process
A key question surrounding how Platner is replaced has come down to just how much leverage the oyster farmer and Marine veteran has in this situation.
Maine Democratic Party’s executive director, Devon Murphy-Anderson had previously released a statement accusing Platner’s campaign of repeatedly trying to “put their thumb on the scale” in determining the next Democratic nominee.
Platner’s team responded with a statement saying “at no point has the campaign tried to ‘put its finger on the scale’” but said they were trying to understand the process. Thousands of Maine residents voted and volunteered for Platner, a progressive who outlasted establishment-backed Gov. Janet Mills, which the campaign believes should count in the decision.
The sparring between Platner’s campaign and the party continued Wednesday. Murphy-Anderson said in a statement that Platner’s campaign “remains focused on distracting from the job of defeating Susan Collins in November with false accusations against us” and the party “remains hyper focused on developing a representative, transparent and inclusive process to select a new nominee when he chooses to withdraw from the race.”
Platner’s campaign sent a survey with a 48-hour deadline to supporters on Wednesday that asked recipients two questions: what message they have for the Maine Democratic Party, and what message they have for Platner.
Separately Wednesday, President Trump was asked if Democrats should be allowed to replace Platner on the Maine Senate ballot.
“So he won the primary. It’s very hard for them. So, you question whether you believe the woman. A lot of people say big falsehoods,” Trump said.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned from a NATO summit in Turkey, the president added of Platner: “He’s in a bind. But, should they be able to do it? Well I guess he’s gonna lose. I’d imagine he’s going to lose.”
List of possible replacements continues to grow
One possible contender, Nirav Shah, former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has said he was “evaluating” whether to join the race. Shah said he’s been in contact with the Maine Democratic Party about ensuring that a possible replacement process is based on “openness, transparency and robustness.”
Troy Jackson, Maine’s former state Senate president, announced Wednesday he was officially entering the race. Jackson unsuccessfully ran to be the Democratic nominee for governor earlier this year with the backing of Platner and Our Revolution, the political organization started by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Jackson had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday to launch a Senate exploratory committee.
Jordan Wood, a former U.S. Senate candidate who then switched to run for Maine’s 2nd District and lost, posted Tuesday that he was “continuing conversations” with voters about joining the race.
Other names circulating include Shenna Bellows, the current Maine secretary of state; Dan Kleban, founder of Maine Beer Co.; and Hannah Pingree, now Maine’s Democratic nominee for governor.
One name that definitely won’t be on the ballot? Actor Patrick Dempsey. The “Grey’s Anatomy” star and Maine native wrote an editorial Wednesday saying despite being asked, he’s not interested.
Voters say they are disillusioned
Platner’s campaigned galvanized hundreds of volunteers around the state. This week, they’ve been expressing disappointment about the behavior Platner is accused of and pondering the right course of action.
Many called for him to drop out.
Paul Attardo, 64, of Scarborough, said he couldn’t continue supporting Platner after the allegation, though he still has a sign promoting the candidate at the end of his driveway. He called the accusation “disappointing” as well as “indisputably sincere,” and said the party needs to get to work finding a replacement.
The scenario reminded Attardo of the hasty replacement of Joe Biden during the 2024 election campaign.
“We rally behind somebody, and not unlike the Biden administration, when everybody rallied behind Joe Biden, at the eleventh hour that failed,” he said. “I sort of feel we’re in a similar boat.”
Kruesi and Whittle write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I. AP writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Washington.
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — Jared Huffman was unstinting and unbowed as he raised an arm heavenward. Not for fear of a thunderbolt hurtling through the blue sky and, punitively, creasing his skull. Rather, he was illustrating a point.
“I believe in a lot of things,” he said over a tuna melt at a small Marin County cafe. “I just don’t believe in magic and a sky god that looks like an old bearded man sitting just beyond the clouds.”
Huffman is the rare American — one of only about 10% or so — who flatly state they do not believe in God, or any higher power for that matter. What makes him rarer still is his place in Congress. Huffman, who represents a sprawling slice of Northern California, reaching from the Bay Area to the Oregon border, is one of just four members (out of more than 500) who are openly agnostic or religiously unaffiliated.
He is, by far, the most outspoken.
Huffman, who publicly revealed his nonreligious status in 2017, helped form the Congressional Freethought Caucus, which consists of about three dozen members of various religious stripe, each dedicated to the proposition that church and state should be distinct. He’s written a book, due out next month, raising an alarm and summoning Americans to fight the rising tide of Christian nationalism roiling our divided land.
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An overwhelming favorite to win an eighth congressional term in November, Huffman, a Democrat, calls himself a humanist and described it this way:
“To me, it means good without God. It means you don’t need the inducement or fear of an afterlife to have a moral framework and to know your place in the universe. You’re sort of at peace with the reality that, as far as we know, this is it. You get one time around.
Rep. Jared Huffman, right, greets Marin County Executive Derek Johnson during the opening of a housing community in Point Reyes Station, Calif., on Wednesday.
(Godofredo A. Vasquez / For The Times)
“There are people of faith who sometimes think, well, that must be sad, that must be incomplete,” Huffman went on. “I find it’s just the opposite. It makes this world and our opportunity to be part of it more sacred.”
Growing up in the Mormon faith
Huffman, 62, grew up in a religious household in Independence, Mo. His family practiced an offshoot of the Mormon faith; as a youth, Huffman served in the priesthood.
He began to question the church and its teachings when his father died of lung cancer at age 56. Huffman was 19 and enrolled at UC Santa Barbara on a full-ride volleyball scholarship. (A lean 6-foot-3, Huffman was a three-time NCAA All-American and is a member of the school’s athletic hall of fame.)
“I think in hindsight ignorant faith kept me from coming to terms with the fact that he was dying, and it made it way more traumatic than it should have been,” Huffman said of his father’s passing. “I didn’t really own up to the reality of what was happening, because I was this person of faith who thought rotten things would never happen to me and my father.”
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Shaken, Huffman spent years in a period of reflection and deep study — of various religions, spirituality, the Bible, which he can cite chapter and verse — before landing in his place of humanism and nonconformity.
After earning a law degree at Boston College, Huffman moved to the Bay Area and served as a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental group. His political career began in 1994 with his election to the Marin Municipal Water District. Huffman served for 12 years, until his election to the state Assembly. He won his congressional seat in 2012.
Huffman’s secularism never came up, he said, until his arrival in Washington, where religiosity, God-fearing and worship of a higher power are taken as articles of faith.
“All of a sudden, religion is all around you and everyone wants to know your religion,” Huffman said. “I knew that I was a nonbeliever. I knew that I was a humanist. But that was a very private thing and I had kind of intended to keep it that way.”
Losing his religion
Two things changed.
First, Huffman’s mother died at age 87. She was fervently religious, Huffman said, and “I didn’t really want to break her heart and tell her how deep my nonbelief actually was.” (In his book, Huffman recounts an awkward scene where he takes the congressional oath of office for the first time on a hastily borrowed Bible, to please his proud mom.)
The second factor was the ascent of Trump, riding a wave of ardent evangelical support.
Huffman was put off by the hypocrisy of such a blasphemous presidentsurrounding himself with extremists using the language and symbols of religious faith to enact what he perceived, and perceives, as a distinctly antidemocratic, un-American agenda.
“I was always uncomfortable with the way I saw religion encroaching into government in Washington,” Huffman said. “My previous concerns were heightened by an order of magnitude because of what he did.”
Ignoring the counsel of family, friends and political advisors who, to a person, warned against it, Huffman revealed his religious disbelief in a series of statements and interviews in November 2017. At the time, the only member of Congress to ever publicly come out as an atheist was Rep. Pete Stark, who announced his sentiments in 2007; though the Fremont Democrat was reelected twice, he was eventually defeated by a Democratic rival who turned his lack of faith against him.
Huffman braced for political blowback. There was none, though he’s gotten death threats and plenty of admonishments he’s bound for Hell.
(Meantime, the congressional ranks of the religiously unaffiliated have grown to include Democratic Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona and Emily Randall of Washington and Republican Rep. Abraham Hamadeh of Arizona.)
In the first election after his announcement, Huffman was returned to Washington with 77% of the vote. He’s won reelection three times since, with never less than 72% support. “It turns out [constituents] don’t much care what my religion is if I’m doing good work,” Huffman said, “and that’s pretty great in my opinion.”
He underscored the sentiment with a hearty bite of his tuna melt.
The book Huffman has coming out next month — with chapters that include “Breaking Faith,” “Christian Privilege” and “Christian Zionism” — is a work that explains his personal evolution and expresses a dire fear the country is headed, if unchecked, toward a system of authoritarian theocracy.
He describes the Christian nationalism that informed the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021, and explains the biblical prophecies behind the messianic support among some Trumpian true-believers.
“The book is not so much about humanism,” Huffman said. “It is about the fight to protect our secular democracy, which, I think, is the bedrock of America as we know it.”
The dedication reads, “For everyone who refuses to bow.”
July 8 (UPI) — Graham Platner dropped out of the Maine Senate race on Wednesday evening, two days after allegations arose that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2021.
In a video, Platner said that “we believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me — and for that reason we are suspending campaign operations.”
“It’s not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are,” he said. “It’s the fact that they’re being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us. We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system built structurally to make sure movements like ours cannot flourish.”
The decision allows Democrats to choose a new candidate for the race against Republican Susan Collins, the five-term incumbent. Platner had until Monday to drop out; Democrats now have two weeks to pick a contender for the race.
On Monday, a woman who once dated Platner said he forced her to have sex with him about five years ago, Politico reported. Jenny Racicot said Platner was intoxicated when he entered her home one night in 2021 andassaulted her while she told him repeatedly to stop. Others have also made claims about Platner and abuse.
Platner has steadily denied the allegations, calling them “categorically untrue.”
Earlier Wednesday, the Maine Democratic Party approved a plan to hold a nominating convention if Platner suspended his campaign.
Valli Geiger, a Maine state representative, told WMTW-TV of Portland, Maine, that Platner called her and encouraged her to try to take his place on the ballot.
“He said, ‘Valli, you are a fighter; you have been with this movement since the beginning,’ ” Geiger said. She said she was “heartbroken” by the accusations against Platner but agreed that he needed to suspend his campaign. She also said he was encouraging others to put their names forward.
CNN reported that candidates to replace Platner include three Democrats who ran for governor: Nirav Shah, former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control; Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; and former state Sen. Troy Jackson.
Since the allegations broke, a rising tide of Democrats called on Platner to suspend his campaign, including former supporters Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Many groups rescinded endorsements of the candidate.
Platner has also been involved in other controversies, including over a tattoo with Nazi connotations that he said he was unaware of.
She is concerned, however, that it will be difficult for voters to coalesce around any new candidate in just three months.
“The thing I’m the most worried about is we run somebody and he or she loses, and then we spend the next four years pointing fingers at whose fault that was,” she said.
In primary contests across the country this year, Democrats regularly opted for outsider congressional candidates offering a vivid vision for what the party should stand for and promising to fight for their beliefs in the face of Republican resistance.
Platner was one of the earliest and most prominent examples of this trend. With his gravelly voice, scruffy appearance and working-class back story, he gained a passionate following both in Maine and nationally.
He presented himself as a candidate who could advocate for liberal policies – like universal healthcare, wealth taxes, and low-cost housing – in a way that appealed to the kind of rural voters who have moved away from Democrats recently.
A win in November would have given Democratic progressives a chance to see blue-collar liberalism triumphing in battleground states like Maine.
And that, in turn, could have become a compelling argument for nominating a left-wing presidential candidate in 2028.
Now, that opportunity is likely dashed.
That Platner survived the series of scandals as long as he did was in part a testament to Democrats’ hunger for a different kind of candidate. It also, however, underlined the risks of opting for charismatic political neophytes who haven’t received close scrutiny before they run for higher office.
With Platner’s exit, a group of more traditional candidates are already expressing interest in stepping in – including a handful who unsuccessfully ran for governor and one of the state’s open House seats last month. They have recent campaign experience and some name recognition.
Troy Jackson, a former Maine Senate leader, campaigned side-by-side with Platner during his bid for governor, and came in third.
Nirav Shah, a state epidemiologist who gained prominence through regular public appearances during the Covid pandemic, finished a close second.
Shenna Bellows, the Maine secretary of state, is known for her lawsuit to block Trump administration attempts to gain access to state voter data. She was the party’s nominee in 2014 but was soundly beaten by Collins.
According to Melcher, many Platner supporters will be hit hard because of the connection they made with their unconventional candidate. He believes they will ultimately back his replacement, however, because of the high stakes in this race.
Many Maine Democrats supported Platner with some reluctance because of his past scandals, he added, and this latest twist might end up a blessing in disguise for the party.
“If they play their cards right, I think that they will be fine and, with some voters, even better than they would have been before,” he said, “as long as the party doesn’t handle this in a way they see as disrespectful or a cabal taking things over.”
The clock is ticking, however, and Collins awaits whoever emerges from whatever process Democrats ultimately follow. She has proven a formidable adversary for Democrats for 30 years, most recently defeating a better-funded opponent in 2020 despite polls showing her trailing right up to election day.
“It’s not as though it was going to be easy before, and now it’s hard,” said Melcher. “Beating Collins was always going to be hard.”
When Barack Obama made history as the first African American president, a dichotomy was born: Would Obama showcase his black heritage too much? Or would he, the son of a white mother, prove not to be “black enough”?
The latest speculation comes from Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, who implied to Politico that he’s more authentically African American than the president.
“He’s an ‘African’ American. He was, you know, raised white. Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch.”
Obama has addressed the concept of blackness before.
“The notion that there’s some authentic way of being black, that if you’re going to be black you have to act a certain way and wear a certain kind of clothes, that has to go,” Obama said in 2014.
Conversely, activist Michael Skolnik started #ObamaAndKids this weekend in honor of Black History Month. The hashtag quickly became a top trending conversation on Twitter.
“This would be the last Black History Month celebration at The White House during the presidency of the first African-American in the history of The United States to hold the highest office in the land,” Skolnik wrote in a Medium blog post.
Obama himself has spoken openly about his race in connection with his presidency. Earlier this month, he talked with Los Angeles Times reporter Christi Parsons about his legacy.
“You’ve got a whole generation of kids where the only president they know … is African-American,” Obama said.
On Sunday, the White House released a video of 106-year-old African American Virginia McLauren meeting the president and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House in a Black History Month celebration.
And last week, the president made a Black History Month joke in reference to black culture.
We’re nine months out from election day and at the start of official retrospection on the 44th presidency. But judging by the past eight years, and even the past month alone, Obama’s race will likely continue to be a topic of debate and conversation even after the torch is passed.
WASHINGTON — The campaign of U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner was buckling in Maine on Tuesday after he was accused of rape, injecting uncertainty into a contest that is central to determining which party wins Senate control in November’s midterms.
The situation set off swift debate about how state Democrats would choose Platner’s replacement if he were to withdraw, and which Maine figures might be best positioned to play off the progressive messaging he used to win over voters.
With Maine viewed by Democrats as a key seat to win in their long-shot bid for a Senate majority, the decision would be high stakes, analysts said. In the meantime, with uncertainty clouding the race, the shake-up could put additional pressure on the party to win Senate races in states seen as more difficult to flip.
Platner has denied the rape allegation, which came in a Politico report Monday from a woman who said Platner forced her to have sex with him when he was intoxicated. Platner said Monday that he would “reflect” on his candidacy but has not withdrawn.
“The calculation that almost everyone on the Democratic side is making is that with Platner in it, it is an unwinnable race,” said John Cluverius, director of survey research for the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell, “and without Platner in it, they have a much better chance.”
An oyster farmer and Marine veteran, Platner had entered the race to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins as an outsider and was seen as riding an anti-establishment wave of support.
His candidacy highlighted the split within his party between progressives and establishment Democrats and represented a matchup between an older incumbent and a younger outsider candidate.
By Tuesday afternoon, Platner’s financial backing was disintegrating and prominent Democrats had withdrawn their support — including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a key endorser of Platner’s, who said Tuesday afternoon that he had told Platner to withdraw.
A spokesperson for Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who had been one of Platner’s most visible backers, quickly withdrew his endorsement Monday.
“I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations are very serious and credible,” Khanna, who has been a prominent supporter of victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, wrote on X.
The California congressman had been among progressives, including Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who previously stood by Platner. Khanna had rallied for Platner at a pre-primary event in June after a set of allegations about the candidate’s “unsettling” conduct from his exes reported by the New York Times and the revelation that he had sent sexually explicit messages to women outside his marriage.
Platner’s collapse comes after the fall of former California Rep. Eric Swalwell, whose ascendant campaign for governor was ended in April after he was accused of sexual assault.
As in Swalwell’s case, Platner’s support has unraveled quickly, leaving him with little path forward.
The Democrats’ formal Senate campaign arm and the Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both pulled investment from the race, their leaders said in statements. Swing Left, an organization working to flip seats for Democrats, removed Maine from its target Senate races for now.
“We continue to believe this seat is winnable if Platner is not on the ballot,” said Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French.
Understate law, Platner has until Monday to withdraw in order for the Maine Democratic Party to be able to nominate a replacement. The committee would have until July 27 to do so.
For Collins, facing a new candidate could make for a harder race than going up against Platner, analysts said.
The fifth-term senator has survived reelection repeatedly, including in 2020, when the state went blue in the presidential election, but drawn ire from some moderate and left-leaning voters who want her to push back more forcefully against President Trump.
Without Maine, Democrats would have to pick up an additional race in a state that went for Trump in 2024 in order to flip the four seats required to win a majority.
To get to four, the party needs to win some mix of Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Iowa and must also retain its seats in Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire.
That scenario could be within reach for Democrats but they face a steep climb, a New York Times/Siena poll released last week found.
“This does put enormous pressure on Democrats across the country with every viable race,” said David Niven, who teaches American politics at the University of Cincinnati. “The margin of error was already slim, and it’s approaching none.”
In Texas, a heated and expensive race has shaped up between Democrat James Talarico, a state representative who is facing Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general.
“I would suspect that Democrats are going to be relatively all-in on Texas simply because they can no longer rely on Maine in the way they thought they were going to be able to,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
The Politico report came after a string of other controversies for Platner, who had successfully batted them away ahead of the state’s June primary.
His quick rise in the campaign excited Democrats looking for younger, non-establishment leaders. His primary opponent, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April, clearing his path.
He faced scrutiny over a tattoo on his chest that was widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he then said he had covered up, and a tranche of deleted Reddit posts that he said were “stupid” comments from a time when he had post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ahead of the primary, the report of his extramarital texts and theallegations by exes about volatile behavior revived questions about his candidacy; Platner described them as politically motivated and privately assured Democratic leaders that nothing else was coming.
The situation “reinforce[s] the need for more careful vetting [of] first-time outsider candidates,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.
“Every political professional knows that the most important type of candidate research is not opposition research — it’s research on your own candidate,” Schnur said.
Progressive leaders on Monday sought to validate the success of Platner’s campaign in energizing Maine voters while disavowing Platner. They urged Democratic leaders to stick with a candidate who shares Platner’s working-class image if he withdraws — something Platner may hope to influence, the New York Times reported.
“To the Democratic establishment: this is not your opening,” Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive organization Our Revolution,said in a statement. “Whoever leads this movement forward must be someone who has actually lived the fight Graham Platner ran on.”
Some Democrats were already looking to the party’s gubernatorial primary candidates as possible replacements, including Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Sen. Troy Jackson and former state health official Nirav D. Shah.
The July deadlines would leave enough time before November for Democrats to persuade voters of a new candidate, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine, but how the party chose to select a replacement would probably be as important as whom it chose.
“Having a 100-person executive committee select it on their own would probably not sit well with Platner’s supporters,” Brewer said. “A caucus they could pull off; if they want to be as open and inclusive as possible, that’s probably their best option.”
McDaniel reported from Washington and Kwok from Los Angeles.
WAUSAU, Wis. — Michael Alfonso, the 26-year-old son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, has an answer for people who say he doesn’t have the experience necessary to join Congress as its youngest member.
He points to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
“They were 26 when they were first elected to public office,” said Alfonso, a Republican.
Alfonso is trying to ride support from his father-in-law to win his old House seat in rural northern Wisconsin. Duffy has repeatedly jetted back to the district to campaign and raise money for Alfonso, and he’s tapped $1 million from his old congressional account to support Alfonso’s candidacy.
Alfonso has also scored the endorsement of President Trump, who called him a “MAGA warrior.” But to Alfonso’s detractors, including prominent Republicans in the 7th Congressional District, he’s too young and inexperienced for the job.
“I think it’s insulting to people in the 7th that someone who lacks qualifications and any life experiences and any kind of demonstrable leadership skills or experience is even being touted as a candidate,” said Meg Ellefson, a 20-year resident of the district who voted for Trump three times and now opposes him. “It’s super aggravating to me.”
The Aug. 11 primary will test whether Trump’s endorsement of Alfonso, Duffy’s star power in his old congressional district and Alfonso’s fundraising advantage will be enough to put the political newcomer over the top.
Alfonso leans into Duffy’s ‘Real World’ past
Alfonso is taking a page from his father-in-law’s playbook by participating in a reality show. He appeared alongside Duffy, a 1997 alum of MTV’s “Real World,” in the “Great American Road Trip” video series that Duffy launched with his wife and 11 children on YouTube in June.
Duffy was elected to Congress in 2010, flipping a seat that had been under Democratic control for 41 years. He served for just under nine years before leaving politics. He returned last year when Trump tapped him to serve as transportation secretary.
Alfonso has leaned into his youth and lack of political experience.
“I’m a young man with the energy of a young man, but I have the values of someone who’s in their 60s,” Alfonso said, citing the fact that he got married to Duffy’s daughter Evita Duffy at age 22 and became a father in May.
Alfonso graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022 and then moved to Florida, where he worked for about a year on a podcast hosted by Trump supporter Dan Bongino. Prior to that, he worked construction jobs while in college.
Alfonso said that conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination inspired him to run to continue what he calls a “spiritual battle for the soul of our nation.” Kirk’s Turning Point Action has endorsed Alfonso.
Duffy’s son-in-law faces a former Iranian hostage and a dog musher
One of Alfonso’s rivals in the Republican primary, Kevin Hermening, has deep ties to the district.
Hermening is a former Marine who was one of 66 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days starting in 1979. Framed photos of the then-20-year-old Hermening meeting with former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter hang on his office wall.
He has worked nearly 40 years as a financial planner, spent 16 years on a local school board and was chairman of the Marathon County Republican Party for 24 years, helping Duffy and scores of other Republicans win local, state and federal races across the district.
Hermening also previously ran for Congress in 1986, when he was the same age as Alfonso is now — 26. He lost by 25 percentage points to Democratic incumbent Rep. David Obey.
“The voters told me that I wasn’t ready or prepared yet,” Hermening, who’s now 66, said in an interview at his Wausau office. “I was ill prepared to have actually done the job, and I’m not saying that because Mr. Alfonso’s in the race. It’s a fact.”
Another candidate in the primary, Ashley Furniture executive Jessi Ebben, has the backing of powerful Republican megadonors. Others running are Niina Baum, a dog musher, and Don Raihala, an accountant and real estate broker.
Longtime Republicans are publicly opposing Alfonso despite Trump backing
While Alfonso has endorsements from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and four of Wisconsin’s six Republican congressmen, local Republican officials in the district have publicly questioned the young candidate’s credentials.
Leaders in at least three counties have publicly spoken out against Alfonso as being too inexperienced for the job and questioned Duffy’s influence.
Iron County Republican Party Chair Tanner Hiller accused Duffy of trying to use his connections to get his son-in-law elected.
“I think what they’re doing is wrong morally,” Hiller told Wisconsin Public Radio in May. “There’s a lot of people that have better credentials, that know this district, that will represent this district better than Michael Alfonso.”
Donations in question as GOP megadonors are divided
Alfonso has benefited from tens of thousands of dollars in donations from transportation interests, raising more questions given that Duffy leads the federal agency that oversees the nation’s transportation system.
When asked whether he would be beholden to those donors, Alfonso said he answers only to God and the voters.
“That’s it,” Alfonso said.
But Hermening said Alfonso will feel indebted to the donors.
“I would think that the people would want to get paid back,” he said.
Duffy, despite his repeated visits back home to the district to campaign and raise money for Alfonso, is focused exclusively on executing the president’s agenda, his Transportation Department spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore said when asked about the donations.
A super political action committee backing Alfonso has received $1 million from Duffy’s old congressional account and another $1 million from Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, whose shipping and packaging business, Uline, is based in Wisconsin.
However, Uihlein’s wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, has donated $1 million to another PAC supporting Ebben. Ebben also has the backing of Club for Growth and Diane Hendricks, a billionaire builder from Wisconsin who is another GOP megadonor.
Alfonso hopes Trump endorsement overcomes GOP pushback
Alfonso is leaning into the Trump endorsement, while saying it will be hard work and not the president’s backing that gets him elected. His red, white and blue campaign signs say, “Endorsed by President Donald Trump.”
Jack Hoogendyk, chair of the Republican Party in Marathon County, which is home to the district’s largest city of Wausau, said Trump’s endorsement is “solid gold” in a district where Trump won by 22 percentage points two years ago.
But Ellefson, the longtime district resident, who hosted a conservative talk radio show in Wausau for five years, isn’t so sure that Trump’s blessing carries the same weight now that it used to.
“I personally would like to believe that voters in the 7th are intelligent enough and critical thinkers and won’t be swayed by a Trump endorsement,” she said. “I’m going to give the voters credit for not being that foolish.”
SACRAMENTO — Could the Declaration of Independence be signed today by this crop of political leaders, particularly the one who occupies and defaces the White House?
Not just sign, but sincerely mean it.
Especially the guy who bangs a wrecking ball against the historic East Wing to make room for an incongruous ballroom monstrosity, who mars the sacred Oval Office with gold glitter and paves over the lovely Rose Garden.
But never mind these displays of egotism and tackiness that currently blemish landmarks throughout the nation’s capital, including the National Mall, traditional site of the annual July Fourth fireworks.
Back to my central question: Would there be enough patriots today to affix their John Hancocks to a rebellious document that bravely concludes:
“For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Political leaders would very likely sign the more famous preamble that includes this passage, widely regarded as the most important sentence in American history:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Those words probably would poll well and make salable talking points in local town halls. Even if the notion that all people are created equal would be recognized, as it was 250 years ago, as merely a lofty, hypocritical pie-in-the-sky goal. After all, the eloquent document’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson, owned 600 slaves.
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We’ve made a world of progress since then on equality. But clearly President Trump and much of America today don’t agree that all people are created equal and guaranteed the same right, for example, of due process in court. People such as undocumented immigrants — the tired, the poor and the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
But that’s a heated and politicized 250-year-old debate that will continue indefinitely.
For me, the most striking and sincere sentence in the Declaration of Independence is the last one, in which 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, unanimously pledged “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.”
“It was not a throwaway line,” notes UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar. “It was an acknowledgment that they were committing treason. It showed how deeply committed they were.”
The nation’s founders understood that in British King George III’s view, they were traitors. And if their rebellion failed, they’d be targets for execution.
“We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately,” Benjamin Franklin supposedly told delegates.
In fact, nine of the signers died during the Revolutionary War from disease, prison hardships or combat wounds.
An estimated 6,800 U.S. soldiers died in combat and more than 8,500 were wounded. An additional 17,000 Americans perished.
Several signers sacrificed their fortunes, some to help pay for the war.
Gen. George Washington — an immensely rich Virginia planter — refused to accept a salary as commander in chief of the Continental Army. He bought much of the ammunition and fighting gear himself, then was reimbursed after the war.
Sacred honor? That meant what it said back then. The revolutionary leaders proved their character with sacrifice and bravery.
The nation’s first president, Washington, could not tell a lie, according to myth. Of course, he routinely lied during the war to deceive the British. But our 47th president, Donald Trump, is a pathological liar who seems to prevaricate daily.
Would Trump pledge his fortune to the cause of liberty?
That’s hard to imagine of a president who uses the office to promote and prosper from his own brand name. And whose income ballooned to $2.2 billion in 2025, his first year back in the White House after being booted by voters in 2020, a humiliation he still doesn’t have the integrity to acknowledge.
“President Trump is using the office to enrich himself and his family in ways we’ve never seen before,” Chemerinsky asserts.
Pledge his life? Please!
This is a man who once faked bone spurs to avoid the military draft. OK, he wasn’t the only young fellow who dodged combat in the unnecessary Vietnam War, which claimed the lives of 58,000 Americans.
But Trump has called America’s war dead “suckers” and “losers,” according to former aides. He denies it.
There’s no question he expressed contempt for the late Sen. John McCain, who spent more than five years as a North Vietnamese prisoner. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “I like people who weren’t captured.”
The Declaration of Independence was about severing the chains of a British monarchy and creating a government powered by the people with checks and balances.
Trump has attempted — often successfully — to govern as a monarch, ignoring the checks and balances of Congress and the judiciary. He has gotten away with it because bullied Republican congressional leaders have mostly rolled over like lapdogs.
But we may be seeing the early signs of a mild revolt against the king as Trump sinks further in the polls and we draw closer to the November elections.
That’s sort of what the founders had in mind: a government deriving its power “from the consent of the governed.” And when citizens are subjected to “absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”
So could the Declaration be signed today? Hard to say. There’s no King George hovering over us. Only a wannabe king.
But, yes, I suspect there’d be a signing. Independence is a dominant gene in America’s DNA.
July 5 (UPI) — Mallory McMorrow, a state lawmaker who made in early splash in the race for the Democratic nod in Michigan’s key U.S. senate race, suspended her campaign on Sunday in a surprise move.
McMorrow, who positioned herself between the national party leadership favorite Rep. Haley Stevens and progressive challenger Abdul El-Sayed, said in a social media post she is pulling out of the race “with a deep, deep sense of gratitude.”
“For our thousands of volunteers, for everyone who donated what you could — building a campaign with zero corporate PAC dollars,” she said, adding that while she is suspending her campaign, “I am not leaving the fight.”
McMorrow reiterated her call for “new leadership and a better Democratic Party,” whose top voices, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have endorsed Stevens to take on the Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, in November’s general election.
Her withdrawal leaves Stevens and El-Sayed as the remaining candidates for the Aug. 4 primary, which is now shaping up to be a major test of whether El-Sayed can extend progressives’ winning streak against more establishment figures in Democratic primaries.
“Whoever wins this primary on August 4th will have my full support,” she declared.
The Michigan race is seen as a key in the Democrats’ hopes of capitalizing on the unpopularity of President Donald Trump and flipping the Senate from Republican control in November. To do so, they must keep it in the “blue” column as it is being vacated by Democrat Gary Peters.
McMorrow was an early front-runner in the race and had raised more than $8.6 million by the end of March but has since fallen behind El-Sayed and Stevens in the polls, the Detroit Free Press reported.
El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official who has the backing of progressive stalwarts Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has seen a surge of support since May and last month won the endorsement of the United Auto Workers.
Four-term congresswoman Stevens, meanwhile, is picking up backing from some of McMorrow’s supporters, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who on Sunday called Stevens “a seasoned fighter for Michigan who knows how to work in a difficult environment to get essential policies across the finish line.”
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks to supporters at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater in New York City during at an election night watch party after winning the New York City mayoral race on November 4, 2025, Photo by Derek French/UPI | License Photo
Leclerc now looked locked in for victory, but there was great doubt over second place.
Hamilton, who earlier had a five-second penalty for moving before the lights went out at the start, was 20 seconds back from his team-mate, but Verstappen was closing in and Russell was going with the Dutchman, having dropped back with a pit stop on lap 34 forced by a slow puncture.
But on lap 48, Verstappen spun off at Stowe. Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said the rear wing did not close properly, meaning Verstappen had less downforce as he turned in, causing his loss of control.
Verstappen’s off brought out the safety car, and initially it looked as if there would be a short blast to the finish with the Ferrari drivers contesting victory on fresh tyres.
But Russell did not pit, so he would have taken any restart between them, which would have delayed Hamilton’s charge, even by a few seconds.
But Verstappen had crashed with only four laps to go, and there was doubt about whether the incident would be cleared in time.
As the cars came around to approach the start of the final lap, the timing screen initially said the safety car would pull in, but a few seconds later that message was replaced by another saying it would stay out.
The full post-race FIA statement said: “The safety-car period regulation states that one lap must be completed following the unlapping procedure.
“This process was followed by race operations. The ‘safety car in this lap’ message was displayed erroneously due to a software error.”
The safety-car finish guaranteed Leclerc’s first win since the 2024 US Grand Prix in Austin.
Russell’s podium was his first at his home race and he said: “Really pleased to be standing here, even though it was a very lucky race. I had the puncture but I was lucky to get the safety car at the end.”
Hamilton said: “I just didn’t have it today. I jumped the start, got a five-second penalty but Charles had the pace on me today. I struggled with the balance of the car. I gave it everything and I am grateful to be up here.”
Lando Norris took fourth for McLaren after a solid but quiet race as the world champions wait for upgrades due at the Hungarian Grand Prix this month.
Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar was fifth, followed by the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson and 18-year-old British rookie Arvid Lindblad.
Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri dropped to the back after being involved in a first-lap incident and recovered to 11th, behind the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly.
The Skerries 100 motorcycle road race has been abandoned after a fatal accident on Sunday.
The incident happened in the Junior Support race, which was the second race of the day.
A statement from the Loughshinny Motorcycle Supporters Club, which organises the races, said it “regrets to announced a competitor has sadly passed away following a tragic accident that occurred during a race”.
The organisers added the rider’s next of kin were being informed and more details would be released.
The Skerries 100, which takes place in County Dublin, was returning for the first time in four years after road racing was impacted by rising insurance costs in the Republic of Ireland.
Northern Ireland rider William Dunlop was the last rider to lose their life at the Skerries 100 in 2018.
On Saturday, his brother Michael, who has a record 36 wins at the Isle of Man TT, won the opening race at the 2026 races before the fatal accident.
The fatality is the third death at a road race on the island of Ireland in 2026.
On Friday, Irish rider James Walsh passed away after an accident at the Tandragee 100 road race in Northern Ireland six days earlier.
In May, Czech Republic rider Kamil Holan died in an accident in Superbike qualifying at the North West 200 international road race at Station Corner.
Later that month, English rider Dan Ingham was killed in an accident during a practice session at the Isle of Man TT.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli caught and passed Lewis Hamilton to win an action-packed sprint race at the British Grand Prix.
While McLaren’s Lando Norris, Mercedes’ George Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen staged a frantic place-swapping scrap in the opening laps at Silverstone, Antonelli bided his time before homing in on Hamilton at the front.
The 19-year-old Italian let the race settle down before remorselessly homing in on the Ferrari and blasting past Hamilton on the Hangar Straight on lap eight after strategically saving his battery charge.
Hamilton hung on bravely but could do nothing to stop Antonelli extending his championship lead still further to 43 points over Russell.
Behind them, Norris drove an excellent race to blast up from sixth on the grid to fourth on the first lap before passing Russell on the second lap.
There were a few hectic laps as Norris, Russell and Verstappen swapped places before Norris managed to consolidate third place and move clear of the the battle behind him.
Russell managed to pass Verstappen on lap nine before the four-time champion fell back into the clutches of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who moved past the Red Bull a lap later.
Verstappen dropped back but managed to hold off McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to take sixth.
Racing Bull’s Liam Lawson held off an attack from Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in the closing laps as they took the final points positions.
Qualifying for Sunday’s main grand prix is at 16:00 BST on Saturday.
OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. — In the pre-dawn chill of the Sierra Nevada, Christina Klayko bounced on the balls of her feet, trying to keep warm and calm before one of the planet’s most punishing competitions.
Surrounding her at the starting line for the Western States Endurance Run — a lung-busting 100-mile race over towering mountain ridges and through deep, sun-scorched canyons — were some of the most elite athletes in the world, including former champions, record holders and an Olympic marathon medalist.
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Klayko, a 48-year-old mother of three, had no illusions about winning — she was just relieved to be there. She is a two-time cancer survivor, and a year earlier, she was lying on an operating table enduring a full hysterectomy, followed by months of radiation treatment. She was terrified she might die.
Spectators trekked to Emigrant Pass before dawn to cheer at the first significant milestone the Western States Endurance Run.
“I was in a very dark place,” she said. “I would have given anything just to be able to walk my dog around the block.”
But Klayko, a former software engineer from Los Altos, has never been a quitter. In her twenties, following a breast cancer diagnosis and a full mastectomy, she finished an Ironman triathlon. Last Saturday, she was hoping to complete an even more miraculous comeback.
To do so, she would have to run almost half the width of California, from the shores of Lake Tahoe to Auburn, a former mining town in the foothills above Sacramento, along remote, rock-strewn paths that rise and fall like a roller coaster.
In all, she would have to propel herself up more than 18,000 vertical feet, or three times the elevation hikers climb to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the contiguous U.S. And she’d have to endure relentless jack-hammering from nearly 23,000 feet of descent.
Hard things are nothing new to her, Klayko said. And unlike cancer, running is a choice. You can walk away when you’ve had enough.
There’s no prize money for doing well in the Western States 100, but finishers get a commemorative belt buckle and, more importantly, membership in one of the most exclusive clubs in all of sports. More than 11,000 runners entered a lottery for fewer than 400 spots this year. Many had waited for more than a decade for their chance.
But there’s a cruel twist — not everyone who crosses the finish line wins the bragging rights.
There’s a strict 30-hour time limit. Which means, most years, dozens of competitors struggle over snow-capped mountains, push themselves to the brink of heat stroke in the sweltering canyons and endure a long, dark night in the wilderness, only to show up at the finish line a few minutes late.
Eric Strand, 65, of Wildwood, MO, center, runs in front of the Granite Chief Wilderness at the start of the Western States Endurance Run.
They’re not acknowledged as finishers. As far as the official record is concerned, they didn’t make it.
So as Klayko waited for the ceremonial shotgun blast that signals the start, she wasn’t worrying about cancer, or mortality, or even the hours of torture that lay ahead — she was dreading the cutoff.
“I knew I could just push and push as long as I had to,” Klayko said. But she couldn’t escape the looming fear of “running out of time.”
The first major obstacle was Emigrant Pass, a high ridge that is four miles, almost straight uphill, from the start at the Palisades Tahoe ski resort.
Half an hour after the start, the sun peeked over distant summits, turning the horizon orange, and the first runners approached the top.
In the lead pack was Jim Walmsley, a four-time Western States champion and holder of the course record — an astonishing 14 hours, 9 minutes and 28 seconds. Spaniard Kilian Jornet, arguably the greatest ultra runner of all time, was right there with him. That was no surprise. In addition to having won Western States and almost every other notable ultramarathon, Jornet famously summited Mt. Everest twice in one week — without supplemental oxygen.
Among the women was Molly Seidel, perhaps the most recognizable name after Jornet. Seidel had been a 27-year-old barista and babysitter before the COVID-delayed Olympics in 2021, when she shocked the running world by winning the bronze medal in the marathon. It was only the third marathon she had ever run.
These battle-hardened pros barely flinched when they crested the ridge and ran headfirst into bitter, gale-force winds gusting to 65 mph. Their bare, muscled legs kept pumping steadily and carried them down the other side, where the gusts quickly subsided.
The rest of the pack didn’t make it look so easy.
Spectators watch the sunrise before the start of the Western States Endurance Run.
Many were hunched and gasping as they struggled toward the crest. One woman bent over and started retching violently. Locking eyes with a reporter, she shouted, “I’M OK!” — apparently unaware that she was screaming over the wind and whatever was playing in her headphones. “I JUST SWALLOWED TOO MUCH SPIT!”
Then she straightened and staggered into the howling gale: only 96 more miles to go.
Seven hours later, at mile 56, the lead runners climbed out of the course’s deepest and hottest canyon, onto a dusty promontory called Michigan Bluff.
The first few looked almost as fresh and fast as they had at the ridge. But the punishment was starting to show on everyone else.
Jornet, who had been nursing a knee injury before the race, was concerned about the canyons. He didn’t make it through them, dropping out at mile 38.
Walmsley, who had been among the leaders for the first 30 miles, was fading by Michigan Bluff. Persistent hip pain would force him from the race at the next aid station. At this point, most of the other runners, including Klayko, were hours behind.
Justin Grunewald, a 40-year-old Colorado doctor, who some picked as a dark horse contender to finish in the top ten, looked exasperated as he emerged from the canyon. He went straight to his support team, who started dumping water down the back of his shirt and tying an ice bag around his neck.
“I’m totally fine,” he told them, “but my knee is killing me because I keep eating s—.” That’s runner shorthand for falling.
His knee was bleeding, but the real problem was his vision. He pulled off his sunglasses, and his eyes were a scary shade of red. He leaned his head back while a friend squeezed drops into them and reminded him to keep wearing his glasses. Obvious advice — but what else do you say to someone hellbent on running another 44 miles?
“Ultra runners are a strange breed,” said Amanda Basham, Grunewald’s wife. She was on his support team this year, but she has twice finished the race in fourth place.
Jacob Banta, of Mill Valley, pushes up the trail near Michigan Bluff during the Western States Endurance Run.
As Grunewald composed himself and trotted off into the distance, it seemed like a good time to ask the obvious: why does anyone put themselves through such an ordeal?
Basham laughed and said most people would probably brush the question aside with something safe and trite, like, “I just love running!” But the truth, she said, is that “almost everyone here has an intense story.”
Grunewald’s first wife and running partner, Gabe, died after fighting a rare cancer for 10 years, Basham said. Other competitors have lost a child, struggled with mental health or battled addiction. Running long distances on secluded trails can be a coping mechanism. For some, showing up at big races to commune with their tribe is like group therapy.
“We all come together for this common thing, and it doesn’t really matter if you went to rehab 10 times,” Basham said. “You’re here trying to get better, and it’s cool.”
Minutes later, Seidel hobbled out of the canyon clutching her thighs. When her crew offered her a chair, she tried to settle but started panting in pain, apologizing that she was in too much agony to sit.
This was her first attempt at 100 miles. She would explain later that she hadn’t eaten enough during the race and had developed excruciating skin lesions from chafing. It looked like her day was done, but she refused to quit.
The women’s winner, Jennifer Lichter, might have the most intense story of them all. Born in Bogota, Colombia, she was a nine-year old orphaned by cartel violence when a couple from Wisconsin adopted her.
In her first 100-mile race, she shaved a minute off the women’s course record, finishing in 15 hours, 28 minutes and five seconds.
The men’s winner, Vincent Bouillard, smashed the overall course record by more than 20 minutes, sprinting across the line in 13 hours, 46 minutes and 15 seconds.
Klayko, who never imagined herself involved in the chase for records, emerged from the canyon eight hours behind the leaders.
For most of the race, she hovered between hiking fast and running slow. She subsisted mostly on energy chews and gels, indulging in a baked potato sprinkled with salt at one point, and luxuriating in a cup of broth with rice at another.
Was attempting the race wise, given her health? Had she told her doctors she was planning to do this?
“That’s, um, a good question,” she said with a chuckle. “They know I’m a serious runner but … I don’t think I actually told them I was running the Western States.”
Probably for the best.
Like a lot of the runners, Klayko said she got a jolt of much needed energy at mile 78, on the bank of the American River, where the run suddenly turns into an obstacle course.
Racers grab a thin nylon rope and gingerly wade into the freezing water. Volunteers offer life vests and stay close to prevent drownings, but offer no assistance.
A racer crosses the American River during the Western States Endurance Run.
Near the middle of the crossing, the water got so deep that many runners submerged completely, pulling on the rope to haul themselves to the far bank.
“It definitely woke me up,” Klayko said of her crossing in the dark at 3 a.m. “It was a lot colder than I expected.”
On the other side — soaked to the bone, with wet clothes and shoes — she crawled back onto the dusty trail and started running again. Soon after, the trouble set in.
It began with a burning sensation on the bottom of her left foot. As the pain intensified, she started hobbling, leaning on the trekking pole in her right hand to take pressure off the blister that was growing bigger than a golf ball.
With just miles to go, her husband, Chris, who ran beside her — after the halfway point, competitors are allowed to have a companion for safety — kept checking the time. They were falling behind.
What do you say to someone you love in such a situation? You don’t want them to suffer, but you don’t want them to fail.
“We need to hustle,” he told her.
In the last few hundred yards, the race enters the football stadium at Placer High School. Seidel had finished hours earlier, at 5:29 a.m., when the stadium was relatively empty.
But the last 60 minutes before the notorious cutoff — known as Golden Hour — attracts a huge crowd.
Cameras film from every angle as one battered body after another circles the track. Some jog, some hobble, some openly sob. Whatever they do, it’s fully public and likely to go viral on social media.
Christina Klayko pushes for the finish at Placer High School with just minutes to spare in the Western States Endurance Run..
Klayko said she was coached to visualize her finish during training. In her head, it looked nothing like this.
When she came around the final bend with the clock ticking down, gasps arose from the media gaggle behind the finish line.
Desperate to compensate for the enormous blisters on both feet now, she leaned forward and to the right at almost 90 degrees — wobbling and weaving on her heels, relying on trekking poles to stay upright and claw forward.
It was hard to watch but impossible to look away.
When she was finally in stumbling distance of the line, Chris bounced up and down and thrust his arms in the air. The crowd roared.
She finished with 18 minutes to spare.
Christina Klayko nearly collapsed after crossing the finish with minutes to spare in Western States Endurance Run.
Chances are, right about now, you’re considering how you’d like to spend this upcoming Fourth of July weekend. At the beach, maybe, at a barbecue or whatever place sets fireworks pinwheeling through your holiday-happy mind.
Every two years, in the spring and fall, California holds an election. Every two years the state faces an outraged chorus, voices raised nationwide, decrying the length of time it takes to tally the millions of ballots cast and, in a handful of races, determine the winner.
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Then, just as suddenly, the din fades away, the focus shifts and the election process is forgotten until the next round of howling protest.
Just that word, process, can throttle and snuff the life out of the subject.
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So it’s good news that lawmakers in Sacramento have used this inattentive time to address the biennial hullabaloo and perhaps shut some people up.
The budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Monday includes an additional $40 million aimed at speeding up California’s vote count, and even if the sum is less than half the $90 million sought by reform-minded advocates, it’s something.
Most of the money will go toward staffing, technology and equipment upgrades. Another $10 million will pay for voter education and outreach. A further $750,000 will be used to combat election misinformation. (A $3.50 roll of duct tape would be a far more economical way to address the latter were it applied to the inciteful mouth of America’s election-denier-in-chief. More about him in a moment.)
“While the amount budgeted is less than we had recommended, it still represents a sizable investment that prioritizes timely election results,” said Kim Alexander, head of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which has been at the forefront of election reform efforts in the state.
A surprise Supreme Court decision
As it happens, the budgetary infusion came the same day the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states to count mail ballots that are postmarked by election day, even if they arrive days afterward. In California, where most voters mail their ballots, that lag time can be up to a week.
It was a surprise decision from this most Trump-obeisant court, a setback for the petulant president and a ruling that will have very little effect on California’s prolonged vote counting.
That’s because those late-arriving ballots have very little to do with the time it takes to complete the count. My colleague Kevin Rector reported that in 2024 California tallied more than 406,000 late-arriving mail ballots — which represents only about 2.5% of the more than 16 million ballots cast. The long count is a result of the huge number of ballots placed in drop boxes or arriving at processing facilities on or just before election day — and, really, is it such a bad thing for voters to watch for late developments before letting go of their ballot?
Lawmakers in California made a purposeful decision that voting should be convenient and not a chore, as a way to to encourage the greatest turnout possible. That’s a good thing if you believe in our system of representative democracy. The voice of the people, and all that.
There wasn’t much hue or cry — especially about mail balloting, which has exploded in popularity and introduces all sorts of time-consuming steps, such as signature verification — until Trump cried fraud and made other specious claims. That’s what happens when you have a sore, whiny loser astride the bully pulpit; Trump is perfectly willing to torch people of good faith and burn working systems to the ground if it salves his eggshell ego.
An election, not a soccer match
Many political commentators are complicit in Trump’s arson.
Awaiting California’s election results, they act like pouty birthday children forced to leave their presents unopened until all the kids have had their cake. They speak of voters losing faith in the election process without explaining the commendable reason for the delay — seeking maximum voter participation — or acknowledging how their impatience contributes to the sense that something wrong is afoot.
Hang out with family and friends. Enjoy some barbecue. Watch fireworks paint the night sky. There’s plenty of time for speechifying, TV ads and campaign mailers to blitz the state between now and the election on Nov. 3.
Chris, 34, was holidaying in Salou when he filmed the video. He said that some people had been in the queue for an hour
Manic tourists race for sunbeds at Spanish hotel
Holidaymakers were filmed in a “manic race” for the prime sunbeds surrounding the pool at a Spanish hotel — after queuing for an hour. Chris, 34, was on holiday in Salou, Spain, last week when he witnessed the spectacle unfold on June 24, as over 40 tourists rushed out.
The holidaymakers had been standing by the doors for an hour before the pool opened at 9am. Chris, from Glasgow, Scotland, said he observed the sun-seekers lining up at the doors on each day of his week-long break.
He said tourists would dash out, reserve a sunbed with their towel and belongings before heading back inside for breakfast. Chris found the spectacle amusing but thought it was somewhat unfair that nobody else would manage to get a sunbed for the entire day.
Chris, from Glasgow, Scotland, said: “It was a manic race and scramble for the sunbeds surrounding the pool at the hotel. I don’t judge but found it funny so had to film it.
“Some people just rolled out their bed, queued up, mad-dashed to secure the bed then they were seen going back to their hotel rooms or off for breakfast.”
“It doesn’t leave room for those who don’t queue for an hour.”
“I’m still begging for people to help me get him out.” A mother’s plea as rescuers race to reach people trapped beneath collapsed buildings after twin earthquakes struck Venezuela. Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo reports.
Daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori says country is closer to ‘order and hope’ after prolonged vote count.
Published On 30 Jun 202630 Jun 2026
Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori is ahead in Peru’s presidential race as the country’s electoral authorities concluded their tally of the vote count after a contentious run-off, which her leftist rival has refused to recognise.
Fujimori said on Monday that she would continue to wait for an official announcement from Peru’s National Jury of Elections (JNE) after the ONPE electoral authority finished a review of contested ballots.
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“We are getting closer and closer to embarking on a path of order and hope for all Peruvians,” Fujimori said in a social media post.
Fujimori, the daughter of the late former President Alberto Fujimori – who was jailed for human rights abuses – has pledged to “unite the country” after the final tally showed her beating leftist rival Roberto Sanchez by 50.13 percent to his 49.86 percent, with 100 percent of the votes counted.
The JNE is scheduled to officially announce a winner on July 3, following a drawn-out vote count that has lasted for weeks.
But the results of the June 7 run-off are unlikely to bring an end to Peru’s years of political crisis, which have seen nine presidents take office in just 10 years before being voted out or removed from their post.
Sanchez has refused to recognise the results of the election, which he has said was marred by irregularities and fraud. He has not provided evidence for those claims, but has called for protests to “defend the vote” and said he will file a legal challenge to appeal the official proclamation.
Such claims have become common in Peru, whose political system has become increasingly chaotic amid declining voter trust in elections and government institutions in recent years.
Many voters expressed frustration after the first round of voting in April, when logistical issues delayed voting in parts of the capital, Lima.
Election monitors have cautioned that there was no evidence of widespread fraud but acknowledged voter frustrations.
Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez, reporting from Peru’s capital Lima, said Fujimori has reacted to the result, saying she was very happy that the vote count has finished and would wait with “humility and prudence” until the official declaration of her victory.
“Keiko Fujimori is aware that she has just won by only 49,000 votes. She is not very popular in the country. She has lost three election bids,” Sanchez said.
Members of Fujimori’s party have said they now hope that her opponent, Roberto Sanchez, will recognise the results, she added.
