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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESPN is shifting its strategy on online sports gambling, ending its partnership with Penn Entertainment.

The companies announced Thursday they were terminating an agreement that offered ESPN equity in Penn, which operated the ESPN Bet sportsbook app. The app will no longer carry the familiar red ESPN logo. It will operate under a new name.

ESPN said it will partner with DraftKings, a leading sports betting company, which will provide odds and other gaming-related data for the Walt Disney Co. unit’s programs and its digital platforms. ESPN’s on-air staff will use DraftKings’ odds starting Dec. 1.

According to people familiar with the ESPN-Penn arrangement, the app simply didn’t reach its financial targets in the highly competitive business, which operates in the 31 states where online gambling is legal.

In 2023, Penn agreed to pay $1.5 billion in cash over the next 10 years for the rights to use the ESPN name on its app. As part of the deal, ESPN promoted the product across its programming and provided access to on-air talent. ESPN had the right to purchase up to 31.8 million shares of Penn stock for $500 million over the 10-year period.

“When we first announced our partnership with ESPN, both sides made it clear that we expected to compete for a podium position in the space,” said Jay Snowden, CEO and President of Penn Entertainment. “Although we made significant progress in improving our product offering and building a cohesive ecosystem with ESPN, we have mutually and amicably agreed to wind down our collaboration.”

The end of the deal comes shortly after an FBI investigation led to the arrest of Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, who allegedly pulled out of a game claiming injury to deliver a win on one of his prop bets.

ESPN’s decision is unrelated to the recent news, as the company has been in talks for months with DraftKings about a new partnership. But no longer having the ESPN name on a betting app will keep the brand out of the line of fire if the NBA case escalates.

Beginning in December, DraftKings will have its app exclusively integrated across ESPN’s platforms.

The companies said they will “collaborate to advance their shared commitment to responsible gaming, by dedicating prominent assets to educate, raise customer awareness and promote responsible play through campaigns and integrations.”

DraftKings will provide the betting tab within the ESPN app and its customers will receive special promotions for ESPN’s newly launched direct-to-consumer streaming product.

DraftKings operates in 28 states and in Washington, D.C., and Ontario, Canada, and has more than 10 million customers across its products.

California’s tech companies, the epicenter of the state’s economy, sent politicians a loud message this year: Back down from restrictive artificial intelligence regulation or they’ll leave.

The tactic appeared to have worked, activists said, because some politicians weakened or scrapped guardrails to mitigate AI’s biggest risks.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a bill aimed at making companion chatbots safer for children after the tech industry fought it. In his veto message, the governor raised concerns about placing broad limits on AI, which has sparked a massive investment spree and created new billionaires overnight around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Assembly Bill 1064 would have barred companion chatbot operators from making these AI systems available to minors unless the chatbots weren’t “foreseeably capable” of certain conduct, including encouraging a child to engage in self-harm. Newsom said he supported the goal, but feared it would unintentionally bar minors from using AI tools and learning how to use technology safely.

“We cannot prepare our youth for a future where AI is ubiquitous by preventing their use of these tools altogether,” he wrote in his veto message.

The bill’s veto was a blow to child safety advocates who had pushed it through the state Legislature and a win for tech industry groups that fought it. In social media ads, groups such as TechNet had urged the public to tell the governor to veto the bill because it would harm innovation and lead to students falling behind in school.

Organizations trying to rein in the world’s largest tech companies as they advance the powerful technology say the tech industry has become more empowered at the national and state levels.

Meta, Google, OpenAI, Apple and other major tech companies have strengthened their relationships with the Trump administration. Companies are funding new organizations and political action committees to push back against state AI policy while pouring money into lobbying.

In Sacramento, AI companies have lobbied behind the scenes for more freedom. California’s massive pool of engineering talent, tech investors and companies make it an attractive place for the tech industry, but companies are letting policymakers know that other states are also interested in attracting those investments and jobs. Big Tech is particularly sensitive to regulations in the Golden State because so many companies are headquartered there and must abide by its rules.

“We believe California can strike a better balance between protecting consumers and enabling responsible technological growth,” Robert Boykin, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, said in a statement.

Common Sense Media founder and Chief Executive Jim Steyer said tech lobbyists put tremendous pressure on Newsom to veto AB 1064. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that rates and reviews technology and entertainment for families, sponsored the bill.

“They threaten to hurt the economy of California,” he said. “That’s the basic message from the tech companies.”

Advertising is among the tactics tech companies with deep pockets use to convince politicians to kill or weaken legislation. Even if the governor signs a bill, companies have at times sued to block new laws from taking effect.

“If you’re really trying to do something bold with tech policy, you have to jump over a lot of hurdles,” said David Evan Harris, senior policy advisor at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, which supported AB 1064. The group focuses on finding state-level solutions to threats that AI, disinformation and emerging technologies pose to democracy.

Tech companies have threatened to move their headquarters and jobs to other states or countries, a risk looming over politicians and regulators.

The California Chamber of Commerce, a broad-based business advocacy group that includes tech giants, launched a campaign this year that warned over-regulation could stifle innovation and hinder California.

“Making competition harder could cause California companies to expand elsewhere, costing the state’s economy billions,” the group said on its website.

From January to September, the California Chamber of Commerce spent $11.48 million lobbying California lawmakers and regulators on a variety of bills, filings to the California secretary of state show. During that period, Meta spent $4.13 million. A lobbying disclosure report shows that Meta paid the California Chamber of Commerce $3.1 million, making up the bulk of their spending. Google, which also paid TechNet and the California Chamber of Commerce, spent $2.39 million.

Amazon, Uber, DoorDash and other tech companies spent more than $1 million each. TechNet spent around $800,000.

The threat that California companies could move away has caught the attention of some politicians.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has investigated tech companies over child safety concerns, indicated that despite initial concern, his office wouldn’t oppose ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s restructuring plans. The new structure gives OpenAI’s nonprofit parent a stake in its for-profit public benefit corporation and clears the way for OpenAI to list its shares.

Bonta blessed the restructuring partly because of OpenAI’s pledge to stay in the state.

“Safety will be prioritized, as well as a commitment that OpenAI will remain right here in California,” he said in a statement last week. The AG’s office, which supervises charitable trusts and ensures these assets are used for public benefit, had been investigating OpenAI’s restructuring plan over the last year and a half.

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said he’s glad to stay in California.

“California is my home, and I love it here, and when I talked to Attorney General Bonta two weeks ago I made clear that we were not going to do what those other companies do and threaten to leave if sued,” he posted on X.

Critics — which included some tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Meta and former OpenAI executives as well as nonprofits and foundations — have raised concerns about OpenAI’s restructuring plan. Some warned it would allow startups to exploit charitable tax exemptions and let OpenAI prioritize financial gain over public good.

Lawmakers and advocacy groups say it’s been a mixed year for tech regulation. The governor signed Assembly Bill 56, which requires platforms to display labels for minors that warn about social media’s mental health harms. Another piece of signed legislation, Senate Bill 53, aims to make AI developers more transparent about safety risks and offers more whistleblower protections.

The governor also signed a bill that requires chatbot operators to have procedures to prevent the production of suicide or self-harm content. But advocacy groups, including Common Sense Media, removed their support for Senate Bill 243 because they said the tech industry pushed for changes that weakened its protections.

Newsom vetoed other legislation that the tech industry opposed, including Senate Bill 7, which requires employers to notify workers before deploying an “automated decision system” in hiring, promotions and other employment decisions.

Called the “No Robo Bosses Act,” the legislation didn’t clear the governor, who thought it was too broad.

“A lot of nuance was demonstrated in the lawmaking process about the balance between ensuring meaningful protections while also encouraging innovation,” said Julia Powles, a professor and executive director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy.

The battle over AI safety is far from over. Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), who co-wrote AB 1064, said she plans to revive the legislation.

Child safety is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans are examining after parents sued AI companies such as OpenAI and Character.AI for allegedly contributing to their children’s suicides.

“The harm that these chatbots are causing feels so fast and furious, public and real that I thought we would have a different outcome,” Bauer-Kahan said. “It’s always fascinating to me when the outcome of policy feels to be disconnected from what I believe the public wants.”

Steyer from Common Sense Media said a new ballot initiative includes the AI safety protections that Newsom vetoed.

“That was a setback, but not an overall defeat,” he said about the veto of AB 1064. “This is a David and Goliath situation, and we are David.”

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Political stars often rise and fall but few have had a more dramatic trajectory than Dick Cheney in his home state of Wyoming.

Hours after Cheney died Tuesday at 84, the state lowered flags at the Republican governor’s order. Some politicians in the state offered at times measured praise of the former vice president.

But among a large majority of voters in Wyoming, Cheney has been persona non grata for more than five years now, his reputation brought down amid President Trump’s withering politics.

Trump has criticized Cheney for the drawn-out and costly Iraq war, and his daughter, former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, for saying Trump should never be allowed back in the White House after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

This resonated with many residents, including Jeanine Stebbing, of Cheyenne, whose last straw was the idea that Trump shouldn’t be reelected.

“There was no open-mindedness. Nothing about how, ‘We understand that our neighbors here are supportive of Trump.’ Just the idea that we were all stupid, is what it felt like,” Stebbing said Tuesday.

The final blow for the Cheney family in Wyoming came in 2022, when Trump supported ranching attorney Harriet Hageman to oppose Liz Cheney for a fourth term as the state’s U.S. representative.

Hageman got two-thirds of the vote in the Republican primary, a decisive win in a state with so few Democrats that the general election is considered inconsequential for major races.

Trump’s biggest gripe, ultimately, was that Liz Cheney voted to impeach him, then co-led the congressional investigation into his role in the attack. In Wyoming, a prevailing belief was Liz Cheney seemed more focused on taking down Trump than on representing the state.

“I was very disappointed that, you know, somebody who came from this state would be so adamantly blind to anything other than what she wanted to do. And he joined in as well,” Stebbing said.

Not even Dick Cheney’s endorsement of his daughter over Hageman — and of Kamala Harris over Trump last year — made a difference, as Trump’s appeal in Wyoming only grew. Trump won Wyoming by more than any other state in 2016, 2020 and 2024, the year of his biggest margin in the state.

Some expressed sadness that George W. Bush’s vice president would not be remembered well by so many in the state.

“On the 16th anniversary of my own father’s death today, I can appreciate a father who stood by his daughter, which he did loyally and truthfully,” said Republican state Sen. Tara Nethercott, who is Senate majority floor leader. “He stood by his daughter during those difficult times.”

Nethercott wouldn’t speculate if Liz Cheney might yet have a political future. Wyoming’s support of Trump “speaks volumes,” she said.

Liz Cheney has continued to live in Jackson Hole, near her parents, while traveling back and forth to Charlottesville to teach at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

For Brian Farmer — who, like Dick Cheney, grew up in Casper and went to the University of Wyoming — Cheney’s legacy will be his service to the state, no matter where people stand on issues.

“He was always somebody whose path I looked at, sought to follow. Very quiet, soft-spoken at times, Very bombastic and loud at others,” said Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association.

Cheney had a 30-year career in politics, from serving as President Gerald Ford’s young chief of staff to representing Wyoming in Congress in the 1980s. He rose to a top GOP leadership role in Congress — one his daughter, too, would later fill — before being named President George H.W. Bush’s defense secretary.

After his time in office, the CEO of oilfield services company Halliburton kept active in state politics, voicing support and even stumping for Republican candidates.

And yet Cheney was so low-key and unassuming, his mere presence was the whole point — not the nice things he had to say, for example, about former Gov. Jim Geringer, who handily won reelection in 1998.

“You talk about people walking into a room and commanding it. That man did it without even speaking a word,” said state Rep. Landon Brown, a Cheyenne Republican who met him several times including at University of Wyoming football games.

“He’s going to be sincerely missed in this state,” he said. “Maybe not by everybody.”

Gruver writes for the Associated Press.

One of the great conceits of California is its place on the cutting edge — of fashion, culture, technology, politics and other facets of the ways we live and thrive.

Not so with Proposition 50.

The redistricting measure, which passed resoundingly Tuesday, doesn’t break any ground, chart a fresh course or shed any light on a better pathway forward.

It is, to use a favorite word of California’s governor, merely the latest iteration of what has come to define today’s politics of fractiousness and division.

In fact, the redistricting measure and the partisan passions it stirred offer a perfect reflection of where we stand as a splintered country: Democrats overwhelming supported it. Republicans were overwhelmingly opposed.

Nothing new or novel about that.

And if Proposition 50 plays out as intended, it could make things worse, heightening the country’s polarization and increasing the animosity in Washington that is rotting our government and politics from the inside out.

You’re welcome.

The argument in favor of Proposition 50 — and it’s a strong one — is that California was merely responding to the scheming and underhanded actions of a rogue chief executive who desperately needs to be checked and balanced.

The only apparent restraint on President Trump’s authoritarian impulse is whether he thinks he can get away with something, as congressional Republicans and a supine Supreme Court look the other way.

With GOP control of the House hanging by the merest of threads, Trump set out to boost his party’s prospects in the midterm election by browbeating Texas Republicans into redrawing the state’s congressional lines long before it was time. Trump’s hope next year is to gain as many as five of the state’s House seats.

Gov. Gavin Newson responded with Proposition 50, which scraps the work of a voter-created, nonpartisan redistricting commission and changes the political map to help Democrats flip five of California’s seats.

And with that the redistricting battle was joined, as states across the country looked to rejigger their congressional boundaries to benefit one party or the other.

The upshot is that even more politicians now have the luxury of picking their voters, instead of the other way around, and if that doesn’t bother you maybe you’re not all that big a fan of representative democracy or the will of the people.

Was it necessary for Newsom, eyes fixed on the White House, to escalate the red-versus-blue battle? Did California have to jump in and be a part of the political race to the bottom? We won’t know until November 2026.

History and Trump’s sagging approval ratings — especially regarding the economy — suggest that Democrats are well positioned to gain at least the handful of seats needed to take control of the House, even without resorting to the machinations of Proposition 50.

There is, of course, no guarantee.

Gerrymandering aside, a pending Supreme Court decision that could gut the Voting Rights Act might deliver Republicans well over a dozen seats, greatly increasing the odds of the GOP maintaining power.

What is certain is that Proposition 50 will in effect disenfranchise millions of California Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who already feel overlooked and irrelevant to the workings of their home state.

Too bad for them, you might say. But that feeling of neglect frays faith in our political system and can breed a kind of to-hell-with-it cynicism that makes electing and cheering on a “disruptor” like Trump seem like a reasonable and appealing response.

(And, yes, disenfranchisement is just as bad when it targets Democratic voters who’ve been nullified in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and other GOP-run states.)

Worse, slanting political lines so that one party or the other is guaranteed victory only widens the gulf that has helped turn Washington’s into its current slough of dysfunction.

The lack of competition means the greatest fear many lawmakers have is not the prospect of losing to the other party in a general election but rather being snuffed out in a primary by a more ideological and extreme challenger.

That makes cooperation and cross-party compromise, an essential lubricant to the way Washington is supposed to work, all the more difficult to achieve.

Witness the government shutdown, now in its record 36th day. Then imagine a Congress seated in January 2027 with even more lawmakers guaranteed reelection and concerned mainly with appeasing their party’s activist base.

The animating impulse behind Proposition 50 is understandable.

Trump is running the most brazenly corrupt administration in modern history. He’s gone beyond transgressing political and presidential norms to openly trampling on the Constitution.

He’s made it plain he cares only about those who support him, which excludes the majority of Americans who did not wish to see Trump’s return to the White House.

As if anyone needed reminding, his (patently false) bleating about a “rigged” California election, issued just minutes after the polls opened Tuesday, showed how reckless, misguided and profoundly irresponsible the president is.

With the midterm election still nearly a year off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — many of those angry or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately wanted to do something to push back.

Proposition 50, however, was a shortsighted solution.

Newsom and other proponents said the retaliatory ballot measure was a way of fighting fire with fire. But that smell in the air today isn’t victory.

It’s ashes.

California voters delivered a major victory for Democrats nationwide Tuesday — and possibly for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political ambitions — by passing a redistricting plan that could help the party seize as many as five congressional seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

The ballot measure was seen as a searing denunciation of President Trump and his administration’s policies, which have included divisive immigration raids, steep tariffs, cuts to healthcare and a military occupation of Los Angeles.

Proposition 50 was launched at warp speed in August in an attempt to counter President Trump’s successful attempt to pressure Republican-led states, most notably Texas, to gerrymander their own states to keep Democrats from gaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections. If Democrats gain power they could imperil his agenda and launch investigations into his administration.

“After poking the bear, this bear roared,” Newsom said Tuesday night shortly after the polls closed and the Associated Press determined Proposition 50 had passed.

Newsom said he was proud of California for standing up to Trump and called on other states with Democrat-controlled legislatures to pass their own redistricting plans.

“I hope it’s dawning on people, the sobriety of this moment,” he said.

The president, meanwhile, in a post Tuesday morning on his social media site called the vote “A GIANT SCAM” and “RIGGED” and said it is “under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!” The White House did not explain what he meant by “serious legal and criminal review.” After the polls closed, Trump again posted, writing enigmatically: “…AND SO IT BEGINS.”

Newsom early Tuesday dismissed Trump’s threats as “the ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE.”

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

The measure, placed by the ballot by the Democratic-led state Legislature and pushed by Newsom, reconfigured the state’s congressional districts in favor of Democrats, shifting five more House districts into competitive or easily winnable territory for Democrats. California has 43 Democrats and nine Republicans in the House; now the number of GOP members could be cut in half.

While Newsom and Democratic partisans framed the passage of Proposition 50 — which they had dubbed the Election Rigging Response Act — as a major blow against Trump’s iron grip on the federal government, it is far from guaranteed to flip the balance of power in the U.S. House, where Republicans hold a slim majority.

For one, spurred on by Trump, Republican-led states are busy pursuing their own redistricting plans. Several Republican-controlled states including North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri are moving ahead.

What’s more, California voters in the fall of 2026 would then have to be convinced to choose Democratic challengers over incumbent Republicans in those newly crafted districts — and many current GOP members of Congress have said they don’t plan to go quietly.

“Here’s something Newsom and his cronies don’t know: It won’t work,” said Congressman Darrell Issa, a San Diego-area Republican whose seat was targeted by the newly redrawn maps. “The worst gerrymander in history has a fatal flaw. Voters get to pick their representatives. Not the other way around. I’m not going anywhere.”

Congressman Doug LaMalfa whose Northern California district was carved up and diluted with left-leaning coastal voters, said he was “standing in the fight. They’re not going to kidnap my district here without a battle.”

What is sure, however, is that Proposition 50 is a big win for Newsom, who has propelled his fight with Trump onto the national political stage as one of the loudest voices standing against the new administration.

Campaigning for Proposition 50, Newsom mocked Trump on the social media site X with sarcastic, Trumpesque all-caps media posts. The governor won viral fame, guest spots on late-night shows and millions of dollars from Democratic donors around the country delighted to see someone jousting with the president. In recent days, Newsom has begun talking openly about a possible run for president in 2028, after telling CBS last month that he would be lying if he tried to pretend he wasn’t considering it.

The new congressional districts also are expected to set off a mad scramble among ambitious Democratic politicians.

Already, Audrey Denney, a strategist and education director, has announced she will once again mount a campaign against LaMalfa, who represents an area that has been split into two districts saturated with Democratic voters. Former state Sen. Richard Pan, meanwhile, has indicated he intends to target Congressman Kevin Kiley, who saw his hometown of Rocklin yanked out of his district and replaced with parts of more-Democratic Sacramento.

One of the biggest effects of the measure may be the way it has enraged many of the state’s rural voters, and left even those who are registered Democrats feeling as though state leaders don’t care about their needs.

“They think our voices are so small that we don’t count, and because we’re red,” fumed Monica Rossman, the chairwoman of the Glenn County Board of Supervisors in rural Northern California. “This is just one more way of them squeezing us rural people.”

Rossman described Newsom in obscene terms this week and added that “people from urban areas, they don’t realize that us people from One-Taco-Bell-Towns don’t know what it’s like to drive by a dealership and see nothing but battery-operated vehicles. By traffic, we mean Ted’s cows are out again and we have to wait for them to get out of the way. We’re going to have people making decisions about areas they know nothing about.”

But as they headed to polling places across the state, many voters said the Trump administration’s actions in California — from funding cuts to the prolonged immigration raids —convinced them that radical measures were necessary.

Adee Renteria, who came to vote at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in East Los Angeles decked out from head to toe in celebratory Dodgers gear, said she was voting yes on Proposition 50 because “I want a fricking voice.”

“I want our people to be able to walk the streets without getting kidnapped,” she said, adding that she believed the measure would allow Democrats a chance at fighting back against policies that she said had sown terror in her community.

In Buena Park, Guarav Jain, 33, said he had braved long lines to cast his ballot “to prove that we can fight back on the crazy things Trump says.”

“This is the first chance to make our voice heard since the [presidential] election last November,” he added.

The path to Proposition 50, which ranks as the fourth most expensive ballot measure in California history, began in June. That was when Trump’s political team began pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the lines for that state’s 38 congressional districts to gain five Republican seats and give his party a better shot at holding the House after the midterm elections.

When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed on to the idea, Newsom jumped in to announce that California, which has 52 representatives, would counter by redrawing its own districts to try to pick up as many as five seats for Democrats.

“We’re giving the American people a fair chance,” Newsom said in August, adding that California was “responding to what occurred in Texas.”

The move outraged California Republicans and also angered some people, such as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are no fans of Trump. Some opponents argued that it was an affront to an independent congressional redistricting commission that California voters created in 2010 with the passage of Proposition 20 — an effort to provide fair representation to all Californians.

“They are trying to fight for democracy by getting rid of the democratic principles of California.… It is insane to let that happen,” Schwarzenegger said at an event at USC in September. “Doesn’t make any sense to me — that because we have to fight Trump, to become Trump.”

But Schwarzenegger didn’t do much to actively campaign against the measure and the No side was far outgunned financially. Proponents raised more than $100 million, according to campaign finance reports, while the No side raised about $43.7 million.

A star-studded cast of Democratic leaders also flooded the airwaves to support the measure, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. President Obama spoke on the issue in ads that aired during the World Series. “Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4,” the former president said.

The new congressional district maps are only temporary. They will be in place for elections next year and in 2028 and 2030. After that, California’s independent redistricting commission will resume its duties in drawing the maps.

What may be longer lasting, some rural representatives said, is a sense among many in California’s heartland that their voices don’t count.

LaMalfa, the congressman who saw his deep red district divided into two blue urban areas, said many of his constituents — who work in farming, timber and ranching — believe many state policies are “stacked against them and they have nowhere to go.”

“What they do have is a voice that understands their plight and is willing to speak for them. I am one of the people who does that,” he said. “You don’t have that anymore if you have taken all those folks and just drawn them into urban voters districts.”

Times staff writers Sonja Sharp, Katie King and Katerina Portela contributed to this report.

On her first day in office, Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness.

The declaration allowed the city to cut through red tape, including through no-bid contracts, and to start Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program focused on moving homeless people off the streets and into interim housing.

On Tuesday, nearly three years after she took the helm, and with homelessness trending down two years in a row for the first time in recent years, the mayor announced that she will lift the state of emergency on Nov. 18.

“We have begun a real shift in our city’s decades-long trend of rising homelessness,” Bass said in a memorandum to the City Council.

Still, the mayor said, there is much work to do.

“The crisis remains, and so does our urgency,” she said.

The mayor’s announcement followed months of City Council pushback on the lengthy duration of the state of emergency, which the council had initially approved.

Some council members argued that the state of emergency allowed the mayor’s office to operate out of public view and that contracts and leases should once again be presented before them with public testimony and a vote.

Councilmember Tim McOsker has been arguing for months that it was time to return to business as usual.

“Emergency powers are designed to allow the government to suspend rules and respond rapidly when the situation demands it, but at some point those powers must conclude,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

McOsker said the move will allow the council to “formalize” some of the programs started during the emergency, while incorporating more transparency.

Council members had been concerned that the state of emergency would end without first codifying Executive Directive 1, which expedites approvals for homeless shelters as well as for developments that are 100% affordable and was issued by Bass shortly after she took office.

On Oct. 28, the council voted for the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would enshrine the executive directive into law.

The mayor’s announcement follows positive reports about the state of homelessness in the city.

As of September, the mayor’s Inside Safe program had moved more than 5,000 people into interim housing since its inception at the end of 2022. Of those people, more than 1,243 have moved into permanent housing, while another 1,636 remained in interim housing.

This year, the number of homeless people living in shelters or on the streets of the city dropped 3.4%, according to the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of unsheltered homeless people in the city dropped by an even steeper margin of 7.9%.

The count, however, has its detractors. A study by Rand found that the annual survey missed nearly a third of homeless people in Hollywood, Venice and Skid Row — primarily those sleeping without tents or vehicles.

In June, a federal judge decided not to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, while saying that the city had failed to meet some of the terms of a settlement agreement with the nonprofit LA Alliance for Human Rights.

Councilmember Nithya Raman, who chairs the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, said the end of the emergency does not mean the crisis is over.

“It only means that we must build fiscally sustainable systems that can respond effectively,” she said. “By transitioning from emergency measures to long-term, institutional frameworks, we’re ensuring consistent, accountable support for people experiencing homelessness.”

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

California voters went to the polls Tuesday to decide on a radical redistricting plan with national implications, but the campaign is shaping up to be a referendum on President Trump.

Proposition 50, a ballot measure about redrawing the state’s congressional districts, was crafted by Democrats in response to Trump urging Texas and other GOP-majority states to modify their congressional maps to favor Republicans, a move that was designed to maintain Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Opponents have said Proposition 50 is a power grab by Democrats that would blatantly disenfranchise Republican voters.

But supporters, fueled by a huge war chest in deep blue California, managed to make the vote about Trump and what they say are his efforts to erode democracy. The president has never been popular in California, but unprecedented months of immigration raids, tariffs and environmental rollbacks have only heightened the conflict.

“Trump is such a polarizing figure,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA. “He commands great loyalty from one group of people and great animosity from others. … It’s not surprising that this measure has been portrayed as sticking it to Donald Trump or [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom.”

Proposition 50 underscores how hyperpartisan California politics have become. A UC Berkeley poll last week conducted in conjunction with The Times found more than 9 out of 10 Democrats supported Proposition 50 and a similar proportion of Republicans opposed it.

California voters had been bombarded with television ads, mailers and social media posts for weeks about the high-stakes special election, so much so that only 2% of likely voters were undecided, according to the poll.

As if on cue, Trump weighed in on Proposition 50 on Tuesday morning just as voting was getting underway.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump said on Truth Social just minutes after polling stations opened across California.

The president provided no evidence for his allegations.

Newsom dismissed the president’s claims on X as “the ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE.”

At a White House briefing Tuesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed, without providing examples, that California was receiving ballots in the name of undocumented immigrants who could not legally vote.

California’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, called Trump’s allegation “another baseless claim.”

“The bottom line is California elections have been validated by the courts,” Weber said in a statement. “California voters will not be deceived by someone who consistently makes desperate, unsubstantiated attempts to dissuade Americans from participating in our democracy.”

More than 6.3 million Californians — 28% of the state’s 23 million registered voters — had cast ballots as of Monday, according to a voting tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell. Ballots submitted by Democrats were outpacing votes by Republicans on Monday, though GOP voters were believed to be more likely to vote in person on election day.

Disabled Army veteran Micah Corpe, 50, had some choice words for Newsom outside a Twentynine Palms church that served as a polling place, calling the politician a “greasy used car salesman.”

Corpe, a Republican, described Proposition 50 as an effort by the governor to “do whatever he wants because he doesn’t like Trump.” At the same time, he said Texas’ decision to redraw its congressional districts was a necessity because of the influx of people moving there from California and other blue states.

“He fights [Trump] on everything,” Corpe said of Newsom. “Just give in a little to get a little. That’s all he’s got to do.”

Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said the seeds of Proposition 50 were sowed when it became clear that Republicans in Congress were not going to challenge Trump in an investigatory way or provide serious oversight.

“One of the benefits of our system is that there are checks designed in there and we haven’t exercised those checks in a good long time, so I think this is a Hail Mary for potentially doing that,” he said.

Bob Rowell, 72, said that in an ideal world Proposition 50 wouldn’t be necessary. But the Trump administration’s push to redraw lines in red states has created a “distinct danger of creating a never-ending Republican domination in Congress,” he said. So Rowell, a Green Party member, voted yes.

“I hope there’s some way to bring us back into balance,” he said.

Robert Hamilton, 35, an architectural drafter who lives in Twentynine Palms, sees Proposition 50 as a necessary step to push back on Trump’s policies, which he said are impinging on people’s rights. He’s proud of the role California is playing in this political moment.

“I think as a state we’re doing an excellent job of trying to push back against some of the more egregious oversteps of our liberties,” Hamilton said outside a church where he’d just cast his ballot in favor of the measure. “I do hope that if this measure is successful that other states will follow suit — not necessarily taking the same steps to redistrict but finding ways to at least hold the line while hopefully we get things sorted out.”

Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Katie King contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped to the microphone at the state Democratic headquarters in mid-August with the conviction of a man certain he was on the right side of history, bluntly saying California has a moral obligation to thwart President Trump’s attempt to tilt the balance of Congress.

Over the next 2½ months, Newsom became the public face of Proposition 50, a measure designed to help Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives by temporarily redrawing California’s congressional districts.

Newsom took that leap despite tepid support for a gerrymandering measure in early polls.

With Tuesday’s election, the fate of Proposition 50 arrives at a pivotal moment for Newsom, who last week acknowledged publicly that he’s weighing a 2028 presidential run. The outcome will test not only his political instincts but also his ability to deliver on a measure that has national attention fixed squarely on him.

From the outset, Newsom paired his conviction with caution.

“I’m mindful of the hard work ahead,” Newsom said in August, shortly after lawmakers placed Proposition 50 on the ballot.

It was familiar territory for a governor who has built a career on high-stakes political bets. As San Francisco mayor, his decision to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2004 made him a progressive icon. It also drew accusations he’d energized conservative turnout that year in the presidential election that ended with George W. Bush winning a second term.

As the state’s newly elected governor, he suspended the death penalty in 2019 despite voters having twice rejected measures to do so, calling it a costly and biased system that “fails to deliver justice” — a move that drew fury from law enforcement groups and victims’ families. His decision to take on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a 2023 prime-time debate hosted by Sean Hannity on Fox News was intended to showcase his command of policy and political agility, but instead fell flat amid an onslaught of insults.

With Proposition 50, Newsom placed himself at the center of another potentially career-defining gamble before knowing how it would land. Ahead of Tuesday’s special election, polling suggests he may have played his cards right. Six out of 10 likely voters support Proposition 50, according to a survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by The Times.

“You know, not everybody would have done it,” veteran Democratic strategist Gale Kaufman said. “He saw the risk and he took it.”

If approved by voters, the ballot measure would redraw California’s congressional maps to favor Democrats beginning with the 2026 midterm elections in hopes of discounting Republican efforts to gerrymander more seats for themselves. California introduced the measure in response to Trump and his political team leaning on Republican-led states to redraw their district lines to help Republicans retain control of the House.

The balance of power in the closely divided House will determine whether Trump can advance his agenda during his final two years in office — or face an emboldened Democratic majority that could move to challenge, or even investigate, his administration.

And while critics of the governor see a power-craving politician chasing headlines and influence, supporters say this is classic Newsom: confident, risk-tolerant and willing to stand alone when he believes he’s right. He faced intense backlash from his political allies when he had conservative personality Charlie Kirk as his inaugural guest on his podcast this year, on which Newsom said he believed it was “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. After Kirk was killed, Newsom regularly brought up that interview as a point of pride, noting the backlash he received from his own party over hosting a Trump ally.

In recent months Newsom struck a deal to stabilize struggling oil refineries, pushed cities to ban homeless encampments and proposed walking back healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants — a series of moves that have tested his standing with progressives. Supporters say the moves show his pragmatic streak, while critics argue they reflect a shift to the center ahead of a possible presidential run.

“In so many ways, he is not a cautious politician,” said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School. “His brand is big, bold decisions.”

With Proposition 50, Newsom has cast the redistricting counterpunch as a moral imperative, arguing that Democrat-led states must “fight fire with fire,” even if it means pausing a state independent redistricting process largely considered the gold standard. The measure upends a system Californians overwhelmingly endorsed to keep politics out of the map-drawing process.

Levinson said Newsom’s profile has been rising along with the polling numbers for Proposition 50 as he has booked national television shows like ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and appeared in an ad in favor of the ballot measure with former President Obama, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats that ran during the World Series.

“We are talking about Proposition 50 on a nationwide scale,” Levinson said. “And it’s really hard to talk about Proposition 50 without saying the words ‘Gov. Newsom of California spearheading the effort to pass.’”

California Republicans have called the effort misguided, arguing that the retaliatory response creates a slippery slope that would erode the independent redistricting process California voters have chosen twice at the ballot box.

“When you fight fire with fire, the whole world burns,” said California Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin), whose district is among those that would be overhauled under Proposition 50. “Newsom is trying to claim that Texas did a bad gerrymandering, but what California is doing is a good gerrymander because somehow it’s canceling it out … I just think gerrymandering is wrong. It’s wrong in Texas and it’s wrong in California.”

Kiley said Newsom never has been one to shy away from national attention “and for pursing explicitly partisan goals.”

“He’s certainly used this as an opportunity to do both of those things,” Kiley said.

Out of the gate, the redistricting plan had lackluster support. Then came the flood of ads by proponents peppered with talking points about Trump rigging the election.

Supporters of Proposition 50 took in more than four times the amount that opponents raised in recent weeks, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state by the three main committees campaigning about the measure. Supporters of Proposition 50 raised so much money that Newsom told them “you can stop donating.”

Political analysts said the redistricting fight has given Newsom what every ambitious politician craves: a narrative. It’s allowed him to cast himself as a defender of democracy while reenergizing donors. That message sharpened when Trump administration officials said they’d monitor polling sites in several California counties at the state GOP’s request, prompting Newsom to accuse the Trump administration of “voter intimidation.”

Republican strategist Rob Stutzman said the campaign gave Newsom something he’d struggled to find: “an authentic confrontation” with Trump that resonates beyond California.

“And I think it’s worked well for him nationally,” Stutzman said. “I think it’s been great for him in some ways, regardless of what happens, but if it does lose, it’ll hurt the brand that he can win and there will be a lot of disgruntled donors.”

While Newsom has framed the measure as good for the country, Stutzman said it’s clear that Proposition 50 has been particularly good for the governor.

“He’s used it for his own purposes very, very effectively,” Stutzman said. “If he becomes the [presidential] nominee, you could look back and say this was an important part of him getting there.”

The No. 3 UCLA women’s basketball team won its first game of the season, defeating feisty San Diego State 77–53 on Monday at the Honda Center.

The Bruins (1–0) built an eight-point lead in the first quarter, but the unranked Aztecs (0–1) managed to cut the deficit by three by the end of the period.

San Diego State struggled to score in the second quarter when UCLA went on a 12–2 run.

The scoring gap continued to increase as the Bruins extended their lead to 15 points, ending the first half with a 37–22 advantage.

UCLA center Lauren Betts scored 21 points and grabbed four rebounds, guard Gabriela Jaquez recorded a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds and guard Charlisse Ledger-Walker, who returned to the court after redshirting last season, contributed 12 points and five assists.

The Bruins opened the third quarter with a 16–0 run. Although the Aztecs fought hard to close the gap, the Bruins maintained control, ending the quarter with a 58–38 lead.

San Diego State pushed UCLA again in the fourth quarter, but the Aztecs couldn’t make a meaningful dent in their deficit.

Aztecs sophomore guard Kaelyn Hamilton came off the bench to lead her team with 11 points, while guards Nat Martinez and Nala Williams scored 10 points apiece.

UCLA will play its home opener Thursday against UC Santa Barbara.

WASHINGTON — One year after Trump retook the White House and set into motion a dramatic expansion of executive power, the Republican president figures prominently in state and local elections being held Tuesday.

The results of those contests — the first general election of Trump’s second term — will be heralded by the victors as either a major repudiation or resounding stamp of approval of his second-term agenda. That’s especially true in high-profile races for Virginia and New Jersey governor, New York City mayor and a California proposition to redraw its congressional district boundaries.

More than half of the states will hold contests on Tuesday. Here’s a look at some of the major statewide and local races on the ballot:

Governors: New Jersey and Virginia

In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli are the nominees to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. Sherrill is a four-term U.S. representative and former Navy helicopter pilot. Ciattarelli is a former state Assemblyman backed by Trump. In 2021, Ciattarelli came within about 3 percentage points of toppling Murphy.

In Virginia, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger look to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. While Spanberger has made some efforts to focus on topics other than Trump in stump speeches, the president remained a major topic of conversation throughout the campaign, from comments Earle-Sears made about him in 2022 to some of his more polarizing policies, such as the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill tax and spending cut measure and the widespread dismissal of federal workers, many of whom live in northern Virginia.

Trump was scheduled to participate in telephone rallies for the candidates on Monday night.

As the only gubernatorial races held in the year following a presidential election, the contests have long served as the first major test of voter sentiment toward the party holding the White House. In every race for governor since 1973, one or both states have elected a governor from a party different than that of the sitting president.

New York City Mayor

The race to lead the nation’s largest city features Democratic state legislator Zohran Mamdani, independent candidate and former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Mamdani’s comfortable victory over Cuomo in the June primary generated excitement from the party’s more progressive wing and apprehension among the party establishment. Party leaders like Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries eventually endorsed the self-described democratic socialist months after he won the nomination.

The winner will replace outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who initially sought renomination as a Democrat. After losing the primary Adams opted to run as an independent, but dropped out of the race in September and eventually endorsed Cuomo. In February, the Trump Justice Department asked a court to drop corruption charges against Adams because the case impeded Trump’s “ immigration objectives.” Trump later said he’d like to see both Adams and Sliwa drop out of the race in an effort to defeat Mamdani.

California Proposition 50

California voters will decide a statewide ballot measure that would enact a new congressional map that could flip as many as five Republican-held U.S. House seats to Democratic control.

Proposition 50, championed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, is in response to a new Texas map that state Republicans enacted in August as part of Trump’s efforts to keep the U.S. House under Republican control in the 2026 midterms. The Texas plan, which could help Republicans flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats, has sparked an escalating gerrymandering arms race among states to pass new maps outside of the regular once-a-decade schedule.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Control of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will be at stake when voters cast Yes or No votes on whether to retain three justices from the high court’s 5-2 Democratic majority.

Partisan control of the court could have major implications for the 2028 presidential race, since justices might be asked to rule on election disputes, as they did in 2020. Spending on Tuesday’s contests is on track to exceed $15 million as Republicans have campaigned to end the majority and Democrats have responded.

If all three justices are ousted, a deadlock in the confirmation process to replace them could result in a court tied at 2-2. An election to fill any vacant seats for full 10-year terms would be held in 2027.

Other notable contests

VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Republican incumbent Jason Miyares seeks a second term against Democrat Jay Jones. Much of the fall campaign has focused on text messages suggesting violence against political rivals that Jones sent in 2022.

TEXAS-18: Sixteen candidates hope to fill a vacant congressional seat previously held by the late Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner.

STATE LEGISLATURES: Control of the Minnesota Senate and Virginia House of Delegates is at stake, while New Jersey Democrats defend their 52-28 General Assembly majority.

BALLOT MEASURES: Maine voters will decide statewide questions on voting and a “red flag” law aimed at preventing gun violence. Texas’ 17 ballot measures include constitutional amendments on parental rights and limiting voting to U.S. citizens. Colorado and Washington also have statewide measures on the ballot.

MAYORS: Detroit, Pittsburgh, Jersey City and Buffalo will elect new mayors, while incumbents in Atlanta, Minneapolis and Cincinnati seek another term.

Yoon writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The hurried push to revise California’s congressional districts has drawn national attention, large sums of money, and renewed hope among Democrats that the effort may help counter a wave of Republican redistricting initiatives instigated by President Trump.

But if Democrats succeed in California, the question remains: Will it be enough to shift the balance of power in Congress?

To regain control of the House, Democrats need to flip three Republican seats in the midterm elections next year. That slim margin prompted the White House to push Republicans this summer to redraw maps in GOP states in an effort to keep Democrats in the minority.

Texas was the first to signal it would follow Trump’s edict and set off a rare mid-decade redistricting arms race that quickly roped in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom devised Proposition 50 to tap into his state’s massive inventory of congressional seats.

Californians appear poised to approve the measure Tuesday. If they do, Democrats potentially could gain five seats in the House — an outcome that mainly would offset the Republican effort in Texas that already passed.

While Democrats and Republicans in other states also have moved to redraw their maps, it is too soon to say which party will see a net gain, or predict voter sentiment a year from now, when a lopsided election in either direction could render the remapping irrelevant.

GOP leaders in North Carolina and Missouri approved new maps that likely will yield one new GOP seat in each, Ohio Republicans could pick up two more seats in a newly redrawn map approved Friday, and GOP leaders in Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas and Florida are considering or taking steps to redraw their maps. In all, those moves could lead to at least 10 new Republican seats, according to experts tracking the redistricting efforts.

To counter that, Democrats in Virginia passed a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would give lawmakers the power and option to redraw a new map ahead of next year’s election. Illinois leaders are weighing their redistricting options and New York has filed a lawsuit that seeks to redraw a GOP-held district. But concerns over legal challenges already tanked the party’s efforts in Maryland and the potential dilution of the Black vote has slowed moves in Illinois.

So far, the partisan maneuvers appear to favor Republicans.

“Democrats cannot gerrymander their way out of their gerrymandering problem. The math simply doesn’t add up,” said David Daly, a senior fellow at the nonprofit FairVote. “They don’t have enough opportunities or enough targets.”

Complex factors for Democrats

Democrats have more than just political calculus to weigh. In many states they are hampered by a mix of constitutional restrictions, legal deadlines and the reality that many of their state maps no longer can be easily redrawn for partisan gain. In California, Prop. 50 marks a departure from the state’s commitment to independent redistricting.

The hesitancy from Democrats in states such as Maryland and Illinois also underscores the tensions brewing within the party as it tries to maximize its partisan advantage and establish a House majority that could thwart Trump in his last two years in office.

“Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined,” Bill Ferguson, the Maryland Senate president, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers last week.

In Illinois, Black Democrats are raising concerns over the plans and pledging to oppose maps that would reduce the share of Black voters in congressional districts where they have historically prevailed.

“I can’t just think about this as a short-term fight. I have to think about the long-term consequences of doing such a thing,” said state Sen. Willie Preston, chair of the Illinois Senate Black Caucus.

Adding to those concerns is the possibility that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could weaken a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act and limit lawmakers’ ability to consider race when redrawing maps. The outcome — and its effect on the 2026 midterms — will depend heavily on the timing and scope of the court’s decision.

The court has been asked to rule on the case by January, but a decision may come later. Timing is key as many states have filing deadlines for 2026 congressional races or hold their primary election during the spring and summer.

If the court strikes down the provision, known as Section 2, advocacy groups estimate Republicans could pick up at least a dozen House seats across southern states.

“I think all of these things are going to contribute to what legislatures decide to do,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice. The looming court ruling, he added, is “an extra layer of uncertainty in an already uncertain moment.”

Republican-led states press ahead

Support for Prop. 50 has brought in more than $114 million, the backing of some of the party’s biggest luminaries, including former President Obama, and momentum for national Democrats who want to regain control of Congress after the midterms.

In an email to supporters Monday, Newsom said fundraising goals had been met and asked proponents of the effort to get involved in other states.

“I will be asking for you to help others — states like Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and more are all trying to stop Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts. More on that soon,” Newsom wrote.

Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called a special session set to begin Monday, to “protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair.”

In Kansas, the GOP president of the state Senate said last week that there were enough signatures from Republicans in the chamber to call a special session to redraw the state’s maps. Republicans in the state House would need to match the effort to move forward.

In Louisiana, Republicans in control of the Legislature voted last week to delay the state’s 2026 primary elections. The move is meant to give lawmakers more time to redraw maps in the case that the Supreme Court rules in the federal voting case.

If the justices strike down the practice of drawing districts based on race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has indicated the state likely would jump into the mid-decade redistricting race.

Shaniqua McClendon, head of Vote Save America, said the GOP’s broad redistricting push underscores why Democrats should follow California’s lead — even if they dislike the tactic.

“Democrats have to be serious about what’s at stake. I know they don’t like the means, but we have to think about the end,” McClendon said. “We have to be able to take back the House — it’s the only way we’ll be able to hold Trump accountable.”

In New York, a lawsuit filed last week charging that a congressional district disenfranchises Black and Latino voters would be a “Hail Mary” for Democrats hoping to improve their chances in the 2026 midterms there, said Daly, of FairVote.

Utah also could give Democrats an outside opportunity to pick up a seat, said Dave Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. A court ruling this summer required Utah Republican leaders to redraw the state’s congressional map, resulting in two districts that Democrats potentially could flip.

Wasserman described the various redistricting efforts as an “arms race … Democrats are using what Republicans have done in Texas as a justification for California, and Republicans are using California as justification for their actions in other states.”

‘Political tribalism’

Some political observers said the outcome of California’s election could inspire still more political maneuvering in other states.

“I think passage of Proposition 50 in California could show other states that voters might support mid-decade redistricting when necessary, when they are under attack,” said Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School where he directs the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute. “I think it would certainly provide impetus in places like New York to move forward.”

Similar to California, New York would need to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment, but that could not take place in time for the midterms.

“It might also embolden Republican states that have been hesitant to redistrict to say, ‘Well if the voters in California support mid-decade redistricting, maybe they’ll support it here too,’” Wice said.

To Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communications & Public Policy at Northwestern University, the idea that the mid-decade redistricting trend is gaining traction is part of a broader problem.

“It is a symptom of this 20-year trend in increasing polarization and political tribalism,” he said. “And, unfortunately, our tribalism is now breaking out, not only between each other, but it’s breaking out between states.”

He argued that both parties are sacrificing democratic norms and the ideas of procedural fairness as well as a representative democracy for political gain.

“I am worried about what the end result of this will be,” he said.

Ceballos reported from Washington, Mehta from Los Angeles.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and a slew of other national and California Democrats on Saturday rallied supporters to stay fired up in seeking passage of a ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the midterm elections.

While polling suggests Proposition 50 is likely to pass Tuesday, volunteers must continue knocking on doors, phone banking and motivating voters through Election Day, they said. Newsom told volunteers they ought to follow the model of sprinters, leaving it all on the field.

“We cannot afford to run the 90-yard dash. You Angelenos, you’ve got the Olympics coming in 2028. They do not run the 90-yard dash. They run the 110-yard dash. We have got to be at peak on Election Day,” Newsom told hundreds of supporters at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. “We cannot take anything for granted.”

Hours earlier, Republican spoke out against the ballot measure at John Wayne Park in Newport Beach, before sending teams into neighborhoods to drum up votes for their side.

“What Proposition 50 will do is disenfranchise, meaning, disregard all Republicans in the state of California,” said state Assembly member Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach). “Ninety percent of 6 million [Californian Republicans] will be disenfranchised.”

Proposition 50 would redraw California’s congressional districts in an attempt to boost the number of Democrats in Congress. The effort was proposed by Newsom and other California Democrats in hope of blunting President Trump’s push in Texas and other GOP-led states to increase the number of Republicans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm election. But even if voters approve the ballot measure that could flip five California districts currently represented by Republicans, it’s unclear whether that will be enough to shift control of the House unless there is a blue wave in the 2026 election.

The party that wins control of the House will shape Trump’s final two years in the White House — whether he is able to continue enacting his agenda or faces a spate of investigations and possibly another impeachment attempt.

The special election is among the costliest ballot measures in state history. More than $192 million has flowed into various campaign committees since state lawmakers voted in August to put the proposition on the ballot. Supporters of the redistricting effort have raised exponentially more money than opponents, and polling shows the proposition is likely to pass.

As of Friday, more than a quarter of the state’s 23 million registered voters had cast ballots, with Democrats outpacing Republicans.

Newsom was joined Saturday by Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, other Democrats and labor leaders.

Harris, in a surprise appearance at the gathering, argued that the Trump administration is implementing long-sought GOP goals such as voter suppression.

“This fight is not about sitting by and complaining, ‘Oh, they’re cheating,’” the former vice president said. “It’s about recognizing what they are up to. There is an agenda that we are witnessing which feels chaotic, I know, but in fact, we are witnessing a high velocity event that is about the swift implementation of a plan that has been decades in the making.”

Several of the speakers referred to the immigration raids that started in Los Angeles in June and deep cuts to federal safety nets, including the nutrition assistance program for low-income families and a health coverage for seniors and the disabled.

“We know there’s so much on the line this Tuesday. And a reminder, Tuesday is not Election Day — it’s the last day to vote,” Padilla said. “Don’t wait till Tuesday. Get your ballots in folks…. As good as the polls look, we need to run up the score on this because the eyes of the country are going to be on California on Tuesday. And we need to win and we need to win big.”

Padilla, a typically staid legislator, then offered a modified riff of a lyric by rapper Ice Cube, who grew up in South Los Angeles.

“Donald Trump — you better check yourself before you wreck America,” said Padilla, who is considering running for governor next year.

Nearly 50 miles southeast, about 50 Republican canvassers fueled up on coffee and donuts, united over the brisk weather and annoyance about Newsom’s attempt to redraw California’s congressional districts.

Will O’Neill, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, equated this final push against Proposition 50 as the California GOP’s game 7 — a nod to tonight’s World Series battle between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Orange County right now is the only county in Southern California that has a shot of having more Republicans than Democrats voting,” said O’Neill. “We expect that over the next three days, around 70% of everyone who votes is gonna vote ‘no’ on 50. But we need them to vote.”

Ariana Assenmacher, of California Young Republicans, center, organizes during a gathering of Republican Party members pressing to vote no on Proposition 50 in the upcoming California Statewide Special Election at John Wayne Park in Newport Beach on Saturday, November 1, 2025.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

O’Neill labeled the measure a “hyper-partisan power grab.” If Proposition 50 passes, it will dilute Republican power in Orange County by splitting communities and roping some residents into districts represented by Los Angeles County politicians.

Dixon also rallied volunteers — which included a handful of college students from across the state: “Be polite. Just say thank you very much. Just like Charlie Kirk would. Don’t [stimulate] an argument. Just be friendly.”

“They’re squeezing out what very little representation Republicans have in the state,” said Kristen Nicole Valle, president of the Orange County Young Republicans.

“We will not be hearing from 40% of Californians if Prop. 50 passes.”

Randall Avila, executive director of the Orange County GOP, said the measure disenfranchises Latino GOP voters like himself.

Nationally, Trump managed to gain 48% of the Latino vote, a Pew Research study showed, which proved crucial to his second presidential victory.

“Obviously our community has kind of shown we’re willing to switch parties and go another direction if that elected official or that party isn’t serving us,” said Avila. “So it’s unfortunate that some of those voices are now gonna be silenced with a predetermined winner in their district.”

Not all hope is lost for Republicans if Proposition 50 is approved, Avila said. A handful of seats could be snagged by Republicans, including the districts held by Reps. Dave Min (D-Irvine) and Derek Tran (D-Orange).

“If the lines do change, that doesn’t mean we pack up and go home,” he said. “Just means we reorganize, we reconfigure things, and then we keep fighting.”

CLARKSTON, Ga. — After fleeing the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette landed in the Atlanta area last November and began to find her footing with federal help.

Separated from her adult children and grieving her husband’s death in the war, she started a job packing boxes in a warehouse, making just enough to cover rent for her own apartment and bills.

Antoinette has been relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for her weekly grocery trips.

But now, just as life is starting to stabilize, she will have to deal with a new setback.

President Donald Trump’s massive budget law, which Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashes $187 billion — or nearly 20% — from the federal budget for SNAP through 2034. And separate from any temporary SNAP stoppages due to the federal shutdown, the law cuts off access completely for refugees and other immigrant groups in the country lawfully. The change was slated to take effect immediately when the law was signed in July, but states are still awaiting federal guidance on when to stop or phase it out.

For Antoinette, 51, who did not want her last name used for fear of deportation and likely persecution in her native country, the loss of food aid is dire.

“I would not have the means to buy food,” she said in French through a translator. “How am I going to manage?”

Throughout its history, the U.S. has admitted into the country refugees like Antoinette, people who have been persecuted, or fear persecution, in their homelands due to race, religion, nationality, political opinions, or membership in a particular social group. These legal immigrants typically face an in-depth vetting process that can start years before they set foot on U.S. soil.

Once they arrive — often with little or no means — the federal government provides resources such as financial assistance, Medicaid, and SNAP, outreach that has typically garnered bipartisan support. Now the Trump administration has pulled back the country’s decades-long support for refugee communities.

The budget law, which funds several of the president’s priorities, including tax cuts to wealthy Americans and border security, revokes refugees’ access to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities, starting in October 2026.

But one of the first provisions to take effect under the law removes SNAP eligibility for most refugees, asylum seekers, trafficking and domestic violence victims, and other legal immigrants. About 90,000 people will lose SNAP in an average month as a result of the new restrictions narrowing which noncitizens can access the program, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“It doesn’t get much more basic than food,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that supports U.S. refugees. “Our government invited these people to rebuild their lives in this country with minimum support,” Soerens said. “Taking food away from them is wrong.”

Not just a handout

The White House and officials at the United States Department of Agriculture did not respond to emails about support for the provision that ends SNAP for refugees in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

But Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reduced levels of immigration to the U.S., said cuts to SNAP eligibility are reasonable because foreign-born people and their young children disproportionately use public benefits.

Still, Camarota said, the refugee population is different from other immigrant groups. “I don’t know that this would be the population I would start with,” Camarota said. “It’s a relatively small population of people that we generally accept have a lot of need.”

Federal, state, and local spending on refugees and asylum seekers, including food, healthcare, education, and other expenses, totaled $457.2 billion from 2005 to 2019, according to a February 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services. During that time, 21% of refugees and asylum seekers received SNAP benefits, compared with 15% of all U.S. residents.

In addition to the budget law’s SNAP changes, financial assistance given to people entering the U.S. by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of HHS, has been cut from one year to four months.

The HHS report also found that despite the initial costs of caring for refugees and asylees, this community contributed $123.8 billion more to federal, state, and local governments through taxes than they received in public benefits over the 15 years.

It’s in the country’s best interest to continue to support them, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit refugee resettlement agency.

“This is not what we should think about as a handout,” she said. “We know that when we support them initially, they go on to not just survive but thrive.”

Food is medicine

Clarkston, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, is home to thousands of refugees.

(Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News)

Food insecurity can have lifelong physical and mental health consequences for people who have already faced years of instability before coming to the U.S., said Andrew Kim, co-founder of Ethnē Health, a community health clinic in Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb that is home to thousands of refugees.

Noncitizens affected by the new law would have received, on average, $210 a month within the next decade, according to the CBO. Without SNAP funds, many refugees and their families might skip meals and switch to lower-quality, inexpensive options, leading to chronic health concerns such as obesity and insulin resistance, and potentially worsening already serious mental health conditions, he said.

After her husband was killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette said, she became separated from all seven of her children. The youngest is 19. She still isn’t sure where they are. She misses them but is determined to build a new life for herself. For her, resources like SNAP are critical.

From the conference room of New American Pathways, the nonprofit that helped her enroll in benefits, Antoinette stared straight ahead, stone-faced, when asked about how the cuts would affect her.

Will she shop less? Will she eat fewer fruits and vegetables, and less meat? Will she skip meals?

“Oui,” she replied to each question, using the French for “yes.”

Since arriving in the U.S. last year from Ethiopia with his wife and two teen daughters, Lukas, 61, has been addressing diabetes-related complications, such as blurry vision, headaches, and trouble sleeping. SNAP benefits allow him and his family to afford fresh vegetables like spinach and broccoli, according to Lilly Tenaw, the nurse practitioner who treats Lukas and helped translate his interview.

His blood sugar is now at a safer level, he said proudly after a class at Mosaic Health Center, a community clinic in Clarkston, where he learned to make lentil soup and balance his diet.

“The assistance gives us hope and encourages us to see life in a positive way,” he said in Amharic through a translator. Lukas wanted to use only his family name because he had been jailed and faced persecution in Ethiopia, and now worries about jeopardizing his ability to get permanent residency in the U.S.

Since arriving in the U.S. last year from Ethiopia, Lukas has been visiting the Mosaic Health Center in Clarkston, Ga., to address diabetes-related complications. Food stamps allow him and his family to afford fresh vegetables like spinach and broccoli.

(Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News)

Hunger and poor nutrition can lower productivity and make it hard for people to find and keep jobs, said Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

“It could affect the labor market,” she said. “It’s bleak.”

More SNAP cuts to come

While the Trump administration ended SNAP for refugees effective immediately, the change has created uncertainty for those who provide assistance.

State officials in Texas and California, which receive the most refugees among states, and in Georgia told KFF Health News that the USDA, which runs the program, has yet to issue guidance on whether they should stop providing SNAP on a specific date or phase it out.

And it’s not just refugees who are affected.

Nearly 42 million people receive SNAP benefits, according to the USDA. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, within the next decade, more than 3 million people will lose monthly food dollars because of planned changes — such as an extension of work requirements to more people and a shift in costs from the federal government to the states.

In September, the administration ended a key report that regularly measured food insecurity among all U.S. households, making it harder to assess the toll of the SNAP cuts.

The USDA also posted on its website that no benefits would be issued for anyone starting Nov. 1 because of the federal shutdown, blaming Senate Democrats. The Trump administration has refused to release emergency funding — as past administrations have done during shutdowns — so that states can continue issuing benefits while congressional leaders work out a budget deal. A coalition of attorneys general and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Oct. 28 contesting the administration’s decision.

Cuts to SNAP will ripple through local grocery stores and farms, stretching the resources of charity organizations and local governments, said Ted Terry, a DeKalb County commissioner and former mayor of Clarkston.

“It’s just the whole ecosystem that has been in place for 40 years completely being disrupted,” he said.

Muzhda Oriakhil, senior community engagement manager at Friends of Refugees, an Atlanta-area nonprofit that helps refugees resettle, said her group and others are scrambling to provide temporary food assistance for refugee families. But charity organizations, food banks, and other nonprofit groups cannot make up for the loss of billions of federal dollars that help families pay for food.

“A lot of families, they may starve,” she said.

Rayasam writes for KFF.

Six years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld highly partisan state election maps in North Carolina and Maryland — ruling that federal courts cannot block states from drawing up maps that favor one party over the other — one of the court’s liberal justices issued a warning.

“If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent.

Kagan argued that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland — the two examples before the court — had rigged elections in a way that “deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights,” “debased and dishonored our democracy” and turned “upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.”

“Ask yourself,” Kagan said as she recounted what had happened in each state: “Is this how American democracy is supposed to work?”

That’s the question Californians are now weighing as they decide how, or whether, to vote on Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to scrap congressional maps drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission and replace them with maps drawn by legislators to favor Democrats through 2030.

Democrats don’t deny that the measure is a deliberate attempt to dilute GOP voting power.

From the start, they’ve argued that the point of redistricting is to weaken Republicans’ voting power in California — a move they justify on the grounds that it is a temporary fix to offset similar partisan gerrymandering by Texas Republicans. This summer, President Trump upped the ante, pressing Texas to rejigger maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority ahead of the 2026 election.

Experts say opponents of Proposition 50 have no viable federal legal challenge against the new maps on the basis that they disenfranchise a large chunk of California Republicans. Even since the 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision Rucho vs. Common Cause, complaints of partisan gerrymandering have no path in federal court.

Already, Proposition 50 has survived challenges in state court and is unlikely to be successfully challenged if passed, said Richard L. Hasen, professor of law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law.

“If you’re a Republican in California, or you’re a Democrat in Texas, you’re about to get a lot less representation in Congress,” Hasen said. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do about that.”

If Californians vote in favor of the measure on Tuesday, the number of Republicans in the state’s House — nine of 52 total members — would likely be reduced by five. That could mean Republicans have less than 10% of California’s congressional representation even though Trump won 38% of the 2024 vote.

“All of this is unconstitutional, but the federal courts aren’t available to help,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School.

“Every time you redraw a district specifically to protect some candidates and punish others,” Levitt said, “what you’re basically saying is it shouldn’t be up to the voters to weigh in on whether they think the candidates are doing a good job or not.”

Possible legal avenues

But even if the issue of partisan gerrymandering is blocked in federal courts, there are other potential legal avenues to challenge California’s new legislative maps.

One route would be to claim that Proposition 50 violates the California Constitution.

David A. Carrillo, executive director of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law, said that if Proposition 50 passes, he expects a barrage of “see what sticks” lawsuits raising California constitutional claims. They stand little chance of success, he said.

“Voters created the redistricting commission,” he said. “What the voters created they can change or abolish.”

Attorneys might also bring racial discrimination claims in federal court alleging California lawmakers used partisan affiliation as a pretext for race in drawing the maps to disenfranchise one racial group or another, Carrillo said. Under current law, he said, such claims are very fact-dependent.

Attorneys are already poised to file complaints if the referendum passes.

Mark Meuser, a conservative attorney who filed a state complaint this summer seeking to block Proposition 50, said he is ready to file a federal lawsuit on the grounds that the new maps violate the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“We’re saying that race was a predominant factor in drawing the lines,” Meuser said. “When race is a predominant factor in drawing the lines without a compelling interest, strict scrutiny will mandate the maps be stricken.”

Some legal experts believe that would be a tricky case to prove.

“It sure seems like the new map was oriented predominantly around politics, not race,” Levitt argued. “And though they’d be saying that race was a predominant factor in drawing the lines, that’s very, very, very different from proving it. That’s an uphill mountain to climb on these facts.”

Some experts think the new maps are unlikely to raise strong Voting Rights Act challenges.

Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who specializes in elections, said the new districts appeared to have been carefully carved to preserve Latino- or Black-majority districts.

A successful challenge is possible, McGhee said, noting there are always novel legal arguments. “It’s just the big ones that you would think about that are the most obvious and the most traditional are pretty closed,” he said.

Supreme Court looms large

Ultimately, legal experts agree the fate of California maps — and other maps in Texas and across the nation — would depend on the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on a redistricting case from Louisiana.

Last month, conservative Supreme Court justices suggested in a hearing that they were considering reining in a key part of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.

“Whatever happens with Proposition 50 — pass or fail — almost doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” Carrillo said, noting that the Supreme Court could use the Louisiana case to strike Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. “There’s a big litigation storm coming in almost any scenario.”

Levitt agreed that the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, which could come any time between now and June, could change current law. But he stressed it is impossible to predict how broad the ruling could be.

“Whether that leaves any of California’s districts vulnerable — either in the current map or in the map if Prop. 50 passes — depends entirely on what Scotus says,” Levitt argued. “There are only nine people who know what they’ll actually say, and there are a lot of possibilities, some of which might affect California’s map pretty substantially, and some of which are unlikely to affect California’s map at all.”

Will Congress intervene?

As the redistricting battle spreads across the country and Democratic and Republican states look to follow Texas and California, Democrats could ultimately end up at a disadvantage. If the overall tilt favors Republicans, Democrats would have to win more than 50% of the vote to get a majority of seats.

Congress has the power to block partisan gerrymandering in congressional map drawing. But attempts so far to pass redistricting reform have been unsuccessful.

In 2022, the House passed the Freedom to Vote Act, which would have prohibited mid-decade redistricting and blocked partisan gerrymandering of congressional maps. But Republicans were able to block the bill in the Senate, even though it had majority support, due to that chamber’s filibuster rules.

Another option is a narrower bill proposed this summer by Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, who represents parts of the Sacramento suburbs and Lake Tahoe and could lose his seat if Proposition 50 passes. Kiley’s bill, along with similar legislation introduced by California Democratic representatives, would ban mid-decade redistricting.

“That would be the cleanest way of addressing this particular scenario we’re in right now, because all of these new plans that have been drawn would become null and void,” McGhee said.

But in a heavily deadlocked Congress, Kiley’s bill has little prospect of moving.

“It may have to get worse before it gets better,” Hasen said.

If the redistricting war doesn’t get resolved, Hasen said, there will be a continued race to the bottom, particularly if the Supreme Court weakens or strikes down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Another scenario, Hasen argued, is Democrats regain control of Congress and the presidency, overcome the filibuster rule and pass redistricting reform.

If that doesn’t happen, Levitt said, the ultimate power rests with the people.

“If we want to tell our representatives that we’re sick of this, we can,” Levitt said. “There’s a lot that’s competing for voters’ attention. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have agency here.”

Two federal judges told the U.S. Department of Agriculture in separate rulings Friday that it must begin using billions of dollars in contingency funding to provide federal food assistance to poor American families despite the federal shutdown, but gave the agency until Monday to decide how to do so.

Both Obama-appointed judges rejected Trump administration arguments that more than $5 billion in USDA contingency funds could not legally be tapped to continue Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for nearly 42 million Americans while the federal government remains closed. But both also left unclear how exactly the relief should be provided, or when it will arrive for millions of families set to lose benefits starting Saturday.

The two rulings came almost simultaneously Friday.

In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stopped short of granting California and a coalition of 24 other Democrat-led states a temporary restraining order they had requested. But she ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their arguments that the USDA’s total shutoff of SNAP benefits — despite having billions in emergency contingency funds on hand — was unlawful.

Talwani gave USDA until Monday to tell her whether they would authorize “only reduced SNAP benefits” using the contingency funding — which would not cover the total $8.5 billion to $9 billion needed for all November benefits, according to the USDA — or would authorize “full SNAP benefits using both the Contingency Funds and additional available funds.”

Separately, in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John McConnell granted a temporary restraining order requested by nonprofit organizations, ruling from the bench that SNAP must be funded with at least the contingency funds, and requesting an update on progress by Monday.

The White House referred questions about the ruling to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if the administration would appeal the rulings.

The Massachusetts order was a win for California and the other Democrat-led states, which sued over the interruption to SNAP benefits — which were previously known as food stamps — as Republicans and Democrats continue to squabble over reopening the government in Washington.

However, it will not mean that all of the nation’s SNAP recipients — including 5.5 million Californians — will be spared a lapse in their food aid, state officials stressed, as state and local food banks continued scrambling to prepare for a deluge of need starting Saturday.

Asked Thursday if a ruling in the states’ favor would mean SNAP funds would be immediately loaded onto CalFresh and other benefits cards, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office helped bring the states’ lawsuit — said “the answer is no, unfortunately.”

“Our best estimates are that [SNAP benefit] cards could be loaded and used in about a week,” he said, calling that lag “problematic.”

“There could be about a week where people are hungry and need food,” he said. For new applicants to the program, he said, it could take even longer.

The rulings came as the now monthlong shutdown continued Friday with no immediate end in sight. The Senate adjourned Thursday with no plans to meet again until Monday.

It also came after President Trump called Thursday for the Senate to end the shutdown by first ending the filibuster, a longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections to legislation. The rule has traditionally been favored by lawmakers as a means of blocking particularly partisan measures, and is currently being used by Democrats to resist the will of the current 53-seat Republican majority.

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Chief Executive Michael Flood, standing alongside Bonta as members of the California National Guard worked behind them stuffing food boxes, said his organization was preparing for massive lines come Saturday, the first of the month.

He said he expected long lines of families in need of food appearing outside food distribution locations throughout the region, just as they did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a disaster type of situation for us here in Los Angeles County, throughout the state of California and throughout the country,” Flood said.

“5.5 million Californians, 1.5 million children and adults in L.A. County alone, will be left high and dry — illegally so, unnecessarily so, in a way that is morally bankrupt,” Bonta said.

Bonta blamed the shutdown on Trump and his administration, and said the USDA has billions of dollars in contingency funds designed to ensure SNAP benefits continue during emergencies and broke the law by not tapping those funds in the current situation.

Bonta said SNAP benefits have never been disrupted during previous federal government shutdowns, and should never have been disrupted during this shutdown, either.

“That was avoidable,” he said. “Trump created this problem.”

The Trump administration has blamed the shutdown and the looming disruption to SNAP benefits entirely on Democrats in Congress, who have blocked short-term spending measures to restart the government and fund SNAP. Democrats are holding out to pressure Republicans into rescinding massive cuts to subsidies that help millions of Americans afford health insurance.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, previously told The Times that Democrats should be the ones getting asked “when the shutdown will end,” because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”

“Americans are suffering because of Democrats,” Jackson said.

In their opposition to the states’ request for a temporary restraining order requiring the disbursement of funds, attorneys for the USDA argued that using emergency funds to cover November SNAP benefits would deplete funds meant to provide “critical support in the event of natural disasters and other uncontrollable catastrophes,” and could actually cause more disruption to benefits down the line.

They wrote that SNAP requires between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month, and the USDA’s contingency fund has only about $5.25 billion, meaning it could not fully fund November benefits even if it did release contingency funding. Meanwhile, “a partial payment has never been made — and for good reason,” because it would force every state to recalculate benefits for recipients and then recalibrate their systems to provide the new amounts, they wrote.

That “would take weeks, if it can be done at all,” and would then have to be undone in order to issue December benefits at normal levels, assuming the shutdown would have lifted by then, they wrote. “The disruption this would entail, with each State required to repeatedly reprogram its systems, would lead to chaos and uncertainty for the following months, even after a lapse concludes,” they wrote.

Simply pausing the benefits to immediately be reissued whenever the shutdown ends is the smarter and less disruptive course of action, they argued.

During a Thursday hearing in the states’ case, Talwani had suggested that existing rules required action by the government to prevent the sort of suffering that a total disruption to food assistance would cause, regardless of whatever political showdown is occurring between the parties in Washington.

“If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”

In addition to suing the administration, California and its leaders have been rushing to ensure that hungry families have something to eat in coming days. Gov. Gavin Newsom directed $80 million to food banks to stock up on provisions, and activated the National Guard to help package food for those who need it.

Counties have also been working to offset the need, including by directing additional funding to food banks and other resource centers and asking partners in the private sector to assist.

Dozens of organizations in California have written to Newsom calling on him to use state funds to fully cover the missing federal benefits, in order to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude,” but Newsom has suggested that is not possible given the scale of funding withheld.

According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. Of the 5.5 million Californian recipients, children and older people account for more than 63%.

This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — If there’s agreement on anything in the two states with governor’s races this year, it’s that utility bills are a growing concern among voters.

One Virginia voter, Kim Wilson, lamented at a town hall recently that her electricity bill seems to go up every month, no matter how much she tries to mitigate the costs. She was drawn to the event in part by its title: “The energy bills are too damn high.”

“It’s way too high,” Wilson readily agreed.

In New Jersey, Herb Michitsch of Kenilworth said his electric bill has climbed to nearly $400 a month, or more than four times what it was when he and his wife moved into their home half a century ago.

“Something really has to be done,” Michitsch said.

That something must be done is pretty much where the agreement ends. It’s what must be done that splits politicians back into rival camps.

Democratic candidates in the two states are far more likely to embrace clean energy options like wind and solar than their Republican opponents. The two states’ Republican nominees are more closely aligned with the policies of President Trump, who has called climate change a “con job” and promotes more traditional energy sources like gas and coal. New Jersey Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli has acknowledged that human-caused climate change is occurring, but he says Democrats have driven up costs with their clean energy push.

Which side voters land on in the off-year elections will give both parties plenty to consider in what feels destined to be an emerging economic issue heading into next year’s midterm elections.

At a recent rally in New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Vin Gopal made clear that he stood with Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill in support of her plans to lower costs. But Gopal acknowledged that the outcome could signal whether voters are ready to embrace the president’s approach or have simply grown weary of national politics.

“The whole country is watching what happens,” he said.

Technology drives up costs

The debate comes as people in the two states grapple with double-digit percentage increases in monthly electricity bills. The exploding costs are driven by soaring demand, particularly from data centers, and by the rapid onset of energy-intensive artificial intelligence technology. Virginia’s largest energy utility also has linked potential future rate increases to inflation and other costs.

In Virginia’s open race to succeed a term-limited GOP incumbent, Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears are at odds over the development of renewable energy sources.

Spanberger has laid out a plan to expand solar and wind production in underused locations, praising a wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach. In a debate against her opponent, she also said she would “ensure that data centers pay their fair share” as costs rise. The state is home to the world’s largest data center market,

Republican Winsome Earle-Sears wasn’t having it.

“That’s all she wants, is solar and wind,” Earle-Sears said of Spanberger at the debate. “Well, if you look outside, the sun isn’t shining and the breeze isn’t blowing, and then what, Abigail, what will you do?”

In New Jersey, where Ciattarelli’s endorsement by Trump included recent social media posts praising his energy affordability plans, the GOP nominee blames rising costs on eight years of Democratic control of state government.

Ciattarelli says he would pull New Jersey out of a regional greenhouse gas trading bloc, which Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy reentered when he first took office in 2018.

“It’s been a failure,” Ciattarelli said at the final debate of the campaign. “Electricity is at an all-time high.”

He’s also come out as a strident opponent of wind energy off the state’s coast, an effort Democrats spearheaded under Murphy. A major offshore wind project ground to a halt when the Danish company overseeing it scrapped projects, citing supply chain problems and high interest rates.

At the center of Sherrill’s campaign promise on the issue is an executive order to freeze rates and build cheaper and cleaner power generation.

“I know my opponent laughs at it,” Sherrill said recently.

A growing concern among voters

The candidates’ focus on affordability and utility rates reflects an unease among voters. A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults, at a time when data center development for AI could further strain the power grid.

Perhaps that’s why the statewide races have become something of an energy proxy battle in Virginia. Clean Virginia, a clean energy advocacy group that targets utility corruption, has backed all three Democratic candidates for statewide office in Virginia — a first for the organization. GOP statewide candidates, meanwhile, have accepted money from Dominion Energy, the largest electric utility in Virginia.

To further complicate an already complex issue: Virginia has passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which calls for utilities to sunset carbon energy production methods by 2045.

Republican House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, who represents the southwest edge of Virginia, had failed to alter part of the state’s Clean Economy Act earlier this year. Kilgore, whose top donor is Dominion Energy, said in February: “If their bills go any higher, there are folks in my region that are not able to pay them now, they’re definitely not going to be able to pay them in the future.”

Evan Vaughn, executive director of MAREC Action, a group of Mid-Atlantic renewable energy developers, said candidates from both parties are in a tough spot because bringing down prices quickly will be difficult given broader market dynamics.

“Voters should look to which candidate they think can do the best to stabilize prices by bringing more generation online,” he said. “That’s really going to be the key to affordability.”

Michitsch, who’s backing Sherrill in the governor’s race and said he would campaign for her, said her proposal shows she’s willing to do something to address spiraling costs.

“We need to change,” he said. “And I think she is here to change things.”

Diaz and Catalini write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Back from a week abroad, President Trump is calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government after a monthlong shutdown, breaking with majority Republicans who have long opposed such a move.

Trump said in a post on his social media site Thursday that “THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER.”

Trump’s sudden decision to assert himself into the shutdown debate — bringing the highly charged demand to end the filibuster — is certain to set the Senate on edge. It could spur senators toward their own compromise or send the chamber spiraling toward a new sense of crisis.

Trump has long called for Republicans to get rid of the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections, dating all the way back to his first term in office. The rule gives Democrats a check on the 53-seat Republican majority and enough votes to keep the government closed while they demand an extension of health care subsidies.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and most members of his Republican conference have strongly opposed changing the filibuster, arguing that it is vital to the institution of the Senate and has allowed them to halt Democratic policies when they are in the minority.

Thune has repeatedly said he is not considering changing the rules to end the shutdown, and his spokesman, Ryan Wrasse, said in a statement Friday that the leader’s “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.”

Broad GOP support for filibuster

Even if Thune wanted to change the filibuster, he would not currently have the votes to do so.

“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah posted on X Friday morning, responding to Trump’s comments and echoing the sentiments of many of his Senate Republican colleagues. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”

Debate has swirled around the legislative filibuster for years. Many Democrats pushed to eliminate it when they had full power in Washington, as the Republicans do now, four years ago. But they ultimately didn’t have the votes after enough Democratic senators opposed the move, predicting such an action would come back to haunt them.

Speaker Mike Johnson also defended the filibuster Friday, while conceding “it’s not my call.” He criticized Democrats for pushing to get rid of it when they had power.

“The safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster,” Johnson said, adding that Trump’s comments are “the president’s anger at the situation.”

Little progress on shutdown

Trump’s call comes as the two parties have made little progress toward resolving the shutdown standoff while he was away for a week in Asia. He said in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to his choice on his flight home and that one question that kept coming up during his trip was why “powerful Republicans allow” the Democrats to shut down parts of the government.

While quiet talks are underway, particularly among bipartisan senators, the shutdown is not expected to end before next week, as both the House and Senate are out of session. Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension to the health care subsidies while Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.

As the shutdown drags on, from coast to coast, fallout from the dysfunction of the shuttered federal government is hitting home: Alaskans are stockpiling moose, caribou and fish for winter, even before SNAP food aid is scheduled to shut off. Mainers are filling up their home-heating oil tanks, but waiting on the federal subsidies that are nowhere in sight.

Flights are being delayed with holiday travel around the corner. Workers are going without paychecks. And Americans are getting a first glimpse of the skyrocketing health care insurance costs that are at the center of the stalemate on Capitol Hill. Money for food aid — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out this weekend.

“People are stressing,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as food options in her state grow scarce.

“We are well past time to have this behind us.”

Money for military, but not food aid

The White House has moved money around to ensure the military is paid, but refuses to tap funds for food aid. In fact, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” signed into law this summer, delivered the most substantial cut ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, projected to result in some 2.4 million people off the program.

At the same time, many Americans who purchase their own health insurance through the federal and state marketplaces, with open enrollment also beginning Saturday, are experiencing sticker shock as premium prices jump.

“We are holding food over the heads of poor people so that we can take away their health care,” said Rev. Ryan Stoess during a prayer with religious leaders at the U.S. Capitol.

“God help us,” he said, “when the cruelty is the point.”

Deadlines shift to next week

The House remains closed down under Johnson for the past month and senators departed for the long weekend on Thursday.

That means the shutdown, in its 30th day, appears likely to stretch into another week if the filibuster remains. If the shutdown continues, it could become the longest in history, surpassing the 35-day lapse that ended in 2019, during Trump’s first term, over his demands to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The next inflection point comes after Tuesday’s off-year elections — the New York City mayor’s race, as well as elections in Virginia and New Jersey that will determine those states’ governors. Many expect that once those winners and losers are declared, and the Democrats and Republicans assess their political standing with the voters, they might be ready to hunker down for a deal.

“I hope that it frees people up to move forward with opening the government,” Thune said.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Matt Brown and Josh Boak in Tokyo contributed to this report.

A Nov. 4 statewide ballot measure pushed by California Democrats to help the party’s efforts to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives and stifle President Trump’s agenda has a substantial lead in a new poll released on Thursday.

Six out of 10 likely voters support Proposition 50, the proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to redraw the state’s congressional districts to try to increase the number of Democrats in Congress, according to a survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by The Times. About 38% of likely voters oppose the ballot measure.

Notable in an off-year special election about the arcane and complicated process of redistricting, 71% of likely voters said they had heard a significant amount of information about the ballot measure, according to the poll.

“That’s extraordinary,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. “Even though it’s kind of an esoteric topic that doesn’t affect their daily lives, it’s something voters are paying attention to.”

That may be because roughly $158 million has been donated in less than three months to the main campaign committees supporting and opposing the measure, according to campaign fundraising reports filed with the state last week. Voters in the state have been flooded with political ads.

Californians watching Tuesday night’s World Series game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays saw that firsthand.

In the first minutes of the game, former President Obama, Newsom, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats spoke in favor of Proposition 50 in an ad that probably cost at least $250,000 to air, according to a Democratic media buyer who is not associated with the campaign.

According to the survey, the breakdown among voters was highly partisan, with more than 9 out of 10 Democrats supporting Proposition 50 and a similar proportion of Republicans opposing it. Among voters who belong to other parties, or identify as “no party preference,” 57% favored the ballot measure, while 39% opposed it.

Only 2% of the likely voters surveyed said they were undecided, which DiCamillo said was highly unusual.

Historically, undecided voters, particularly independents, often end up opposing ballot measures they are uncertain about, preferring to stick with the status quo, he said.

“Usually there was always a rule — look at the undecideds in late-breaking polls, and assume most would vote no,” he said. “But this poll shows there are very few of them out there. Voters have a bead on this one.”

In the voter-rich urban areas of Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay area, Proposition 50 led by wide margins, the poll found. Voters in Orange County, the Inland Empire and the Central Valley were pretty evenly divided.

Redistricting battles are underway in states across the nation, but California’s Proposition 50 has received a major share of national attention and donations. The Newsom committee supporting Proposition 50 has raised far more money than the two main committees opposing it, so much so that the governor this week told supporters to stop sending checks.

The U.S. House of Representatives is controlled by the GOP but is narrowly divided. The party that wins control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections will determine whether Trump can continue enacting his agenda or whether he is the subject of investigations and possibly another impeachment effort.

California’s 52 congressional districts — the most of any state — currently are drawn by a voter-approved independent commission once every decade following the U.S. census.

But after Trump urged GOP leaders in Texas this summer to redraw their districts to bolster the number of Republicans in Congress, Newsom and other California Democrats decided in August to ask voters to allow a rare mid-decade partisan redrawing of the state’s district boundaries. If passed, Proposition 50 could potentially add five more Democrats to the state’s congressional delegation.

Supporters of Proposition 50 have painted their effort as a proxy fight against Trump and his policies that have overwhelmingly affected Californians, such as immigration raids and the deployment of the National Guard on the streets of Los Angeles.

Opponents of the proposition have focused on the mechanics of redistricting, arguing the ballot measure subverts the will of California voters who enacted the independent redistricting commission more than a decade ago.

“The results suggest that Democrats have succeeded in framing the debate surrounding the proposition around support or opposition to President Trump and national Republicans, rather than about voters’ more general preference for nonpartisan redistricting,” Eric Schickler, co-director of IGS, said in a statement.

Early voting data suggest the pro-Proposition 50 message has been successful.

As of Tuesday, nearly 5 million Californians — about 21% of the state’s 23 million registered voters — had cast ballots, according to trackers run by Democratic and Republican strategists.

Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans among the state’s registered voters, and they have outpaced them in returning ballots, 52% to 27%. Voters who do not have a party preference or who support other political parties have returned 21% of the ballots.

The Berkeley/L.A. Times poll findings mirrored recent surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California, CBS News/YouGov and Emerson College.

Among voters surveyed by the Berkeley/L.A. Times poll, 67% of Californians who had already voted supported Proposition 50, while 33% said they had weighed in against the ballot measure.

The proposition also had an edge among those who planned to vote but had not yet cast their ballots, with 57% saying they planned to support the effort and 40% saying they planned to oppose it.

However, 70% of voters who plan to cast ballots in person on Nov. 4, election day, said they would vote against Proposition 50, according to the poll. Less than 3 in 10 who said they would vote at their local polling place said they would support the rare mid-decade redistricting.

These numbers highlight a recent shift in how Americans vote. Historically, Republicans voted by mail early, while Democrats cast ballots on election day. But this dynamic was upended in recent years after Trump questioned the security of early voting and mail voting, including just recently when he criticized Proposition 50.

“No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

GOP leaders across the state have pushed back at such messaging without calling out the president. Urging Republicans to vote early, they argue that waiting to cast ballots only gives Democrats a greater advantage in California elections.

Among the arguments promoted by the campaigns, likely voters agreed with every one posited by the supporters of Proposition 50, notably that the ballot measure would help Democrats win control of the House, while standing up to Trump and his attempts to rig the 2026 election, according to the poll. But they also agreed that the ballot measure would further diminish the power of the GOP in California, and that they didn’t trust partisan state lawmakers to draw congressional districts.

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