States administering a federal food aid program serving about 42 million Americans faced uncertainty Monday over whether they can — and should — provide full monthly benefits during an ongoing legal battle involving the U.S. government shutdown.
President Donald Trump’s administration over the weekend demanded that states “undo” full benefits that were paid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during a one-day window between when a federal judge ordered full funding and a Supreme Court justice put a temporary pause on that order.
A federal appeals court in Boston left the full benefits order in place on Sunday, though the Supreme Court order ensures the government won’t have to pay out for at least 48 hours. The Trump administration is also expected to ask the justices to step in again, and Congress is considering whether to fund SNAP as part of a proposal to end the government shutdown.
Some states are warning of “catastrophic operational disruptions” if the Trump administration does not reimburse them for those SNAP benefits they already authorized. Meanwhile, other states are providing partial monthly SNAP benefits with federal money or using their own funds to load electronic benefit cards for SNAP recipients.
Millions receive aid while others wait
Trump’s administration initially said SNAP benefits would not be available in November because of the government shutdown. After some states and nonprofit groups sued, two judges each ruled the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely.
The administration then said it would use an emergency reserve fund to provide 65% of the maximum monthly benefit. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said that wasn’t good enough, and ordered full funding for SNAP benefits by Friday.
Some states acted quickly to direct their EBT vendors to disburse full monthly benefits to SNAP recipients. Millions of people in those states received funds to buy groceries before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put McConnell’s order on hold Friday night, pending further deliberation by an appeals court.
Millions more people still have not received SNAP payments for November, because their states were waiting on further guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP.
Trump’s administration has argued that the judicial order to provide full benefits violates the Constitution by infringing on the spending power of the legislative and executive branches.
States are fighting attempt to freeze SNAP benefits
On Sunday, the Trump administration said states had moved too quickly and erroneously released full SNAP benefits after last week’s rulings.
“States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary of Agriculture, wrote to state SNAP directors. He warned that states could face penalties if they did not comply.
Wisconsin, which was among the first to load full benefits after McConnell’s order, had its federal reimbursement frozen. As a result, the state’s SNAP account could be depleted as soon Monday, leaving no money to reimburse stores that sell food to SNAP recipients, according to a court filing submitted by those that had sued.
Some Democratic governors vowed to challenge any federal attempt to claw back money.
In Connecticut, Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont said “those who received their benefits should not worry about losing them.”
“No, Connecticut does not need to take back SNAP benefits already sent to the 360,000 people who depend on them for food and who should have never been caught in the middle of this political fight,” Lamont said. “We have their back.”
Lieb and Mulvihill write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
The Los Angeles Police Department took more than a year to begin fully disclosing domestic abuse allegations against officers after the state passed a law that mandates reporting and can trigger permanent bans from police work in California.
The revelation came out through testimony at an administrative hearing last month for a rookie LAPD officer who was fired after the department alleged she committed time card fraud and physically assaulted her former romantic partner, a fellow cop.
A sergeant from the LAPD’s serious misconduct unit testified in a proceeding against Tawny Ramirez, according to Ramirez’s attorney and evidence from the closed-door hearing reviewed by The Times. The sergeant said the department did not start reporting certain spousal abuse cases to the state until after Ramirez was terminated in early February 2024. That is more than a year after rules took effect requiring the LAPD and other police agencies to promptly report officers accused of “serious misconduct” to the state’s police accreditation body, which grants authorization to work in law enforcement.
Senate Bill 2, passed in 2021, made domestic violence one of the nine categories of “serious misconduct” — including excessive force, dishonesty, sexual assault and acts of bias on the basis of factors including race, sexual orientation and gender — that police agencies are obligated to report to the state’s Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training, or POST.
The LAPD sergeant testified that the reporting practices were based on guidance from POST’s former compliance director, who said at a training session that agencies did not have to “report first-time misdemeanor domestic violence,” according to Ramirez’s attorney Nicole Castronovo and the hearing evidence reviewed by The Times.
Ramirez appealed the basis for her firing and has maintained she did not commit any misconduct. She denied allegations she abused her former partner.
LAPD officials believed the partial POST reporting went “against best practices” and tried to get the directive in writing, the sergeant testified, but still went along with what the official advised, according to Castronovo and the hearing evidence.
When the department sought further clarification from the POST compliance director’s successor, officials were informed that nearly all domestic-related incidents must be reported, Castronovo said.
She said she tried to press the LAPD about how many of these cases may have gone unreported, but the department said it didn’t know.
When SB 2 took effect in January 2023, police agencies were supposed to start disclosing “serious misconduct” to POST within 10 days of learning of credible allegations.
The sergeant who testified declined comment and directed questions to the department’s press office, which in a statement said that at the time SB 2 was being rolled out the LAPD “consulted” with POST “to determine which misconduct types required reporting.”
“The Department was advised that first-time, non-aggravated domestic battery did not meet the reporting threshold,” the statement read. “The Department followed this guidance, reporting only those cases with aggravating factors. In 2024, the Department adopted a new standard of reporting all allegations of domestic battery, regardless of severity.”
Ramirez’s lawyer said the testimony raises questions about the LAPD’s compliance with the law — and whether it has gone back to report other officers’ past offenses.
“It’s very scary to think that that crime wouldn’t be reported,” Castronovo said.
The LAPD accused Ramirez of assaulting her ex, Jorge Alvarado, in May 2023 based on a texted photo he provided that showed yellowish bruising on his arm from where she had squeezed it, according to the hearing evidence. Ramirez maintains Alvarado was bruised during consensual sex and argued at her at an administrative hearing that the department was unwilling to consider emails, text messages and other evidence she tried to provide that cast doubt on her accuser’s account.
The couple started dating in 2022 while both were at the Police Academy, according to Ramirez. She claims she tried to end the relationship after a few months when Alvarado turned overbearing and possessive. A colleague from Topanga Division helped her fill out an application for a temporary restraining order, Ramirez said.
A judge denied the stay away order on the grounds that Ramirez wasn’t in imminent danger, and Alvarado did not face any charges.
Alvarado did not respond to a request for comment sent to his department email.
According to hearing evidence, Alvarado first disclosed the alleged abuse by Ramirez during an interview with LAPD Internal Affairs in January 2024. Ramirez was fired less than a month later — weeks shy of completing her 18-month probationary period — after the department alleged that she lied about her reason for taking time off from work.
Meagan Poulos, a spokesperson for POST, said she wasn’t familiar with Ramirez’s case but if anything, the state agency deals with police departments “over-reporting” misconduct. Poulos said data on serious misconduct reports from the LAPD were not immediately available for review.
She added that reporting is not mandatory for spousal abuse cases that are quickly deemed unfounded or that don’t prompt an Internal Affairs investigation, and suggested LAPD officials may have “misconstrued” that to mean they didn’t have to report any such cases.
“I don’t know if that’s the case in this particular case, but I can say that’s not something that POST would advise any agency to not do,” she said.
According to Poulos and data from the agency, in 2023 there were 250-plus law enforcement agencies — the vast majority of which have fewer than 50 officers — that didn’t report a single case of serious misconduct. She said the agency regularly sends out reminders about their obligations under SB 2.
Larger agencies like the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have their own coordinators or standalone units charged with referring qualifying cases to state authorities for consideration. In a brief statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it has been its “practice since the inception of SB 2 to report all allegations of acts that violate the law.”
POST revoked 57 officers’ certification this year, compared to 84 last year. Another 43 officers voluntarily surrendered their certifications, while 77 had theirs at least temporarily suspended.
A POST notification doesn’t automatically result in an officer losing his or her policing certificate. Cases are reviewed by a disciplinary board comprised of civilians with a professional or personal background related to police accountability. That board convenes every few months to review POST’s investigation of misconduct allegations and recommend whether the commission should seek decertification.
Ramirez told The Times the LAPD initially said domestic violence had nothing to do with her firing. She says she was unfairly accused of violating department policy during a 2023 incident in Canoga Park in which she and another officer used force while trying to take a man into custody. It was only later that the photos of Alvarado’s bruises were used against her, Ramirez said, along with an allegation of time card fraud — which she also denies.
The LAPD said Ramirez lied and told her supervisor she needed time off to take care her of her ailing brother when she actually went to apply for a job at the Beverly Hills Police Department.
Ramirez said she was a caregiver for her brother — who has since died — and that she was applying to the Beverly Hills job in an attempt to get away from Alvarado.
Alvarado was placed on administrative leave after Ramirez reported him but has since completed his probationary period and been elevated to the rank of Police Officer II.
A decision from the LAPD disciplinary review process on whether Ramirez can be fired remains pending. She thinks it’s unfair her ex has been allowed to return to work while she’s stuck in limbo.
“Here I am still trying to get my job back and he’s a happy officer, enjoying his benefits, while I’m living this nightmare,” she said.
Times staff writer Connor Sheets and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
PALM DESERT — Joy Miedecke, who runs the largest Republican club in the Coachella Valley, handed out scores of “No on Prop. 50” lawn signs before election day.
But Tuesday morning, she knew the ballot measure would pass.
Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to challenge President Trump, easily prevailed last week. The ballot measure, created to level the playing field with Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas and other GOP states, reconfigured California congressional districts to favor Democrats as they try to take back the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterms.
As a consequence, Coachella Valley’s Republicans could soon be represented by anti-Trump Democrats in Washington.
California Republicans, far outnumbered by those on the left, for years have felt ignored in a state where Democrats reign, and the passage of Proposition 50 only adds to the sense of political hopelessness.
“The Democrats get their way because we don’t have enough people,” said Miedecke, of her party’s struggles in California.
Bordered by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains, the desert basin has long been a magnet for conservative retirees and vacationers, including former Republican presidents.
A cluster of palm trees light the evening landscape on Frank Sinatra Drive in Rancho Mirage.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
The local hospital is named after President Eisenhower. President Ford enjoyed the many emerald golf courses in his later years and his wife, former first lady Betty Ford, founded her namesake addiction treatment center in the desert valley.
Voters in Indian Wells, parts of La Quinta and Cahuilla Hills backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Under Prop. 50, some or all of those areas will move to a congressional district led by Democrat Raul Ruiz, an emergency room physician raised in the Coachella Valley, or join with left-leaning San Diego County suburbs in a new meandering district specifically crafted to favor Democratic candidates.
Joy Miedecke of Indio is president of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots. She blames the California GOP for failing to adequately fund opposition to Proposition 50.
“The party is at the bottom,” said Miedecke, 80. “It’s at the very bottom. We have nowhere to go but up.”
Sitting in her club’s retail store on Wednesday, Miedecke blamed the California Republican Party and its allies, saying they failed to raise enough money to blunt Prop. 50’s anti-Trump message.
A life-sized cardboard cutout of California Republican gubernatorial candidate and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco stood near stacks of red MAGA hats and “Alligator Alcatraz” T-shirts. A President Reagan cardboard cutout also greeted visitors.
Volunteer Chris Mahr checks signatures on petitions at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert. Republicans fear Proposition 50’s passage will weaken representation in the Coachella Valley.
Republican voters in the Coachella Valley spent the days after the Nov. 4 special election criticizing the Republican Party and California’s Democratic leadership. In Facebook chat groups, in bars and on neighborhood walks, locals weighed in on the new congressional district lines and the proxy battle between Trump and Newsom.
On Wednesday, gleaming Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades cruised down a main drag, past tidy green lawns before disappearing into residential communities hidden behind sand-colored gates.
Kay Hillery, 89, who lives in an Indian Wells neighborhood known for its architecturally significant Midcentury Modern homes, is bracing for more bad news.
She anticipates that GOP congressional candidates will have a harder time raising money because the new districts marginalize Republicans.
“I am ashamed of the Republicans for not getting out the vote,” said Hillery, who moved to the desert from Arcadia in 1989.
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1.A ceramic figurine of Trump is on display at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots store in Palm Desert.2.A Trump key chain dangles on top of a large God Bless America button which hangs next to a hair dryer and a Bible inside “Just Marylou” hair salon.3.Inside the “Just Marylou” hair salon is decorated in Republican posters and slogans.
Voters who backed Prop. 50, however, were reenergized.
“It’s important to take a position when we need to, and we needed to take a position as a state,” said Linda Blank, president of the Indian Wells Preservation Foundation.
Indian Wells is best known for its premiere tennis tournament, top-level golf courses and palm tree-lined roadways. Eisenhower, who lived in Indian Wells part time, is memorialized with a statue outside City Hall.
The heavily Republican city for years hosted the state’s Republican Party convention and donor retreats organized by right-wing libertarians David and Charles Koch. (David Koch died in 2019.)
Following Tuesday’s election, Indian Wells will lose its Republican representative, Ken Calvert, and become part of the newly drawn district that reaches into San Diego County.
That area is represented by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall), but Democrats are trying to oust him by extending his district into bluer neighborhoods.
Michael Ford, left, Sonny Bono, center, and John Gardner Ford, right of Bono, attend the third day of the 1976 Republican National Convention at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo.
(Guy DeLort/Penske Media via Getty Images)
A major portion of the Riverside County desert region once was represented by Rep. Sonny Bono, the singer, who was a Republican. After he was killed in a ski accident in 1998, his wife, Mary Bono, also a Republican, ran for his seat and served in Congress until 2013.
The Coachella Valley is now a political patchwork, home also to the Democratic havens of Palm Springs and Cathedral City and divided towns of Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert.
Today, the region is split into congressional districts held by Calvert, a Republican who lives in far-off Corona, and Democrat Ruiz.
Calvert announced last week that he’ll run in a new district in Orange and Riverside counties. The good news for Calvert is that it’s a heavily Republican district. The bad news is Republican Rep. Young Kim of Anaheim Hills is also running in that district.
Calvert, in an emailed statement, blamed Newsom for disenfranchising Republicans throughout California — who account for 5.7 million of the 22.9 million voters in the state.
“Conservatives deserve to have their voices heard, not be drowned out by partisan moves to advance a one-sided political agenda,” said Calvert. His office didn’t respond when asked about the congressman’s views on Texas’ redistricting actions.
Indian Wells Mayor Bruce Whitman said Calvert was instrumental in directing millions of dollars to a wash project that will help development.
U.S. flags adorn El Paseo Shopping District on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert.
In nearby liberal Palm Springs, city leaders passed a resolution supporting immigrants and celebrated an all-LGBTQ+ city council in 2017.
Indian Wells’ political leadership remains apolitical, Whitman said.
“National issues like sanctuary city resolutions, or resolutions supporting Israel or Palestinians — it’s just not our thing,” he said.
At the Nest bar in Indian Wells, tourists from Canada and Oregon on Wednesday night mingled with silver-haired locals.
As Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” played, 60-something resident John — who declined to give his last name— predicted the redistricting wars would end as a “wash” between California and Texas.
“It’s just a game,” he said, sounding dismissive.
Sandra Schulz of Palm Desert, executive vice president of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots, stands in front of a wall covered with Trump photographs and paintings on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert.
Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley, sees another outcome. Taking away congressional representation from the party’s last remaining conservative bastions leaves the party even less relevant, he said.
The California Republican Party hasn’t done meaningful statewide work since then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left office, Schnur said.
“They decided many years ago that they just weren’t going to engage seriously in state politics anymore,” said Schnur. “If you’re a California Republican, you focus on national politics and you work on local races.”
Tourists look at the Republican items in the store window at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots store on Nov. 6 in Palm Desert.
In 2007, then-Gov. Schwarzenegger spoke at a GOP state party convention in Indian Wells and warned his fellow Republicans that they needed to pivot to the political center and attract more moderates.
Schwarzenegger drew a parallel to the film industry, telling the convention crowd: “We are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats.”
The former governor opposed Prop. 50, but limited his involvement with Republicans in the campaign to defeat the measure.
Indian Wells resident Peter Rammer, 69, a retired tech executive, described himself as a Republican who didn’t always vote along party lines. He is increasingly frustrated with Democrats’ handling of homelessness in California.
He voted against Prop. 50, but predicted the Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia would force the Republican Party to pay more attention to regional issues.
“I’m just not happy with how everything is going on the country right now,” said Rammer, standing outside Indian Wells City Hall. “There’s just so much turmoil, it’s crazy. But Trump — the guy I voted for — causes a lot of it.”
American flags adorn El Paseo Shopping District in staunchly Republican Palm Desert.
Back in Palm Desert, Republican club president Miedecke was focused on the next campaign: Getting the word out about a ballot measure by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego).
It would require voter ID and proof of citizenship in California elections — another polarizing issue.
The Trump administration is demanding states “undo” full SNAP benefits paid out under judges’ orders last week, now that the Supreme Court has stayed those rulings, marking the latest swing in a seesawing legal battle over the anti-hunger program used by 42 million Americans.
The demand from the U.S. Department of Agriculture came as more than two dozen states warned of “catastrophic operational disruptions” if the administration does not reimburse them for those SNAP benefits they authorized before the Supreme Court’s stay.
Nonprofits and Democratic attorneys general sued to force the Trump administration to maintain the program this month. They won the favorable rulings last week, leading to the swift release of benefits to millions in several states.
But, even before it won a stay on those rulings through an appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday night, the Trump administration balked at reimbursing states for the initial round of SNAP payments. Wisconsin, for example, loaded benefits onto cards for 700,000 residents, but after the U.S. Treasury froze its reimbursements to the state, it anticipates running out of money by Monday, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration warned in a lengthy statement Sunday.
The lack of money could leave vendors unpaid and trigger escalating legal claims, the states warned. “States could face demands to return hundreds of millions of dollars in the aggregate,” the filing at the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals says.
That situation “would risk catastrophic operational disruptions for the States, with a consequent cascade of harms for their residents,” the filing concludes.
That filing arrived as the Department of Agriculture on Saturday told states it would now consider any payments made last week to be “unauthorized.”
“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary of Agriculture, wrote to state SNAP directors. “Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”
Evers issued a quick response to the Trump administration’s demand. “No,” the governor said in a statement.
“Pursuant to and consistent with an active court order, Wisconsin legally loaded benefits to cards, ensuring nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites, including nearly 270,000 kids, had access to basic food and groceries,” Evers said. “After we did so, the Trump Administration assured Wisconsin and other states that they were actively working to implement full SNAP benefits for November and would ‘complete the processes necessary to make funds available.’ They have failed to do so to date.”
Bauer and Riccardi write for the Associated Press.
After deadly protests and a youth uprising, Kenya’s president defends his record on democracy, rights, and reform.
Kenyan President William Ruto talks to Al Jazeera about the nationwide protests that left dozens dead, accusations of police brutality and enforced disappearances, and whether he’s betrayed the “hustler” generation that helped elect him. He also addresses Kenya’s economic challenges, its leadership role in Haiti, and regional accusations of interference in Sudan’s war. As scrutiny grows at home, Ruto insists Kenya’s democracy remains intact, and his promise of transformation, unbroken.
A week before California’s special election, Gavin Newsom made news by doing something practically unheard of. He told donors to stop sending money to pass Proposition 50.
It was a man-bites-piranha moment — a politician turning away campaign cash?!? — and amounted to a victory lap by California’s governor even as the balloting was still underway.
On Wednesday, less than 12 hours after the polls closed, Newsom sent another email. This one thanked backers for helping push the gerrymander measure to landslide approval — and asked them to open their wallets back up.
“Please make a contribution,” he pleaded, “to help us continue to go on the offense and take the fight to Trump.”
One campaign ended. Another seamlessly continued.
Though he’s been publicly coy, Newsom has been effectively running for president for the better part of a year, something even the most nearsighted observer can see. One envisions the restless governor, facing the end of his term, sitting in the Capitol and crossing days off his official calendar as he longingly gazes toward 2028.
He took a risk that an esoteric subject — congressional map-making — could be turned into a heartfelt issue. He gambled that voters would overlook the cost of a special election — close to $300 million — and agree to hand back the line-drawing powers they seized from Sacramento insiders and politicians who put their own interests first. In doing so, he further raised his national profile and bulked up an already formidable fundraising base.
None of which makes Newsom’s quest for the White House much more likely to succeed.
His biggest problem — and there’s no way to fix it — is that he comes from California, which, to many around the country, reads as far left, nutty and badly off track. Or, less harshly, a place that’s more secular, permissive and tax-happy than some middle-of-the-roaders are really comfortable with.
Take it from a Republican strategist.
“He’s obviously a talented politician,” said Q. Whitfield Ayres, a GOP pollster with extensive campaign experience in Georgia and other presidential swing states. “But if I were trying to paint a Democratic nominee as too liberal for the country, having the governor of California be the nominee would be an easy task … Too coastal. Too dismissive of ‘flyover’ country. Too much like the elites on both coasts that [President] Trump has run so successfully against for years now.”
That’s not just a partisan perspective.
The Democratic desire to win in 2028 “is very, very strong,” said Charlie Cook, a campaign handicapper who has spent decades impartially analyzing state and national politics. The presidential contest “will be determined by winning in purple states and purple counties and purple precincts,” Cook said, in places such as central Pennsylvania, rural Wisconsin and Georgia, where issues play differently than within California’s deeply blue borders.
For many primary voters, Cook suggested, ideology and purity testing will yield to a more cold-eyed and pragmatic calculation: a candidate’s perceived electability. He minimized Newsom’s smashing Proposition 50 victory. “He’s got to impress people on the road,” Cook said. “Not just a home game in a state that’s really tilted one way.”
As Democratic strategist David Axelrod noted, “the nature of presidential politics is the bar gets raised constantly.” Once the race truly begins, Newsom will be probed and prodded in ways he hasn’t experienced since his last physical exam, all in full public view.
“There is an army of opposition researchers, Republican and Democrat, who are going to scour every word he’s spoken as a public official in California since his days as San Francisco mayor and every official action he’s taken and not taken,” said Axelrod, who helped steer Barack Obama to the White House. “Who knows what they will yield and how he’ll respond to that.”
At the moment, Newsom is giving off a very strong Avenatti energy.
Newsom, of course, is vastly more qualified than the Los Angeles attorney ever was. But the political vibe — and especially the governor’s self-styled role as Trump-troller-in-chief — is very similar.
“If you’re talking about democracy over the dinner table, it’s because you don’t have to worry about the cost of food on the table,” Axelrod said. “If you have to worry about the cost of food on the table or your rent or your mortgage, insurance, electricity and all these things, you’re thinking about that.”
To stand any shot at winning his party’s nomination, much less the White House, Newsom will have to build support beyond his fan base with a message showing he understands voters’ day-to-day concerns and offers ways to improve their lives. Success will require more than passing a Democratic ballot measure in a Democratic state, or cracking wise on social media.
Because all those snarky memes and cheeky presidential put-downs won’t seem so funny if JD Vance is inaugurated in January 2029.
Proposition 50 has passed, and with it goes the warm spotlight of never-ending press coverage that aspiring presidential contender Gavin Newsom has enjoyed. What’s an ambitious governor to do?
My vote? Take inspiration from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who not only pulled America through the Depression, but rebuilt trust in democracy with a truly big-tent government that offered concrete benefits to a wide and diverse swath of society.
It’s time to once again embrace the values — inclusiveness, equity, dignity for all — that too many Democrats have expeditiously dropped to appease MAGA.
Not only did FDR make good on helping the average person, he put a sign on it (literally — think of all those Work Projects Administration logos that still grace our manhole covers and sidewalks) to make sure everyone knew that big, bold government wasn’t the problem, but the solution — despite what rich men wanted the public to believe.
As he was sworn in for his second term (of four, take that President Trump!), FDR said he was “determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern,” because the “test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
Roosevelt created jobs paid for by government; he created Social Security; he created a coalition that improbably managed to include both Black Americans everywhere and white Southerners, northern industrialists and rural farmers. In the end, he created a United States where people could try, fail and have the helping hand to get back up again — the real underpinning of the American dream.
The similarities between Roosevelt’s day and now aren’t perfect, but they share a shoe size. FDR took office in 1933, when the Great Depression was in full swing. Then, like now, right-wing authoritarianism was cuddled up with the oligarchs. Income inequality was undeniable (and worse, unemployment was around 25%) and daily life was just plain hard.
That discontent, then and now, led to political polarization as need sowed division, and leaders with selfish agendas channeled fear into anger and anger into power.
Like then, the public today is desperate for security, and unselfish, service leadership — not that of “economic royalists,” as FDR described them. He warned then, in words sadly timeless, that “new kingdoms” were being “built upon concentration of control over material things.”
“They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction,” FDR said when accepting the presidential nomination for the second time.
“We’re in a similar moment now,” said New Deal expert Eric Rauchway, a distinguished professor of history at UC Davis.
But Roosevelt wasn’t just fighting what was wrong, he pointed out. He “wanted to show people that he was going to not put things back the way they were, but actually make things better.”
Like then, America today isn’t just looking to overcome.
Despite the relentless focus on cost of living, there is also hunger for a return to fairness. Even cowed by our personal needs, there is still in most of us that belief that Ronald Reagan articulated well: We aspire to be the “shining city upon a hill … teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.”
Washington, D.C., resident Sean Dunn distilled that sentiment for the modern moment recently, standing outside a courthouse after being found not guilty of a misdemeanor for throwing a turkey sandwich at an immigration officer.
“Every life matters, no matter where you came from, no matter how you got here, no matter how you identify,” Dunn said. “You have the right to live a life that is free.”
But America needs to pay the bills and affordability is fairly the top concern for many. Voters want a concrete plan for personal financial stability — like FDR offered with the New Deal — grounded in tangible benefits such as healthcare, housing, jobs and affordable Thanksgiving turkeys that do not require lining up at a food bank.
The Republicans understand only part of this complicated mix — the affordability angle. Though, like the robber barons of the Roaring ‘20s, MAGA elite are finding it increasingly difficult to dismantle government and strip the American people of their wealth while simultaneously pretending they care.
Trump made a big to-do about the price of Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal this year, about $40 to serve 10 people (though it comes with fewer items than last year, and mostly Walmart house brand instead of name brands).
Walmart “came out and they said Trump’s Thanksgiving dinner, same things, is 25% less than Biden’s,” he said. “But we just lost an election, they said, based on affordability.”
Billionaire-adjacent Vice President JD Vance summed up that Republican frustration on social media after Democrats won not just Proposition 50, but elections in New Jersey, Virginia and even Mississippi.
“We need to focus on the home front,” Vance said, using weirdly coded right-wing nationalist language. “We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”
Vance is partially right, but FDR ultimately succeeded because he understood that the stability of American democracy depends not just on paying the bills, but on equality and equity — of everyone having a fair shake at paying them.
Despite all the up-by-the-bootstraps rhetoric of our rich, the truth is healthy capitalist societies require “automatic stabilizers,” such as unemployment insurance, access to medical care and that Social Security FDR invented, said Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at the New School and another expert on the New Deal.
Left or right, Republican or Democrat, Americans want to know that they won’t be left out in the cold, literally, if life deals them a bad hand.
Of course, Newsom isn’t president so all he can do is give us a vision of what that would look like, the way FDR did as governor of New York in the early years of the Great Depression, before moving to the Oval Office.
There’s the evergreen refrain that as governor Newsom should stay in his lane and focus on the state, instead of his ambitions. To which I say, that’s like shaking your fist at the rear of a bolting horse. Newsom is running for president like Secretariat for the Triple Crown. And since we do in fact need a president, why shouldn’t he?
Next is the equally tired, “Republicans can’t wait for him to run because everyone hates California. Wait until Newsom hits Iowa!” But regular people hate despair, poverty and Nazis far more than they hate California. And the people who actually hate California more than they hate despair, poverty and Nazis are never going to vote for any Democrat.
For once, thanks to MAGA’s fascination with California as the symbol of failure and evil, the Golden State is the perfect place to make an argument for a new vision of America, FDR-style. In fact, we already are.
At a time of increasing hunger in our country, California is one of a handful of states that provides no-questions-asked free school lunches to all children, a proven way to combat food insecurity.
With Trump not only destroying the scientific institutions that study and control environmental and health safety, California is setting its own standards to protect people and the planet.
California has fought to expand access to affordable healthcare; stop the military on our streets and push back against masked police; and it leads our country in livable wages, safety nets, social equality and opportunities for social mobility. The state is doing as much as one state can to offer a new deal to solve old problems.
What if Newsom built off those successes with plans for Day One executive orders? Expansion of trade apprenticeships into every high school? A pathway for “Dreamers” to become citizens?
How about an order requiring nonpartisan election maps? Or declaring firearm violence a public health emergency? Heck, I’d love an executive order releasing the Epstein files, which may be America’s most bipartisan issue.
But, Rauchway warns, Newsom needs to be more like FDR and “put a sign on it” when he puts values into action.
“That investment has to be conspicuous, positive and very clear where it came from,” he said.
We are not a nation of subtlety or patience.
If Newsom wants to stay relevant, he has to do more than fight against Trump. He needs to make all Americans believe he’s fighting for them as FDR did — loudly and boldly — and that if he wins, they will, too, on Day One.
Gov. Gavin Newsom strode onstage in Houston on Saturday to a cheering crowd of Texas Democrats, saying Proposition 50’s victory in California on election day was a win for the nation and a firm repudiation of President Trump.
Newsom possessed the air of a politician running for president at the boisterous rally, a possibility the California governor says he is considering — and the location he chose was not happenstance.
Newsom accused Trump of pressuring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to rejigger the state’s congressional districts with the goal of sending more Republicans to Congress, an action that triggered California’s Proposition 50. Newsom successfully pushed for a special election on the ballot measure to counter the efforts in Texas, which the governor said wasan attempt by Trump and the Republicans to “rig” the 2026 midterm election.
Cheers erupted from the friendly, union-hall crowd when Newsom belittled Trump as an “invasive species” and a “historically unpopular president.”
“On every issue, on the economy, on terrorists, on immigration, on healthcare, [he’s a] historically unpopular president, and he knows it, and he knows it,” Newsom said. “Why else did he make that call to your governor? Why else did he feel the need to rig the election before even one vote was cast? That’s just weakness, weakness masquerading as strength. That’s Donald Trump, and he had a very bad night on Tuesday.”
Newsom was the main political force behind Proposition 50, which California voters overwhelmingly approved in Tuesday’s special election. The statewide ballot measure was an attempt to counter Trump’s push to get Republican-led states, most notably Texas, to redraw their electoral maps to keep Democrats from gaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms and upending his agenda. Newsom and California Democrats hope the change will net an additional five Democrats in California’s congressional delegation, canceling out any gains in Texas.
Newsom thanked Texas Democrats for putting up a fight against the redistricting effort in their state, saying it inspired an uprising.
“It’s dawning on people, all across the United States of America, what’s at stake,” Newsom told the crowd. “And you put a stake in the ground. People are showing up. I don’t believe in crowns, thrones. No kings.”
“Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise,” Newsom replied. “I’d just be lying. And I’m not — I can’t do that.”
In July, Newsom flew to South Carolina, a state that traditionally hosts the South’s first presidential primary. He said he wanted to help his party win back the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. But South Carolina is a solidly conservative state and did not appear to have a single competitive race.
During that trip, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and renowned Democratic kingmaker, told The Times that Newsom would be “a hell of a candidate.” Newsom received similar praise — and encouragement — when he was introduced at the “Take It Back” rally in Houston.
The Trump administration this year canceled funding for major clean energy projects such as California’s hydrogen hub and moved to revoke the state’s long-held authority to set stricter vehicle emissions standards than the federal government.
The Ukrainian parliament has disclosed that its public debt of over $190 billion will require close to four decades to repay—but this assumes the country remains viable as a “state,” the EU agrees to keep funding its budgets, and the IMF doesn’t balk at extending further loans.
There are valid reasons for concern over new Finance Ministry figures revealing that Ukraine’s public debt has expanded to unprecedented levels, requiring decades to extinguish.
The Finance Ministry’s latest report indicates Ukraine’s public and government-guaranteed debt surged to 8.02 trillion hryvnia ($194.2 billion) as of September 30. The pace and scale of borrowing have shocked MPs, who now face the grim reality that interest payments alone will drain more than 3.8 trillion hryvnia ($90.5 billion) from the state treasury over the coming decades.
IMF Concerns
The IMF last month updated its forecasts for Ukraine’s public debt level, now expecting it to reach 108.6% of GDP by the end of 2025 and rise further to 110.4% in 2026. The IMF has revised its projections for Ukrainian debt higher despite the successful restructuring in 2024 of $20.5 billion in Eurobond securities. However, the same year, the country’s budget deficit reached $43.9 billion.
A recent report by Ukraine’s KSE Institute estimates the country’s budget gap for 2025-2028 at $53 billion per year, a sum that foreign sponsors would have to cover. These figures do not include additional military financing.
The Economist recently estimated that Ukraine will require around $400 billion in cash and arms over the next four years to continue fighting and cover essential domestic costs.
The European Union’s plan to leverage frozen Russian sovereign funds to support Ukraine has hit a roadblock, with Belgium refusing to back the proposal due to legal risks. The EU had hoped to use the frozen assets, worth around $300 billion, as collateral to secure further loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Ukraine. However, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has opposed the plan, describing it as “sort-of-confiscation” that exposes Belgium to significant financial and legal risks.
The EU’s failure to approve a $160 billion “reparations loan” has significant implications for Ukraine, which remains heavily reliant on Western aid to support its war effort. Ukraine’s $15.5 billion IMF program is set to expire in 2027, and the country has requested an additional $8 billion in funding. However, talks have stalled due to concerns about Ukraine’s economic viability.
EU officials are reportedly concerned that the IMF may not grant further funding to Ukraine unless the EU approves the new loan. This could trigger a cascading loss of confidence in the country’s economic viability. The IMF program’s approval is seen as crucial in signaling to investors that Ukraine remains solvent, and its rejection could have far-reaching consequences for the country’s economy.
Keeping Ukraine afloat financially is largely expected to fall to the EU given decreased American involvement. However, such a prospect has faced internal opposition. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that “there’s no one else left willing to pick up the tab.” Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico voiced equal opposition to Brussels’ plan to continue financing Kiev’s war. And just this week, the new Czech Republic President Andrej Babiš made good on his campaign promise to advocate against more funds and arms being transferred to Ukraine.
Orbán, a longtime critic of aid to Ukraine, criticized Brussels for seeking new funding through frozen Russian assets and fresh loans, rejecting the plan as not Hungary’s responsibility.
A Failed State?
It is worth noting that a case can be made that Ukraine was not a thriving state prior to February 2022.
After his 2019 election, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assumed the leadership of a state suffering from economic malaise, low natality, and high rates of graft and corruption. Ukraine’s population, after peaking at 52 million in 1993, had already fallen to 45.5 million by 2013—it is 32 million today, with UN estimates concluding that it would fall by a further 20% by 2050. More than 28 million now reside outside the country.
Widespread emigration has plagued Ukraine, which was suffering from extensive brain drain well before the war. Emigration and population decline are parts of a vicious cycle—citizens leave countries due to political instability or low economic prospects, which tends to exacerbate the problems.
In addition to a declining birthrate and negative net migration, Ukraine’s economy has floundered since the nation achieved independence in 1991. Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe—before the war, its GDP per capita was comparable to that of Iraq, and unemployment was about 10 percent. Ukraine’s economy is the second-most corrupt in Europe. This corruption and lack of opportunity fueled Ukraine’s pre-war emigration and poverty.
The invasion and subsequent Russian military strikes have severely degraded Ukraine’s already weak economy. Infrastructure has been devastated, with an estimated $176 billion in damage. Power systems, roads, and other critical assets have been left in ruins. Ukrainian agricultural production, which made up 41 percent of Ukraine’s exports, has fallen by a third. Finally, Russian minefields and artillery attacks have also left much of eastern Ukraine inundated with unexploded ordnance, the effects of which will continue to be felt for decades.
Moreover, many of the 6.9 million refugees and 3.7 million internally displaced persons are either unable to contribute to the country’s war effort or dependent on state resources for survival. Many who fled will likely not return; a significant number of refugees have effectively assimilated within host communities in Germany and Poland—many have built lives in other countries. Those least likely to return are individuals with high education and key skills, fostering the flight of valuable human resources.
Even if the EU continues to fund Ukraine, its difficulties will only increase. With Russia already controlling 20% of Ukraine’s territory and continuing to gain ground, the most it can hope to achieve is a stalemate until peace terms are mutually agreed upon. Continuing to resist the Russian onslaught could take years, which would further damage and depopulate eastern Ukraine. Moreover, its economy would continue to be strangled by the displacement of workers, infrastructure damage, and investor fatigue and uncertainty. Protracted warfare may achieve political and moral objectives, but the loss of wartime unity and foreign aid, combined with the high cost of rebuilding and resettling ($524 billion), is likely to create further political instability. Even in peace, Ukraine’s future is bleak.
Western leaders should be well aware of the consequences that protracted warfare can have on a state—their experiences in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan all resulted in massive human costs and the destruction of economic and governmental institutions. Regardless of what happens at the peace table, Europe, the UK (and under Trump, to a lesser extent, the U.S.) will be forced to reckon with the specter of both a failed state dependent on foreign aid as well as a protracted migrant crisis, which Europe already faces with the Middle East and North Africa. The crisis is building, and it soon could be at the West’s doorstep.
The Trump administration spent Friday fighting to avoid restoring $4 billion in food assistance in jeopardy due to the government shutdown, suggesting it might need to “raid school-lunch money” in order to comply with court orders.
The claim was part of a break-neck appeal in the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, where the government hoped to duck a court order that would force it to pay out for food stamps — formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — through November.
“There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett A. Shumate wrote in the appeal.
The administration’s only option would be to “to starve Peter to feed Paul” by cutting school lunch programs, Shumate wrote.
On Friday afternoon, the appellate court declined to immediately block the lower court’s order, and said it would quickly rule on the merits of the funding decree.
SNAP benefits are a key fight in the ongoing government shutdown. California is one of several states suing the administration to restore the safety net program while negotiations continue to end the stalemate.
Millions of Americans have struggled to afford groceries since benefits lapsed Nov. 1, inspiring many Republican lawmakers to join Democrats in demanding an emergency stopgap.
The Trump administration was previously ordered to release contingency funding for the program that it said would cover benefits for about half of November.
But the process has been “confusing and chaotic” and “rife with errors,” according to a brief filed by 25 states and the District of Columbia.
Some states, including California, have started disbursing SNAP benefits for the month. Others say the partial funding is a functional lockout.
“Many states’ existing systems require complete reprogramming to accomplish this task, and given the sudden — and suddenly changing — nature of USDA’s guidance, that task is impossible to complete quickly,” the brief said.
“Recalculations required by [the government’s] plan will delay November benefits for [state] residents for weeks or months.”
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island ordered the full food stamp payout by the end of the week. He accused the administration of withholding the benefit for political gain.
“Faced with a choice between advancing relief and entrenching delay, [the administration] chose the latter — an outcome that predictably magnifies harm and undermines the very purpose of the program it administers,” he wrote.
“This Court is not naïve to the administration’s true motivations,” McConnell wrote. “Far from being concerned with Child Nutrition funding, these statements make clear that the administration is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes.”
The appeal could extend that deadline by as little as a few hours, or nullify it entirely.
But the latter may be unlikely, especially following the appellate court’s decision late Friday. The 1st Circuit is currently the country’s most liberal, with five active judges, all of whom were named to the bench by Democratic presidents.
While the court deliberates, both sides are left sparring over how many children will go hungry if the other prevails.
More than 16 million children rely on SNAP benefits. Close to 30 million are fed through the National School Lunch Program, which the government now says it must gut to meet the court’s order.
But the same pool of cash has already been tapped to extend Women, Infants and Children, which is a federal program that pays for baby formula and other basics for some poor families.
“This clearly undermines the Defendants’ point, as WIC is an entirely separate program from the Child Nutrition Programs,” McConnell wrote.
In its Friday order, the 1st Circuit panel said it would issue a full ruling “as quickly as possible.”
BOSTON — President Trump ’s administration asked a federal appeals court Friday to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly SNAP food benefits amid a U.S. government shutdown, even as at least some states said they were moving quickly to get the money to people.
The judge gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.
The court filing came even as Wisconsin said Friday that some SNAP recipients in the state already got their full November payments overnight on Thursday.
“We’ve received confirmation that payments went through, including members reporting they can now see their balances,” said Britt Cudaback, a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Uncertainty remains for many SNAP recipients
The court wrangling prolonged weeks of uncertainty for the food program that serves about 1 in 8 Americans, mostly with lower incomes.
An individual can receive a monthly maximum food benefit of nearly $300 and a family of four up to nearly $1,000, although many receive less than that under a formula that takes into consideration their income. For many SNAP participants, it remains unclear exactly how much they will receive this month, and when they will receive it.
Jasmen Youngbey of Newark, N.J., waited in line Friday at a food pantry in the state’s largest city. As a single mom attending college, Youngbey said she relies on SNAP to help feed her 7-month-old and 4-year-old sons. But she said her account balance was at $0.
“Not everybody has cash to pull out and say, ‘OK, I’m going to go and get this,’ especially with the cost of food right now,” she said.
Tihinna Franklin, a school bus guard who was waiting in the same line outside the United Community Corp. food pantry, said her SNAP account balance was at 9 cents and she was down to three items in her freezer. She typically relies on the roughly $290 a month in SNAP benefits to help feed her grandchildren.
“If I don’t get it, I won’t be eating,” she said. “My money I get paid for, that goes to the bills, rent, electricity, personal items. That is not fair to us as mothers and caregivers.”
The legal battle over SNAP takes another twist
Because of the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration originally had said SNAP benefits would not be available in November. However, two judges ruled last week that the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely because of the shutdown. One of those judges was U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who ordered the full payments Thursday.
In both cases, the judges ordered the government to use one emergency reserve fund containing more than $4.6 billion to pay for SNAP for November but gave it leeway to tap other money to make the full payments, which cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month.
On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional money, saying it was up to Congress to appropriate the funds for the program and that the other money was needed to shore up other child hunger programs.
Thursday’s federal court order rejected the Trump administration’s decision to cover only 65% of the maximum monthly benefit, a decision that could have left some recipients getting nothing for this month.
In its court filing Friday, Trump’s administration contended that Thursday’s directive to fund full SNAP benefits runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend,” the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in its request to the court.
In response, attorneys for the cities and nonprofits challenging Trump’s administration said the government has plenty of available money and the court should “not allow them to further delay getting vital food assistance to individuals and families who need it now.”
States are taking different approaches to food aid
Some states said they stood ready to distribute SNAP money as quickly as possible.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said it directed a vendor servicing its SNAP electronic benefit cards to issue full SNAP benefits soon after the federal funding is received.
Benefits are provided to individuals on different days of the month. Those who normally receive benefits on the third, fifth or seventh of the month should receive their full SNAP allotment within 48 hours of funds becoming available, the Michigan agency said, and others should receive their full benefits on their regularly scheduled dates.
Meanwhile, North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services said that partial SNAP benefits were distributed Friday, based on the Trump administration’s previous decision. Officials in Illinois and North Dakota also said they were distributing partial November payments, starting as soon as Friday for some recipients.
In Missouri, where officials had been working on partial distribution, the latest court jostling raised new questions. A spokesperson for the state Department of Social Services said Friday that it is awaiting further guidance about how to proceed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP.
Amid the federal uncertainty, Delaware’s Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer said the state used its own funds Friday to provide the first of could be a weekly relief payment to SNAP recipients.
On Thursday, Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Jim Pillen downplayed the effect of paused SNAP benefits on families in his state, saying, “Nobody’s going to go hungry.” The multimillionaire said food pantries, churches and other charitable services would fill the gap.
Lieb, Casey and Bauer write for the Associated Press. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo., and Bauer from Madison, Wisc. AP writers Margery Beck in Omaha; Mike Catalini in Newark, N.J.; Jack Dura in Bismarck, N.D.; Mingson Lau in Claymont, Del.; John O’Connor, in Springfield, Ill.; and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
