A human defeated two of the three robots he faced in a cage fight recently held in San Francisco.
The humans behind that fight could face a battle of their own — the legal type — if they want to hold another event like “Human Vs. Robot,” the Sept. 18 competition that placed influencer Frankie LaPenna inside an octagon to battle three humanoid robots that were controlled remotely by a human operator in separate MMA-style fights.
REK (Robot Entertainment Kombat), the “humanoid robot fighting” company that staged the event, billed it as the “first human vs. robot fight in history.” Videos of the bouts have combined for more than 10 million views on YouTube.
Not everyone is a fan. On Sept. 23, the California State Athletic Commission sent a cease-and-desist order to REK, its CEO Cix Liv and “all persons holding, promoting, advertising or sponsoring unsanctioned human versus humanoid robot cage fight.”
The letter states that “any boxing or mixed martial arts contest, match, or exhibition, involving any human in the State of California” requires the prior approval of the commission and that it is a misdemeanor to hold such an event without obtaining a license or permit from the state.
A spokesperson for the California Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the CSAC, said in a statement emailed to The Times that the commission is “committed to protecting the safety of the public and integrity of combat sports.”
“Unsanctioned activity puts the physical and financial well-being of all those involved at risk and such activity will not be tolerated,” the statement said.
An X post by Liv on Sept. 30 indicated he’s not overly concerned about the cease-and-desist order.
“We made it boys,” he wrote in the post, which also included a photo of the commission’s letter.
Liv said in an email to The Times on Tuesday that REK did not seek CSAC approval before the event “because the law clearly states it is not a real boxing match if it doesn’t include ‘two persons,’” rather than a human vs. a humanoid robot controlled by a human.
“So they can argue in court that actuators are somehow persons,” he said. “The case would give us nonstop media coverage, even if we incurred a fine.”
LaPenna also appeared to make light of the cease-and-desist order in a pair of X posts on Oct. 1.
“I fought a robot and within 12 days the state of California passes a new law saying no more robot vs. human fights,” wrote LaPenna, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.
He added in the second post: “Good work Cix, you disrupted the system.”
According to Liv, LaPenna pushed for the opportunity to face humanoid opponents in the cage.
“We felt the robots were ready to fight amateur fighters like Frankie, but not actual MMA fighters yet,” Liv said.
The 29-year-old content creator signed a full waiver of liability, but “we didn’t actually want to hurt him,” Liv added.
The written description accompanying a “Human vs. Robot” video posted on REK and LaPenna’s YouTube pages states that “there was no predetermined outcome, both Frankie and Nick, the robot operator were told to try their best.”
Wearing spiked gloves, a helmet and protective padding, the 5-foot-6, 205-pound LaPenna held his own against all three bots. He dominated his first opponent, referred to at the fight as “the child robot.” Next came an imposing “Terminator”-inspired humanoid, which was listed on the fight video as 6-feet and 200 pounds with a kick force of 850 pounds.
The robot landed several hard kicks, including one that knocked LaPenna across the mat and another with an impact that brought the humanoid to the ground and caused its head to come off — but the human seemed to gain strength as the match went on and eventually stood triumphantly with his foot on the machine’s crumpled body.
LaPenna was dominant early in his final match, in which he faced a robot that resembled a “Predator” from the movies of the same name. After landing several punches and kicks and taking his opponent to the ground multiple times, LaPenna eventually became fatigued and called for the match to be ended.
“He doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t stay down,” LaPenna said in a postmatch interview. “Just keeps getting up. I thought he’d be dead.”
According to Liv, LaPenna emerged from the bouts basically unscathed. “The only damage he experienced was hurting his hand a bit by punching metal,” Liv said.
Since then, REK has turned its attention back to all-robot fights, although Liv said the company eventually plans to stage more human vs. humanoid bouts.
“We are avoiding it for now,” Liv said. “CSAC has no legal case but it may not be worth the battle. We may just do it in Vegas or a state that is less lame.”
The Atlanta Dream will host Games 3 and 4 of the WNBA Finals against the Golden State Valkyries in the building they will call home starting next season, not the one where they played most of their home games this year.
That’s good because State Farm Arena — home of the NBA’s Hawks and soon-to-be the fulltime home of the Dream — can seat around 17,000 people, while Gateway Center Arena — the WNBA franchise’s home facility since 2021 — can only hold 3,500 fans.
“This is what the players and the fans deserve,” Dream majority owner Larry Gottesdiener said in a statement. “We are grateful to all of the stakeholders who worked together to resolve the conflicts and make this happen.”
Game 3 will be played Oct. 21 at 5 p.m. PDT. The game was originally supposed to be played the following day, but a Sombr concert is taking place at the arena on that date.
Game 4 will take place Oct. 24 at 10 a.m. PDT. While that date wasn’t changed, the game was originally slated to start 2 1/2 hours later. The Hawks also pushed back the time of their home opener that evening by a half-hour to 5:30 p.m. PDT to help accommodate the WNBA game.
“The change of venue dramatically expands the seating capacity and ensures that the Dream will be able to provide an extraordinary atmosphere for the first WNBA Finals game to be played in the Atlanta market since 2013,” league commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. “We are pleased that thousands more fans across the Southeast region will have the opportunity to experience the ultimate WNBA action — the WNBA Finals — in person.”
The Dream played six regular-season games and all three home playoff games this season at State Farm Arena. Efforts to hold the Dream’s home Finals games at such area venues as Gas South Arena (around 13,000 seats) and Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion (8,600 seats), didn’t work out, according to USA Today.
There has been no word on the venue for a possible Game 6 of the best-of-seven series, which the Dream are currently scheduled to host on Oct. 29, the same date as another Hawks home game.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — It’s a long way from Washington, has a small population and hasn’t backed a Democrat for Senate in nearly 20 years.
Yet President Trump on Tuesday will devote a big chunk of his dwindling time ahead of crucial midterm elections to head all the way to Alaska — attempting to bolster a Republican incumbent senator in another sign of GOP fears about retaining control of Congress after Election Day on Nov. 3.
Trump is headlining a rally for Sen. Dan Sullivan in Wasilla, about 45 miles north of Anchorage — famous for being the hometown of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and the headquarters of the Iditarod sled dog race across the state.
Trump’s stop is part of a western swing also taking him to rallies in Arizona and Montana on Wednesday.
“I’m right now going to Alaska to try and help Dan Sullivan. That’s a long way away,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for the trip on Tuesday. “I would only do it if I thought he was good. And he’s very good. And so, I’m going to Alaska to help Dan Sullivan, and then I’m stopping in numerous places.”
Democrats last won a Senate seat in Alaska in 2008, and the state hasn’t elected a governor from that party since 1998. The only time Alaska didn’t vote Republican for president was during Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide 1964 reelection.
Yet high gasoline prices from the Iran war and persistently elevated inflation have damaged Trump’s approval ratings enough to leave Democrats dreaming of Alaska upsets.
Trump and Vance have been trying to boost Sullivan repeatedly
Seeking his third Senate term, Sullivan faces Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman running to put “Alaska First,” emphasizing cost-of-living issues.
Alaska pollster Ivan Moore said he’s seen a decline in Trump’s support statewide that mirrors the president’s falling approval ratings nationally — meaning the Senate race may be decided by Trump 2024 voters who are now unsure they still back him.
“The visit is certainly appropriate. Whether the visit will be effective or not is another matter,” said Moore, who said when he first heard that Trump would visit Alaska, he didn’t believe it would actually happen.
The Trump administration has prioritized the opening of more of Alaska to oil and gas drilling. Vice President JD Vance already campaigned in Fairbanks for Sullivan.
The senator also recently joined Trump in the Oval Office where the president announced a $54 billion investment by South Korea’s government into an Alaska natural gas project. That’s despite South Korea saying the deal, and its total value, haven’t been finalized.
Still, Trump trekking four time zones west to get to Sullivan’s home turf — an unusually long trip so close to the midterms — is his strongest show of support.
Trump last campaigned in Alaska to try to defeat a fellow Republican
Alaska is home to around 740,000 people, making it slightly less populous than Denver. It ranks 48th out of 50 states in population, smaller than all but Vermont and Wyoming.
Trump nonetheless headlined a 2022 rally in Anchorage opposing Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski after she voted to convict him on a charge of incitement of insurrection during his second impeachment trial, following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, who challenged Murkowski that year, but that didn’t stop incumbent Murkowski from winning reelection.
This year, there are two Dan Sullivans on the ballot
Trump has complained about Alaska’s unique elections system. The state has open primaries, in which the four top vote-getters — regardless of party affiliation — advance to the general election, which uses ranked choice voting.
That’s led to a scenario where there also will be another Dan Sullivan on the ballot on Nov. 3: retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan, whom Trump and other allies of Sen. Sullivan have called a sham candidate. Dan J. Sullivan has denied this.
At his rally, Trump also plans to stump for Republican Rep. Nick Begich. Begich is facing a competitive challenge from Bill Hill, an independent.
Alaska has a history of rewarding candidates with an independent streak — something Vance acknowledged during his trip to Fairbanks last week. “In very deep red years, Alaska is competitive. In very deep blue years, Alaska is still competitive,” Vance said. “I think it’s just a reality of the politics of the state.”
Independence has been hard to find in the Republican Party where Trump for years had total control. Some Republicans facing tough elections have begun tiptoeing away from Trump on key issues like Iran and tariffs, but not Sullivan, who has been vocal in supporting both.
In a post last week, Trump questioned why three Republicans were running against a Democrat for governor. “How stupid are we to do this?” he said on social media. This comes at the same time state Republican party leaders are urging voters to rank Republicans on the ballot and leave the Democrats blank.
“We want to be clear: we do not support ranked choice voting. It is a confusing, burdensome and costly voting scheme,” party leaders, including GOP chair Carmela Warfield, said in a statement Saturday. “That said, ranked choice voting is the system Alaska will use for the 2026 General Election, and we must work within it for this election to keep Alaska’s recent momentum going strong.”
Trump’s trade war with Canada may also be a factor
Trump has also triggered a trade war with Canada, which shares a 1,500-plus-mile border with Alaska and is among the state’s most important trading partners.
The U.S. banned nearly $1 billion worth of imports from its neighbor to the north — including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles — after previously imposing 50% tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian products. Canada has responded with reciprocal bans and its own import levies, and the back-and-forth could raise prices for Alaska consumers.
Making Canada an enemy of sorts is “discomforting” for many Alaskans, said pollster Moore.
“We associate, I think, probably more closely with the Canadians — more than a lot of the Lower 48,” he said.
Weissert and Bohrer write for the Associated Press. Weissert reported from Washington. AP reporter Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
President Trump has pushed Congress to pass a proof-of-citizenship law, signed an executive order seeking a national voter ID requirement and tried to limit mail voting through U.S. Postal Service changes.
None of those moves succeeded in time to affect this year’s midterm elections. It’s a different matter in the states.
More than three dozen voting laws passed in Republican-controlled states are taking effect for the first time this year, many of them containing elements of Trump’s stalled proposals. They include changes to what IDs are acceptable to register for the first time and requirements to show proof of citizenship, an issue the Republican president has tried but failed to get through Congress.
“Trump’s attacks on our elections are deeply damaging, but they are not happening in isolation,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project. ”Across the country, states are also advancing restrictions that make it harder for eligible voters to cast a ballot.”
Republican lawmakers who support the tighter voting laws, especially around voter ID, describe them as common sense changes that help build trust in elections.
Trump and other Republicans have been pushing for more restrictive rules since the president’s false claims of widespread fraud in his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s false claims have resonated with Republican voters, a majority of whom believe Biden was not legitimately elected despite all evidence to the contrary. Trump lost dozens of court challenges, his own attorney general found no evidence of widespread fraud, and reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states where he contested his loss all affirmed Biden’s victory.
Among the changes confronting voters as early voting gets underway: Students in New Hampshire can no longer use student IDs; Utah voters returning mail ballots must include more information on the envelope; and some voters in Mississippi might need birth certificates or passports to verify their identities.
Changes to voter ID requirements are challenged
New Hampshire state Rep. Donald McFarlane said he sponsored the bill to eliminate student IDs as acceptable for voting because colleges don’t have the same controls when issuing those cards as government agencies.
“The change removes a special exception and applies the same government-issued ID standard to all voters,” he said, adding that his bill had bipartisan support.
Students, he said, can still get state IDs free of charge.
The new requirements have not gone unchallenged.
In South Dakota, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a new law that includes requiring voters registering for the first time to present the most common forms of ID — driver’s licenses, Tribal IDs and non-driver state IDs. They must be presented in person at places that accept registration.
“Proof of citizenship in itself is not terrible,” said Kathryn Johnson, president of the League of Women Voters of South Dakota.
Her concern is the requirement to present the IDs in person.
“We’re kind of a remote state, so sometimes it takes a drive, and you have to coordinate, you have to take off work, and all of these kinds of things,” she said.
Some Democrats also have expressed support for voter ID during recent debates. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he was open to the idea as long as it wasn’t based on “conspiracy theories.” When legislatures change their state’s voting laws, they typically give election offices and voters time to adjust. Trump wanted federal voter ID and proof-of-citizenship legislation to take effect immediately, forcing election officials and voters to comply in the middle of the midterms.
Ohio seeks to scrub voter rolls
Ohio has a proof of citizenship requirement in effect for the first time this year for those registering to vote or updating their voter registration information at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles location. The state also eliminated its four-day grace period for mail ballots, which now must be received at local election offices by Election Day.
Yet the biggest concern for voting rights groups is an ongoing purge of the state’s voter rolls. The databases used to check citizenship against voter registration lists can be outdated, said Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, which has sued to overturn the law.
“Vast numbers of perfectly eligible voters are vulnerable to being disenfranchised,” she said.
Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, one of the primary sponsors of the bill, challenged the ACLU’s legal action and said the problem it addresses is a real one.
“In the past two years, hundreds of noncitizens have been removed from Ohio’s voter rolls,” she said in an email. “Every single vote cast by a noncitizen disenfranchises a lawful Ohio voter.”
Voters have mixed views on the changes
Outside an early voting center in Wayne County, Ohio, retired steel worker Dan Walter, an independent voter, said he opposes requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote.
“It’s to keep people from voting, it sounds to me like,” he said.
His wife, Jody, a retired aerospace executive and a Democrat, said she felt the same way about Ohio’s new requirement for registering to vote.
“A driver’s license doesn’t prove citizenship, and that’s all they ask for now,” she said. “It’s going to be an obstacle for so many people.”
Genia Fortune had a different view. A nurse, the Millersburg resident described herself as an independent and said she voted for President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and later for Trump. She believes Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and sees requiring documentary proof of citizenship as a necessary precaution.
“I just feel like you need to be a citizen and show proof of ID,” she said.
Voting and election laws have become a regular target for legislatures
The Trump administration has pushed multiple strategies to influence this year’s midterm elections, most of them stymied by Congress or the courts.
Chris Diaz, director of legislative tracking at the Voting Rights Lab, said the group has seen several versions of the Republican president’s proposals passed by his allies in the states.
A recently released report by the group highlighted some of the key areas drawing Republican lawmakers’ attention, including mail balloting, voter ID and the hunt for noncitizens on voter rolls.
Noncitizen voting has been a focus of the Trump administration despite it being a rare problem. The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced it had brought charges in roughly 90 cases for various types of election misconduct, including 50 against people who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. The U.S. had 227 million registered voters for the 2024 presidential election.
The Brennan Center for Justice has identified nearly 40 laws in 21 states taking effect this election season that will make it harder for eligible voters to register, stay on the rolls or cast ballots.
The report from the center, part of the New York University School of Law, found that many of the new laws target subsets of voters.
“What I want voters to take away from this is that elections are still run by the states and there are still people in many states who are trying to make it harder for you to vote,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, senior director of the center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program. “But that’s all the more reason to go make a plan to vote and participate.”
Fields and Smyth write for the Associated Press. Fields reported from Washington and Smyth reported from Wooster and Millersburg, Ohio.
JUNEAU, Alaska — In the thick of Alaska’s primary election season this summer, independent Bill Hill took a break from his U.S. House campaign to return home to Bristol Bay.
The world’s biggest sockeye salmon run was beginning, and that meant he needed to get back to work.
“I told my team that I have got to fish,” he said, adding: “Commercial fishing is the way that we pay the bills.”
Hill, 57, grew up in a tiny southwest Alaska village where he said his family had no phone and had to haul water from a nearby lake for cooking and bathing. Today, while he no longer has to fetch water, his lifestyle is not much different. He lives in a remote fishing community of about 430 people that he has called home for nearly half his life.
A retired teacher and school administrator, Hill has positioned himself as a working-class candidate who can relate to Alaskans’ frustrations with high fuel and other costs. He has made affordability and pushing back against billionaires a central theme in his campaign against Republican Nick Begich, who’s seeking a second term in Congress.
“We are pedal to the metal, making sure that every Alaskan knows about this campaign, every Alaskan knows what we stand for and every Alaskan knows that it’s really one of them going to Congress,” Hill told people at a campaign event this week in Juneau, wearing his standard campaign uniform of jeans, a zip-up vest and cap with a fishing company logo. “I need your help getting there.”
The race has become a concern for Republicans as they are trying to hold onto their majority in the U.S. House. Vice President JD Vance held a rally this week for Begich and Dan Sullivan, the U.S. senator who also is in a tight reelection race. President Trump is scheduled to do another in the coming week.
Begich and Republican political action committees have ratcheted up ad spending in the House race since the primary.
Planes, ferries and four-wheelers on the campaign trail
Hill, a first-time candidate who is Alaska Native, faces an incumbent from a prominent family long associated with the state’s politics. Begich’s late grandfather once held the state’s only U.S. House seat. Begich’s uncle Mark was a U.S. senator. Both were Democrats. Nick Begich is a lifelong Republican and has aligned himself with Trump, who has carried Alaska in his White House runs.
Hill’s campaign said he has traveled more than 20,000 miles in the state, including by plane, ferry and all-terrain vehicle, to introduce himself to voters and promote his message.
Begich’s name recognition presents a hurdle for Hill’s campaign, but some Democrats tried to clear a better path for Hill. One suspended his campaign before the August open primary and endorsed Hill. Two other Democrats with virtually no name recognition withdrew after the primary despite being in line to advance.
One candidate registered as a Democrat remains in the top four, Eric Hafner. He has no apparent ties to the state and is incarcerated in New York.
Hafner received 3.8% of the vote, enough to qualify for the ranked vote general election on Nov. 3. His submitted candidate biography appearing in state election materials makes no reference to his stint in federal prison, where he is serving time for making threats against police officers, judges and others.
Hill’s campaign has shared stickers showing Hafner in an orange jumpsuit and calling him a “fake ‘Democrat.’”
“We want to make sure that the Alaskan people are well-informed,” Hill said.
Begich gets support from Trump and the U.S. House speaker
The contest has received national attention, with spending by groups that include the National Republican Congressional Committee and House Majority PAC, which seeks to flip the U.S. House to Democrats.
In early August, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., held a rally for Begich that was closed to reporters. Vance called Begich a “machine” and effective legislator during his rally in Fairbanks, where Vance also gave support to Sullivan, who faces a challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman.
Trump has cited Begich’s support of his signature package of tax breaks, social service cuts and immigration enforcement that was passed last year. The president plans to headline a rally Tuesday in Wasilla, hometown of Sarah Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee.
Hill said the visits show Republicans are nervous.
“I was not going to get into this race to waste people’s time, to waste people’s money,” he said. “I did my due diligence before jumping in to ensure that there was a path to victory.”
Begich’s campaign did not respond to messages from the Associated Press. On social media, the campaign has highlighted events such as Begich’s visit to the Alaska State Fair and recently has taken swipes at Hill.
Zach Bannon, an NRCC spokesperson, said Begich has delivered “commonsense wins for Alaska,” including support of expanded oil and gas development. He called Hill a “far-left Democrat.”
Hill was endorsed by Democrats but asserts his independence
Hill, who was endorsed by the Alaska Democratic Party, said he is a lifelong independent. He said he will not be beholden to a “party boss” or party line, and he rankled some voters earlier in the campaign by not explicitly saying which party he would caucus with in the House if he were elected.
He has said he is willing to work with anyone on what is best for Alaska. He also has called for bans on congressional stock trading and for limiting the influence of money in elections.
Hill said he wants to help build coalitions, saying he “can be a big part of a small group that makes big changes.”
Democrat Bill Brown came to the Juneau event planning to vote for Hill but wanting to talk with him directly. He said they aligned on numerous issues, including support for the environment, schools and ending “forever” wars.
The retired economics professor said policy is important, but in this political moment he finds himself “most interested in the integrity of the candidate. Bill Hill convinced me on that issue.”
Hill, who is Dena’ina Athabascan, said the top concerns he hears about from Alaskans are the price of fuel and overall cost of living. He said he had to fly home earlier this year and pump fuel oil from the textile manufacturing business he runs with his wife and bring it back to his house in a barrel because the community had run out.
He said fuel prices jumped from about $6.70 per gallon to about $9 per gallon after a barge shipment to his town earlier this year. Prices also have been higher elsewhere, particularly in communities accessible only by air or water. On social media, Hill’s campaign calls out Begich for his support of the Iran war as it posts photos of fuel prices around the state.
Steve Davis, a voter at Hill’s Juneau event this week, called him authentic and a “really good dude.” He said he was drawn to Hill in part because he wants to see Congress reclaim its oversight role. Hill drew applause during the gathering when he said Congress must reassert itself as a separate but equal branch of government.
“We don’t need a unified executive, we don’t need kings,” Davis said. “We need a Congress that actually functions.”
New restrictions have stripped Medicaid coverage from certain legal immigrants, including refugees and victims of human trafficking, as part of broader federal changes to the health insurance program that are expected to force millions off their coverage.
The change effective Oct. 1 cut from Medicaid what is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of people who legally immigrated to the United States, many of whom work and pay taxes, in the latest Trump administration policy to target foreigners.
The move is part of sweeping changes to Medicaid under President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax cut and policy law, with many set to take effect early next year. The Medicaid changes are projected to result in 7.5 million fewer people with health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2025 estimate.
Advocates say that without Medicaid, people will not be able to afford private insurance and will either delay care or end up in emergency rooms, adding pressure to a strained health system. For immigrants, the cuts could be felt more acutely, compounding the effects of other administration efforts to restrict their access to public assistance as part of a broader immigration crackdown.
“This is about telling every immigrant in the United States that they are not welcome here and that they should leave,” said Ben D’Avanzo, a senior strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which has pursued litigation against the Republican administration over its immigration agenda.
Refugees, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and domestic violence are among those who have lost coverage. Green-card holders were not impacted.
Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “immigrants must be able to support themselves without taking from overburdened benefits programs paid for by hard-working American taxpayers.”
D’Avanzo said many people who have lost coverage will likely only realize when they need medical care. But for some, the change has been felt immediately.
Dwindling supplies of lifesaving medication
In Tucson, Arizona, María Chacon has been caring for her son Jesus for almost five years since a car accident at 17 left him unable to breathe on his own. He requires a ventilator, a feeding tube and daily medication, and must be turned once every two hours to stop sores from forming. Chacon said he sometimes opens his eyes.
The family is originally from Mexico and entered the U.S. on a T visa, offered to victims of human trafficking, in 2018.
Chacon said Medicaid has helped cover almost $25,000 per month of care for her son, which includes a small stipend for her and her husband as compensation for being long-term caregivers. She said doctors have explained that even if they both worked 24 hours a day, they would not be able to cover the cost of his care.
“Since that day I haven’t been able to sleep. We haven’t been able to eat or anything. We’re wondering what we’re going to do?” Chacon said.
Jesus takes medication that Chacon estimates costs $7,000 a month. The supply runs out in mid-October. Without coverage, she does not know how her son is going to survive.
Chacon found out just days before the cuts that she was losing care. She called the state’s Medicaid offices to appeal. Although she is in the process of obtaining a green card, Medicaid coverage would only kick in five years after she is approved.
Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks less immigration, said the administration “is trying to nibble around the edges” with the Oct. 1 cuts, finding piecemeal ways to curb immigration into the U.S.
Camarota believes the government should screen legal immigrants for income potential and education, reducing the number who might rely on public benefits once they cross the border.
“You need immigrants who are unlikely to need welfare,” he said, or those with high educational attainment.
The administration recently revived a federal rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.
Chacon believes the cuts to Medicaid coverage are part of the administration’s clampdown on immigrants. She said her son is in no condition to travel.
“I know that’s what he’s doing, but, as my son is, I couldn’t go to Mexico,” Chacon said.
Millions more will be dropped from Medicaid
Medicaid, jointly funded by states and the federal government, has become a political focal point during Trump’s second term. The president has pushed to root out what he describes as fraud in the program. In July, the administration deferred over $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota, claiming there was suspected fraud; critics argued the move targeted Democratic-led states.
As more people are cut from Medicaid, the federal government is predicted to reduce program spending by $911 billion, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.
In Arizona, officials said 29,000 legal immigrants were cut from Medicaid rolls on Oct. 1. In Florida, estimates are closer to 177,000. Overall, more than 281,000 immigrants from nine states and the District of Columbia are estimated to lose Medicaid coverage, according to KFF.
As more states implement various restrictions to coverage, 7.5 million people are expected to lose coverage by 2034, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
Without coverage, people will turn to emergency rooms for care. When people delay seeing a doctor, conditions can worsen and become even more expensive to treat.
“At the end of the day, it does raise the cost for the states because once you get these people in for something that could have been prevented, they could not go to the doctor because they were uninsured; they most likely will end up at a hospital in an emergency room,” said Carmen Feliciano, the vice president of policy and advocacy at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organization.
UnidosUS partners with community organizations to help provide medical care, but Feliciano said they already are overwhelmed and would not be able to support the number of people who are going to lose medical coverage in the coming months.
“We are not going to have the capacity to serve all the people who need it,” Feliciano said.
Schuettler and Hussein write for the Associated Press.
In rural Modoc County, in California’s remote northeast corner, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton donned a beige cowboy hat and climbed atop a horse.
Riding through a grassy field, with his dress shoes in the stirrups, Hilton lamented to a camera that California was “completely being ruined by killjoy bureaucrats” who put too many rules on fun stuff like beach fire pits and bars that stay open extra late.
In coastal San Luis Obispo County, Hilton boarded a bright yellow dune buggy at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area and called the California Coastal Commission “idiots” for trying to end off-road beach driving.
And in the Central Valley, he waved the ceremonial green flag at a stock car race at the Madera Speedway, where he was named grand marshal of the annual Harvest Classic. (The designation caused a minor uproar, prompting the operator of the racetrack to make a fake online concession menu that offered a hot dog and soda for $6 for Republicans and $17.50 for Democrats.)
If it seems like Hilton — the British immigrant and former Fox News talk show host — is just about everywhere, taking just about every media interview that comes his way, well, that’s the point, he says.
He has logged thousands of miles on the proverbial campaign trail, visiting all 58 counties in his quest to lead the nation’s most populous state, where no Republican has been elected to statewide office in 20 years.
Meanwhile, his heavily favored — and far more staid — opponent, Democrat Xavier Becerra, has kept a comparatively low profile, agreeing to just one debate with Hilton and holding few public events, mostly in urban areas.
In a phone interview while driving through Los Angeles, Hilton said: “Whether I’m in Humboldt or Del Norte or Siskiyou County, my joke is, when people say, ‘Where do you live?’ I say I live in the Hampton Inn somewhere in California because we’re basically in a different place every night.”
The odds are against him.
Sure, California produced GOP presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But today, Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in the state, and the current White House occupant shares a mutual disdain with the vast majority of Golden State voters.
Hilton was endorsed during the primary by President Trump, who suggested at a campaign rally this month that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego, drawing swift outrage from both Democrats and Republicans.
Hilton has tried to walk a fine line, appealing to the 6 million Californians who voted for the president in 2024 while simultaneously downplaying Trump’s support.
This summer, Hilton took out full-page ads in The Times and the San Francisco Chronicle asking: “Can you be anti-Trump and still vote for me?”
“Yes, I’m the Republican,” it said. “The ‘Fox News guy.’ Endorsed by Trump. But this election is not about who you hate in Washington. It’s about what you love here.”
Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, said that 16 years after the state’s last Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, left office, “it’s safe to say Democrats own all the problems in California.”
“You can’t blame Trump for what’s going on here in California,” she said. “We feel really good about Steve Hilton’s campaign. He is working so hard, up and down the state.”
Hilton has blasted California Democrats as entitled, saying they assume Becerra will cruise to victory in the race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom simply because he has a “D” beside his name on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Hilton frequently quotes a September podcast interview by Los Angeles’ Democratic mayor, Karen Bass, who mocked his British accent and said: “The governor’s race right now is over. Our governor’s name is Xavier Becerra. You don’t need an election on Nov. 3. A Republican cannot win in this state.”
Hilton told The Times that Democrats “feel they don’t have to earn your vote. … They can deliver results that are bad as ever, and they don’t need to work hard to deliver results for people or earn their support. And I think it’s that attitude that is going to be their downfall.”
Steve Hilton has the support of 33% of likely California voters, according to a recent poll, while rival Xavier Becerra has 58%.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Becerra is a former member of Congress who represented Los Angeles, and he was the California attorney general and U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under President Biden. He has the backing of 58% of likely California voters, compared with 33% who support Hilton, according to a poll released late last month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
The poll showed that voters’ top concern was reducing the state’s high cost of living — followed by fighting Trump administration policies.
“Hilton is trying to win an election, so he tries to frame himself as someone who can appeal to the broader electorate,” Underland said. “But at the end of the day, he has the albatross around his neck, which is Trump, who is openly hostile to California.”
Hilton cuts a colorful and pugnacious figure on the campaign trail. He eschews ties and jackets, favoring T-shirts with punchy phrases like, “$ave With Steve” and “WAKE UP” superimposed on a California license plate — a reference to his proposal to eliminate the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and slash vehicle registration fees, which would cut billions in state revenue.
He wears one bracelet with the name of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, whom he called an “incredibly close friend.” Another reads, “Save Girls’ Sports,” calling back to this spring, when he traveled to the state high school track and field championship in Clovis to protest the participation of a transgender athlete.
Republican nominee Steve Hilton protests transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ sports during a May 29 news conference in Clovis, Calif.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
Hilton, 57, was born in London to parents who fled conflict in their native Hungary during the 1956 uprising against the Soviet-controlled communist government and later anglicized their surname, Hircsák, to Hilton.
He was a senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, a member of the Conservative Party, though the men’s once-close friendship never recovered from Brexit, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Hilton supported it; Cameron did not.
Hilton earned a reputation as eccentric but savvy, pushing the Conservative Party to embrace same-sex marriage and more climate-friendly policies. Dubbed “the barefoot revolutionary” for his refusal to wear shoes, Hilton was satirized on the BBC political sitcom “The Thick of It” as Stewart Pearson, the Tories’ “eco-friendly, media-savvy, blue-sky-thinking” communications director.
He and his family moved to California in 2012 after his wife, Rachel Whetstone, was promoted to lead global communications at Google. For six years, he hosted “The Next Revolution,” a weekly Fox News show from which Trump regularly tweeted clips.
In 2015, the couple purchased their home in the Silicon Valley city of Atherton, one of the wealthiest ZIP Codes in the U.S., for $12.5 million, property records show.
Whetstone now leads communications for Sierra, an AI startup founded by OpenAI board Chairman Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, who met while working at Google. Hilton and Whetstone’s 2024 tax returns show they had a combined household income of $7.5 million, which included his reported earnings of $250,000 from Fox News and her $6.7 million from her then-employer, Netflix.
Hilton became a U.S. citizen in 2021 and last year renounced his British citizenship.
He finished second in the June 2 primary behind Becerra. Under California’s top-two primary system, the first- and second-place finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
The pack of Democratic candidates was so large that party leaders initially urged struggling candidates — including Becerra — to drop out to avoid splitting the vote. Becerra shot to the top of the polls when then-Rep. Eric Swalwell, a front-runner at the time, dropped out of the race after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct.
Republicans coalesced around Hilton after the president endorsed him over his GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a staunch Trump supporter who later said the endorsement made Hilton unelectable.
Kim Nalder, director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State, said it is exceedingly difficult for Hilton to distance himself from Trump and the Fox News brand.
“If you had a different brand of Republican they might have a shot,” given the discontent in the state over myriad issues, she said. “But Trump is so politically radioactive in California right now that it is an effective technique to tie this particular candidate to him.”
California’s population growth is stagnant after years of pandemic-era losses, with immigration lagging amid the Trump administration’s crackdown and many residents leaving the state for more affordable parts of the country.
Greg Perrone, past president of the conservative Greater Bakersfield Republican Assembly, said he was impressed with Hilton’s policy knowledge and the amount of detail in his economic plans.
Steve Hilton, right, chats with Sir Richard Branson before a White House dinner with then-British Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama in 2012. Hilton was an advisor to Cameron.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
“There’s a real concern that the current state of the economy is worse than people expected,” Perrone said. “A lot of people hung their hat on Donald Trump saying he was going to bring down prices, and that just has not happened. There’s a lot of angst.”
Perrone said he remains a Trump supporter, though he has been frustrated by the frenetic roll-out of tariffs that, he said, hurt many businesses. While he has been annoyed that Becerra, in his view, has focused more on the president than laying out his own detailed economic plans, he acknowledged that the strategy plays well in blue California.
Christopher Cole, former chairman of the Lassen County Republican Party, said that in his rural corner of the state, he has seen Trump banners that have hung since 2016 start to come down because people are angry about the Iran war, the high cost of fuel and the economy.
“When Trump stupidly endorsed Hilton, it was the kiss of death for any down-ticket Republican,” said Cole, whose county voted for Trump on 76% of the ballots in 2024, the highest percentage in the state, and was the only one to support Bianco in this year’s primary.
“Hilton is a carnival barker and a very wealthy man,” said Cole, who supported Bianco. “You can’t run a multimillionaire when people are struggling to put food on the table.”
Hilton has made a slew of campaign promises to lower the cost of living, including having no taxes on income below $150,000, lowering energy bills by slashing climate-friendly regulations imposed by Democrats, and having $3 gasoline (though governors cannot directly set the price at the pump, which is driven largely by global crude oil supply and demand).
He has tried to channel the state’s discontent into persuading voters to “try something different” by voting Republican.
During the gubernatorial race debate on CNN last month, Hilton quoted a former Biden domestic policy advisor who reportedly called Becerra a “bitch-ass,” and his campaign promptly launched a website, bitchassbecerra.com, outlining alleged failures of the politician known for his calm demeanor and decades of government experience.
“I think Hilton got dealt a bad card with Becerra making the runoff,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who was Schwarzenegger’s spokesman. “It’s difficult to get anyone outraged about Becerra because he is perfectly boring. He worked for Joe Biden — maybe that upsets some people? — but you can’t associate him with any bizarre, woke policies like you could Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom.”
Hilton’s campaign this month released a provocative, sexually suggestive ad titled “Just Try It!” in which two young women sit on a bed in a candlelit room. An LGBTQ+ pride flag hangs on the wall, and they’re seemingly talking through one’s first romantic encounter with another female.
In a recent poll, voters rated California’s high cost of living as their top concern, followed by fighting Trump administration policies. Above, people gather in North Hollywood to watch the Sept. 30 gubernatorial debate.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Wearing a T-shirt that says, “RESIST,” the anti-MAGA mantra, the first-timer nervously says: “I’ve just never done anything like this before. Like, what if my dad finds out?”
The other woman holds her hand as she fills out a ballot for Hilton then says, “Now lick it,” referring to the mail ballot envelope.
Some conservatives condemned the ad, saying it promoted lesbianism. Liberals criticized it, too, saying it was insensitive to the LGBTQ+ community.
The day the ad launched, he told The Times: “I think there’s a very strong sense that things aren’t working in California, and my argument is: ‘OK, let’s try something different.’”
Later, he said he never meant to offend anyone with the risqué ad, which did, after all, do its job in racking up millions of views online — coveted and invaluable publicity for a long-shot California Republican.
PORT HURON, Mich. — Abdul El-Sayed, holding a microphone and wearing his signature V-neck black T-shirt, slowly shook his head as a woman at his town hall described how she burned through her savings after undergoing emergency brain surgery.
“I’m really sorry for your experience, and I hope that you’re on the mend,” said El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, after outlining proposals for guaranteed healthcare and paid leave.
Later that night, while talking to reporters in the basement below the theater, his tone was far different. El-Sayed called his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, a “coward” and said President Trump was “afraid” to visit the state, and he dismissed as “dumb” a question about whether Iran or Israel posed a greater threat to the United States.
The exchanges captured two sides of a candidate who is the central figure in one of the nation’s most consequential Senate races. El-Sayed would be the country’s first Muslim senator, and he’s crisscrossing the state to counter a Republican effort, fueled by tens of millions of dollars, to portray him as a dangerous radical. But he has also embraced his confrontational side by mocking and taunting Trump and Rogers.
“If they want to make me the main character in the midterms, I’m not shying away from it,” El-Sayed said in an interview. “Run against me. See how well that works out for you.”
El-Sayed’s resolute confidence rubbed some Democrats the wrong way during a divisive primary against Rep. Haley Stevens. The former public health official has shown little interest in toning it down, defending his progressive agenda and adversarial approach toward Republicans, emboldening supporters who believe he’s the right candidate for an angry electorate that has lost faith in the political establishment.
But his doubters fear he’ll cost Democrats control of the Senate by failing to unite his party’s disparate factions ahead of November.
“If you want their votes, you have to make nice with those people, and he’s not really doing that,” said Michigan political strategist Adrian Hemond, who supported Stevens. “Maybe he doesn’t have to. The entire theory of this candidacy has been he can remake what the electorate looks like.”
A Republican target
Even though Michigan backed Trump twice in his three presidential campaigns, no Republican has won a Senate race in the state since 1994.
The political landscape is no friendlier this year. Trump started an unpopular war with Iran, leading to higher gas prices and related inflation. Rogers has opted for a low-key campaign with fewer public events than El-Sayed as he tries to make the race all about his Democratic opponent.
As of Saturday, Republicans had outspent Democrats by $78 million to $63 million in the Michigan Senate race, according to AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. Around $40 million in Republican spending has gone toward negative advertisements, compared with around $20 million from Democrats.
The ads portray El-Sayed as “dangerously radical” and “too extreme,” highlighting his past calls to defund the police and relax immigration enforcement. Others tie him to Hasan Piker, a popular online streamer with whom El-Sayed has appeared and who has drawn criticism for past comments, including saying that “America deserved 9/11.”
On Friday, Rogers appeared alongside Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, who told reporters that El-Sayed “sleeps in a Bin Laden jersey.” Rogers laughed.
Vice President JD Vance has called El-Sayed “evil.” In one social media post, Trump shared a photo of himself with First Lady Melania Trump alongside a photo of El-Sayed and his wife, who wears a hijab, with the caption: “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.”
Late Wednesday, Trump referred to El-Sayed as “Mohammed” and said he “goes back to the days of the Jihad.”
El-Sayed has hardly backed down. At the campaign stop in Port Huron, he taunted Trump and invited him to visit Michigan, suggesting Rogers and other Republicans were afraid the president would hurt their chances.
“Donald, if you’re watching, don’t wuss out, man,” El-Sayed said.
And he responded to Kennedy’s attack by suggesting the Republican is in the Ku Klux Klan.
“That’s rich coming from someone who wears his bed sheets out at night,” El-Sayed posted on social media.
A personal touch with voters
Before the Port Huron town hall, El-Sayed worked his way down a line of people who couldn’t fit inside the theater, shaking hands, taking photos and stopping for conversations.
Jeff Petrucella and his wife, Alice, traveled from Macomb County to see El-Sayed. They described themselves as politically “middle of the road” and said they had voted Republican in the past.
“I’m pretty done with the Republicans right now,” Jeff said.
Alice said she was “looking for a change that is better for my granddaughters,” pointing to El-Sayed’s support for Medicare for All. Nor was she put off by his more confrontational appearances on Fox News.
“I think he expresses himself well. You can tell he’s a well-spoken, educated man,” she said.
Pat Kreiner was among those who waited nearly an hour to see El-Sayed. Her children had persuaded her to support him in the Democratic primary.
“My son said to me, ‘I have been living with this trickle-down economy since the day I was born,’” Kreiner said. “‘It doesn’t work for me.’”
Kreiner also expressed anger about Trump’s trade war with Canada, just across the river from Port Huron.
“We are heartsick about our neighbors,” she said. “They used to come over a lot. We don’t see them now.”
Visiting smaller towns such as Port Huron has become central to El-Sayed’s campaign, with his team recently saying he’s held more than 500 events in over 100 cities across the state.
“Go everywhere. Talk to everyone. That’s what we do,” El-Sayed said in an interview.
The personal approach has not erased all the skepticism surrounding El-Sayed, including within his party.
His criticism of Israel and association with Piker have raised concerns among some Jewish Democrats. El-Sayed has held a series of private gatherings with undecided Jewish voters as he works to win their support.
He has also sought to strengthen his standing with Black voters. In the Democratic primary, Stevens drew more support in Wayne County, home to Detroit and its large Black population.
Ahead of Thursday’s debate, El-Sayed attended two events with Black leaders before stopping at a Black barbershop, where he moved from chair to chair talking with customers. He stopped at one point to speak with a pregnant woman, congratulating her and asking when her baby was due.
“November 8th? Make sure you vote early, huh?” the candidate joked.
A race about more than just Michigan
While El-Sayed has spent much of his campaign trying to win over Michigan voters, his candidacy has taken on significance far beyond the state. Republicans have made him a symbol of what they say is an increasingly radical Democratic Party, while progressives see his campaign as a chance to prove their politics can win in a closely divided state.
At a New York City fundraiser on Oct. 5, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cast his campaign as a test for progressives nationwide.
“If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere,” said the New York Democrat, a potential presidential candidate.
Ocasio-Cortez plans to campaign with El-Sayed in Michigan this week, followed by former President Obama on Oct. 24.
The national stakes have also drawn renewed opposition. United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the pro-Israel group AIPAC, disclosed an initial $94,000 expenditure against El-Sayed on Friday, after spending nearly $30 million to oppose him in the Democratic primary.
And El-Sayed, while maintaining that the election should focus on Michigan voters and their economic struggles, has also embraced the larger implications of his candidacy.
“I am grateful for your support,” he told the audience at the New York fundraiser, according to remarks obtained by the Associated Press. He said he had two goals: “pick up a U.S. Senate seat” and “change the nature of our politics for the better.”
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Sunday morning, Oct. 9, 2022, around 8 a.m., I was about to take a shower when I decided to check my cellphone one more time. Thank God I did: If I hadn’t, I would’ve been half an hour late on assisting in one of the most explosive stories ever to hit L.A. politics.
Via Slack, Times assistant managing editor Steve Clow asked if I could serve as a second set of ears on audio that my colleagues had unearthed involving four of the most powerful L.A. políticos at the time: City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. I was still in my birthday suit (sorry for the visual, gentle readers, but I’m sworn to report the facts on this job) when I played the snippet Clow shared: Martinez describing the Black son of then-Councilmember Mike Bonin as “su negrito” — his darky.
I put on my shorts and told my wife I wouldn’t be helping at her restaurant that day.
Clow sent me more clips over the next hour, each crasser than the other — I remember gasping audibly at the part when the four were laughing as Martinez referred to Oaxacans as “ugly.” That morning, my colleagues Benjamin Oreskes, Dakota Smith, Julia Wick and David Zahniser published their first story on the fiasco, which turned out to be a secretly recorded conversation from a year earlier that someone had posted on Reddit just the day before.
The scandal quickly became a national sensation, with even then-President Joe Biden weighing in. L.A. wretched in collective disgust and demanded action, which definitely came: Martinez and Herrera quickly resigned, while Cedillo — who had already lost his reelection bid — would stay on until his bitter end, and De León wouldn’t leave until challenger Ysabel Jurado destroyed him in his 2024 reelection bid. The electoral repercussions of the audio leak can still be felt four years later in this election, as Nithya Raman stages a strong challenge against incumbent Karen Bass — a sentence no one would’ve believed in the fall of 2022, when Bass was on the cusp of winning her first term, and Raman was the lone democratic socialist on the council.
I would’ve figured the anniversary of something as titanic as all of the above would’ve sparked more commemorations than just my columna this week. Nope! L.A. has moved on to the point that Cedillo wasn’t booted from a group photo that included current District 9 council candidate Jose Ugarte, former Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and current Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez — because even Chicanosauruses can survive a political asteroid, I guess?
Having political leaders spew racist, homophobic nonsense now seems like the good ol’ days in an era where infernos destroy or stink up swaths of L.A., immigration agents terrorize immigrants from Westwood to the Eastside, and a spokesperson for a sitting American president denies that the commander in chief suggested Iran bomb the City of Angels, even though he said it during a campaign rally.
I shouldn’t really be surprised, I guess: L.A. infamously loves to forget its own history. But I would urge all you readers to read the great, Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage my colleagues did in the aftermath of the audio leak scandal, because it captured the city at its worst — but also its finest as residents fought back and demanded politicians do better.
Four years later, we can only hope this upcoming election shows more of the same.
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WASHINGTON — With the midterm elections just over three weeks away, the fight for control of the U.S. Senate is intensifying in battleground states, as Democrats push into red regions and Republicans pour money into key contests.
Campaigns are entering a crucial stretch for persuading the independent voters who will probably determine outcomes in swing races. Nearly all of the most competitive Senate races are in states with significant swaths of people unaffiliated with either major party — the “kingmakers” in these high-stakes midterms, said Jeremy Gruber, an independent-voting expert.
“Independent voters are going to be deciding this election in every respect,” said Gruber, senior vice president of Open Primaries, an organization that advocates for states to open primary elections to unaffiliated voters.
The urgency around courting nonaligned voters has been on display at recent debates, in ads flooding the airwaves and in the campaign money pouring into key states. For Republicans, it has become an effort to put distance between themselves and President Trump; for Democrats, it’s often a rhetorical shift toward the center and away from the far left.
In Iowa, Republican Ashley Hinson used a Wednesday night debate to emphasize her willingness to break with Trump. In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton is circulating a video in which he describes himself as both liberal and conservative. In Alaska, a GOP-backed ad blitz launched last week aims to persuade voters that Democrat Mary Peltola isn’t independent-minded.
Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party on Aug. 18 in Anchorage.
(Mark Thiessen / Associated Press)
Though many unaffiliated voters have made up their minds, those who remain undecided will begin making decisions soon, as mail ballots go out and early voting begins in some states.
“For Republicans who are running behind and are looking at a potentially devastating midterm election performance, what they really need to do is target the independents who lean Republican,” said Karen Kedrowski, an Iowa State University political scientist. “For Democrats in some place like Iowa … what they need to do is make it seem safe [to independents] to vote for a Democratic candidate.”
Unaffiliated constituents have long been key to victory in swing states, particularly where races are traditionally decided by small margins. They have been viewed as particularly persuadable this year, as public dissatisfaction with Trump’s economic policies puts the votes of swing voters who backed him in 2024 up for grabs.
Forecasters predict that Democrats are on track for the House majority and could hold a majority of gubernatorial seats for the first time since 2010. Though Senate control remains a toss-up, Democrats’ chances are viewed by forecasters to have significantly improved since the summer.
A set of New York Times/Siena polls reported last week showed Democratic candidates for the Senate ahead in Texas, Michigan, Alaska and Ohio and neck-and-neck in Kansas and Iowa — all states Trump carried in 2024. Republicans, meanwhile, are feeling increasingly bullish about their chances in Maine, New Hampshire and Minnesota, all states that went blue in the last presidential election.
Republicans hold a significant fundraising advantage, however, and party donors are pouring money into key races, hoping the spending can cut into the Democrats’ edge. By September’s end, GOP advertisers had more than doubled their spending compared with August, outstripping Democrats, according to tracker AdImpact. Among the nine Senate races considered the tightest by forecasters, Republicans have outspent Democrats in all, AdImpact reported.
But on Friday, the Cook Political Report, a leading election forecaster, moved 18 House races in Democrats’ direction, saying that heavy ad spending by Republicans has not begun to move the needle in their favor.
Democrats view themselves as in their “strongest position yet” to win the majority, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement last week.
“In this final stretch of the election, Democrats will continue to vigorously campaign and fight for every vote across the expanded map,” Gillibrand said.
Republicans are confident about their ability to persuade voters in key states, said Bernadette Breslin, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“Republicans will defend the Senate majority across key battlegrounds that have trended reliably red,” Breslin said, “with candidates like Mike Rogers [in Michigan] and Roger Marshall [in Kansas] winning over independents by exposing their Democratic opponents’ radical, unaffordable agendas.”
Along with the decisions of independent and swing voters, the midterm outcomes could also hinge on the level of turnout within each party, analysts say. If a portion of the party faithful stay home in a given place — for instance, disillusioned conservatives in Kansas or frustrated Black Democrats in Michigan — that could swing individual races, analysts said.
The number of independent voters reached a record high this year, with 45% of American adults identifying as political independents in Gallup polling. Equal shares identified as Republicans and Democrats, 27% for each party. The trend is partly driven by majorities of millennial and Gen Z voters choosing to be unaffiliated with either party, according to Gallup research.
Such voters make up a majority in Alaska and between 30% and 40% of all registered voters in Maine, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio. They account for about 29% in Kansas and about 16% in Texas and Michigan, according to state data compiled by the Independent Voter Project.
Across recent polls, independent voters have favored Democrats and expressed dissatisfaction with Trump. In a late September poll from Emerson College Polling, 66% of independents said Trump has done worse than expected during his second term in office.
State Rep. James Talarico, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, listens at a food drive at the Frederick Douglass Human Services and Justice Center on Sept. 9 in Dallas.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
In Texas, Democrat James Talarico led Republican Ken Paxton among independents by 32 points in a September poll by Texas Public Opinion Research. The Democratic candidate in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, led Republican Sen. Jon Husted by 27 points among independents in a CNN poll released Thursday.
In Kansas, where the Senate race has become unexpectedly close amid economic-driven anger with Trump, disapproval of the president’s performance among independents appears to be rubbing off on incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, the Republican seeking reelection.
Fifty-two percent felt unfavorably toward Marshall and 62% disapproved of Trump’s performance, according to a recent Emerson College/Nexstar poll.
In those battleground red states, that creates a tough fight for both parties, analysts said. With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, candidates are duking it out in fundraising and on the campaign trail to win every last vote.
“Both campaigns are raking in ridiculous amounts of money … and they’re spending every penny because [they] have to,” said Wichita State University political science professor Alexandra Middlewood, referring to the Kansas Senate race. “We see that they’re really going to have to fight it out all the way to the end.”
Debates are another tool for candidates to reach independent voters, said Corwin Smidt, a political science professor at Michigan State University.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Republican Mike Rogers meet in a Michigan Senate debate Thursday night in Grand Rapids.
(Paul Sancya / Pool Photo)
In Michigan, where the Senate candidates sparred in their first debate Thursday evening, Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee, has distanced himself from Trump twice in recent weeks, first calling for an end to the war in Iran and then releasing an ad last week denouncing the tariffs against Canada. Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, meanwhile, announced a rally with former President Obama, an appeal to mainstream voters.
“They’ve got to try to both win over people who have been paying attention, but also introduce themselves to the ones who haven’t been paying attention,” Smidt said.
Winning unaffiliated voters can require a tightrope walk for candidates who are faced with the dual tasks of appealing to their party base while persuading independent constituents.
In the final stretch of the campaign, candidates seeking independent votes should telegraph a willingness to admit their party’s flaws and an understanding that voters are turned off by partisan rhetoric, said Chad Peace, legal strategist at the Independent Voter Project, which advocates for open primaries.
“They have to communicate to those folks and try to meet them where they’re at,” Peace said. “[Independents] want the campaigns of persuasion, they don’t want to hear you tell me how bad the other candidate is.”
And, Gruber said, they want to be engaged with, not ignored.
“Independent voters,” he said, “are going to be responding to those candidates and parties that actually talk to them.”
The decision was so confounding, Penn State coach Matt Campbell burned the Nittany Lions’ final timeout with 4:15 remaining. Riley grinned with his team protecting a 31-23 lead in front of a rowdy crowd of more than 106,000 fans decked in all white at Beaver Stadium Saturday night.
USC punted after the timeout and Riley watched his maligned defense recover Penn State receiver Brett Eskildsen’s fumble on the Nittany Lions’ first snap of the ensuing drive.
With no timeouts remaining, Penn State had no room for error while trying to stop USC. The Trojans burned as much clock as they could and were again prepared to snap the ball on fourth down when the Penn State defense jumped offside, effectively sealing the Trojans’ win.
Riley has long been scrutinized for clock management and late-game decision making, but in one of the most hostile environments in the country, he helped the No. 19 Trojans work their way to a 31-23 win.
USC (6-1, 3-1 Big Ten) had the better record and national ranking, but Penn State (3-3, 0-3) was favored to win by 1½ points in a sign of the plunging confidence in Riley and his Trojans.
“We came in here against the odds,” Riley said during his postgame on-field interview with NBC. “Everybody in the country counted us out and said we weren’t going to win a tough road game.
“Trojans came [to] play. Great environment here. Tonight the white-out game went cardinal and gold.”
Quarterback Jayden Maiava, who had struggled at times the past few weeks, completed 21 of 33 passes for 301 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He was sacked once.
Trent Mosley, who returned after missing the past two games with an injury, and Tanook Hines delivered a series of highlight catches to support Maiava. Mosley hauled in nine passes for 111 yards and a touchdown, while Hines added four catches for 82 yards and another touchdown.
King Miller ran for 102 yards in 19 carries and scored off a Maiava option pitch.
USC wide receiver Kayden Dixon-Wyatt catches a touchdown pass ahead of Penn State linebacker Tony Rojas during the second half of the Trojans’ 31-23 win Saturday.
(Barry Reeger / Associated Press)
The teams traded touchdowns and field goals early, entering halftime tied 17-17.
Riley made the curious decision to open the third quarter with an onside kick, but his defense limited Penn State to a field goal.
Miller ran for a 13-yard touchdown on USC’s next drive.
Penn State mounted a long drive that the Trojans’ defense again limited to a field goal, giving USC a 24-23 lead with 14:52 left in the fourth quarter.
Maiava then led a 10-play, 71-yard scoring drive. On the final snap of the drive, Maiava had time to sit in the pocket, scan the field and connect with Kayden Dixon-Wyatt for a 10-yard touchdown. USC hit the extra point and led 31-23 with 11:11 left in the fourth quarter.
USC’s defense forced a Penn State punt and Riley worked the clock to protect the win.
Desman Stephens II returned from his one-game suspension for his hit on Oregon quarterback Dante Moore and led the Trojans with nine tackles.
Freshman Luke Wafle delivered five tackles and one massively important sack of Penn State quarterback Rocco Becht for a loss of 10 yards with six minutes left in regulation.
It was raining in State College late in the fourth quarter. The Trojans’ defense danced on the sideline as the song “Umbrella” played in the stadium and the Trojans lingered on the field to soak up a big road victory.
