voters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This week voters across California received a suspicious text message saying they’d failed to turn in their ballots for the Nov. 4 statewide special election on redistricting.

The message may appear official. It includes the voter’s name and address and links to an official website providing information on early voting and vote-by-mall ballot drop-off locations.

But it’s not from the state, and officials urge caution.

The office of the California secretary of state received numerous reports from voters of “inaccurate text messages from Ballot Now,” according to a news release.

“This has caused voters to believe their returned ballots have not been received or processed by county elections officials,” Shirley Weber, secretary of state, stated in the release. “Let me be clear: Ballot Now is not in any way affiliated with the California Office of the Secretary of State.”

Weber’s office told The Times it doesn’t know the intent behind the Ballot Now text messages, and “we are trying to get to the bottom of it.”

Ballot Now did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Where voters can get trustworthy answers to their elections questions

Voters can find accurate information on elections and voting at the state secretary’s website or at their county election office. The secretary’s website includes the complete list of county election offices.

Questions that the secretary of state’s website can assist with include:

How do I check my voter status? By entering some personal information, you can see if you are registered to vote, where you’re registered, and check that your political party and language preference are correct at the website’s voter status page.

How do I track my ballot? You can sign up to track your ballot through the state’s online site Ballottrax.

• By signing up on Ballottrax, voters receive automatic updates when their county elections office: mails their ballot to them, receives their ballot, counts their ballot, or when the office has any issues with the ballot.
• Updates are available in 10 languages — including Spanish, Japanese and Tagalog — and you can choose to be texted, emailed or called with voice alert updates.

Where can I return my ballot? Los Angeles County residents can look for official vote-by-mail ballot drop-box locations or voter centers on the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk website.

How to report something fishy

If you believe you’re the victim of election fraud or have witnessed a violation of the California Elections Code, you can submit a complaint form or call the secretary of state’s office.

Fill out an online form, download a PDF version of the form and mail it, or call the office — English speakers can call (916) 657-2166 or (800) 345-8683; Spanish speakers can call (800) 232-8682.

The physical form can be mailed to the California Secretary of State Elections Division at 1500 11th St., 5th Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814 or faxed to (916) 653-3214.

Los Angeles County residents are encouraged to call the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s call center with any questions or concerns they have, said Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the office.

The registrar of voters can be reached at (800) 815-2666, and the number for voter center information is (800) 815-2666; choose option No. 1.

New York City, United States – Sitting in a room of hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers, Zohran Mamdani received cheers and applause at the Erev Rosh Hashanah service of progressive Brooklyn synagogue Kolot Chayeinu on a Monday evening last month.

This was one of the Democratic mayoral nominee’s recent appearances at synagogues and events over the Jewish High Holy Days, and a visible step towards navigating a politically charged line: increasingly engaging the largest concentration of Jewish people in any metropolitan area in the United States, and holding firmly anti-Zionist views before the general election on November 4.

Historically, Mamdani has held a strong stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, even founding a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine during his undergraduate days at Bowdoin College. A little more than a decade later, as Mamdani’s name began to gain recognition, his longstanding unapologetically pro-Palestinian stance became a rallying force behind his platform as well as a point of criticism from opponents.

Mamdani received endorsements and canvassing support from progressive Jewish organisations like Bend the Arc, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), organisations that have each confronted Israel’s role in the war in Gaza through statements on their websites.

Simultaneously, he has sustained attacks from far-right activists, Jewish Democrats on Capitol Hill and Zionist activist groups for his firm support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and refusal to call Israel a Jewish state.

But despite mixed responses, the polls are clear: Mamdani is leading among Jewish voters overall in a multiway race.

‘No group is a monolith’

In July, a publicly released research poll by Zenith Research found that Mamdani led with a 17-point lead among Jews and by Jewish subgroups. In the scenario of Mayor Eric Adams dropping from the race, Mamdani still dominated, 43-33.

“Me being Jewish, I understand that there are many cleavages within the Jewish community,” said Adam Carlson, founding partner of Zenith Research. “As a pollster, one of my big things is that no group is a monolith, and if you have a large enough sample size, you can break it out and glean some nuances … what we found was a better-than-expected result for Mamdani among Jewish voters in New York City.”

Beth Miller, political director of the political advocacy organisation Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action and a member of Kolot Chayeinu, shared what it was like to witness a fraction of this support at the Erev Rosh Hashanah that Mamdani attended last month.

“He was basically swarmed at the end because people were so excited that he was there,” said Miller. “And that’s not because he’s a celebrity, it’s because people are excited about what we can all build together if he becomes mayor.”

JVP Action, a day-one endorser of Mamdani, represents one organisation among a growing group of Jewish supporters for Mamdani, like JFREJ, a group that has played a part in spearheading canvassing efforts among the diverse Jewish communities of NYC.

JFREJ’s electoral arm, The Jewish Vote, has supported Mamdani since he was first running for state assembly in 2020. Since then, JFREJ members and Mamdani have worked, canvassed and protested together.

Alicia Singham Goodwin, political director of JFREJ, has personally been arrested at protests alongside Mamdani.

“That’s the kind of thing that gives me faith in his commitments,” Goodwin told Al Jazeera regarding the arrests. “He’s willing to take on big risks for the things that matter.”

JFREJ has played a large role in spreading Mamdani’s message by knocking on doors and phone banking Jewish voters.

“We care about what our neighbours are worried about, excited and hopeful for — what they need for their families, and we’re ready to meet them there with our analysis of how the city needs to move to get to affordable housing, universal childcare, or to combat the real rise in anti-Semitism and hate violence,” said Goodwin. “We believe that Zohran is the strongest candidate for that, as well as for all the other issues we talk about.”

Courting the Jewish vote

While there is no doubt that the canvassing army of 50,000 volunteers has served Mamdani well, the mayoral hopeful has also been strategic in his pursuit of the Jewish vote.

“He has definitely modulated his rhetoric and has made a concerted effort to reach out to liberal congregations,” said Val Vinokur, professor of literary studies and director of the minor in Jewish culture at The New School. “This has made him more palatable to some progressive Zionists, much to the outrage of his anti-Zionist supporters.”

One example of Mamdani’s subdued rhetoric includes his response to continued backlash over the phrase “globalise the intifada”.

The phrase, used by pro-Palestinian activists, sparked tension between Mamdani and parts of the Jewish community. To some, it represents a call for solidarity with Palestinian resistance, while others view it as anti-Semitic and violent.

Mamdani resisted rejecting the phrase before the June election, but The New York Times reported that since then, he said he would “discourage” its use.

On the second anniversary of the Gaza war, Mamdani posted a four-paragraph statement on X where he acknowledged the atrocities of Hamas’s attack, and then called Israel’s response genocide and ended on a note of commitment to human rights.

“It got s*** on from all sides,” said Carlson. “He made nobody happy, which in my mind, is kinda the correct way to go about it … Sometimes, pleasing nobody is the job of the mayor, and I think he’s learning that now. It’s like a microcosm of what he’s about to face as mayor, assuming he wins. Sometimes, you have to piss off everybody a little bit for compromises.”

Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism

As Carlson’s Zenith Research poll reflected, the NYC Jewish community has a wide diversity of opinion about politics and positions on Israel and Palestine. The community most clearly differentiates along lines of age, and secular versus conservative practice, but as Jewish support for Mamdani increases, it is evident that these divides are not always so distinct.

“While it’s true that there are major trends that younger American Jews are more progressive and sympathetic to Palestinians, it’s also true that for as long as Zionism has existed, there have been anti-Zionist Jews,” said Miller. “I learned a lot from elders who were in their 70s, 80s and 90s who have been anti-Zionist since Israel was created because they never felt that what they wanted or needed was an ethnostate to represent them.”

Alternatively, Zionist groups like Betar worldwide are troubled by these trends within the Jewish community of New York.

“It’s heartbreaking to see members of the Jewish community support Zohran Mamdani, who openly opposes Zionism — the national liberation movement of the Jewish people,” said Oren Magnezy, spokesperson of Betar worldwide.

Jonathan Boyarin, American anthropologist and Mann professor of modern Jewish studies at Cornell University, wondered whether anti-Zionism has done much to help Palestinians, but distinguished the line that Mamdani is walking.

“It’s been said that there are two kinds of people who confuse anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: Zionists and anti-Semites. I don’t think Zohran Mamdani belongs in either of those categories,” said Boyarin.

‘New political moment’

Ultimately, experts like Vinokur predict Mamdani will win, barring a scenario in which Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa drops out. Regardless, Vinokur expects Mamdani to secure the Jewish vote.

“He will win the Jewish vote despite and not because of his anti-Zionist background,” said Vinokur. “Younger Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal, have been galvanised by the dynamism of his campaign, and ultimately want to make the city a more livable, affordable, and equitable place.”

Mamdani’s message and campaign were celebrated at the JFREJ annual gala fundraiser, the Mazals. NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Mamdani were honoured together during a night filled with music, ritual and tradition with more than 1,000 attendees.

“I would say it was probably the largest single gathering of Jews for Zohran,” said Goodwin. “They cement this new political moment that we’re in, where people like JFREJ members, movements like ours, are not fringe or aspirational, but we are popular among a majority of New Yorkers.”

Reporting from Santa Clara, Calif. — Some of the major Republicans vying to become California’s next governor or U.S. senator have more money than others. Some are better known. Some are more in sync with their party’s traditional views.

But what all five have in common as they look toward the June 8 primary is a determination to tap what they see as public fury over the failures of government.

“Our government is out of control and out of touch, and so we will take it back and we will make it work,” U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina told hundreds of delegates at a weekend convention of Republicans in the Silicon Valley.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) and former Rep. Tom Campbell, her rivals in the race to challenge Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer, took different approaches. But each appealed just as overtly to the large share of California Republicans who identify with the conservative “tea party” movement.

Gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman did the same as they vied to challenge presumptive Democratic nominee Jerry Brown.

For all of the major Republican candidates, capturing the public mood of revolt is key not only to succeeding in the primary but also to carrying momentum through the November general election, where voters have historically sided more with Democrats.

“These are Republican voters who — not only here, but all over the country — are very, very frustrated at what they’re seeing, and they’re treating the state government with the same contempt as they’re treating the Obama administration,” said Wayne Johnson, a Republican strategist and former Poizner advisor.

“People are going to be willing to pull the lever for people who are saying pretty aggressive things this time around.”

Most aggressive over the weekend was Poizner, the state insurance commissioner. Treading on sensitive political territory, he promised to deny all public benefits to undocumented immigrants and to stop any more from crossing the Mexican border into California.

“If I have to, I’ll send the National Guard to the border,” he told Republicans at a dinner Saturday. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll send the California Highway Patrol to the border. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll send the California Republican Party to the border.”

Poizner also promised to curb welfare, an issue — like immigration — that Republicans last pushed hard during the economic downturn of the 1990s.

Whitman, too, has called for scaling back welfare. But by and large, her attempts to ride tea party anger were subtler than Poizner’s.

“Voters are tired of runaway spending,” Whitman, a former chief executive of EBay, said in a dinner speech Friday. “They are tired of bigger government. And they have had it with broken promises.”

Roughly four of five Republicans see California as moving in the wrong direction, a level of discontent not seen since the recession of the early 1990s, according to a recent Public Policy Institute of California survey.

“The candidates are trying to tap into that very deep skepticism and pessimism and cynicism seen among Republican voters today,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the institute.

The large portion of undecided voters in both the gubernatorial and Senate primaries makes it that much more important for candidates to identify with the public anger.

In the Senate race, Fiorina, a former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, applauded signs of a popular uprising, saying millions of Americans feel betrayed by “detached and arrogant leadership” in Washington.

“Whether we are conservatives, moderates, independents, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, tea partiers, we are all now members of one party; we are now members of the Had Enough party,” she told Republicans at a luncheon Saturday.

DeVore, an Irvine assemblyman popular among the party’s conservative rank and file, described Democrats as an ominous threat.

“We are facing statists who have it as their objective to trample the Constitution, to submerge future generations under a mountain of debt and to fundamentally transform America into a state that none of us would recognize,” he said.

He described himself as the candidate best suited to draw support from tea party activists who want “to rescue America and to rescue California.”

As for Campbell, his support of temporary state tax hikes has made it tougher to position himself as a champion of the movement, but he tried nonetheless.

“I am running,” he said, “because our freedom is at risk, threatened by a soft socialism that inserts government into every corner of our lives.”

Poizner strategist Stuart Stevens described the voters’ mood as “hot.”

Alluding to the 1976 film about a TV anchor who builds a following of angry Americans, he said, “This is ‘Network’: Mad as hell, not going to take it anymore.”

michael.finnegan @latimes.com

[email protected]

As the Netherlands gears up for a snap parliamentary election on October 29, less than halfway through parliament’s usual four-year term following the collapse of the ruling coalition, the likelihood of another win for the country’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is mounting.

An outright win is next to impossible. The Netherlands has always had a coalition government formed by a minimum of two parties due to its proportional representation electoral system, under which seats in parliament are awarded to parties in proportion to the number of votes they win.

The PVV, headed by Geert Wilders, also won the most votes in the last election in November 2023. It then partnered with three other far-right parties – the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), New Social Contract (NSC), and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – to form a coalition government.

But in June, PVV made a dramatic exit from the coalition government over a disagreement on immigration policy. PVV had wanted to introduce a stricter asylum policy that included closing borders to new asylum seekers and deporting dual nationals convicted of crimes, but the other parties demanded further discussions.

In a dramatic move, Wilders took to X to announce that the failure by other parties to agree to PVV’s plans meant it would leave the coalition.

Coalition partners slammed this decision and accused Wilders of being driven by self-interest. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said at the time that Wilders “chooses his own ego and his own interests. I am astonished. He throws away the chance for a right-wing policy”.

Following the pull-out, Prime Minister Dick Schoof – an independent – announced that he would resign and a snap election would be held this month.

Then, in August, the NSC’s Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp also resigned after he failed to secure support for new sanctions against Israel over its war in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in Gaza City. In solidarity with Veldkamp, other NSC party members left the coalition, leaving only two parties remaining.

Now, with an election imminent, opinion polls suggest the PVV will secure the most seats in the 150-seat parliament. While a winner needs 76 seats to form a government, no single party ever makes it to that figure, which has led to a history of coalitions.

According to a poll by the Dutch news outlet, EenVandaag, on October 14, the PVV is projected to secure 31 seats. The centre-left Green-Labour alliance (GroenLinks-PvdA) is polling at 25 seats, and the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) is polling at 23.

PVV’s former coalition partner, the centre-right VVD, could take 14 seats and the BBB, four. So far, the NSC is not projected to secure any seats at all.

Immigration fears

At the end of September, EenVandaag polled 27,191 people and found that the main sticking point between voters – and, hence, between the leaders, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA – is immigration. Half of all voters said it was the key issue on which they would be voting this year. Housing was the second-most important issue at 46 percent, and “Dutch identity” came third at 37 percent.

While the PVV is firmly anti-immigration and wants to impose a much stricter border policy and asylum laws, GroenLinks-PvdA would prefer to allow a net migration figure of 40,000 and 60,000 migrants per year.

Tempers are running high over this issue. Last month at The Hague, a right-wing activist known as “Els Rechts” organised an anti-migration protest that attracted 1,500 attendees. According to reports, protesters threw stones and bottles at the police, set a police car alight and smashed windows of the left-wing Democrats 66 (D66) party offices.

While left-wingers argue that the immigration issue has been wildly hyped up by the far right, they are losing control of the narrative.

Esme Smithson Swain, a member of MiGreat, a Dutch non-governmental campaign group that calls for freedom of movement and equal treatment for migrants in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera that the far right in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom, more widely, had “constructed a narrative that there is a migration crisis”.

“They’ve managed to construct this idea of a crisis, and that distracts our attention away from populism, away from arms trades, away from social services and the welfare state being sold off.”

Whatever its merits, the right-wing message that immigration is at the root of many social ills seems to be taking hold. The far-left, pro-immigration BIJ1 party, which rejects this message, is not projected to win any seats at all in this election.

Immigration “is a key term especially for right-wing political parties to win the election”, Noura Oul Fakir, a candidate for the BIJ1 party, told Al Jazeera. “We don’t focus on it because we look at everything that’s been going on from a systemic point of view, that every form of oppression is interlinked … This fight for equality and justice, it’s about more than just immigration, but it’s also interlinked with other issues that we see nowadays.”

People ‘more emboldened to express racist views’

By January 1, 2024, the Netherlands was hosting 2.9 million migrants (16.2 percent of the population), compared to the average across European Union member states of 9.9 percent (44.7 million people in total).

Similarly, Germany hosts 16.9 million migrants (20.2 percent of the population); France, 9.3 million (13.6 percent of the population); Spain, 8.8 million (18.2 percent of the population); and Italy, 6.7 million (11.3 percent of the population), according to figures from the EU.

Mark van Ostaijen, an associate professor in public administration and sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, explained that immigration has become a mainstream talking point in “housing, care, educational and cultural policy domains”.

For instance, the Netherlands is currently short of 434,000 homes, including for 353,000 asylum seekers and 81,000 Dutch first-time buyers, according to figures commissioned by the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (VRO).

Immigration has, therefore, been blamed for what is seen as a housing crisis.

According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 316,000 migrants arrived in the country in 2024, 19,000 fewer than in 2023. But CBS also found that population growth is still mainly down to net migration, with the largest number of migrants coming from Ukraine and Syria.

“I think this is indeed something that will continue the electoral legitimacy of far-right parties, or right-wing parties, even more, given the fact that the Netherlands was already quite leaning towards the conservative angle,” van Ostaijen told Al Jazeera.

“This will be a topic that will haunt our politics and our democratic decision-making and discourse for quite a while,” he said.

Anecdotal evidence bears this out. Fakir has noticed a change in the experiences of immigrant residents she and her colleagues have spoken to in the country following the growth of the PVV.

“In their personal life [they have seen] a noticeable shift where people feel more free or emboldened to express racist views, both online and in real life. Others are telling them those classic things of ‘go back to your own country, or you’re not Dutch’,” she said.

For Nassreddin Taibi, a recent graduate who works as a political analyst and plans to vote for GroenLinks-PvdA, the anti-immigration protests at the Hague “further cemented polarisation among Dutch voters” and have caused centrist parties to fall into line with the right-wing narrative.

“These protests have influenced the discourse in the sense that centrist parties now say that cutting immigration is necessary to win back trust of voters in politics,” he said.

Nearly half of voters still undecided

While the far-right PVV is projected to win the most seats in this election, it will still face an uphill journey to form a government, as other parties such as the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) have ruled out joining a coalition government.

Furthermore, the PVV’s leader, Wilders, has not escaped controversy with his Islamophobic comments and anti-migration stance despite the rise in anti-immigration sentiment across the country as a whole.

Notable incidents over the years include Wilders’ likening of Islam to Nazism in 2007 and his reference to the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as “fascist” in a letter to a Dutch news outlet. His letter and comments led to Wilders being prosecuted for inciting hatred and discrimination, which he denied. In 2011, he was acquitted by a judge who ruled that his comments had fallen within the scope of free speech.

More recently, in August this year, Wilders posted an image on X that depicted a smiling, blonde and blue-eyed woman, representing the PVV; and a wrinkled, angry-looking elderly woman wearing a headscarf, representing the PvdA. It was accompanied by the words: “The choice is yours on 29/10.”

Aan U de keuze op 29/10 pic.twitter.com/royhcInDlm

— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) August 4, 2025

Fake news and misinformation have also driven the rise in far-right narratives, analysts say.

The Facebook page ‘Wij doen GEEN aangifte tegen Geert Wilders’ (We are NOT filing charges against Geert Wilders), which claims to be a PVV supporters’ page boasting 129,000 followers, said it does not intend to be “discriminatory, hateful, or incite violence”, but has nevertheless posted AI-generated images of this nature.

In one such image, which received 1,700 likes, a white family is seemingly being harassed by men of colour.

In another, a white woman is seen in a supermarket paying for groceries while surrounded by Muslim women wearing hijabs and niqabs, with the caption: “No mass immigration, no Islamisation, no backwardness of the Dutch.” The post received 885 likes.

While the outgoing home affairs minister, Judith Uitermark, has said the government is examining new ways to combat fake news, she added that the Netherlands is somewhat protected from the rise of extremism by its proportional representation system, under which no one party ever wins a majority.

Still, the Dutch Data Protection Authority has warned voters not to use AI chatbots to help them decide who to vote for.

And a large number are still deciding. EenVandaag found that some 48 percent of voters are still undecided about which candidate they will choose. If the GroenLinks-PvdA can disengage from right-wing talking points and, instead, focus on its own policies more, it may perform better than expected, analysts say.

This will be no easy task, however.

“We find ourselves doing this also as a civil society organisation, as campaigners, trying to fight off the narrative and fight off the kind of populist ideals of the far right faster than we can push for our own agenda as well. And I think a lot of the time that leaves left-wing parties in the Netherlands seeming a bit hollow,” Swain said.

Still, she says that she is holding out hope for this election, despite what feels like a “vast and growing far-right bulk of the population”.

“I think it’s very easy to kind of feel that division between ‘us and them’. Us campaigning on the left and this growing mass of the far right,” Swain said.

“We need to tackle fighting the influence of lobbying and of fake news in our political structures. And I think that becoming more united as a population would naturally fall from that.”

How democratic is your water utility?

Does everyone who is registered to vote get to choose their leaders in elections? Or do only property owners get to vote for the managers? Maybe the public has no say at all in selecting the people who make decisions that determine safe and affordable drinking water?

“We see significant differences based on democracy,” said Kristin Dobbin, a researcher at UC Berkeley. “It really does influence the outcomes of a water system.”

In a new study she led, it turns out that water utilities where all voters have a say in choosing leaders tend to perform better.

I contacted Dobbin to learn more about what she and her colleagues discovered about what they call “water democracy” in California.

The researchers analyzed nearly all of the state’s residential water suppliers, more than 2,400 of them. They looked at three categories: those where all registered voters can elect board members; those where only property owners can; and those where people have no vote in choosing decision-makers. Fully 25% of the systems fall into this last category.

In 2012, California became the first state in the nation to declare access to clean, accessible and affordable drinking water a human right. The researchers wanted to see how these different types of utilities have fared in achieving that.

They already knew more than 700,000 Californians rely on water systems that are failing to meet drinking water standards, according to the State Water Resources Control Board, and an additional 1.8 million have systems considered “at risk” of failing.

The study, published this month in the journal Nature Water, found that 13% of water utilities with limited voting rights are identified as “failing,” similar to those where customers can’t vote on leaders. For fully democratic water systems, only 9% fall into that category.

Fully democratic water purveyors, which tend to be larger, also have significantly fewer cases of E. coli contamination from sewage leaks or agricultural runoff.

Those with the most cases of bacterial contamination are water utilities with no elected boards that are run by companies or mobile home parks. These serve many low-income communities and tend to serve more African Americans.

“We find very clearly that low-income communities of color are less likely to have water democracy than others,” Dobbin said.

The group of for-profit utilities led by unelected managers is also more likely to rely on a single source of water rather than diversifying, which Dobbin said puts them more at risk of an emergency if a well goes dry or tests reveal contamination.

Growing numbers of Californians are also struggling to afford the rising costs of their water bills. And on affordability, the group that performs the worst is utilities that allow only property owners, not all registered voters, to vote. The researchers found the utilities with the most democracy perform much better in delivering affordable water.

One caveat: Another recent study, led by UC Davis professor Samuel Sandoval Solis, examined who is leading nearly 700 public water agencies in California, and found that Latinos, as well as Black and Indigenous people, remain significantly underrepresented on their boards, as do women.

Here’s a look at other news about water, the environment and climate change this week:

Water news this week

I wrote about how tribes are urging Los Angeles to pump less groundwater in the Owens Valley. In addition to siphoning water from streams into its aqueduct, the Department of Water and Power says the city has 96 wells it can use to pump groundwater. Indigenous leaders told me the pumping has dried up springs and meadows. DWP says the water is used locally for purposes including controlling dust on the dry bed of Owens Lake, and that the city is taking steps to ensure protection of the environment.

Meanwhile, in a unanimous vote, the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which delivers water for 19 million people, chose the agency’s new general manager: Shivaji Deshmukh, who leads the Inland Empire Utilities Agency. His appointment comes nearly nine months after the board fired general manager Adel Hagekhalil after an investigation into allegations of discrimination that exposed divisions within the agency.

Up north along the California-Oregon border, one year after the last of four dams was dismantled on the Klamath River, tribes and environmentalists say the river and its salmon are starting to rebound. Damon Goodman, regional director of the group California Trout, says shortly after the dams were removed, “the fish returned in greater numbers than I expected and maybe anyone expected,” Debra Utacia Krol reports in the Arizona Republic. Oregon Public Broadcasting also reports that Chinook salmon have returned to southern Oregon for the first time in more than a century.

In a new report, researchers say President Trump’s proposed budget would slash funding for federal programs aimed at bringing clean drinking water to Native communities by about $500 million, a nearly 70% decrease. The researchers, part of an initiative called Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities, said the proposal would reverse “hard-won progress toward clean, reliable water supplies for Native communities,” and they’re urging Congress to reject the cuts.

More climate and environment news

California hasn’t issued an emergency plea for the public to conserve energy, known as a Flex Alert, since 2022. As my L.A. Times colleague Hayley Smith reports, much of the credit for that goes to new battery energy storage, which has grown more than 3,000% since 2020.

The Trump administration plans to further cut staff at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. Inside Climate News’ Katie Surma reports that the Interior Department plans to slash about 2,000 positions affecting national parks, endangered species and research. The plan surfaced in a court case after a judge temporarily blocked the administration from cutting staff during the government shutdown.

Earlier this year, my colleague Grace Toohey wrote about problems in Ventura County during the Thomas fire of 2017 and the Mountain fire of 2024, when firefighters saw hydrants run dry and found themselves short of water. Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) introduced legislation requiring Ventura County water suppliers to take various steps to try to prevent that, including having 24 hours of backup power to pump water for firefighting. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill, which Bennett says is “implementing the lessons learned” from the fires.

One other thing

My former colleague Sammy Roth recently left the L.A. Times and has started his own newsletter about climate and culture called Climate-Colored Goggles. His first edition just came out, focusing on how Toyota has tarnished its green reputation so much that some of Hollywood’s leading environmentalists no longer want to be associated with it. Sammy writes that the Environmental Media Assn., Hollywood’s leading sustainability group, appears poised to cut ties with Toyota, its sponsor.

Sammy’s piece is, as usual, hard-hitting and insightful. I hope you’ll join me in continuing to follow and subscribe to his work.

Boiling Point, which Sammy helmed so brilliantly, will be back with a new installment next week from another member of our Climate and Environment team.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more water and climate news, follow Ian James @ianjames.bsky.social on Bluesky and @ByIanJames on X.

Body finds that chatbots provide biased advice, including by leading voters to the hard-right Party for Freedom.

The Netherlands’s data protection watchdog has cautioned citizens against consulting with artificial intelligence on how to vote, warning that popular chatbots provide a “highly distorted and polarised view” of politics.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority said on Tuesday that an increasing number of voters were using AI to help decide who to vote for, despite the models offering “unreliable and clearly biased” advice.

The watchdog issued the warning as it released the results of tests conducted on four popular chatbots – ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral, and Grok – in the run-up to parliamentary elections on October 29.

The research found that the chatbots more often recommended parties on the fringes of the political spectrum when asked to identify the three choices that best matched the policy preferences of 1,500 fictitious voter profiles.

In more than half of cases, the AI models identified the hard-right Party for Freedom (PVV) or left-wing Green Left-Labour Party as the top choice, the watchdog said.

Parties closer to the political middle ground – such as the right-leaning People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and the centre-left Democrats 66 – were recommended much less often, according to the watchdog.

Meanwhile, some groupings, including the conservative Christian Democratic Appeal and left-leaning Denk, were “almost never suggested”.

Monique Verdier, deputy chair of the authority, said that voters who turned to AI risked being encouraged to vote for parties that do not align with their preferences.

“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections. We therefore urge voters not to use AI chatbots for voting advice because their operation is neither transparent nor verifiable,” Verdier said in a statement.

“Additionally, we call on chatbot providers to prevent their systems from being used as voting guides.”

The October 29 election comes after the PVV, led by anti-immigration firebrand Geert Wilders, pulled its support for the government after its coalition partners refused to back a 10-point plan to radically curtail immigration.

Wilders’s PPV, which scored one of the biggest upsets in Dutch political history by winning the most seats in the 2023 election, has consistently led opinion polls before next week’s vote.

While the PPV is on track to win the most seats for a second straight election, it is all but certain to fall far short of a parliamentary majority.

The other major parties in the Netherlands, which has been governed by coalition governments without interruption since the 1940s, have all ruled out supporting the PPV in power.

SACRAMENTO — Gubernatorial hopeful Katie Porter said Friday that she mishandled a recent television news interview that called her temperament into question, but explained she felt the reporter’s questioning implied she should cater to President Donald Trump’s supporters.

Porter, an outspoken Democrat and former U.S. House representative from Orange County, said that she was “pushing back on” the reporter’s implication that she needed to be more temperate politically.

“I think Trump is hurting Californians,” said Porter, speaking at the UC Student and Policy Center in Sacramento. “I am not going to sell out our values as a state for some short-term political gain to try and appease people who are still standing and still supporting what this president is doing as he is trampling on our Constitution.”

Porter came under fire last week for snapping at the CBS reporter and threatening to end the interview. A second video has since emerged of Porter cursing at a young staffer who walked behind her during a video conference in 2021.

Porter, who was speaking as part of the policy center’s California Leaders Speaker Series, said she apologized “in real time” to her staffer.

“It was inappropriate,” she said. “I could have done better in that situation and I know that. I really want my staff to understand that I value them.”

After the videos emerged, several of Porter’s rivals criticized her behavior, including former state Controller Betty Yee, who said she should drop out of the race.

Marisa Lagos, a correspondent with KQED radio who moderated Friday’s discussion, asked if Porter felt any of the blow back was unfair, especially given Trump’s mannerisms.

Trump has a long history of belittling or targeting journalists, continually accusing them of being the “enemy of the people” and, during his 2016 presidential campaign, mocking the appearance of a disabled reporter with a congenital joint condition.

“Let me just say, Donald Trump should not be anyone’s standard for anything,” Porter said. “From how to use self-tanner to how to deal with the press, that is not the benchmark.”

Porter said she would work to demonstrate throughout the rest of her campaign that she has the right judgment to serve as governor.

“I think we all know that those were short videos that were clipped, there is always a larger context, but the reality is every second of every minute I am responsible for thinking about how to lead California and do my best,” she said.

Throughout the discussion Friday Porter also shared her support for Proposition 50, a ballot measure that would change congressional district boundaries and likely shift five more seats to Democrats in the U.S House of Representatives. The measure, which will be on the Nov. 4 statewide ballot, was drafted to counteract a redistricting plan in Texas intended to give Republicans more seats.

Lagos asked Porter how she would respond to residents who fear they’re being disenfranchised, especially those from rural areas.

Porter said she grew up in a rural area and wanted rural Californians to feel heard. But she said California was approaching redistricting in a different way than Texas by giving residents the opportunity to vote on it.

“It’s a question being put to each Californian about what they want to do in this political moment,” she said. “Circumstances were one way, and we had one policy, but the world has changed — in light of that, what do you as a Californian want to do about that?”

During a question-and-answer round at Friday’s event, a student referenced legislation on antisemitism and asked for Porter’s thoughts on whether criticizing Israel counted as antisemitism.

Porter said it was a complex issue but that criticizing Israel was not automatically antisemitic.

“There are plenty of people in Israel who criticize Israeli policy,” she said. “There are plenty of people around the world who don’t like Donald Trump and criticize (the United States) all the time. There is a right to criticize policy.”

TORIES will promise to introduce a US-style immigration force to deport up to 150,000 people a year.

Leader Kemi Badenoch will unveil the Conservatives’ toughest border policies yet at her first party conference.

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The plan is part of a policy blitz as the Tories try to stop haemorrhaging support to Reform UK.

Ms Badenoch will pledge to create a £1.6billion removals force like the hardline US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Since President Donald Trump’s second term started in January, it has seen more than two million illegal immigrants either leave the US voluntarily or be removed.

As the party faithful gathered in Manchester, Ms Badenoch — who turned up hand-in-hand with husband Hamish — said: “We must tackle the scourge of illegal immigration to Britain and secure our borders.

“That is why the Conservatives are setting out a serious and comprehensive new plan to end this crisis.

“Labour offer failed gimmicks like ‘one thousand in, one out’.

“Reform have nothing but announcements that fall apart on arrival.”

The plan — if the Conservatives win the next election — would see all new illegal migrants deported within a week of arrival.

The “Removals Force” would be handed sweeping powers like facial recognition to spot them.

Police will have to conduct immigration checks on everyone they stop.

Illegal migrants would be banned from claiming asylum and refugee status will be for only those whose government is trying to kill them.

Immigration tribunals would be abolished and legal aid denied.

Ms Badenoch has committed to taking the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights — used to argue against deportations.

But she has been accused of mimicking Nigel Farage’s Reform policies with tougher stances on borders and net zero.

Insiders claim Tory MPs are holding on to letters calling for Ms Badenoch to quit so they can use them when she can be challenged after a year in office — on November 3.

But others expect a move would be more likely after May’s local elections.

Asked if they will topple Ms Badenoch after another bad performance at the ballot box, Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho told The Sun on Sunday: “Kemi’s had one of the toughest jobs in politics.

“If you’re someone who takes over a party after it’s lost an election, it’s a pretty rough ride.

“We’re now taking on energy and you’ll see even more from us on immigration.

“Those are the things that I think the public care about.”

But on the eve of the Conference, London Assembly member Keith Prince became the latest Tory to jump ship to Reform.

A Labour Party spokesperson insisted: “The Conservatives’ message on immigration is; we got everything wrong, we won’t apologise, now trust us.

“It won’t wash.”

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Californians were mailed inaccurate voter guides about the November special election asking them whether to redraw congressional district boundaries, according to the secretary of state’s office. The state agency announced that it would mail postcards correcting the information to voters, which is likely to cost millions of dollars.

“Accuracy in voter information is essential to maintaining public trust in California’s elections,” said Secretary of State Shirley Weber. “We are taking swift, transparent action to ensure voters receive correct information. This mislabeling does not affect proposed districts, ballots, or the election process; it is solely a labeling error. Every eligible Californian can have full confidence that their vote will be counted and their representation is secure.”

The voter guide was sent to California registered voters about Proposition 50, a ballot measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democrats to try to boost the number of Democrats in Congress. The proposal was in response to Texas and other GOP-led states trying to increase the number of Republicans in the House at the behest of President Trump to enable him to continue to enact his agenda during his final two years in office.

The special election will take place on Nov. 4, but voters will begin receiving mail ballots in early October.

On page 11 of the voter guide, a proposed and hotly contested congressional district that includes swaths of the San Fernando and Antelope valleys and is currently represented by Rep. George Whitesides (D-Agua Dulce) was mislabeled as Congressional District 22. However, on more detailed maps in the voter guide, the district is properly labeled as District 27.

“It is unfortunate that it was incorrect on the statewide map in the voter guide,” said Paul Mitchell, the Democratic redistricting expert who drew the new proposed congressional districts. “But the important thing is it is correct in the L.A. County and the Southern California maps,” allowing people who live in the region to accurately see their new proposed congressional district.

There are 23 million registered voters in California, but it’s unclear whether the postcards will be mailed to each registered voter or to households of registered voters. The secretary of state’s office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.

Even if the corrective notices are mailed to voter households rather than individual voters, the postage alone is likely to be millions of dollars, in addition to the cost of printing the postcards. The special election, which the Legislature called for in August, was already expected to cost taxpayers $284 million.

Opponents of Proposition 50 seized upon the error as proof that the measure was hastily placed on the ballot.

“When politicians force the Secretary of State to rush an election, mistakes are bound to happen,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for one of the campaigns opposing the effort. “It’s unfortunate that this one will cost taxpayers millions of dollars.”

Former state GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson, who leads another anti-Proposition 50 campaign supported by congressional Republicans, added that such mistakes were inevitable given how quickly the ballot measure was written and the special election was called.

“The Prop. 50 power grab was rushed through so fast by greedy politicians that glaring mistakes were made, raising serious questions about what else was missed,” she said. “California taxpayers are already on the hook for a nearly $300 million special election, and now they’re paying to fix mistakes too. Californians deserve transparency, not backroom politics. Secretary Weber should release the cost of issuing this correction immediately.”

The campaign supporting the ballot measure did not respond to requests for comment.

Presidential election is currently expected to take place in December.

Voters in Guinea have overwhelmingly backed a new constitution that could allow coup leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president if he chooses to, according to partial results.

The constitution looked set to pass with 90.6 percent votes in favour and 9.4 percent against, the head of Guinea’s General Directorate of Elections, Djenabou Toure, told reporters late on Monday. Those figures were based on 91 percent of the votes cast in Sunday’s referendum.

An overall figure for voter turnout was not available, but officials had counted more than 4.8 million votes out of more than 6.6 million registered voters, meaning turnout had exceeded 70 percent.

Critics called the results a power grab, but the military government said the referendum paves the way for a return to civilian rule. The presidential election is currently expected to take place in December.

Reporting from the capital, Conakry, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said members of the opposition were opposed to the referendum.

“The elections were held all across Guinea with no incidents at all – 45,000 security forces were deployed. … The opposition said this is a way of harassing the voters,” he said.

Presidential election

Doumbouya, a 40-year-old former member of the French Foreign Legion, voted along with his wife at a health centre in Conakry, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap with a drawing of a traditional mask symbolising fertility.

He seized power in Guinea, home to the world’s largest reserves of bauxite, in 2021. It was part of a wave of eight coups that swept West and Central Africa from 2020 to 2023.

A charter adopted after the coup barred members of the transitional government from seeking office. But that language was not included in the constitution put to voters on Sunday.

Doumbouya has not said yet whether he intends to run for office.

The country’s two main opposition leaders, Cellou Dalein Diallo and deposed former President Alpha Conde, are among those who called for a boycott of the referendum.

Their political parties are currently suspended, and Human Rights Watch has accused the government of disappearing political opponents and arbitrarily suspending media outlets.

The government has denied any role in disappearances but has promised to investigate such allegations.

Charlie Kirk, the conservative millennial influencer who galvanized young Americans to support the GOP and was assassinated this week in Utah, was the most influential modern-day catalyst of shifting voting trends among fledgling voters, according to Republican and Democratic strategists.

Kirk founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA in 2012 at the age of 18, and it grew into a force that promoted conservative views on high school and college campuses across the nation.

“He found something among young people that none of us identified,” said Shawn Steel, a member of the Republican National Committee from Orange County who knew Kirk for nearly a decade and invited him to speak before the RNC’s conservative steering committee.

“He found an entire movement in America that conservatives were not even aware they could find. Not only that, he nurtured and created an entire new generation of conservative activists,” said Steel, the husband of former Rep. Michelle Steel. “His legacy will endure.”

The admiration for Kirk’s political organizing skills and mental acuity cut across political lines.

“Whether you agreed with him or not — and to be clear, I didn’t — he was one of the most brilliant political organizers of his generation, and probably generations before that,” said Stephanie Cutter, a veteran Democratic strategist who served as an advisor to Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. “He could be controversial, but he struck a nerve with people who were likely disengaged in politics prior to Turning Point and built a powerful movement.”

In addition to appealing to young voters about the economic headwinds they faced as they sought to climb the career ladder and tried to buy a house, Kirk also espoused sharply conservative views.

Beyond espousing traditional conservative views — being anti-abortion, pro-gun rights and dubious of climate change — Kirk was critical of gay and transgender rights, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, saying last year that if he saw a Black airplane pilot, he hoped he was qualified. He was accused of being an anti-Semite because of repeated comments about the power of Jewish donors in the United States, and of being Islamophobic because of comments such as describing “large dedicated Islamic areas” as “a threat to America.”

Kirk, 31 and a father of two, died Wednesday after being shot in the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s assassination was the latest instance of political violence in an increasingly politically polarized country.

In June, Democratic Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, while state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife survived a shooting at their home, roughly five miles away, the same day. In 2022, a home invader bludgeoned the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). In 2017, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot during a practice session for an annual congressional baseball game. In 2011, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) barely survived an assassination attempt as she met with constituents in a Tucson strip mall.

President Trump survived two assassination attempts in 2024 as he successfully sought reelection to the White House.

Kirk’s “mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever, to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense on campuses nationwide,” Trump said Wednesday.

On Thursday, Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn that Kirk was partly responsible for his victory in the 2024 presidential election and repeated that he would posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Turning Point USA, created a month before Kirk graduated from high school, became the new face of conservatism on college campuses and had chapters at more than 800 schools. Prominent conservatives heavily funded the group; in the fiscal year that ended in June of 2024, Turning Point reported $85 million in revenue.

Longtime GOP activist Jon Fleischman, the former executive director of the California Republican Party and the former chairman of the state’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom in the early 1990s, said Kirk was pivotal to Trump’s election.

“Charlie Kirk was probably the single most prominent and successful youth organizer in the Trump movement,” Fleischman said, adding that Kirk superseded any other GOP organizer he knew at increasing conservative prospects among young voters.

“As somebody who cut their teeth as a youth organizer, I have nothing but awe for the level of sophistication he brought to that field of work,” he said.

Support for Trump among young voters exponentially increased in the 2024 presidential election, according to data compiled by Tufts University. While President Biden had a 25-point edge over Trump among voters ages 18 to 29 in the 2020 election, Harris had a four-point advantage among this cohort last year.

“This last election was the best performance Republicans have had with the youth vote, particularly male voters, in 20 years, maybe even going back to the ’80s,” said Steve Deace, a conservative radio host in Iowa who had known Kirk for a decade.

He gave credit for that success partly to work Kirk did on the ground at colleges across the country, notably being willing to amicably debate with people who disagreed with his beliefs.

“Charlie was basically a Renaissance man who was comfortable in a lot of settings. He wasn’t hoity-toity,” he said.

Deace and others added that this moment could be a turning point for the nation’s democracy and the split between the left and the right.

“We’re going to have a real conversation about whether we can share a country or not. The answer may be we can’t,” Deace said. “We have to decide if we are capable of the fundamental differences between us being adjudicated at the ballot box…. We have to decide if we can share a country. If we truly want to, we’ll figure it out. If we don’t, we won’t. That’s the conversation that needs to happen.”

Bombastic conservative commentator Roger Stone went further, arguing that modern-day Democrats are a greater threat to the nation than terrorists, drug cartels and foreign spies.

“The rot is too deep to reverse our course with mere rhetoric,” Stone wrote to supporters. “Sept. 10, 2025 was the day we crossed the Rubicon, lost our innocence and realized only one path remains to ensure humanity’s survival. The time for American renewal is at hand, and the tree of liberty shall germinate in warp speed with Charlie Kirk serving as the martyr of our glorious refounding.”

It’s been more than 60 years since Utah backed a Democrat for president. The state’s last Democratic U.S. senator left office nearly half a century ago and the last Utah Democrat to serve in the House lost his seat in 2020.

But, improbably enough, Utah has suddenly emerged as a rare Democratic bright spot in the red-vs.-blue redistricting wars.

Late last month, a judge tossed out the state’s slanted congressional lines and ordered Utah’s GOP-run Legislature to draw a new political map, ruling that lawmakers improperly thumbed their noses and overrode voters who created an independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering.

It’s a welcome pushback against the growing pattern of lawmakers arrogantly ignoring voters and pursuing their preferred agenda. You don’t have to be a partisan to think that elections should matter and when voters express their will it should be honored.

Otherwise, what’s the point of holding elections?

Anyhow, redistricting. Did you ever dream you’d spend this much time thinking about the subject? Typically, it’s an arcane and extremely nerdy process that occurs once a decade, after the census, and mainly draws attention from a small priesthood of line-drawing experts and political obsessives.

Suddenly, everyone is fixated on congressional boundaries, for which we can thank our voraciously self-absorbed president.

Trump started the whole sorry gerrymandering business — voters and democracy be damned — by browbeating Texas into redrawing its congressional map to try to nab Republicans as many as five additional House seats in 2026. The paranoid president is looking to bolster his party ahead of a tough midterm election, when Democrats need to gain just three seats to win a House majority and attain some measure of control over Trump’s rogue regime.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Texas with a proposed Democratic gerrymander and perhaps you’re thinking, well, what about his attempted power grab? While your friendly columnist has deplored efforts to end-run the state’s voter-established redistricting commission, at least the matter is going on the ballot in a Nov. 4 special election, allowing the people to decide.

Meantime, the political race to the bottom continues.

Lawmakers in Republican-run Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio may tear up their congressional maps in favor of partisan gerrymanders, and Democrats in Illinois and New York are being urged to do the same.

When all is said and done, 10 or so additional seats could be locked up by one party or the other, even before a single ballot is cast; this when the competitive congressional map nationwide has already shrunk to a postage stamp-sized historic low.

If you think that sort of pre-baked election and voter obsolescence is a good thing, you might consider switching your registration to Russia or China.

Utah, at least, offers a small ray of positivity.

In 2018, voters there narrowly approved Proposition 4, taking the map-drawing process away from self-interested lawmakers and creating an independent commission to handle redistricting. In 2021, the Republican-run Legislature chose to ignore voters, gutting the commission and passing a congressional map that allowed the GOP to easily win all four of Utah’s House seats.

The trick was slicing and dicing Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous and densely packed, and scattering its voters among four predominantly Republican districts.

“There’s always going to be someone who disagrees,” Carson Jorgensen, the chairman of the Utah Republican Party, said airily as lawmakers prepared to give voters their middle finger.

In July 2024, Utah’s five Supreme Court justices — all Republican appointees — found that the Legislature’s repeal and replacement of Proposition 4 was unconstitutional. The ruling kicked the case over to Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson, who on Aug. 25 rejected the partisan maps drawn by GOP lawmakers.

Cue the predictable outrage.

“Monday’s Court Order in Utah is absolutely Unconstitutional,” Trump bleated on social media. “How did such a wonderful Republican State like Utah, which I won in every Election, end up with so many Radical Left Judges?”

In Gibson’s case, the answer is her appointment by Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican who would be considered a radical leftist in the same way a hot fudge sundae could be described as diet food.

Others offered the usual condemnation of “judicial activism,” which is political-speak for whenever a court decision doesn’t go your way.

“It’s a terrible day … for the rule of law,” lamented Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is apparently concerned with legal proprieties only insofar as they serve his party’s president and the GOP, having schemed with Trump allies in their failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

In a ruling last week rejecting lawmakers’ request to pause her decision, Gibson wrote that “Utah has an opportunity to be different.”

“While other states are currently redrawing their congressional maps to intentionally render some citizen votes meaningless, Utah could redesign its congressional plan with the intention to protect its citizens’ right to vote and to ensure that each citizen’s vote is meaningful.”

That’s true. Utah can not only be different from other states, as Gibson suggested.

It can be better.