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      Protests as rightwing Charlie Kirk activist group makes final campus tour stop

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      Turning Point USA, the influential rightwing college group founded by Charlie Kirk, has brought Kirk’s message to a campus with a long history of leftwing activism two months after his death.An event at the University of California, Berkeley, on Monday evening marked the chaotic last stop of the American Comeback tour, which Kirk had just begun at the time of his death at Utah Valley University. In the aftermath of Kirk’s fatal shooting, the events have come to serve as memorials, with prominent conservative speakers, including JD Vance, highlighting the staggering impact the controversial rightwing influencer’s death has had on American politics.Since Kirk’s killing in September, allegedly by a 22-year-old gunman, Donald Trump has sought to use the incident to attack Democrats, liberal groups and donors. The president has warned of an “enemy within” while he and allies have launched attacks on political opponents, actions that scholars have described as authoritarian and anti-Democratic.Meanwhile, people have been fired or disciplined from their jobs over comments, or perceived commentary, about Kirk’s killing or the beliefs he publicly espoused.The Berkeley event, hosted by the campus’s TPUSA chapter, featured Rob Schneider, the comedian and actor who has become a champion of conservative causes, and Christian author Frank Turek. It was met with a large protest as hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Zellerbach Hall on Monday evening.People shouted “Fascists out of Berkeley” and carried signs with slogans such as “We won the war, why are there still Nazis” and “No safe space for fascist scum”, and Palestinian flags. Meanwhile, dozens of police officers gathered around an entrance, clearing a path for people to enter, and helicopters circled overhead.View image in fullscreenThere were at least three arrests during the protests, including two people detained after a violent altercation, the Daily Californian reported.There was anxiety on campus ahead of the event, said Sophie Mason, a freshman who stopped by the protest after class and said it was the “talk of the town”.“There was a lot of tension. People were worried,” she said.Two hours after the event started, the crowd outside showed no signs of tiring. They briefly broke into chants of “fuck Charlie Kirk.”Protesters at times focused on the large showing of law enforcement, yelling “CHP go home” in reference to the California Highway Patrol team assembled at the frontline of the demonstration.Dozens of officers stood blocking a throughway to the building where the TPUSA event was under way, some with body mounted cameras.Earlier Monday morning, police arrested four students for alleged vandalism after they attempted to hang a large cardboard bug on a gate ahead of the event, Berkeley’s campus newspaper the Daily Californian reported.UC Berkeley, known as the birthplace of the campus free speech movement of the 1960s, has hosted controversial events before. In 2017, thousands of students protested the scheduled appearances of the rightwing provocateur and former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos and the conservative commentator Ann Coulter. Both events were ultimately cancelled, but the city saw violent clashes between opposing groups of protesters.Monday night’s event, which the Berkeley chapter of TPUSA described as an opportunity to “be a part of the movement built on Charlie’s legacy”, was sold out. The chapter has more than doubled since Kirk’s death, organization leadership have said.Given the campus history of protest, Monday night’s demonstrations felt normal, said Tyara Gomez, a third-year student. Although this one had far more police officers, she said.The protest was largely peaceful but was marked by tense moments. A crowd appeared to accost a man who shouted a racial slur, and circled protesters. There were clashes between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators and attendees, and fears of gun violence. Early on, as the crowds reached their peak, a car drove by, seemingly broadcasting the sound of gunshots, sending dozens of people fleeing while others crowded behind concrete pillars, unsure whether a shooting was taking place.Among them was Mayte, who did not feel comfortable sharing her last name and was visiting with her boyfriend. Mayte crammed behind a the concrete structure with her dog and several other people as the vehicle passed. “You can’t tell if its fireworks or gunshots. It’s scary,” she said.She had felt compelled to watch the demonstration, which was as much a protest against TPUSA as it was against Trump and his agenda. “It’s sad what’s happening. I’m the daughter of immigrants.”Mason, the freshman, said she was perplexed why Turning Point USA had chosen to host the event at the famously liberal campus, but that she was pleased to see the turnout. “I’m glad a lot of people came together and showed up.” More

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      They flew to New York to help Mamdani – now they want to bring the hope to LA

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      While the excitement for mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has radiated through New York, his win has also energized young activists across the country – particularly some in Los Angeles, who flew to the east coast to canvass for Mamdani and now want to bring their experiences westward.Standing near the poll site at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neda Davarpanah – a screenwriter and actor based in Los Angeles – was inspired by Mamdani’s campaign for mayor so she flew out to New York in late October to canvass on the Upper East Side.Davarpanah had walked alongside the picket lines in Hollywood in 2023 as a newly minted Writers Guild of America member. Despite initial momentum, she felt the energy from the frontlines of the strikes had dissipated in the last year. That energy reignited when Mamdani entered the picture.“We felt so motivated and energized to help people in a city we don’t even live in because of the broader impact on the country,” she said.Many of the people interviewed are part of the 4,000 young members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Los Angeles chapter who felt inspired by Mamdani’s campaign and its national implications. Looking ahead, they want to bring the hope and lessons from field organizing back to Los Angeles.New York and Los Angeles have very different geographies and spreads of power. In Los Angeles, city council members’ elections tend to have more weight compared to a mayoral race. And given the DSA-LA chapter has endorsed five candidates so far in the city council and local school board elections, there are plenty of volunteer efforts for these hopefuls to work on in the coming year.View image in fullscreenLeslie Chang, who serves as the East San Gabriel Valley coordinator for Democratic Socialists of America, flew out during the primaries to canvass for Mamdani. She volunteered to canvass in Chinatown, where she spoke the language, and the Red Hook public housing projects.“These were tough conversations,” Chang said, noting residents felt left out in the city’s development. “They would say: look at the condition of this place that I live in. We are still waiting for repairs from the hurricane. Why should I give a shit who is running for office if my life hasn’t gotten better?”During her volunteer field training, Chang met two New York City council members who were vouching for Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. They told Chang to give out their phone numbers to start conversations with constituents.“I thought that was really powerful, because in almost all of the canvases that I do here [in Los Angeles], there isn’t that level of engagement,” she said. After canvassing, there was even a social event for volunteers to get to know one another and discuss what strategies worked best.Paul Zappia, an animator and illustrator who also serves in DSA-LA leadership, first met the mayor-elect in 2023 at the DSA national conference in Chicago, where Mamdani served as a keynote speaker. He flew out in late October to canvass with friends in Bushwick. At the beginning of his shift, the field lead asked why each volunteer had come out.“I shared with everybody that I was here from Los Angeles because the victory of Zohran Mamdani is bigger than New York City,” said Zappia, who attributes his involvement in politics to the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign.View image in fullscreenEven walking to lunch a few blocks away, he encountered another canvassing group. “It’s just a bunch of people who are there on their free time and want to spend a couple hours on their Saturday together with other people that also care about their fellow working class people. And it was just such a blast,” he said.The geography and public transportation layout of New York’s five boroughs makes it easier to canvas in groups. Zappia said he could feasibly knock on hundreds of doors in a one-block radius there. In Los Angeles, a street could be filled with mostly single-family homes. And with the abundance of Ring doorbell cameras, people can easily decline a visitor from the comfort of their couch.Clayton Ryles, 31, only canvassed for one afternoon in Manhattan’s Chinatown in late October and felt the contrast between Mamdani’s campaign and others. In September last year, Ryles canvassed for Kamala Harris with his fellow United Auto Worker labor organizers in Las Vegas. Knocks on doors yielded intrepid voters who were “upset and suspicious”. Despite many people being pro-union, they felt that their cost of living was too high under Joe Biden.“Nobody was excited about the election. Everybody was like this is being inflicted upon us. We have to decide one way or another. For Zohran, most of the people were enthusiastic about what could happen with his mayoral tenure,” Ryles said.Davarpanah agreed, pointing to the call and response levels of Mamdani’s speech when crowds could clearly repeat phrases such as “fast and free buses” and “universal childcare”.“You can name them. Harris 2024 was not successful in articulating a vision,” she said. “A policy vision that materially impacts your constituents is something every candidate should take to heart. This is what actually inspires people to get involved when they actually see what you’re going to deliver.”View image in fullscreenAcross social media, users have been making posts about how California, and Los Angeles specifically, needs a Mamdani.For Zappia, that means bringing back hope after a tough year that started with the Altadena wildfires and has continued with ICE raids, cutbacks to Snap benefits, and rising inflation, among many other difficulties.“People are just really looking for a sort of sign that things can turn around. In order to actually affect the change that we want to see, we have to first believe that we can actually do it,” he said.“And what happened in New York City is proof that it can be done, it’s proof that organized people can beat organized money.” More

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      A year after devastating Trump loss, have the Democrats begun to find their way back?

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      It has been a year of soul-searching, hand-wringing, and self-flagellation for Democrats after a ballot-box rejection so thorough that some had come to believe that the party had lost not only the White House and Congress but the culture itself.Shell-shocked, Democrats entered Donald Trump’s second term in a political stupor – unsure of who they were or what they stood for. Their base had lost faith in its aging leadership class, and their brand, in Democrats’ own words, had become “toxic”: a party increasingly confined to coastal states, big cities and college towns. And even there, warning signs were flashing.Then came Tuesday night – a coast-to-coast romp in the first major elections of Trump’s turbulent return to the White House that exceeded even the party’s most optimistic projections.“What a night for the Democratic party,” California governor Gavin Newsom marveled, after news networks projected the redistricting ballot measure he spearheaded had passed so decisively that some voters were still in line to cast ballots. “A party that is in its ascendancy,” he continued, “a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels.”Abigail Spanberger, a congresswoman and former CIA agent, stormed to victory in Virginia, becoming the first woman elected governor of the state, an office currently held by a Republican. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, another congresswoman and former Navy pilot, turned what was expected to be a close race into a rout. And in New York, Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, made history by vanquishing the former three-term Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo to become the city’s first Muslim mayor, in a race that drew the highest turnout in decades.“Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger proclaimed in her victory speech, while in New York, Mamdani celebrated “a new era of leadership” and declared that “no longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great”.Their wins did little to resolve the big, existential questions of whether Democrats’ future lay in a full-throated adoption of leftwing populism or a tactical turn to pragmatic centrism. The night offered ammunition for either path, or perhaps both.Yet a year after Kamala Harris’s concession to Trump, Democrats have repeatedly found success not by picking a single ideological lane, but by embracing the forces of disruption that have dominated Trump-era politics. Their victories, while strikingly different in style and approach, point to a party less bound by orthodoxy and old notions of decorum – a recognition that the times have changed, and so must they.“This is not your grandfather’s Democratic party,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the next morning. “We are not going to play with one hand behind our back. We’re not going to roll over. We’re going to meet you, fire with fire.”For much of the past decade, Democrats cast themselves as guardians of the system – defenders of the democratic institutions under siege by a “wrecking ball” former builder who bulldozed his way into the White House and then clawed his way back.After the tumult of Trump’s first term, Democrats turned to Joe Biden, a consensus-builder and institutionalist who once predicted that history would view his adversary “as an aberrant moment in time”. In office, Biden dedicated his presidency to restoring domestic political norms while preserving the liberal international order abroad. But with his legacy now framed by Trump’s re-election, many Democrats have abandoned Biden’s return-to-normalcy appeal, seeing it as ill-suited to the politcal moment.Instead, as Trump moves aggressively to consolidate power and tilt the electoral map in his favor, the party’s instincts have shifted sharply away from caution, yet many progressives felt they had been too slow to adapt. Shortly before the 2024 election, a survey found that the overwhelming majority of voters valued a candidate who could deliver “change that improves people’s lives” rather than one who was committed to preserving institutions.Tensions built earlier this year, when angry Democrats began calling on their leaders in Washington and in state capitols around the country to do something – anything – to stop Trump’s attacks on the federal government, the rule of law and his political opponents. Those fears grew into the No Kings protest movement, which saw an estimated 7 million people in all 50 states take to the streets last month.Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, argued that Tuesday’s wins, following mass days of protest, were proof that a more combative and less deferential politics was the way to defeat Trumpism. “The No Kings era is here to stay,” he wrote.That assertive posture extended to Capitol Hill, where Senate Democrats are refusing to lend the votes needed to reopen the government – now the longest federal shutdown in US history – unless Republicans extend healthcare subsidies: a bare-knuckle approach they had resisted as recently as few months ago.Meanwhile, in the redistricting battles unfolding across the states, party leaders and longtime champions of fair maps including Barack Obama campaigned for California’s retaliatory gerrymander, as Newsom called on other Democratic governors to follow suit.View image in fullscreen“Politics has changed. The world has changed,” Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, told NBC earlier this month. “The rules of the game have changed.”In nearly every election held this year, Democrats improved on their 2024 showing. Exit polls in Virginia and New Jersey show that both governors-elect not only held their base but peeled off Trump voters, while re-engaging young men and Latino voters who defected in 2024. In New York, Mamdani saw enormous youth turnout for his candidacy.“On Tuesday night, we saw a lot of different kinds of Democrats win – and that’s kind of the point,” said Rebecca Katz, a veteran political strategist whose political firm, Fight, worked for Mamdani’s campaign. “To win big, we need a big tent.”Voters, she said, sent a clear message that a back-to-basics formula – a relentless focus on improving affordability and a campaign built around authentic and visible candidates – resonates.Katz, who also advised the successful swing-state Senate campaigns of John Fetterman in 2022 and Ruben Gallego in 2024, argued that the central divide in the party was no longer where a candidate falls on the moderate to liberal spectrum but a choice between boldness and caution: “Playing it safe is the riskiest thing Democrats could do right now.”Winning has given the wounded party a much-needed morale boost. In a fundraising appeal this week, Democrats told supporters to “remember this feeling”. Yet beneath the celebration, the old fault lines – over age, ideology, tactics, and style – still run deep.Several seasoned House Democrats are facing contentious primary challenges, fueled by generational impatience and a desire for the party to take a more combative approach to Trump. Democrats’ prospects in 2026 may hinge on whether progressives and moderates can unite behind a message that addresses both economic anxiety and the fears of Trump’s presidency.In 2028, Democrats say they need a nominee who can articulate a vision beyond their opposition to Trump, the glue that has held together a Bernie Sanders-to-Liz Cheney coalition.Appearing at a live taping of the podcast Pod Save America this week, Obama said it was exhilarating to see progressives “get off the mat”. But, he added, “we’ve got a lot of work to do” and cautioned progressives in the audience against pushing ideological “litmus tests”.“We had Abigail Spanberger win and we had Zohran Mamdani win,” the former president said, “and they are all part of a vision for the future.”Sanders, the progressive Vermont senator who campaigned for Mamdani, told reporters this week that ideological divisions in the party were “no great secret”.But he sensed a party-wide shift: “I think there is a growing understanding that leadership and defending the status quo and the inequalities that exist in America is not where the American people are.”Republicans have sought to downplay Democrats’ string of victories this year. Since 2016, Democrats have tended to perform better when Trump was not on the ballot, their coalition proving more reliable in off-year and special elections.“They say that I wasn’t on the ballot and was the biggest factor,” Trump said this week. “I don’t know about that. But I was honored that they said that.”Historically, the party out of power typically fares well in the midterm elections. But redistricting efforts are expected to tilt the 2026 House map toward Republicans. In the Senate, the task is even more daunting for Democrats, who will have to win in states Trump carried by double digits. While Trump’s plunging popularity has Republicans worried, Americans hold markedly negative views of the Democratic party as well.Still, Democrats see momentum building in parts of the country where they haven’t been competitive for years.This summer, Catelin Drey, a Democrat and first-time candidate, won a special election for a state senate seat in Iowa, breaking the Republican supermajority by flipping a district that backed Trump in the 2024 election. It was a consequential victory and one that gave Democrats a jolt of hope.For weeks after her election, she kept getting the same question: how did she pull it off?“I knocked on thousands of doors,” said Drey, 38, a mother whose campaign centered on affordability, especially the rising cost of childcare. “I had people tell me, ‘I’ve never had a candidate come to my door before,’” she said. “Seeing that kind of work ethic – having someone show up and say, ‘Yeah, life is really tough right now. What’s the hardest thing for you? How can I help? What would make things better?’ That type of attention is not what we’re seeing across the board right now.”Since Harris’s defeat last November, Democrats have produced a glut of election postmortems, polling memos and policy white papers offering theories about why they lost — and how to win again. Drey thinks the answer might be surprisingly simple.“Show up and work for the people you serve,” she said. “It’s not rocket science.” More

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      Who are the contenders for Nancy Pelosi’s long-held San Francisco seat?

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      Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that, after nearly four decades in Congress, she will not seek re-election has reignited interest in the race for her long-held San Francisco seat.The retirement of the former speaker of the House was long-anticipated, and two Democrats had already declared their intent to run. Saikat Chakrabarti, a former tech executive who previously served as the chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Scott Wiener, a state senator, kicked off their campaigns this year.In statements released on Thursday, both candidates praised Pelosi with Wiener describing her as the “greatest speaker in United States history”.“Speaker Emerita Pelosi is more than a legislator – she is an icon of American politics. She led the fight for healthcare and obliterated Trump when he tried to repeal it,” Wiener said, adding that her “finest moments” were fighting for marginalized people, including during the Aids crisis.Chakrabarti said Pelosi “set the standard for Democratic leadership with determination, discipline and tactical brilliance” and that her retirement marked the start of a “long-overdue generational shift”.“Thank you, Speaker Emerita Pelosi, for your decades of service that defined a generation of politics and for doing something truly rare in Washington: making room for the next one,” he said.Still, Chakrabarti is trying to put some daylight between himself the Democratic party grandees.The 39-year-old progressive, who worked for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2016, announced his candidacy in February by arguing that it was time for change and that Democratic leaders were unprepared to handle Trump’s second presidency.Chakrabarti, a software engineer who graduated from Harvard, formally launched his campaign at a rally in San Francisco’s Mission District last month. He recently said in a statement Democrats needed a “new kind of leader who is not a part of the establishment, because the establishment has failed us”. Chakrabarti pledged to back universal healthcare and childcare, ban stock trading for members of Congress and “to stop funding the genocide in Gaza”.Since launching, Chakrabarti’s campaign had built “one of the largest grassroots operations in San Francisco history” with more than 2,000 volunteers, he said.Wiener, 55, is a Harvard-educated attorney and prominent San Francisco Democrat who has served in the state legislature since 2016. He authored a recently passed bill banning federal and state law enforcement from wearing masks and has promoted legislation to address California’s housing crisis and expand climate action.He has long been interested in Pelosi’s seat, but said he would run only if Pelosi decided to step down. In 2023, Wiener formed an exploratory committee that has already raised $1m for a future congressional run.Announcing his candidacy last month, Wiener said “we need more than rhetoric and good intentions from Democrats” and that he was seeking office to stand up to Trump as the president wages a “full-on war against immigrants and LGBTQ people” and the cost of living continues to increase.The San Francisco Chronicle reported there has been speculation that Pelosi’s daughter, Christine, a Democratic strategist, might run, while Connie Chan, a San Francisco supervisor, is also said to be considering running. More

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      Armed US immigration agents drive off with toddler after arrest of father

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      Masked, heavily armed federal immigration agents arrested a US citizen in the parking lot of a Los Angeles Home Depot store, then entered his car and drove away with his toddler, who is also a US citizen, in the backseat.The child’s grandmother said the incident had left the whole family shaken. “I am devastated by what has happened to my son and demand an explanation,” she said at a press conference on Wednesday.The 32-year-old father was picked up during a major enforcement operation at the Home Depot in LA’s Cypress Park neighborhood on Tuesday morning. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), five undocumented immigrants were also arrested.Later that morning, Maria Avalos, the 32-year-old’s mother, got a call from an unidentified number. It was agents with the US Border Patrol, asking her to come pick up her one-year-old granddaughter. “We didn’t know what happened to her while she was in their care, and they wouldn’t give us information about when my son would be released or where he was,” Avalos said at a press conference on Wednesday.Avalos said she still has not been able to speak to her son to find out where he is being held. The incident was captured on video and first reported by the Los Angeles Times.Avalos said she had to wait for hours at an immigration office in downtown Los Angeles to take custody of her granddaughter, and was made to provide a birth certificate. “My granddaughter didn’t even know what was happening. She’s too small. She didn’t know what was happening to her father,” she said.The DHS has alleged that the 32-year-old “exited his vehicle wielding a hammer and threw rocks at law enforcement while he had a child in his car”. The agency did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about why agents drove away with the child rather than wait for another family member to come pick her up from the parking lot.The agency added: “He was arrested for assault and during his arrest a pistol was found in his car, that is reported stolen out of the state of New York. The individual has an active warrant for property damage.”Avalos did not comment on the agency’s accusations, and said that the family is searching for a lawyer to represent her son. She believes he was targeted because of the color of his skin, she said.It frightened her, she added, to later see videos from bystanders who had recorded her son’s arrest. In a video reviewed by the Guardian, bystanders are heard yelling in alarm as multiple heavily armed agents extort the father, and then enter his car and drive away. The agent in the passenger seat is holding a gun in his hands.At one moment, the father drops his weight to the ground, but masked agents pull him up and continue escorting him away from his daughter.“I was sad to see my son throw himself on the floor to stop them from taking his daughter,’ she said. “He was protecting his daughter.” She was also alarmed to see masked agents, who were heavily armed, drive away with her granddaughter. “This is something very, very frightening, because it’s not clear who these people are,” she said.Immigrants’ advocates have raised alarm about the incident, which is one of several cases where agents have arrested parents or guardians in front of their children. This summer, officials in Waltham, Massachusetts confirmed that a 13-year-old was abandoned on the street after an immigration raid. In southern California, a 19-year-old and a minor child were left behind after their father was arrested at a gas station.“Surely there is a better way of enforcing their policies in a way that does not separate families or place tender aged children like this child in questionable circumstances,” said Renee Garcia, the communications director at the legal aid nonprofit ImmDef. “I think that it’s absolutely traumatizing for a child to be placed in that situation.”“This is insane, what we are witnessing in this country,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the communications director of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (Chirla), an advocacy organization. “This should not be happening.”Avalos said she is hoping her son will be able to return home soon. “My son is a good, quiet, hard-working person. He works in the restaurant industry and just got his new job. And his family is everything to him,” she said.“He is the best dad. And his little girl follows him wherever he goes. She is safe now, though. She needs her father. And I need my son back.” More

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      Trump disparages Zohran Mamdani’s victory after Democrats sweep key 2025 elections – live

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      The president continued to undermine the results of New York’s mayoral election. He’s yet to reference the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, by name. But he’s used the historic victory as a way to color the future direction of the Democratic party.“If you want to see what congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday’s election in New York, where their party installed a communist,” Trump said, inciting a series of boos as a result. “Now the Democrats are so extreme that Miami will soon be the refuge for those fleeing communism in New York.”He went on to summarize the situation at large: “The decision facing all Americans could not be more clear – we have a choice between communism and common sense.”Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, held a call with reporters on Wednesday declaring: “Make no mistake, the Democratic Party is back.”“The Democratic Party is all gas, no brakes,” Martin added.“We made it clear we don’t want gilded ballrooms. We want lower health care costs,” he said. “We don’t want marble bathrooms. We want lower energy bills. We don’t want Great Gatsby parties. We want kids to be able to eat dinner every night.”Martin credited the candidates with a relentless focus on affordability issues – from Zohran Mamdani’s freeze the rent in New York City to Mikie Sherrill’s Day 1 state of emergency on utility costs in New Jersey.He also touted the party’s inroads with young people, and particularly young men, a demographic group Democrats have struggled with. It was his hope that the resounding victory on California’s redistricting measure creates a “chilling effect” on Republican states weighing gerrymanders at Trump’s request.“This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party. We will meet you in every single state that you decide to try to steal more seats,” he said.Tuesday’s election results point to voter discontent with Donald Trump, according to a new poll by the Associated Press. The news organization surveyed more than 17,000 voters in states that held elections this week and found most disapproved of Trump’s performance as president.In Virginia and New Jersey, slightly less than half of voters said Trump was a factor in their voting. But the majority of those who did cite the president as a factor said their vote was to oppose him – four in 10 voters. Similar patterns were seen in New York City and California.Republicans mostly said Trump wasn’t a factor in their vote, despite saying they approve of his job performance. In California, only one in 10 voters said they were voting to support Trump.Immigration was a hot-button issue for many voters who said Trump’s aggressive approach had “gone too far”. This was most starkly seen in New York City and California, where about six in 10 voters said their state shouldn’t cooperate with the White House on immigration enforcement.Jared Golden, the Maine Democratic representative, announced today that he won’t seek re-election to Congress in 2025.“I have grown tired of the increasing incivility and plain nastiness that are now common from some elements of our American community – behavior that, too often, our political leaders exhibit themselves,” the congressman wrote in a column for the Bangor Daily News. “Additionally, recent incidents of political violence have made me reassess the frequent threats against me and my family.”Golden said that while he’s confident he would win if he were to run again, “what has become apparent to me is that I now dread the prospect of winning”, also citing the ongoing government shutdown – now the longest on record – as part of his decision. “The nonstop, hyperbolic accusations and recriminations by both sides reveal just how broken Congress has become,” he said.Golden’s decision to step aside in a district that supported both him and Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024 poses a challenge for Democrats. To keep the seat competitive, they’ll need to find a candidate who can connect with rural voters in a state with a strong libertarian streak.My colleagues Andrew Witherspoon and Will Craft have been digging into the data following Tuesday’s mayoral election in New York, looking at the sections of boroughs where Zohran Mamdani performed particularly well.

      The US supreme court appeared skeptical of the legal basis of the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariff regime on Wednesday after justices questioned the president’s authority to impose the levies. The question at the heart of the case is whether the Trump administration’s tariffs violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law which only gives the president authority to “regulate or prohibit international transactions during a national emergency”. Today, even conservative justices sounded doubtful of the strength of the Trump administration’s position. “The vehicle is the imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been a core power of Congress,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. Lawyers for the small businesses challenging the White House said that the president’s actions were unprecedented. “They are tariffing the entire world in peacetime, and they are doing it asserting a power that no president in our history has ever had,” said attorney Neal Katyal.

      As he hosted Republican senators at the White House, Donald Trump offered some initial thoughts on the Democratic victories across the country on election night. “Last night, it was not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas. But I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” the president said. “I’m not sure it was good for anybody.” Later, while speaking at the America Business Forum in Miami, Trump particularly disparaged Zohran Mamdani’s historic win in New York City. “The decision facing all Americans could not be more clear – we have a choice between communism and common sense,” he said, while mispronouncing the new mayor’s name.

      On Capitol Hill, and day 36 of the government shutdown (now the longest on record), Republicans continued to rebuke Democrats for failing to pass a stopgap funding bill. House speaker Mike Johnson also used his daily press conference to both downplay and foreshadow what Tuesday’s election results suggest going forward. “There’s no surprises. What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming,” the speaker said, before stating the importance of maintaining a Republican majority in the midterm elections. “If we lose the majority in the House, and this radical element of the Democrat party were able to take over, we’ve already seen that movie. They will try to end the Trump administration,” Johnson said.

      Meanwhile, Trump had choice words for GOP lawmakers, as he pushed for them to blow up the filibuster. Despite reticence from Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, the president pushed the virtues of abolishing the 60-vote threshold needed to end debate on legislation. His argument largely rests on the grounds that Democrats would do the same, and would use it to advance their own agenda if they were given the opportunity. “We have to get the country going. We will pass legislation at levels you’ve never seen before, and it will be impossible to beat us,” he said. “They’ll [Democrats] most likely never attain power, because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine.”
      Republicans in California on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging a high-stakes redistricting measure that could help flip up to five congressional seats for Democrats.The suit, filed by Republican assembly member David Tangipa, 18 California voters and the state Republican party, in the US district court for the central district of California argues that the new maps are unconstitutional because they were drawn to increase the voting power of a particular racial group. It asks the court to block the new maps from taking effect, at least temporarily.The measure, Proposition 50, was approved by voters on Tuesday evening, in a decisive victory for Democrats. The plan temporarily gives the power to draw congressional districts to the California legislature, allowing it to adopt maps that will help Democrats pick up five seats in the US House of Representatives.Mike Columbo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that California Democrats drew the maps to increase the power of Latino voters.While the supreme court allows states to use race as a factor in drawing political maps, Columbo argued that the intent was to help minority voters elect the candidates of their choice. In California, he noted, Hispanic voters represent the largest ethnic group.“There is no majority race in California more than Hispanics,” Columbo said. “Hispanics have had fantastic success in electing candidates of their choice. Accordingly, California cannot meet this exception.”Democrats have expressed confidence that the maps would withstand a legal challenge.Trump’s address today in Miami is sounding more like a campaign rally, as he responds to the Democratic victories across the country after Tuesday’s election.“Let’s see how a communist does in New York. We’re going to see how that works out. We’ll help them. We want New York to be successful. We’ll help them a little bit,” the president said, after Zohran Mamdani was elected as the city’s youngest, first Muslim mayor.In MiamiThe White House had said Donald Trump’s remarks would be addressing his economic agenda and the trade deals he has signed in recent weeks. But it swiftly became a familiar litany of personal insults against political foes, including Joe Biden, the California governor Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer and Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat elected Tuesday as mayor of New York.In MiamiDonald Trump’s speech started off with a lengthy self-congratulation for winning his second term of office exactly one year ago today.“We rescued the economy … we saved our country,” he insisted, before recounting his pre-election photoshoot with a garbage truck, and serving hamburgers in a McDonald’s restaurant.“This is the golden age of America,” he said, touting a slew of recent trade deals with other nations, and insisting they would net $21tn for the US economy in one year. He claimed to have removed 600,000 Americans from food stamp aid, and that 2 million more were working than when he took office.“Prices are coming down very fast,” he said. “We’re going to have a bigger, better, stronger economy than my first four years.”The president continued to undermine the results of New York’s mayoral election. He’s yet to reference the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, by name. But he’s used the historic victory as a way to color the future direction of the Democratic party.“If you want to see what congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday’s election in New York, where their party installed a communist,” Trump said, inciting a series of boos as a result. “Now the Democrats are so extreme that Miami will soon be the refuge for those fleeing communism in New York.”He went on to summarize the situation at large: “The decision facing all Americans could not be more clear – we have a choice between communism and common sense.”The president took the stage in Miami to deliver remarks at the America Business Forum. He’s offered the greatest hits of many of his usual lines: extolling his 2024 win as the most “consequential election victory in American history”, declaring his second administration as the beginning of a “golden age of America” and baselessly claiming the 2020 election was stolen.He also disparaged the results of the New York mayoral election. “Watch what happens in New York, terrible,” Trump said, not referring to Zohran Mamdani by name. “And I hope it doesn’t happen, but you’re going to see it.”Johnson also said today that he has spoken with the president about how they can shore up support in the midterm 2026 elections. “If we lose the majority in the House, and this radical element of the Democrat party were able to take over, we’ve already seen that movie. They will try to end the Trump administration,” Johnson said. “He won’t have four years. He’ll have only two because they will move to impeach him, probably on the first day of the new Congress in January 2027, and they will try to systematically unwind all the important reforms that we’ve done for the American people.”The House speaker also said that Trump is “going to help” as campaign season kicks off. “He’s offered to do rallies and the tele-town halls and all the thing – he’s sent out a huge round of endorsements of incumbents,” he added.Earlier today, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, held his daily press conference on the steps of the US Capitol, declaring that Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York is “the biggest win for socialism in US history and the biggest loss for the American people”.Johnson added: “Working families watching this play out have a right to know that socialism and communism are not just confined in New York City, they are quickly coming to a town near you.”However, he urged those watching to not “read too much” into last night’s results. “There’s no surprises. What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming,” the speaker said.In response the sweep of Democratic victories on Tuesday, the vice-president took to social media to offer his analysis, noting that “it’s idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states”, but laying out his thoughts regardless.“We need to focus on the home front. The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vance wrote.He added that “infighting” among Republicans “is stupid”.“I care about immigration and our sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home. If you care about those things too, let’s work together,” he said.On the subject of Mamdani, this time last year no one had really heard of him. Now he is the first Muslim, millennial and mayor of South Asian heritage of America’s largest city. For this week’s episode of Politics America Weekly, Jonathan Freedland speaks to reporter Ed Pilkington about Mamdani’s historic win, his challenge to the president, and what the Democrats should take away from a successful night at the ballot box. You can listen here:I talked with leftwing commentator Hasan Piker on the phone earlier today, fresh off a night of celebrating Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York.Mamdani’s message can be replicated around the country, Piker said, despite the contention from some that the democratic socialist’s platform would be too radical for other parts of the country.“This is probably the 700th time saying this, and not just about Zohran in general, not even just last night. This is the message of my entire political advocacy. This is the message of my entire political career as a commentator, as someone who works with organizers and activists,” Piker said.“Yes, Zohran’s message is universal. It is applicable, and I think as long as you localize it to address the ailments that people feel, the issues that people feel in whatever locality, in whatever state that you are running for, as long as you center working-class struggles and affordability at the heart of your campaign, you will definitely win.”After a brief rebuttal from Sauer and more than two and a half hours of arguments, Roberts announces, “The case is submitted,” and the hearing concludes.The next step is a private conference at which the justices will take a preliminary vote on the outcome. More

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      What does Prop 50’s passage mean for California, Gavin Newsom and the US?

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      Californians overwhelmingly backed Proposition 50, the crucial redistricting measure that Democrats have said is essential to safeguarding democracy and pushing back against the Trump administration.“We stood firm in response to Donald Trump’s recklessness, and tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared with unprecedented turnout in a special election with an extraordinary result,” Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday after the ballot measure passed.The effort was a direct attempt to counteract Texas’s partisan gerrymander, undertaken at Trump’s behest, to create several new safely Republican districts. Under Prop 50, California will halt the work of its independent redistricting commission until after 2030 and allow the legislature to redraw congressional districts to carve out five additional Democratic seats.The new map is expected to oust longtime Republican officials, and have significant effects on the 2026 midterms.How did the state vote?As of Wednesday morning, results showed that some 63.8% of voters approved the proposition with just 36.2% voting against the measure in what the Associated Press described as a “swift and decisive victory”. More than 8 million people voted in Tuesday’s election and the measure won the majority of votes along much of the coast and in southern California. It was largely unpopular in the northern and inland regions that will be most affected by redistricting.Who is at risk of losing their seat?These Republicans are at risk under California’s new congressional map: Darrell Issa, whose district covers east San Diego county; Doug LaMalfa, who has represented a large swath of rural northern California for more than a decade; Ken Calvert, a Riverside county representative who has served in the US House since 1993; David Valadao, who represents the southern San Joaquin valley; and Kevin Kiley, the representative for much of eastern California. Kiley introduced a bill to ban mid-decade redistricting nationwide, but his proposal did not advance.After the measure passed, Republicans in California sued over Prop 50, and asked the court to block the new maps from taking effect. An attorney representing the plaintiffs – which include Republican state lawmaker David Tangipa, 18 California voters and the state’s Republican party – said that Democrats drew congressional boundaries to increase the voting power of Latinos. The new congressional districts will leave racial representation almost unchanged, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California.How will Prop 50’s passage affect the midterms?The measure is expected to have a major effect on the outcome of the 2026 midterms. Past elections have shown that the president’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections, and Democrats argued Prop 50 will help ensure Republicans do not retain full control of the federal government.“The passage of this new map – which is designed to protect a slew of vulnerable Democrats and will cost Republicans three to five seats in 2026 – is the most consequential development to date in the mid-decade redistricting wars due to the sheer number of seats that it impacts,” Erin Covey, with the Cook Political Report, said in a statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The outcome of these races in California could ultimately determine which party wins control of the House next November.”What does this mean for Gavin Newsom?The decisive victory of Prop 50 is a major win for the proposal’s biggest champion, Gavin Newsom. The California governor has been one of Trump’s most high-profile opponents and helped rally massive support for the proposal. Newsom is widely expected to seek the White House in 2028 and the win has further raised his profile nationally and elevated his status as a Democratic leader.Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic consultant who leads the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, told the Guardian this week that Newsom had gambled on Prop 50 and it appeared it would pay off.“But more than that is the fact that he fought back – that he dared to do this, that people said it was dangerous for him, and he forged ahead with it anyway.” More