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      David DePape found guilty in hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband

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      David DePape, the rightwing conspiracy theorist who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their San Francisco home, has been convicted of attempted kidnapping and assault.The federal jury’s decision on Thursday comes after a dramatic trial in which Paul Pelosi testified about the “traumatic” hammer attack he suffered on 28 October 2022, days before the midterm elections. DePape also took the stand in his defense, saying he had planned to interrogate the former House speaker and post footage of her online.The jury deliberated for about eight hours before finding DePape guilty of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official. DePape, who faces up to 50 years in prison, did not react as the verdict was read in court.Defense attorneys for DePape argued that he was caught up in conspiracy theories that influenced him to commit the crimes. DePape admitted in his own testimony during the trial that he broke into the Pelosis’ house with a plan to hold the former House speaker hostage, and that he bludgeoned Paul Pelosi with a hammer after police officers showed up at the home.DePape, 43, echoed rightwing conspiracy theories and told jurors he had planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and record his interrogation of Nancy Pelosi to upload to the internet. Prosecutors say he had rope and zip ties with him. Detectives also found body cameras, a computer and a tablet.A sentencing date has not yet been set.At a news conference outside the federal courthouse where the verdict was read, the US attorney Ismail Ramsey told reporters: “People can believe what they want and engage in passionate debate. But this guilty verdict on all counts sends a clear message that regardless of what your beliefs are, what you cannot do is physically attack a member of Congress or their immediate family for the performance of their job.”Prosecutors said that at the start of the attack at around 2am, DePape smashed through a door in the back of the Pelosis’ house and encountered Paul Pelosi, then 82. He had been sleeping. DePape allegedly said: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” as he stood over Paul Pelosi with zip ties and a hammer in his hands. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington DC during the break-in.Paul Pelosi managed to call police, and when two officers arrived, the officers saw DePape hit the speaker’s husband in the head, which knocked him unconscious. Paul Pelosi was hospitalized with a skull fracture and injuries to his hands and arm. Part of the incident was captured on body-camera footage of police, and an FBI agent testified that the video indicated DePape hit him at least three times.“It was a tremendous shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Paul Pelosi recounted to jurors.More than a year after the attack, Paul Pelosi said he still hadn’t fully recovered. A neurosurgeon who operated on him testified that Pelosi had two wounds on his head, including a fracture to his skull that had to be mended with plates and screws he will have for the rest of his life. Pelosi also needed stitches on injuries to his right arm and hand, the surgeon said.DePape has a documented history of promoting conspiracy theories and far-right messages. On Facebook, he shared videos that falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and misinformation about the January 6 insurrection.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn court, DePape cried when he talked about his political beliefs, explaining how he came to support baseless narratives that a cabal of pedophiles were behind the US government. He also said he had wanted to talk to Nancy Pelosi about the 2016 election, and that he intended to question her while wearing an inflatable unicorn costume.“He was never my target and I’m sorry that he got hurt,” DePape said of Paul Pelosi.DePape and his attorneys did not deny he committed the attack. His lawyer, Jodi Linker, argued that he was not targeting Nancy Pelosi as retaliation for her official duties, but rather due to the conspiracy theories he believed “with every ounce of his body”. In opening remarks, she said he was trying to stop the abuse of children and corruption: “This is not a whodunnit. But what the government fails to acknowledge is the ‘whydunnit’ – and the ‘why’ matters in this case.”DePape is facing separate charges in state court, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, residential burglary and elderly abuse. He faces a potential life sentence in the state case and has pleaded not guilty, but that trial has not been set.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      The California county where far-right officials tried to upend voting

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      The Shasta county elections office was prepared for a night unlike any other. On the evening of this November’s special election, sheriff’s deputies stood inside as workers processed ballots that would decide a school board race and the fate of a proposed fire department.Security guards were stationed outside the building in Redding, the county seat, while across Shasta, observers from the California secretary of state’s office had come to ensure the election ran smoothly.Before 2020, a special election in the small northern California county of 180,000 would never have attracted this level of attention – or concern. But this rural region has risen to national prominence for its far-right politics, particularly after local officials, driven by lies about election fraud, opted to throw out Dominion voting machines and order the creation of a hand-count system.State lawmakers, a majority of whom are Democrats, thwarted those plans with the passage of a bill in October preventing counties from using manual tallies in most elections. But in the days leading up to the election, the chair of the Shasta board of supervisors insisted the county would use that system anyway.The tensions around the election fueled fears of political unrest, and confusion about how 7 November would unfold. Cathy Darling Allen, the county’s registrar of voters who had said repeatedly that her office would follow the law, didn’t know what the day would bring. One of the only Democratic officials in the area, she was starkly opposed to a hand count and had been at odds with the board for months.“Given the political rhetoric in our community over the last six months, I just didn’t know what to expect. We tried to prepare for as many contingencies as we could,” Allen said. “Ten years ago I never thought I’d have to strategize how to protect my staff.”Allen has been subjected to harassment, she said, and routinely maligned by the board of supervisors as the far-right movement cemented its power in local politics. In recent years, politically moderate public officials have faced bullying, intimidation and threats.Her department had been readying itself for the election all year, since the ultra-conservative majority upended the county voting system without a replacement and instructed Allen to create an entirely new hand-count method.Hand counts are favored by election deniers as a “fix” to enhance “election integrity” based on the lie that the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump. But research has shown that hand-counting is time-consuming and less accurate than machine tabulation in the US. (Some other countries also count ballots by hand for elections with no major problems.)Allen and her office are responsible for administering elections in the county and following federal, state and county regulations. The board of supervisors doesn’t have direct authority over Allen, but craft local laws – meaning she was required to find a way to comply with the board’s decision and implement the new system.Allen repeatedly warned that such a system is “exceptionally complex and error-prone” and would come at far greater cost to the county while endangering the office’s ability to report results in a timely manner. Most supervisors ignored those concerns, and the county won support from prominent figures in the election-denial movement who pledged to back their efforts.“We are being used as a guinea pig by these people,” Mary Rickert, one of two county supervisors who voted against the hand count, said to the Guardian earlier this year.The move put more pressure on Allen’s office, which had already faced what she described as aggression and harassment in the aftermath of the 2020 election from residents who believe widespread fraud is taking place in US elections. In 2022, rowdy observers in Shasta interfered with election processing, arguing that they were trying to prevent fraud on the part of Allen and her staff, she said in a statement to the US Senate judiciary committee. Someone placed a camera in a tree to surveil the alley behind the office.When the board moved ahead with the new voting system this year, Allen and her team were obligated to figure out how to institute a manual tally in time for the special election in November. Staff worked thousands of hours over several months to create processes and procedures that comply with the regulations and held mock elections.All the while, AB969, which in effect bans manual tallies in most cases and specifically targeted Shasta county, was working its way through California’s statehouse.In early October, Newsom signed the bill into law. Still, the following day, the elections office in Shasta county continued with plans for an open house to show voters the work they had put into the manual tally system. Staff highlighted the time and attention required to tabulate ballots in that manner in an effort to educate voters.It took a team of four roughly 90 minutes to count 25 ballots. (In 2020, 94,084 ballots were cast in the county, which has 112,000 registered voters.) Still, staff walked residents through procedures, while fielding repeated questions from election skeptics about what they described as discrepancies in past county elections.Allen confirmed after the bill’s passage that Shasta county would not use a full manual tally and that votes would be tabulated by machine as required by law.Far-right supervisors were undeterred. Patrick Jones, the board chair, insisted that the law did not apply to Shasta. When the state made clear that it did, he argued it was government overreach and said the county would sue.Non-partisan voting-rights organizations expressed “grave concerns” and requested in-person monitoring of elections from the secretary of state’s office as well as support for Allen if she encountered interference. Shirley Weber, California’s top voting official, warned Shasta to comply with the law.“Failing that, my office stands ready to take any actions necessary to ensure that Shasta county conducts all elections in accordance with state law,” she said.On election day, Jones repeated falsehoods about “cheating” in elections in an interview with One America News Network, arguing that there was outside interference in his own election despite the fact that he was voted into office.“Elections have been manipulated at the county level for decades and it must stop and this may be the case to do it,” he said.Meanwhile, fears mounted. “What do you think the chances are that there will be violence on the streets of Redding this election season?” a resident asked in a local community group.In the days before the election, the Shasta county elections office put a 7ft-tall metal gate in place to secure voting system equipment. It had already had additional cameras installed. The elections office saw tense interactions as residents concerned about so-called “election integrity” visited the facility on Monday and Tuesday, acting as observers.On Monday evening, one such resident contacted law enforcement to report Allen.“Instead of going home to my family to prepare for the election the next day, I was talking to a Redding police officer,” she said. “This is what we’re spending our tax dollars doing.’”Another resident confronted Allen on election night with a list of complaints and questions.Despite the unease, the election went well, Allen said. Voters cast their ballots without issue. Elections staff were able to carry on with ballot processing unimpeded.Many residents in the county have expressed their support to the office, sending cards that line Allen’s office.But she worries about her ability to retain staff – a problem offices are seeing across the country amid growing threats. One in five election workers have said they are unlikely to remain in their positions through the 2024 election, according to a 2022 survey conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice.Last week letters containing fentanyl were sent to election offices in Georgia, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington state.Workers were not compensated at the level they should be to withstand the negativity they are subjected to, she said.“This is a pattern we’re seeing election to election,” she said.Some people have come to believe dangerous and untrue information about elections, and won’t believe anything election workers tell them, she added.“Facts and data don’t seem to have any material effect on their very strongly held beliefs that if they just ask the right question or find the right staff person to harass enough, they will ‘uncover the fraud’,” she said. More

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      Newsom 2024: could the California governor be a rival to Joe Biden?

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      One of the strongest candidates for US president in 2024 may be one who’s not yet in the race. There’s growing evidence that Gavin Newsom, the charismatic and energetic Democratic governor of California, is running something of a shadow campaign to Joe Biden and ready to step up if, or when, the incumbent is out of the running.Several developments in recent days suggest Newsom, who romped to re-election a year ago without really campaigning, is ready to bring forward what was already expected to be a strong run for the presidency in 2028.There are mounting concerns inside the Democratic party, matching polling among voters, that Biden is too old for a second term, the start of which in January 2025 would see him two months past his 82nd birthday if re-elected. Some want him to stand down.Newsom, 56, is among a generation of younger, prominent and popular Democrats expected to emerge from the shadow of the old guard, and has stolen a march on his peers with a series of bold moves many analysts see as strategic.Even movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a Republican former two-term governor of California, thinks a Newsom run at the White House is inevitable.“I think it’s a no-brainer. Every governor from a big state wants to take that shot,” Schwarzenegger said earlier this year.But not all Democrats appear thrilled at the prospect. Pennsylvania US senator John Fetterman, at a dinner in Iowa, connected Newsom with Dean Philips, a congressman who said he is challenging Biden.“[There are two] running for president right now,” he said. “One is a congressman from Minnesota, the other is the governor of California, but only one has the guts to announce it.”This week, Newsom made a financial donation to a Democratic mayoral candidate in Charleston, South Carolina, 2,800 miles from his governor’s mansion in Sacramento. Reaching into political elections in other states is, experts say, a sure sign of a potential presidential candidate wishing to raise their profile on the national stage.“South Carolina is an early state in the primary process for Democrats, and doing well in the early states is seen as momentum for later ones,” said Eric Schickler, professor of political science at University of California, Berkeley, and co-director of its institute of governmental studies.“In fact, Biden’s win in South Carolina is really what propelled him to the top 2020, so building connections to important politicians in the state can certainly be seen by potential candidates as an important step.”Newsom has publicly denied that he has sights on Biden’s job.“I’m rooting for our president and I have great confidence in his leadership,” he told Fox News earlier this year.But while Schickler believes Newsom’s own thinking about the timing of any White House run probably hasn’t changed, he says circumstances have.“The Democratic party’s nervousness about Biden has certainly increased, and with him polling behind Donald Trump in many states, his low approval ratings, young voters being especially disenchanted with Biden, all of that has heightened interest among a lot of party supporters in an alternative,” he said.That alternative might not be Kamala Harris, who as vice-president would usually be assumed Biden’s heir apparent. Her public approval is currently as low as the president’s.So a rising, often progressive-leaning politician such as Newsom, with a wealth of executive and legislative experience, and a willingness to counter head-on Republican policies and personalities, makes for an attractive proposition.“It’s not a situation where there’s like 20, or 50, or 100 Democratic leaders who could be viewed as legitimate. If there were such a group, Newsom has positioned himself pretty well and would be on a very short list along with [Michigan governor] Gretchen Whitmer and a couple others,” Schickler said.“The problem is the party. There’s just a lot of different voices, a lot of different constituencies, and not really anybody or any group that could authoritatively say, ‘Oh, it’s Newsom’.“[But] he would certainly be one of the most serious people. The things he’s doing now, it helps him for 2028, which still is the most likely scenario, and certainly doesn’t eliminate him if something crazy or unexpected were to happen in the next six months.”Other not so subtle clues that Newsom has sights on higher office include his $10m (£8.2m) investment earlier this year in a new political action committee designed to spread the Democratic party’s message in Republican-held states he said have “authoritarian leaders directly attacking our freedoms”.Among the targets is Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor and faltering candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The pair will debate each other on 30 November in a highly anticipated nationally televised event once billed as a clash of two leading White House contenders.“The idea of debating DeSantis was probably a lot more appealing when it really did look like he might actually defeat Trump. In that scenario, showing you can debate him and score a lot of points helps Newsom’s visibility with the party and makes his case that he would be an effective candidate,” Shickler said.“With DeSantis not doing so well, the upside for Newson is less, but there are still Democrats who would be happy to see him debate and defeat him. He only stands to benefit, it’s just the benefit will be smaller.” More

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      Controversial police-led recall vote wins key ruling in California

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      A California state judge dismissed efforts this past week to halt a recall vote led by a local police union who are attempting to oust a progressive city council member.The union, which is upset that the politician voted against officers’ pay raises, has so far spent more than $660,000 on the vote to recall Santa Ana council member Jessie Lopez, with voting happening 14 November.In California, only 10% of signatures from registered voters in jurisdictions with 100,000 or more voters is required for a recall petition to be approved, giving such measures a much higher chance to succeed than in many other parts of the US – which is why the state has seen recall efforts against its governor, Gavin Newsom; the San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin; and the Alameda county district attorney Pamela Price (Newsom remained governor, Boudin was ousted and the effort against Price is ongoing).The city of Santa Ana in southern California – adjacent to Anaheim, home of Disneyland – has a population of more than 300,000, divided into six wards.The recall petition began after Lopez voted against the police union’s demands for pay raises in December 2022. Property and landlord groups have also backed the recall effort in response to Lopez’s support for a 2021 rent-control law. Notable support came in the form of a recent $100,000 donation from the National Association of Realtors Fund.If Lopez loses the recall, she’s out of office and can’t run in a special election to find a replacement for the remainder of her term.The judge’s decision to allow the recall to continue was in response to a request for a temporary order to halt the vote, which was filed by a resident who voted for Lopez in 2020 but would not be eligible to vote in the recall vote because she doesn’t live in the ward’s current boundaries.“This recall effort is corrupt and will cost Santa Ana taxpayers $1.2m if the special interests get their way,” Jessie Lopez said on her campaign website against the recall.Lopez’s website alleges that the recall effort utilized canvassers who were paid per voter signature, and it characterized the recall as an effort by the Santa Ana police association president Gerry Serrano to flip control of the city council in his favor.This prompted the Orange county registrar’s office to rescind its certification of the recall petition signatures. But the Santa Ana city council deadlocked in a 3-3 vote, with Lopez abstaining, on whether to take action to halt the recall.The judge said the court would revisit the signature issue after the recall vote in January 2024.Lopez has received support from local labor unions, including the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 (UFCW), Unite Here Local 11, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), the National Union of Healthcare Workers, Painters and Allied Trades District Council 36, the Orange county Democratic party, the Working Families Party and congresswoman Katie Porter.UFCW Local 324 has noted Lopez helped Santa Ana residents win hazard pay during the Covid-19 pandemic and led efforts on rent control as well as cannabis tax reform legislation.The Orange County Register newspaper’s editorial board wrote in opposition to the recall, saying: “We certainly have our differences with her on policy. But this recall really is about the lock-grip on power in the city of the Santa Ana police officers association. The police union and its allies have offered a litany of tangential reasons for the recall, but there’s no reason to pretend this is anything other than a power grab.”In 2020, the Santa Ana police association also backed the successful recall of city council member Ceci Iglesias after she voted against police pay raises. The police union also attempted to trigger a recall vote of city council member Thai Viet Phan but did not gather enough signatures by the 7 August deadline. More

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      Man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi absorbed conspiracy theories, trial hears

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      The trial of a man accused of breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoning her husband with a hammer has begun, with a defense attorney arguing that her client, David DePape, was caught up in conspiracy theories.Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was attacked by DePape in the early hours of 28 October last year and hospitalized with a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands. The encounter, which was captured by police body-cam footage, sent shockwaves through the political world just days before last year’s midterm elections.“There’s too much violence … political violence. Too much hatred, too much vitriol,” Joe Biden said shortly after the attack. “Enough is enough is enough.”The defense attorney Jodi Linker said on Thursday in opening statements in court in San Francisco that she would not dispute that DePape attacked the former House speaker’s husband. Instead, she will argue that DePape believed “with every ounce of his body” he was taking action to stop corruption and the abuse of children by politicians and actors.“This is not a whodunit. But what the government fails to acknowledge is the ‘whydunit’ – and the ‘why’ matters in this case,” Linker said.DePape pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties. Paul Pelosi is expected to testify next week.The federal prosecutor Laura Vartain Horn told the jurors that DePape started planning the attack in August, and that the evidence and FBI testimony will show he researched his targets online, collecting phone numbers and addresses, even paying for a public records service to find information about Nancy Pelosi and others.During her opening statement, Vartain Horn showed a photo of Paul Pelosi lying in a pool of blood. She also played a call DePape made to a television station repeating conspiracy theories.“The evidence in this case is going show that when the defendant used this hammer to break into the Pelosi’s home he intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi,” Vartain Horn said, holding a hammer inside a plastic evidence bag.DePape is known to have a history of spreading far-right conspiracy theories, posting rants on a blog and an online forum about aliens, communists, religious minorities and global elites. He questioned the results of the 2020 election and echoed the baseless rightwing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims the US government is run by a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles. The websites were taken down shortly after his arrest.If convicted, DePape faces life in prison. He was also charged in state court with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. He pleaded not guilty to those charges. A state trial has not been scheduled.In the courtroom on Thursday were Christine Pelosi, one of the Pelosis’ daughters, as well as Gypsy Taub, DePape’s ex-girlfriend, and Taub and DePape’s two teenage sons. Taub called DePape’s name softly and blew a kiss, and he smiled and waved in return.A Canadian citizen, DePape moved to the United States more than 20 years ago after falling in love with Taub, a Berkeley pro-nudity activist well-known in the Bay Area, his stepfather, Gene DePape said. In recent years, David DePape had been homeless and struggling with drug abuse and mental illness, Taub told local media.Federal prosecutors say DePape smashed his shoulder through a glass panel on a door in the back of the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights mansion and confronted a sleeping Paul Pelosi, who was wearing boxer shorts and a pajama top.“Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” DePape asked, standing over Paul Pelosi at about 2am holding a hammer and zip ties, according to court records. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members.Paul Pelosi called 911 and two police officers showed up and witnessed DePape strike Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, knocking him unconscious, court records showed.After his arrest, DePape, 43, allegedly told a San Francisco detective he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. He said that if she told him the truth, he would let her go, and if she lied, he was going to “break her kneecaps” to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions”, according to prosecutors.DePape, who lived in a garage in the Bay Area city of Richmond and had been doing odd carpentry jobs to support himself, allegedly told authorities he had other targets, including a women’s and queer studies professor, the California governor Gavin Newsom, the actor Tom Hanks and Joe Biden’s son Hunter. More

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      View on Israel-Gaza emerges as rare divide for California’s Senate hopefuls

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      As three leading California Democrats vie for a rare opening in the Senate, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has exposed rare fault lines in the candidates’ otherwise aligned platforms.Following Hamas’s attack on Israel last month, all three leading candidates in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat – representatives Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter – condemned the group’s actions. But as Israel ramped up its attacks on Gaza in retaliation, their divergent approaches to foreign policy became clear.The fissures between the candidates are a reflection of debates within the broader Democratic party. But in California’s open primary, where voters will choose between leading Democratic candidates with nearly identical platforms, the issue could be a deciding factor for some voters.“These candidates have regularly identified themselves as progressive candidates on a host of domestic policy issues – you can hardly tell the difference between them,” said Sara Sadhwani, a professor of American politics at Pomona College. But when it comes to Israel and Gaza, “from the get-go, we began to see some of these real distinctions”.Lee, who was the sole member of Congress to vote against the authorization for the use of military force after 9/11 that gave the president broad power to wage war, has maintained her position as an unwavering anti-war progressive. She is the only leading candidate to have called for a ceasefire.“I absolutely condemn all violence against civilians – including the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas. Nothing is more valuable than human life,” she told the Guardian in an emailed statement. “And the surest way to mitigate the suffering in both Israel and Palestine is through a ceasefire.”Lee said the US “must lead the way forward” by supporting humanitarian and reconstruction aid, including food, medicine and water, to the region.On X, she posted: “There is one peace and diplomacy candidate in this race. I am proud to carry that mantle – even if I carry it alone.”Schiff has emphasized that “there are no both sides to the attack” by Hamas. “Israel has a right to defend itself, and the US must do all it can to assist Israel as it protects its citizens and takes all necessary steps to recover the hostages taken,” he said after the group staged its offensive last month. “Hamas is a terrorist group mass-murdering hundreds of innocent Israelis and taking women and children hostage.”Schiff has rejected calling for a ceasefire, a position in line with that of the Biden White House.In a statement on Thursday addressing his vote on a Republican-led House bill providing aid to Israel, he advocated for humanitarian pauses in the fighting, while noting the US should ensure that “Israel has the material support it needs to replenish its defenses, not only against Hamas, but against Islamic jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and their Iranian sponsors, all of whom are endangering the lives of Israelis and threatening to widen the war”.Among several reasons for opposing the bill was its exclusion of humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians who need food and medical aid, said his communications director Marisol Samayoa.Schiff, who is Jewish, said at a candidate debate in Los Angeles last month that he was proud to have the support of both the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), an influential pro-Israel lobbying group that has backed election deniers and far-right Republicans, and J Street, a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group.“I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli people,” he said.At the candidate forum, Katie Porter offered a hawkish take that at times appeared to clash with her progressive domestic policy: “There are lost lives in Gaza and Israel and it is because the United States has allowed terrorism to flourish and has refused to take a strong enough stance against Iran who is backing Hamas and Hezbollah,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Orange county Democrat has pushed for stronger action against Iran in the past. Her district has one of the largest concentrations of Iranian Americans and one of her key policy tenets is “fighting for the accountability and change that the Iranian people deserve”.At the same forum – in line with mainstream Democrats – she also said that Israel, in taking action against Hamas, should be mindful not to violate human rights laws. “There is no exception for human rights,” she said.Porter did not respond to a request for further comment.Sadhwani, the Pomona College professor, said younger voters especially, who tend to more strongly empathise with Palestinians under occupation and oppose US military aid to Israel, could be swayed to Lee, for instance, and away from Schiff or Porter. Lee’s vocal support for a ceasefire and aid to Palestine could also sway Arab American voters, who might feel let down by Joe Biden and the broader Democratic party’s support for Israel amid its strikes on Gaza.Schiff’s stance cost him the endorsement of the Burbank mayor, Konstantine Anthony. “Until my congressman joins this peace movement, I can no longer, in good conscience, maintain my endorsement of his candidacy for the United States Senate,” said the progressive mayor, whose city is encompassed in Schiff’s southern California district.But Schiff’s relatively moderate views and hawkish foreign policy – including advocating for Congress to authorise the use of force against the Islamic State, has long drawn criticism from California progressives.In a statewide race where a Senate candidate will also need to pick up moderate and conservative voters, Schiff’s record could be a strength, said Sadhwani.“Who knows where we’ll be, by the time the primary rolls around next year,” she said. “But to the extent that this issue remains at the top of voters’ minds, it could certainly play an important role in their choice of senator.” More

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      The California town that could hold the key to control of the House in 2024

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      When customers come in for a cut and a conversation at Miguel Navarro’s barbershop, there’s one topic they raise more than any other: gas prices.A gallon of regular goes for about $5 in Delano, a farming town in California’s Central Valley where in 1965, grape pickers staged a historic strike over bad pay and working conditions that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, led by Cesar Chavez. Today, everyone in the city who can afford to do so drives, which means feeling the pain of California’s pump prices, the highest in the nation.“You kind of think about it twice before you go out,” said Navarro as he cut a customer’s hair in his eponymous barbershop on Delano’s Main Street. His shop sits among a strip of tax preparers, taquerias and leather goods stores, in an area that also happens to be some of the most fiercely contested political territory in the nation.The city of nearly 51,000 is in the middle of a California congressional district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, Joe Biden won overwhelming support in 2020, but despite its apparent blue lean, voters have repeatedly sent the Republican David Valadao to be their voice in the House of Representatives over the past decade.Next year, Democrats hope to change that as part of their campaign to seize back control of Congress’s lower chamber, which hinges on flipping 18 districts won by Biden in 2020 that are represented by Republicans like Valadao, a dairy farmer who is one of just two Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump and managed to keep their seats.That battle, which will play out alongside Biden’s re-election campaign and Senate Democrats’ defense of their small majority in the chamber, may well be the easiest for the party to win in 2024.Though the numbers appear to favor Democrats in California’s 22nd congressional district, several hurdles stand between the party and victory. Nearly a year and a month before the general election, the down-ballot races that are crucial to deciding the balance of power in Washington DC are far from the minds of many in Delano.“People here are just living day by day, and if you do not remind them about elections, they might not remember,” said Susana Ortiz, an undocumented grape picker who lives in Delano and has campaigned for Rudy Salas, Valadao’s unsuccessful Democratic opponent in last year’s election.Democrats must gain five seats to win a majority in the House, and Valadao’s district – encompassing dozens of farming communities and half of Bakersfield, California’s ninth most-populous city – is one of 33 targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2024.Beyond campaigning, Democrats are expected to benefit from a supreme court decision that has forced Alabama, and potentially Louisiana, to redraw its congressional map. The party also has a good shot of gaining a seat in New York City’s Long Island suburbs, where voters are reeling after discovering their Republican congressman George Santos is a fabulist who is now facing federal charges.The GOP has its own redistricting advantages, particularly in North Carolina, where new congressional maps could knock at least three Democrats out of their seats. The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting Democratic lawmakers in 37 seats, five of whom represent districts that voted for Trump three years ago.“I think the House is going to come down to redistricting fights, candidate recruitment and, probably, most importantly, the top of the ticket and what that does to down-ballot races,” said David Wasserman, an election analyst who focuses on the chamber at the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.No race has a dynamic quite like the contest to unseat Valadao, whose spokesperson declined to comment. The 46-year-old won election to the California state assembly in 2010, and then to the US House two years later. Valadao defeated successive Democratic challengers in the years that followed, until TJ Cox ousted him in a close election in 2018, a historically good year for the party.Valadao triumphed over Cox two years later. The January 6 attack on the Capitol occurred just as he was to take his seat in the House, and a week after that, Valadao joined nine other Republicans and all Democrats to vote for impeaching Trump.“Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump. His inciting rhetoric was un-American, abhorrent and absolutely an impeachable offense,” Valadao said at the time. The decision ignited a firestorm among Republicans in his Central Valley district.“It was ugly, man. I mean, it was really, really, really ugly,” said James Henderson, a former GOP party chair in Tulare, one of the three counties that make up Valadao’s district. Donors threatened to withhold their funds, but Henderson said arguments that Valadao was uniquely able to hold the vulnerable seat, and crucial to representing the county’s agriculture interests, prevailed.“The alternative is, if you lose this seat, you lose this seat forever,” Henderson said. It was nonetheless close: styling himself as a Trump-aligned conservative, Chris Mathys, a former city councilman in the Central Valley city of Fresno, challenged Valadao in the primary, and came within 1,220 votes of beating him.Mathys was assisted by the House Majority Pac, which was linked to the then Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi and spent $127,000 on television advertisements boosting his candidacy and attacking Valadao, according to the analytic firm AdImpact.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt was one of many instances across the country in which Democratic groups channeled dollars to rightwing Republicans in their primaries, betting that they would be easier to defeat in the general election. Valadao would go on to triumph over state assemblyman Salas, and make an unlikely return to the House.Valadao’s re-election fight is shaping up to be a repeat of what he faced the year prior. Mathys is running again, and has once more put Valadao’s vote against the former president at the center of his campaign. Trump is the current frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, and California Republicans will vote in primaries for both races on the same ballot.“The big issue, clearly, is the impeachment issue. It looms very large. People remember like it was yesterday,” Mathys told the Guardian in an interview. “With President Trump being on the ballot, it’s going to even resonate stronger, because he’ll be on the same ballot that we’re on.”CJ Warnke, the communications director for the House Majority Pac, said the committee would “do whatever it takes” to defeat Valadao and Mathys, but did not say whether that would include another round of television advertisements supporting the latter.Salas is also challenging Valadao again, and another Democrat, the state senator Melissa Hurtado, is in the primary. Salas believes that next year will be when Valadao falls, due to the presidential election driving up turnout in the majority Latino district.“The fight is making sure that people actually get out to the polls, vote, or that they turn in their vote-by-mail ballots,” Salas said in an interview. “That’s what we fell victim to last year and something that we’re hoping to get correct going into 2024.”Then there is the ongoing mess in the House, which could have direct effects on Valadao. He’s referred to Kevin McCarthy, who represents a neighboring district, as a “friend”, and opposed removing him as speaker. Valadao three times voted to elect the Republican Jim Jordan as his replacement, unsuccessfully, but also supports giving the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, the job’s full powers.Jordan is a rightwing firebrand, and an advocate of Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Wasserman said Valadao’s support for him could undercut the reputation he has built for himself as an “independent-minded farmer”, while the downfall of his ally McCarthy may affect Valadao’s ability to benefit from his fundraising.Delano has a reputation as a pivotal community in Valadao’s district, and winning over its voters may come down to money and messaging.A member of the UFW, Ortiz has for several years campaigned for Salas in the spare time she has when she’s not picking grapes for minimum wage. She knocks on doors in Delano’s sprawling neighborhoods, believing Salas is the kind of politician who can bring solutions for undocumented people like herself: she has not seen her father in Mexico since leaving the country 18 years ago, and her oldest son is also undocumented but, for now, protected from deportation by the legally shaky Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy.Among the voters who open their doors for her, disillusionment is high, and there’s one phrase Ortiz hears repeatedly: “I don’t even vote because after, they do not help you.”Meanwhile, as an independent, Navarro, the barber, said he would probably vote for Trump next year, as he had in the past, citing his hope the former president would bring, among other things, lower gas prices.“I think we were a little bit more peaceful with him,” Navarro said. But he’s not sure whom to support for Congress, and would probably go for whichever candidate he hears from the most: “We’re meant to vote for whoever has more to offer.” More

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      ‘He’s Bakersfield’: Kevin McCarthy’s constituents know him better than he knows himself

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      For two decades, Julie and Jared Vawter have been among the Republicans whose votes for Kevin McCarthy sent him from his conservative inland California hometown of Bakersfield to Sacramento and then Washington DC, where he rose through the GOP’s ranks in the House of Representatives and, this year, was elected speaker.That climb came to an abrupt end last week, when a small group of rightwing Republicans revolted against McCarthy and, with the help of Democrats, made him the first speaker removed from the post in the chamber’s 234-year history.A week and two days after McCarthy’s downfall, the Vawters affixed McCarthy campaign pins and made their way to the monthly meeting of the Greater Bakersfield Republican Assembly (GBRA), a conservative group where some members were partial to the rightwing insurgency and its leader, the congressman Matt Gaetz.“He was a man that I feel has integrity,” Jared Vawter, 64, said of McCarthy. “And, to me, that’s one of the most important things for a congressman, is that he stand up and do what he says and says what he does.”“And reach across the aisle,” 60-year-old Julie Vawter added in the banquet room of a Bakersfield institution, Hodel’s Country Dining, just after the prayer that closed the GBRA’s meeting. “Because we have to have that. We want that from their side. We gotta have that from our side. We can’t be the Matt Gaetz, who [has] a solid line and won’t budge.”Standing on the other side of the hall, Joyce Perrone said she saw McCarthy’s downfall as the type of change that may have been a loss for Bakersfield’s famed son, but was long overdue for Washington’s political class, whom she viewed as derelict in reducing the national debt, and securing the country’s border with Mexico.“I think we welcome the chaos,” Perrone said. As for McCarthy: “He’s a good fundraiser, good speaker, he did some things, but I think people are tired of the status quo.”There’s no telling what comes next, either for McCarthy or for Congress. House Republicans have found no exit from the power vacuum McCarthy’s ouster created, and without a speaker, the chamber is essentially nonoperational.There appeared to be a breakthrough on Wednesday, when McCarthy’s deputy Steve Scalise won the party’s nomination to replace him, but he dropped out a day later after concluding he could not attain the near-unanimity required among House Republicans to win the speaker’s gavel.The consequences of McCarthy’s downfall for Bakersfield are far less apparent. The 58-year-old former speaker says he has no intention of resigning, and the district he represents, which includes about half the city’s neighborhoods and portions of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and San Joaquin valley, is considered the most Republican-leaning in the state. But McCarthy’s ouster could damage his formidable fundraising operation, while Democrats in Bakersfield and the surrounding Kern county believe they have more momentum than one would think in the traditionally conservative area.“Nobody has ever accused Kevin of not working hard, that’s for darn sure,” said Greg Perrone, the GBRA’s president. “He’s not a Harvard-educated or Ivy League-educated guy. Nobody has ever said he’s a slacker. He’s Bakersfield.”Politically conservative, culturally distinct and inland from California’s populous and picturesque coastline, Bakersfield has ever-expanding neighborhoods surrounded by the pump jacks and orchards of its two main industries, agriculture and oil – which together make the air there the worst in the nation.Half of the city’s 400,000-plus residents identify as Latino. Bakersfield is also home to a growing Punjabi Sikh community; to the descendants of the midwesterners who migrated to California during the dust bowl of the 1930s; and to a population of Basque sheepherders who arrived at the dawn of the 20th century. The city’s poverty rate, at 16%, is above the national average, according to Census Bureau data, and its rate of youth disconnectedness – the population aged 16-24 who are neither in school nor working – is among the highest in the country, according to the Social Science Research Council.McCarthy’s origin story involves him winning a $5,000 lottery ticket and, at the age of 21, using the money to open Kevin O’s Deli in a corner of his family’s store, McCarthy’s Yogurt, on Stine Road in south-west Bakersfield. Though he has occasionally fudged the details, a fact-check by the Washington Post found, McCarthy put his experience as an entrepreneur at the center of his pitch as a politician, which began when he applied for an internship with the Republican congressman Bill Thomas while attending California State University, Bakersfield.Though his parents were Democrats, McCarthy recounted in a 2014 Fox News interview that he contrasted Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s plea for Americans to wear sweaters at home to cope with rising heating prices with Republican Ronald Reagan’s description of the country as a “shining city on a hill”, and decided the latter was for him.“I knew what I wanted to believe. I believed in an entrepreneur, in greater liberty and freedom,” he said.Thomas’s chief of staff, Cathy Abernathy, turned him down for the position in Washington DC he applied for in 1987, so McCarthy asked to work in his Bakersfield office, and was accepted. He dove so deep into the tasks before him – answering the phones, tracking down delayed passport applications, sorting out constituents’ immigration troubles – that Abernathy realized McCarthy needed help.“He was on the phone so much and doing so much stuff that … he had his own intern,” she recalls.McCarthy later joined Thomas’s staff as an aide, where he met Mark Martinez, a political science professor at his alma mater. In the late 1990s, before McCarthy would win his first election as a trustee of the local community college, Martinez invited him to address his introduction to American government class.“Kevin didn’t understand what a lecture was,” Martinez recalled. “He came in, and he was actually trying to rally the troops.” The rhetoric fell flat at Cal State Bakersfield, which, unlike some of California’s other public universities, is a commuter school of politically moderate students who are often starting families or looking to change careers, Martinez said.“How do you do this?” McCarthy whispered under his breath to Martinez. “I said, ‘Kevin, this is a lecture – lecture on campaigns.’” A spokesperson for McCarthy declined to comment about this incident.By 2002, McCarthy had won an assembly seat in the state legislature and, by the end of the following year, was made the Republican minority leader.“McCarthy leans to the middle. He supports most abortion rights, but opposes spending tax dollars on abortions,” the Los Angeles Times political columnist George Skelton wrote in a 2003 profile. McCarthy also called for the creation of an independent commission to handle redistricting, because “the present system protects incumbents and produces extremists”, as Skelton tells it.Thomas opted not to run again in 2006, and that year, McCarthy took over his old seat. By 2014, his colleagues had elected him GOP majority leader in the House, the post just below speaker, making McCarthy the least experienced lawmaker to occupy the job in history, according to a University of Minnesota study.He threw his support behind Donald Trump in 2016, developing a close relationship with him during his presidency that included signing on to a baseless lawsuit trying to overturn his re-election loss in 2020. Daylight appeared between them in the wake of the January 6 attack, when McCarthy said on the House floor that Trump “bears responsibility” for the sacking of the Capitol but he wouldn’t vote to impeach him.In an interview with Bakersfield broadcaster KGET two days later, Thomas, McCarthy’s former boss, faulted him for “months of supporting those outrageous lies of the president” but said he hoped that when Joe Biden takes office, “the Kevin who spoke during the impeachment … will be the Kevin leading the Republicans on the floor of the House”.Instead, McCarthy traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to made amends, paving the way for him to emerge as the Republican frontrunner for next year’s election, and McCarthy to be elected as speaker – but only after a grueling 15 rounds of voting, thanks to opposition from many of the same GOP lawmakers who would vote to eject him months later.During his rise, McCarthy worked to make sure his roots as a small businessman were publicly known. Every few years or so, his social media accounts would share a photo of the Kevin O’s menu, or a shot of a young and mustached McCarthy at work at the deli. But at the strip mall on Stine Road where he once did business, no sign of his family’s eponymous shop remains. Today, the L-shaped building is home to a closed-up discount store, a Spanish-language church and a butcher shop where the owner, Abel Roman, is weighing whether to vote for Trump next year, or even vote at all.“Right now, I’m not pro-Biden, neither Trump,” said Roman, who immigrated from Peru 25 years ago. In 2020, he skipped voting because he “didn’t feel it’ll make any difference”. Ahead of next year’s elections, he’s similarly apathetic, and skeptical about whether politicians have the will to address why the costs of goods at his store are rising or why it’s so hard to get a loan.For the Democratic party in Kern county, McCarthy’s ouster could provide another boost in the rise they believe they’re on. The city is filling up with new residents from pricier coastal areas, who are bringing their more liberal values with them, said Christian Romo, the county Democratic party chair. The GOP still has the edge in voter registration in Kern county, but only by about 7,000 votes, while Democrats have effective control of the Bakersfield city council, thanks to an alliance with a moderate Republican.McCarthy’s district is still so thoroughly Republican that Romo views it as unconquerable. But next door to him is David Valadao, a Republican congressman who represents the remaining neighborhoods of Bakersfield and a swath of Central Valley farmland that voted for Biden in 2020. Romo says the spectacle of McCarthy’s defenestration will be part of their pitch to independent voters, whom he expects will decide whether Valadao is replaced by a Democrat next year.“It’s embarrassing that our local leader, right, ‘our local hometown guy’, had to go through 15 rounds of votes, and now was … the only speaker to ever be stripped of his power. I mean, that’s embarrassing for Bakersfield. It’s a scar in Bakersfield,” he said.McCarthy was a prodigious fundraiser, channeling the tens of millions he would reap to Republican candidates in last year’s midterms. James Brulte, who was the Republican minority leader in the state senate during McCarthy’s time in the assembly, worries about his ability to continue that from the diminished rank of speaker emeritus.“I don’t think this affects any individual race one way or another,” Brulte said of his removal. “But, given McCarthy’s prolific fundraising ability, given the fact that there is no Republican speaker right now, every day that goes by, that probably hurts Republicans, collectively, on the margins, primarily because of the fundraising impact.”Only eight Republicans voted for McCarthy’s removal, but with the party appearing as disunited with him gone as it was with him as speaker, Martinez thinks he may take a stab at returning to the post, even though he has said he does not want it.“He could become a big player and start doing stuff for the community and the region, if he was … genuinely concerned about doing what representative government is supposed to do. But that’s not where he’s at,” Martinez said. “Kevin, if he stays in Congress, is going to want to become speaker again.” More