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    The Caretaker of Muncy Farms

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    In November 1940, four children showed up after dark at a stone farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania. They arrived by car down a long dirt driveway. The headlights illuminated the tall elm trees surrounding the manor house, and the rooms inside were lit up brightly.Brian, Susan, Sheila and Malcolm Barlow, ages 12 to 5, had just endured the blackout of the London Blitz, the German bombing during World War II.To protect her children, Violet Barlow, their mother, had placed them on a boat from England to Canada, a 3,000-mile journey. The children then took a train to New York City, where they spent several weeks in immigration limbo, and then got on another train to the small town of Muncy, Pa.Awaiting them was Margaret Brock, who owned the farmhouse and country estate called Muncy Farms, dating to 1769 and set on more than 800 acres of fields and woods along the Susquehanna River. Muncy Farms was once part of a 7,000-acre estate. The original stone farmhouse dates to 1769. Some 85 years later, Malcolm Barlow, the youngest sibling, still remembered the menu that first night. “It was leg of lamb, brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes and apple pie à la Mode,” he said. “A very British dinner.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Packed Pacs: how billionaires in the US are bankrolling Republicans at the state level

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      Billionaires are increasingly bankrolling Republican candidates in state legislative races across the US to push a rightwing agenda and gain long-term hegemony.The concerted effort shows that Donald Trump ally Elon Musk, currently throwing his weight behind a candidate for Wisconsin’s state supreme court, is far from alone in seeking to build influence at the grassroots.According to a research document obtained by the Guardian, the contributions are not limited to federal elections but extend to state-level campaigns and aim to influence policy at the state level. Priorities include dismantling government, targeting “culture war” issues – particularly abortion – and advancing school privatisation.In Virginia, for example, donors Thomas Peterffy and Jeff Yass contributed significantly to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s political action committee (Pac) Spirit of Virginia. Peterffy gave $3m while Yass added $2m. Spirit of Virginia spent more than $8m supporting Republican candidates in the 2023 Virginia general assembly elections.Democratic state house leader Don Scott was quoted by the Axios website as saying that Republicans were relying on “nameless, faceless, out-of-state mega-donors who have been pouring millions into the Commonwealth to push right-wing policies with no regard to what Virginians actually want”.In Michigan, the DeVos family, including former education secretary Betsy DeVos, donated more than $4.4m to state Republican candidates and causes in 2024. More than $1m combined went to the Michigan house and senate Republican Pacs.The DeVos family is known for promoting “school-choice policies”, specifically the expansion of charter schools. The Bridge Michigan news site reported “no individual has shaped school policy as much as Betsy DeVos”, contributing to Michigan having “some of the nation’s highest concentrations of charter schools run by for-profit companies”.In Wisconsin, Diane Hendricks and Elizabeth Uihlein contributed a combined $7m to Republican legislative campaign committees in 2024. Hendricks has a long history of influencing Wisconsin politics, including pushing for “right-to-work” legislation. The Uihleins have backed efforts to make it harder to receive unemployment benefits, oppose Medicaid expansion and create barriers to voting.In Pennsylvania, Yass, who is the state’s wealthiest billionaire, funded Pacs that reportedly spent nearly $4.4m to unseat Pennsylvania house Democrats. Yass-affiliated Pacs supported candidates who sponsored a near-total abortion ban. Since the 2018 cycle, these Pacs gave “$370,000 to bill sponsors and cosponsors” of such legislation.Yass also prioritises spending public funds on private education and is Pennsylvania’s biggest “school choice” donor. He told Philadelphia Magazine last year that it would be a “good thing” if public schools “shut down”, adding: “There is no possible way a government monopoly could be a better approach to schools than market competition.”Republicans in Pennsylvania pushed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in 2021 and 2022 but without success.In Arizona, Earl “Ken” Kendrick (owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team) and his family contributed more than $200,000 to Republican legislative candidates and Pacs during the 2024 cycle. The Kendrick family supported the retention of far-right, anti-choice judges on the state’s supreme court. Legislative Republicans referred a proposal to the ballot to attempt to make these positions lifetime appointments.State legislative chambers, once regarded as sleepy backwaters, have become partisan battlegrounds in recent years as they have a huge impact on issues ranging from book banks to transgender rights to voting laws.On an otherwise disastrous election night last November, Democrats held their own at state level, emerging with more legislative majorities than they managed in 2016 or 2020. In Pennsylvania, for example, they held off a red wave to defend a one-seat majority in the state house.But that appears to be spurring on a small group of super-rich donors aiming to reshape state-level politics with a focus on issues including abortion, education and labour rights. Critics say such contributions raise questions about the role of money in politics and the influence of billionaires on the democratic process.Bernie Sanders, an independent senator currently on a “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” across the country, told last year’s Democratic national convention in Chicago: “Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections. For the sake of our democracy we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United supreme court decision and move toward public funding of elections.” More

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      Expect an Icy Commute for Parts of the Northeast on Monday Morning

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      Light snow and freezing rain are expected in parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania starting Sunday night and could make for a hazardous commute on Monday, forecasters said.A light snowfall and some sleet that will begin on Sunday evening in parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are expected to make roads icy for Monday morning commuters.The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory, in effect until 10 a.m. Monday for parts of northeastern Pennsylvania and until 11 a.m. for parts of New Jersey, as well as the Lower Hudson Valley in New York.Parts of Connecticut are also expected to be affected, including northern areas of Fairfield, New Haven and northern Middlesex Counties.In northeastern Pennsylvania, forecasters predict up to four inches of snow and sleet, which will turn into a light glaze of ice accumulation Monday morning. Most parts of New York and New Jersey will get less than an inch of snow starting on Sunday evening, spreading eastward into southwestern Connecticut overnight.By late Sunday night, the snow is expected to transition to freezing rain, creating hazardous, icy conditions, particularly on untreated roads and in higher elevations. The morning commute on Monday could be especially dangerous, with icy roads posing significant challenges for drivers, forecasters said.Ice accumulations are forecast to range from a light glaze to a few hundredths of an inch across most areas, while western Orange County may get up to an inch of ice. Higher elevations in the Poconos of Pennsylvania will get the heaviest snow and ice accumulations on Sunday evening, potentially up to four inches.Mike Kistner, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, N.Y., said the forecast for freezing rain and ice is what pushed the Lower Hudson Valley and parts of New Jersey to be under a winter weather advisory, though the snowfall should be light.While the cold air and below-freezing temperatures Monday morning will likely keep roads icy during the morning rush, Mr. Kistner said as it heats up later in the morning and throughout the day, conditions should clear. Bridges and overpasses may remain icy even if the main roads are wet, he added.Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the New York State Thruway Authority, said workers were ready to clear the roads and have pretreated them for freezing rain, though she warned drivers to take it easy on Monday morning.“Give yourself some extra time in the morning,” Ms. Givner said. “And just slow down. I think that’s always the best way to travel in this weather.”Winter weather advisories were also issued for areas in western Maryland, western Virginia, and eastern West Virginia, which could get up to two inches of snow and sleet.The Weather Service warned about slippery roads in those areas. Those advisories were in place until 1 a.m. on Monday.In West Virginia, northwestern Pocahontas County and southeastern Randolph County were under winter storm warnings until 1 a.m. on Monday as strong winds, snow and ice moved in Sunday night. More

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      Ghost Gun Taken From Luigi Mangione Was Fully Homemade, Officials Say

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      The ghost gun that the authorities believe was used to kill UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson last week in Manhattan was an exceedingly rare variety.The police officers in Pennsylvania who on Monday arrested the man who has now been charged in the killing, Luigi Mangione, 26, said that he was found with a black pistol and a suppressor, often called a silencer. Both, the authorities said, had been fabricated with a 3-D printer, a device that sculpts a physical object from a digital model.Each year, authorities in the U.S. seize thousands of ghost guns, almost all of them originating from inexpensive kits bought online that can be assembled into a working weapon in as little as half an hour. But it is rare to recover a 3-D printed gun used in a crime, according to Tom Chittum, a former associate deputy director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives.“If the gun used in the New York assassination really was 3-D printed, it would certainly be the highest-profile crime ever committed with one, and it would be one of a small number overall,” said Mr. Chittum, who now works for a public safety technology company.A 3-D printer can be used to create a gun frame, which is the only individual part of a firearm that federal law regulates, and then assemble a working firearm by equipping it with commercially made aftermarket components that are not regulated, including the slide, barrel, and trigger mechanism, Mr. Chittum said.The Pennsylvania authorities said Mr. Mangione’s pistol had a plastic handle, a metal slide and a threaded metal barrel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Luigi Mangione, Suspect in CEO Killing, Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise

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      The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was an Ivy League tech graduate from a prominent Maryland family who in recent months had suffered physical and psychic pain.Luigi Mangione, the online version of him, was an Ivy League tech enthusiast who flaunted his tanned, chiseled looks in beach photos and party pictures with blue-blazered frat buddies.He was the valedictorian of a prestigious Baltimore prep school who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a head counselor at a pre-college program at Stanford University.With his credentials and connections, he could have ended up one day as an entrepreneur or the chief executive of one of his family’s thriving businesses. Instead, investigators suspect, he took a different path.The police now believe that Mr. Mangione, 26, is the masked gunman who calmly took out a pistol equipped with a silencer on a Midtown Manhattan street last week and assassinated Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police. Officers said they found him with fake identification, a weapon similar to the one seen in video of the killing, and a manifesto decrying the health care industry.Mr. Mangione, who faces a variety of charges related to the gun and fake ID, has not been charged in connection with the killing. But the authorities have said that he is a “person of interest” in the killing, and in the hours since his apprehension his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect has begun to come into focus.Mr. Mangione was in regular contact with friends and family until about six months ago when he suddenly and inexplicably stopped communicating with them. He had been suffering the effects of a painful back injury, friends said, but then went dark, prompting anxious inquiries from relatives to his friends: Had anyone heard from him?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lake-Effect Storm Bringing Heavy Snow to Great Lakes Region

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      Forecasters warned that some areas would be “paralyzed” by the snow as some sections of highways in New York and Pennsylvania were closed on Friday.A lake-effect storm in the Great Lakes region that was bringing heavy snow to parts of northern New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania on Friday prompted the closure of highways, disrupting travel after the Thanksgiving holiday, as forecasters warned the storm would “bury” some areas east of Lakes Erie and Ontario.The storm, which began earlier in the week, had already brought more than eight inches of snow to portions of Marquette County in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula by Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.Portions of Western New York, such as Mayville on the northern end of Chautauqua Lake about 22 miles north of Jamestown, had recorded 17 inches of snow by midafternoon on Friday, according to forecasters.Watertown, N.Y., where less than an inch of snow had fallen on Friday afternoon, was forecast to get close to six feet of snow over the next three days.Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York declared a state of emergency for 11 counties on Friday.“We are so accustomed to this kind of storm,” Ms. Hochul said in an interview with Spectrum News on Friday. “We don’t love it, but it is part of who we are as New Yorkers, especially western New York and the North Country.”The National Weather Service in Buffalo said the prolonged lake-effect snow “will bury some areas east of both Lakes Erie and Ontario.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Reasons for hope as Democrats prevent Trump-led red wave in state races

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      After watching Kamala Harris lose the White House and Republicans wrest back full control of Congress, Democrats were bracing for disaster in state legislatures. With the party defending narrow majorities in several chambers across the country, some Democrats expected that Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race would allow a red wave to sweep through state legislatures.Yet, when the dust had settled after election day, the results of state legislative elections presented a much more nuanced picture than Democrats had feared.To their disappointment, Democrats failed to gain ground in Arizona and New Hampshire, where Republicans expanded their legislative majorities, and they lost governing trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota.But other states delivered reason for hope. Democrats held on to a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania house even as Harris and congressional incumbents struggled across the state. In North Carolina, Democrats brought an end to Republicans’ legislative supermajority, restoring Governor-elect Josh Stein’s veto power. Perhaps most encouragingly for the party, Democrats made substantial gains in Wisconsin, where newly redrawn and much more competitive maps left the party well-poised to gain majorities in 2026.The mixed results could help Democrats push back against Republicans’ federal policies at the state level, and they offer potential insight on the party’s best electoral strategies as they prepare for the new Trump era.“We must pay attention to what’s going on in our backyard with the same level of enthusiasm that we do to what’s happening in the White House,” said Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). “And I feel like that’s never been more true.”The implications of the state legislative elections will be sweeping, Williams said. Democratic legislators have already helped protect abortion access in their states following the overturning of Roe v Wade, and with Republicans overseeing the federal budget, state legislatures could play a pivotal role in funding critical and underresourced services for their constituents.Those high stakes have made Democrats increasingly aware of the importance of state legislatures, where Republicans have held a significant advantage in recent years. In 2016, when Trump first won office, Republicans held 68 legislative chambers compared with Democrats’ 29, according to the DLCC. Following the elections this month, Democrats expect to control 39 chambers, down from 41 before the elections but still a notable improvement since the beginning of Trump’s first term.As Democrats have turned more of their attention to state legislative races, outside groups have joined the fight. The States Project, a Democratic-aligned organization, poured $70m into legislative elections this cycle, while the Super Pac Forward Majority devoted another $45m to the effort. The funding provided a substantial boon beyond the resources of the DLCC, the party’s official state legislative campaign arm that set a spending goal of $60m this cycle.View image in fullscreen“It’s not rocket science that dollars, tactics and message are potent ways to communicate with voters,” said Daniel Squadron, co-founder of the States Project. “We provide the dollars to candidates that let them get off the phones, separate themselves from in-state special interests and allow them to talk to voters and to treat these campaigns like the big-league contests they are.”Historically, Democratic state legislative candidates have trailed several points behind the party’s presidential nominee, but early data suggests legislative candidates actually outperformed Harris in some key districts. Squadron believes face-to-face interactions with voters, as well as the high quality of many Democratic state legislative candidates this cycle, helped stave off larger losses down ballot even as the party suffered in federal races.“That is the only way it was possible to hold the Pennsylvania house when the statewide results were so disappointing. It’s the reason the North Carolina house supermajority was broken,” Squadron said.Democrats’ strategies appear to have proved particularly potent in Wisconsin, where the party picked up 10 seats in the state assembly and four seats in the state senate. Andrew Whitley, executive director of the Wisconsin senate Democratic caucus, credited the wins to savvy candidates who combined a message about the importance of abortion access with hyperlocal issues important in their specific districts. The strategy allowed candidates to outperform Harris and/or Senator Tammy Baldwin in four out of five targeted senate races, according to data provided by Whitley.“It’s very rare when you have bottom-of-the-ticket state legislators over-perform Kamala and Senator Baldwin,” Whitley said. “They worked their asses off.”In senate district 14, which stretches north-west from Madison, Democrat Sarah Keyeski appears to have benefited from some of Trump’s supporters failing to vote down ballot for the Republican incumbent, Joan Ballweg. But in senate district 8 in the Milwaukee suburbs and district 30 in Green Bay, a small yet decisive number of voters split their ticket between Trump and Democratic legislative candidates.The results suggest that Trump’s playbook may not be enough to elevate Republican state legislators to victory, presenting an opening for Democrats in future election cycles. As further evidence of that trend, Democrats managed to hold four Senate seats in states that Trump carried on election day.“The Maga [‘Make America Great Again’] playbook doesn’t work at the state legislative level,” said Leslie Martes, chief strategy officer of Forward Majority. “Trump is Trump, and he’s incredibly masterful at what he does, but as we see time after time, Republicans struggle to duplicate it.”The next big test for Republicans will come next year in Virginia, where Democrats hope to flip the governor’s mansion and maintain control of both legislative chambers.“This will be Trump’s first task after this election, to see if he can push that playbook,” Martes said. “He’ll want that to keep his mandate going.”Williams and her team are already gearing up for 2025 and 2026, when Democrats will have another chance to expand their power in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Although the 2026 target map is still taking shape, Williams predicted it would look quite similar to this year’s map.“I feel like we can all kind of expect to see some of those familiar faces back,” she said. “They are really competitive states, and that is where we are going to be focusing our attention.”Even though Democrats remain in the legislative minority in Wisconsin, Whitley expressed enthusiasm about the results and the road ahead. This year marked the first time since 2012 that Wisconsin Democrats had the opportunity to run on competitive maps, and they broke Republicans’ iron grip on the legislature.“It’s going to be truly historic,” Whitley said. “Gone are the days where a manufactured majority can override vetoes and pass super-regressive policies. We’re actually going to have some balance, and we’re on the cusp of not only having a balanced legislature, but a trifecta.”Democrats’ performance in Wisconsin may offer a silver lining to party members who are still reeling from the news of Trump’s victory and terrified about the possibilities of his second term in office.“It’s very easy to get lost in that hopelessness,” Whitley said. “But then on the state legislative front, it’s also very easy to be inspired by these folks who are just regular, everyday people, who are standing up for their communities and fighting.” More

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      Democratic leaders across US work to lead resistance against Trump’s agenda

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      After the November elections ushered in a new era of unified Republican governance in Washington, Democratic leaders across the country are once again preparing to lead the resistance to Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he would convene a special legislative session next month to “safeguard California values and fundamental rights”.Washington state’s governor-elect, Bob Ferguson, who is currently the state’s attorney general, said his legal team has been preparing for months for the possibility of a second Trump term – an endeavor that included a “line-by-line” review of Project 2025, the 900+ page policy blueprint drafted by the president-elect’s conservative allies.And the governors of Illinois and Colorado this week unveiled a new coalition designed to protect state-level institutions against the threat of authoritarianism, as the nation prepares for a president who has vowed to seek retribution against his political enemies and to only govern as a dictator on “day one”.“We know that simple hope alone won’t save our democracy,” the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, said on a conference call announcing the group, called Governors Safeguarding Democracy. “We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it.”With Democrats locked out of control in Washington, many in the party will turn to blue state leaders – governors, attorneys general and mayors – as a bulwark against a second Trump administration. For these ambitious Democrats, it is also an opportunity to step into the leadership void left by Kamala Harris’s defeat.Progressives such as Newsom and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, are viewed as potential presidential contenders in 2028, while Democratic governors in states that voted for Trump such as Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are seen as models for how the party can begin to rebuild their coalition. And Tim Walz, Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, returned home to Minnesota with a national profile and two years left of his gubernatorial term.Leaders of the nascent blue state resistance are pre-emptively “Trump-proofing” against a conservative governing agenda, which they have cast as a threat to the values and safety of their constituents. As a candidate, Trump promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history”. In statements and public remarks, several Democrats say they fear the Trump administration will seek to limit access to medication abortion or seek to undermine efforts to provide reproductive care to women from states with abortion bans. They also anticipate actions by the Trump administration to roll back environmental regulations and expand gun rights.“To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom, opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people – you come through me,” Pritzker said last week.Unlike in 2016, when Trump’s victory shocked the nation, blue state leaders say they have a tested – and updated – playbook to draw upon. But they also acknowledge that Trump 2.0 may present new and more difficult challenges.Ferguson said Trump’s first-term executive actions were “often sloppy”, which created an opening for states to successfully challenge them in court. Eight years later, and after studying Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47, he anticipates the next Trump White House will be “better prepared” this time around.Pritzker said Trump was surrounding himself with “absolute loyalists to his cult of personality and not necessarily to the law”. “Last time, he didn’t really know where the levers of government were,” the governor said on a call with reporters this week. “I think he probably does now.”The courts have also become more conservative than they were when Trump took office eight years ago, a direct result of his first-term appointments to the federal bench, which included many powerful federal appeals court judges and three supreme court justices.The political landscape has also changed. In 2016, Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. Despite Republican control of Congress, there were a number of Trump skeptics willing – at least initially – to buck the president during his first two years in office.This time around, Trump is all but certain to win the popular vote, and he made surprising gains in some of the bluest corners of the country.Though the former president came nowhere close to winning his home state of New York, he made significant inroads, especially on Long Island. At a post-election conference last week, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, struck a more neutral tone. Hochul, who faces a potentially tough re-election in 2026, vowed to protect constituents against federal overreach, while declaring that she was prepared to work with “him or anybody regardless of party”.In New Jersey, where Trump narrowed his loss from 16 percentage points in 2020 to five percentage points in 2024, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, acknowledged the result was a “sobering moment” for the party and country. Outlining his approach to the incoming administration, Murphy said: “If it’s contrary to our values, we will fight to the death. If there’s an opportunity for common ground, we will seize that as fast as anybody.”Progressives and activists say they are looking to Democratic leaders to lead the charge against Trump’s most extreme proposals, particularly on immigration.“Trump may be re-elected but he does not have a mandate to come into and rip apart our communities,” said Greisa Martínez Rosas, the executive director of United We Dream Action, a network of groups that advocate for young people brought to the US as children, known as Dreamers.She called on state and local officials, as well as university heads and business leaders, to “use every tool at their disposal” to resist Trump’s mass deportation campaign, stressing: “There is a lot we can do to ensure Trump and his cabinet are not successful in their plans.”State attorneys general are again poised to play a pivotal role in curbing the next administration’s policy ambitions.“The quantity of litigation since the first Trump administration has been really off the charts – it’s at a new level,” said Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University in Wisconsin. “I fully expect that to continue in Trump 2.0.”There were 160 multi-state filings against the Trump administration during his four years in office, twice as many as were filed against Barack Obama during his entire eight-year presidency, according to a database maintained by Nolette.Many of the Democratic lawsuits succeeded – at least initially – in delaying or striking down Trump administration policies or regulations, Nolette said. Attorneys general can also leverage their state’s influence and economic power by entering legal settlements with companies. States have used this approach in the past to “advance their own regulatory goals”, Nolette said, for example, forcing the auto industry to adopt stricter environmental regulations.In a proclamation calling for a special session next month, Newsom asked the legislature to bolster the state’s legal funding to challenge – and defend California against – the Trump administration. Among his concerns, the California Democrat identified civil rights, climate action, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, as well as Trump’s threats to withhold disaster funding from the state and the potential for his administration to repeal protections shielding undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation.Trump responded on Truth Social, using a derisive nickname for the Democratic governor: “Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California. He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again,’ but I just overwhelmingly won the Election.”Democratic leaders in battleground states that Trump won are also calibrating their responses – and not all are eager to join the resistance.“I don’t think that’s the most productive way to govern Arizona,” the state’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, told reporters this week, according to the Arizona Capitol Times. Hobbs, who faces a potentially difficult re-election fight in 2026, said she would “stand up against actions that hurt our communities” but declined to say how she would respond if Trump sought to deport Dreamers or to nationalize the Arizona national guard as part of his mass deportation campaign.The state’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, who also faces re-election in two years, drew a harder line against Trump, vowing to fight “unconstitutional behavior” and protect abortion access, according to Axios. In an interview on MSNBC, Mayes said she had “no intention” of dropping the criminal case against allies of the former president who attempted to help Trump overturn Biden’s victory in the state.Yet she insisted there would be areas of common ground. She urged Trump to revive a bipartisan border deal that he had previously tanked and called on the next administration to send more federal resources and agents to help combat the flow of fentanyl into the US.With Democrats locked out of power in Washington, the new Indivisible Guide, a manual developed by former Democratic congressional staffers after Trump’s election in 2016 and recently updated to confront a new era of Maga politics, envisions a major role for blue states.“Over the next two years, your Democratic elected officials will make choices every single day about whether to stand up to Maga or whether to go along with it,” the Indivisible guide states. “Your spirited, determined advocacy will ensure that the good ones know they’ve got a movement behind them as they fight back – and the bad ones know they’re on notice.”Among the examples of actions blue state activists can demand their leaders consider, it suggests establishing protections for out-of-state residents seeking abortion access or gender-affirming care; refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and forging regional compacts to safeguard environmental initiatives, data privacy and healthcare.Democratic leaders at every level and across the country – even those in purple or red states – can serve as “backstops for protecting the democratic space”, said Mary Small, chief strategy officer at Indivisible.“The important things are to be proactive and bold, to be innovative and to work with each other,” she said. “I don’t think everybody has to have all of the answers right now, but to have that intention and that commitment and to not shrink down in anticipation of a more oppressive federal government.” More

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      Republican Dave McCormick wins Pennsylvania Senate seat in key race

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      The Republican Dave McCormick won the Senate race in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday, denying the Democratic incumbent, Bob Casey, a fourth term and expanding his party’s majority in the upper chamber.When the Associated Press called the race at 4.09pm ET on Thursday, two days after polls closed in Pennsylvania, McCormick led by 0.4 points. The narrow margin raised the possibility of a recount, although his victory is expected to stand given his lead of roughly 30,000 votes.A spokesperson for Casey insisted that thousands of ballots remained uncounted, refusing to yet concede the race to McCormick.“As the Pennsylvania Secretary of State said this afternoon, there are tens of thousands of ballots across the Commonwealth still to count, which includes provisional ballots, military and overseas ballots, and mail ballots,” Casey spokesperson Maddy McDaniel said in a statement. “This race is within half a point and cannot be called while the votes of thousands of Pennsylvanians are still being counted. We will make sure every Pennsylvanian’s voice is heard.”With McCormick’s victory, Republicans have now secured at least 53 seats in the Senate, erasing Democrats’ previous majority in the chamber. Two Senate races in Nevada and Arizona remained too close to call as of Thursday afternoon.Although he fell short, Casey outperformed Kamala Harris, who lost Pennsylvania to Donald Trump by two points. Trump also won the two other “blue wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, but Democrats managed to hold on to both Senate seats that were up for grabs in those states.The call in Pennsylvania brought an end to a contentious and expensive Senate race that saw the two candidates trade barbed attacks on the cost of living, abortion access and McCormick’s recent residency in Connecticut. Casey attacked McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, as out of touch while McCormick linked Casey to the “reckless” government spending of the Biden administration.At their debate last month, Casey mocked McCormick as “bought and paid for by these billionaires and corporations”. McCormick returned fire, saying: “When you don’t have a record to run on, which Senator Casey does not, you attack your opponent.”The high stakes of the race made it into one of the most expensive Senate elections in the nation, as the dueling campaigns and their allies spent more than $300m on ads. One pro-McCormick organization, the Keystone Renewal Pac, spent at least $54m on the race, making the group the highest-spending single-candidate Pac involved in a Senate race of this election cycle.Most public polls of the race showed Casey leading by several points up until recent weeks, when McCormick narrowed that gap to just a few points. Despite that trend, Casey appeared to be in a slightly stronger position than Harris, who was running neck and neck against Trump in Pennsylvania up until election day. Leaders of both parties had identified Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes as the potential tipping point in the presidential race.“I think both races are going to be very close, but I think the people of our state know it’s a very, very clear choice,” Casey told the Guardian in September. “It’s never been clearer.”Before election day, Democrats held a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Republicans’ victories in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia had already guaranteed control of the Senate, but McCormick’s win will give the party even more leverage to enact Trump’s agenda when the new Congress is seated in January.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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