For nearly a quarter-century, voters in Clallam County, Wash. — a lush green dot in the far corner of the country — have gone with the winner in 11 straight presidential elections. That’s an unmatched level of precision among more than 3,000 counties nationwide.
But the streak, dating to 1980, ended on Tuesday as voters favored Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Trump, by a decisive 53% to 44% margin. While there are still votes to be counted, Harris’ lead appears certain to hold.
That means there are no bellwether counties left in America; heading into the 2020 election there were nearly 20. After that, Clallam County — roughly balanced politically between its three small population centers and sparsely populated rural reaches — stood alone.
(Yours truly visited the county and took the measure of voter sentiments in September, just after the Trump-Harris debate: At the time, neither candidate was running away with the contest and virtually everyone was firmly dug into their positions.)
Marc Abshire, director of the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a Harris supporter, said he was proud the county went for the Democratic ticket “but also disappointed we’re losing our bellwether status because of it.”
“Out here, we just didn’t have the grievance vote that most of the rest of the country seemed to have,” Abshire said.
Setting aside any bruised pride, he said there are plenty of reasons to visit the region, beyond its former political prescience.
“We’re lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places in the nation, if not the world,” Abshire said. “We have the sea and mile-high mountains all in our front and backyards. Our weather is always temperate.”
People will just have to start looking elsewhere for a political barometer.
With election day right around the corner, Los Angeles County officials opened hundreds of additional vote centers Saturday where voters can go to cast early ballots in person.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk opened an additional 526 centers, according to a post on its X account. This is on top of the 122 centers already open across the county, where people can go to vote in person or drop off their ballot for the Nov. 5 election.
The centers are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Most wait times were under 15 minutes, according to officials.
The county’s mobile voting centers will also travel across the region until election day.
Voters also have the option of submitting completed ballots through the mail, so long as they were postmarked before or on Nov. 5 and received by Nov. 12. Mail-in ballots can also be returned at voter centers or vote-by-mail drop boxes.
Eligible voters who aren’t registered can complete a conditional voter registration at a center and cast a ballot in the election.
The ballot includes a long slate of statewide and local candidates and ballot measures, as well as the U.S. presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
On Saturday, the mobile centers will be at the L.A. Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple and L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles; Henry Acuna Park in Montebello; Wat Thai of Los Angeles in North Hollywood; and the Paving the Way Foundation in Lancaster.
On Sunday, the centers will be stationed at Dodger Stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and again at L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
The rallying call urges all the Spanish-speaking and corrido-loving sapphics, butchonas, jotas and vaqueeras, to grab their boots and meet up at Little Joy Cocktails for a carne asada-style, family party every fourth Sunday of the month, featuring spins by DJ Lady Soul, DJ French and DJ Killed By Synth.
In Los Angeles, these three disc jockeys have embraced the word buchona, adding the ‘t’ as a play on the word butch.
The free event, now locally known as Butchona, is a safe space for all the Mexican and Spanish music-loving lesbians to gather on the last Sunday of every month.
Buchona is usually a term used in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries to describe a woman who is a boss– someone who exudes dominant energy or marries into a powerful position.
“I didn’t know how well [the idea for Butchona] was going to be received and my favorite part of all that, has been the looks everyone has been bringing,” said Rocio Flores, who goes by DJ Lady Soul.
(Photo Courtesy of Adelyna Tirado) DJ Lady Soul poses outside of Little Joy Cocktails in her butchona outfit.
The event that started only a few months ago, brings in dozens of dressed-up jotas. The ‘looks’ that the crowds bring are reminiscent of how dad’s, tíos, and their friends dressed at Mexican family parties: a tejana, cowboy boots, giant belt buckle and a beer in hand.
Dressing up in these looks is a way to show wealth and status to earn the respect of other males in a male-dominated and -centered culture– that is until now.
This traditionally male, Mexican, cultural identity, is something that has never been embraced or accessible to women or gender non-conforming people. The giant belt buckles that are traditionally custom-made and specific to male identities like head of household, ‘only rooster in the chicken coop’ and lone wolf, are only part of the strictly cis-gendered male clothes that dominate the culture.
The embroidered button-ups, belt buckles and unique cowboy hats –all come together to create the masculine looks that are now being reclaimed by women and gender nonconforming people at the event curated by three queer, Mexican DJs, who once had a little idea that could.
Flores, 37, (she/her), Gemini, says that to her the term butchona describes a woman who is a little ‘chunti,’ a little cheap in the way she dresses– but in a queer way.
“That title also means that you’re a badass,” she said. “I want to look like that señor, I want to look like that dude and now I feel like I could, so why not?”
Flores says that now she feels like she can embrace and reclaim that cultural identity, but it wasn’t always that easy.
At first, her family upheld the traditional cisgender roles that forced her to dress more feminine, but she always wanted to dress like her cousins and her tíos.
“Now, I’m like: ‘Fuck that!’ I’m going to wear the chalecos and the Chalino suits,” she said in Span-glish.
The Chalino suits are traditional, Mexican, suits that were worn and popularized by Chalino Sanchez, known as the King of corridos—a genre of music that is said to have originated on the border region of Texas, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, Mexico.
“It felt good to break into the DJ scene, but what I always noticed was that the lesbian culture was always lacking,” said DJ Lady Soul. “I would mainly see gay males at parties and a lot of male DJs.”
According to Zippia–a career site that sources their information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics and the U.S. Census–23.5 percent of disc jockeys are women, 16 percent are LGBTQ+ and only 12.7 percent are Hispanic or Latin American.
What has always been a traditionally machista music genre and scene, is now being embraced by a growing number of queer women and non-male DJs in Los Angeles.
For Fran Fregoso, who goes by DJ French, 33, (they/she), Taurus– embracing their cultural identity came a lot easier because of their late uncle who sort of paved the way for them to come out as queer and be more accepted than he was as the first openly out queer person in their family.
(Photo by Adelyna Tirado)Dj French poses in their vaquero-style outfit.
Their music journey began listening to the 90s grunge, alternative, hip-hop and metal music played by their older siblings at home.
“Then I met Vanessa [DJ Killed By Synth], and she introduced me to the industry,” said DJ French.
DJ French felt the acceptance and support to enter this music space and decided to embrace their cultural roots by playing music that they grew up listening to at family parties. They booked their first gig with Cumbiatón LA, a collective of DJs and organizers who host Latin American parties across Los Angeles, often centering queer DJs and other performers.
“When [Lady Soul and Killed By Synth], brought this idea up to create Butchona, I was like: ‘Oh, I’m in 100 percent’,” they said. “Because I love playing corridos and banda music because that’s a core memory from my childhood and family parties.”
Banda, corridos, cumbias and other traditional music is a big part of Mexican culture, even as gendered and male-centered as it has been, it is embraced by all.
“I know a lot of people in our queer, Latino, community love that music too, but they also want to be in a safe space,” they said. “That’s where we decided to make an environment for our community to dance and be themselves.”
Vanessa Bueno, 40, (she/her), Libra, who goes by DJ Killed By Synth, says her journey started about 20 years ago when she started DJing for backyard parties in East L.A. and across L.A. County.
(Photo by Adelyna Tirado)DJ Killed By Synth playing her set.
Her family is from Guadalajara, so she says that growing up she also had a lot of family parties with corridos and banda blaring in the background of memories with the many cousins she says she lost count of.
“A lot of the music we heard was bachata, banda, cumbia and even some 80s freestyle,” said Bueno.
Even while she had a ‘little punk rocker phase,’ she says she couldn’t escape that Spanish music her family played ritualistically at family get-togethers.
When they began their music journey–back in the AOL, Instant Messenger days, they played a lot more electronic music, hence the name Killed by Synth. At first, it was just a username, but then it became her DJ name.
“Later down the line, comes [the idea for] Butchona came about, and me, Rocio and French collaborated,” she said. “It’s kind of always been my goal to create these safe spaces for women and queer people, and I had been in the scene long enough to where people were willing to answer my calls to work with them to make it happen.”
For Bueno, it was natural for her to build community and embrace this part of their culture later on in her career when she saw a need for queer, Latin American-centered club spaces with family party vibes.
She started hosting Latin American-style parties, blending music, culture, and food and attracting the exact audience she envisioned. With these events, Bueno aimed to reclaim her Mexican identity and foster a sense of family and community at these events.
“We’re here to build a safe space to embrace the music and kind of not think about the machismo that is tied to it and celebrate who we are,” said Bueno.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics, California, Texas, New York, Arizona and Washington rank the highest in employment rates for disc jockeys in 2023. There is also a recent trend in more women DJs–the study does not include gender nonconforming DJs–booking twice as many gigs as men in event spaces and concerts that host DJ sets.
“It feels like we’re barely cracking into these safe spaces and expanding our horizons a little bit,” said DJ French. “I hope this inspires other people to also create safe spaces like Butchona.”
The next Butchona event will be on Sunday, Oct. 27 and will feature all three DJs playing corridos, banda, cumbia and all the classics, for a chunti Halloween party.
Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are intensifying their efforts in battleground states with just two weeks left until Election Day.Former President Donald Trump will campaign for a second straight day in North Carolina after making his pitch to Christian voters a day prior. He postponed a speech at a gun rights conference in Georgia and scheduled a last-minute rally in the Tar Heel state Tuesday as some polling suggests Harris is gaining support there.In a rally before faith leaders in the battleground state, Trump touched on culture war issues, including transgender and parental rights.”Christians will not be safe with Kamala Harris as president,” Trump warned. “Your religious liberty will be gone. Your free speech will be gone, your Second Amendment will be gone, and parental rights will be gone forever.”Earlier, Trump surveyed storm damage and repeated false claims about FEMA misusing taxpayer money.”They spent a lot of money on having illegal people come into our country,” Trump said.Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris made her pitch to Trump-hesitant voters in three “Blue wall” states Monday.In separate events in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, she campaigned alongside a familiar but unlikely ally, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, (R) Wyoming. Both aimed their messages at Trump-wary voters in counties that could decide the election.”We might not agree on every issue but she is somebody you can trust,” Cheney said. “You can vote your conscience and never have to say a word to anybody. There will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th.”While Harris will not hold public events, she will sit for an interview that will air Tuesday night on NBC Nightly News.In her place, former President Barack Obama and running mate Tim Walz will host a rally in Wisconsin where in-person, early voting kicks off.Republicans are also holding events to encourage early voting in favor of Trump. His campaign is pushing for all forms of voting, including by mail and in-person, to maximize votes. Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in the 2020 election.
WASHINGTON —
Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are intensifying their efforts in battleground states with just two weeks left until Election Day.
Former President Donald Trump will campaign for a second straight day in North Carolina after making his pitch to Christian voters a day prior. He postponed a speech at a gun rights conference in Georgia and scheduled a last-minute rally in the Tar Heel state Tuesday as some polling suggests Harris is gaining support there.
In a rally before faith leaders in the battleground state, Trump touched on culture war issues, including transgender and parental rights.
“Christians will not be safe with Kamala Harris as president,” Trump warned. “Your religious liberty will be gone. Your free speech will be gone, your Second Amendment will be gone, and parental rights will be gone forever.”
Earlier, Trump surveyed storm damage and repeated false claims about FEMA misusing taxpayer money.
“They spent a lot of money on having illegal people come into our country,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris made her pitch to Trump-hesitant voters in three “Blue wall” states Monday.
In separate events in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, she campaigned alongside a familiar but unlikely ally, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, (R) Wyoming. Both aimed their messages at Trump-wary voters in counties that could decide the election.
“We might not agree on every issue but she is somebody you can trust,” Cheney said. “You can vote your conscience and never have to say a word to anybody. There will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th.”
While Harris will not hold public events, she will sit for an interview that will air Tuesday night on NBC Nightly News.
In her place, former President Barack Obama and running mate Tim Walz will host a rally in Wisconsin where in-person, early voting kicks off.
Republicans are also holding events to encourage early voting in favor of Trump. His campaign is pushing for all forms of voting, including by mail and in-person, to maximize votes. Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in the 2020 election.
Vice President Kamala Harris has never met Maria Rodriguez. She probably never will. But the Democratic presidential nominee should be worried about Rodriguez, and voters like her.
The single mother of three from Henderson, Nev., is a onetime Democratic voter who frets about the economy (meaning: the price of just about everything) and says she plans to vote for former President Trump.
Rodriguez cast her ballot for Joe Biden four years ago, hoping for better times. But, regardless of what government statisticians might say about the economy, the 36-year-old finds it’s harder to pay the bills today, even though she is working two or three jobs as a nurse and home healthcare worker.
“Going to the market is really hard right now,” Rodriguez said as she pushed a mostly empty cart up an aisle of a Dollar Tree discount store last week. “Sometimes, before, you would go in with 100 bucks and come out with a full cart. It was pretty OK. Now, with 100 bucks, you can get maybe 10 things. It’s living paycheck to paycheck.”
“I was potentially a Democrat,” she said. “But I have changed my way of thinking [because] this country is going downhill.”
Views like Rodriguez’s go a long way in explaining why Nevada, which Democrats have won in the last four presidential races, remains up for grabs in the 2024 election. Harris holds a narrow 0.6% advantage in recent polls, according to an aggregate by Real Clear Politics. That’s a marked improvement for the Democrats, given that Trump led in the high single digits in polls before President Biden left the race in July.
The Silver State is one of seven states thought to hold the key to victory in 2024. And it usually picks the candidate the rest of America favors.In the 28 presidential elections since 1912, the winner of Nevada has won the presidency all but two times. The exceptions occurred in 1976, when Nevada chose Republican Gerald Ford over Democrat Jimmy Carter, and in 2016, when Nevada and its six electoral votes went to Hillary Clinton over Trump.
Trump will count heavily on Nevadans’ discomfort with the economy to help him grind out a victory in a state that most experts expect to be closely contested through the Nov. 5 election.
The former president has a rally scheduled Friday night in Las Vegas. He has anad on Las Vegas television stations that features another former Republican president, Ronald Reagan.
“I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago,” Reagan says in video of his closing 1980 debate against President Carter. “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?”
That question might serve Trump well this year, as national and state polls continue to show that the economy remains the top issue for voters. The party in power usually pays the price for such sentiments. In an Emerson College poll in August, 37% of likely Nevada voters surveyed named the economy as the top issue, with the related topic of housing affordability second, named by 15% of those surveyed.
“That large bloc of independent voters makes the state unpredictable,” said Thom Reilly, a former public official in Nevada’s Clark County and now an academic. “They were supporting Trump by 10% in January, and now the polling is all over the map, and they might be in Harris’ camp. I think those voters make it more volatile.”
Frustrating to Democratic stalwarts is the fact that not all voters have been moved by improving economic indicators, with the buying power of “real wages” growing nationally over the last year.
The state’s unemployment rate of 5.5% in August put it higher than the national average of 3.7%, but the Las Vegas metropolitan region’s 4% jobless rate nearly matched the U.S. as a whole. Those figures pale in comparison to the 31% unemployment that devastated the state during the 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Annual inflation peaked in 2022 at about 9%, and haddeclined to 2.6% for the American West (including Nevada) by this summer, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Prices even dropped in some categories, including dairy, fruits and vegetables.
And although gasoline in Nevada is costing an average of $3.98 per gallon this month, above the national average of $3.27, that represents a substantial drop from the $4.62 one year ago,according to AAA.
The boom-bust cycles that Nevadans know too well — with particularly deep holes during the Great Recession and early in the pandemic — have been particularly painful in the housing market.
Apartment rents jumped dramatically in 2022, with the typical rental rate of $1,805 in the Vegas metro area marking a nearly one-third increase from just two years prior. Only three other metropolitan areas experienced bigger leaps. The median rent today stands at $2,070, so increases have slowed but still leave some people struggling to pay their rent.
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An intake worker at a senior center in the working-class northwest section of Las Vegas said that her clients have been forced to rely on family members, while others have been evicted and forced to move into their cars. Or onto the streets.
“The rent has gone up since Biden’s been in office. It went up when Trump was in office,” said the worker, who asked to go only by her first name, Karen. “We don’t know where the blame lies.”
She said she hadn’t known much about Harris but liked what she saw at the Democratic National Convention.
“She has a lot of new ideas, things that would help,” including proposals for an expanded child-care tax credit, Karen said.
In interviews with 17 people in Henderson and Las Vegas last week, six said they intended to vote for Harris and five for Trump, while six others weren’t sure they would vote at all. Half of those who haven’t committed said they tended to favor the former president; the other half the current vice president.
Donald Trump was leading in state polls during this Las Vegas rally in June, before President Biden quit. An ad for him on Vegas TV stations shows Ronald Reagan telling voters in 1980 to ask whether they’re better off than they were four years ago.
(John Locher / Associated Press)
Trump backers tended to stress his background as a businessman and to focus on the bottom line. Prices for most things were lower when the Republican was in the White House, so it’s time to bring him back, they said.
Some also seconded Trump’s frequent complaint that immigrants crossing the border illegally from Mexico are harming the U.S. (Border crossings have decreased in recent months.)
Most Harris supporters said they trusted her to make the kind of changes she promised; such as imposing sanctions on retailers and others determined to be engaged in price gouging. Those who like the Democrat said they were sick of the demonizing of immigrants.
Rodriguez, a mother of three, said her parents came from Mexico legally. She complained about those who come without authorization and then get government benefits.
“You have people coming into this country, and basically everything is handed to them,” said Rodriguez, who grew up in Orange County. “To me, I don’t think that’s fair.”
One aisle over at the Henderson Dollar Tree, Monica Silva expressed a different view. She said Trump “is always talking about the Mexican issue.”
She added: “He is always criticizing them and blaming them. And that is not true. That is not the problem in our country.”
Silva, 77, who immigrated more than half a century ago from Chile, sees Harris as someone who will rein in price gouging.
“I think she’s just powerful, and she has the experience as the lawyer, you know?” Silva said. “I think she can get things done, more than most people can.”
Shara Rule, who works for an electric scooter business, doesn’t feel Harris or the Biden White House are to blame for higher prices. And she sees prices coming down.
“Trump is just greedy. He is helping himself,” said Rule, 61. “She’s smart and got a good head on her shoulders. I think she’s going to lead us in the right direction, economically.”
Susan Kendall, a director of medical records for a nursing facility, felt that Trump got more done, while the Democrats mostly talked.
She fondly recalled the “economic impact payment” of $1,200 in COVID-19 relief she got when Trump was still in office.
“That made a big difference for people, and Biden didn’t even try any of that,” said Kendall, 56. (Actually, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan shortly after taking office, sending payments of $1,400 per person to middle-class families.)
“I don’t know exactly what Trump did. But whatever he did, it worked,” Kendall said. “I feel like Trump focuses inside the country and helping people here inside the country and not helping people from the outside.”
The ad featuring Reagan really hit home with her. “I saw it and thought about how things were four years ago,” she said. “I think that will make it easy to make your decision.”
Mandy, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom, said prices have gotten so high that she no longer grabs all of the snacks and extras she would like in the supermarket.
“I can’t afford that right now,” she said.
“I just think that the country needs to be run like a business,” said Mandy, a two-time Trump voter who declined to give her last name. “Not so much like Biden is running it now. He’s not like a businessman. He’s a politician.”
Shopping for yarn to crochet hats for friends and family, Kathleen Clark said she sees both political camps as misguided in thinking any president can change economic conditions in the short term.
The 66-year-old Clark, a day trader on the stock market, said long-term micro- and macro-economic forces control the economy. She also doesn’t believe campaign promises, like Trump and Harris promising to eliminate taxes on tips. (“They can’t do it,” she said, “until they figure out how to replace that money.”)
Clark also questioned those who say how much they are suffering. She knows from her retail days, she said, that the kids who started back to school in recent weeks were wearing some pretty pricey outfits.
“Those kids are going out there with $600 tennis shoes and backpacks. They got $1,000 on their backs,” she said with a chuckle. “They’re not hurting.”
One of those ubiquitous Nevada independents, Clark said her vote will be guided by one factor that is beyond argument.
“I’m voting for Harris. Why? Strictly because she’s a woman,” she said. “I don’t believe in Biden. I don’t believe in Trump. I don’t believe in any of the rest of it. But it’s about time [for a female president]. There is nothing else.”
On a stage festooned with American flags and Fraternal Order of Police banners in North Carolina on Friday, former President Trump accepted the backing of the country’s largest police union.
National Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes said the “enthusiastic endorsement” reflected the “overwhelming collective will” of the group’s more than 375,000 members nationally.
“We stand with you, and we have your back,” Yoes said, promising the group’s members would “make the case” for Trump to Americans across the nation over the next two months.
“This is a big endorsement for me,” Trump said. “Boy, that’s a lot of protection.”
Prior to Trump’s event, the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris held a call with her own law enforcement supporters. First to speak was former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who was at the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Dunn said Trump’s promised support for law enforcement was nothing but a play for votes — and a lie.
“He’s going to tell my fellow officers that he’s their ally, he’s their friend, and he’s [the] candidate of law and order,” Dunn said. “After what I experienced on Jan. 6, I can assure you that he is not.”
Dunn said he knows many officers who are “appalled by the FOP even entertaining endorsing” Trump, given his felony convictions, his actions on Jan. 6 and his recent promise to pardon the insurrectionists who attacked police officers that day.
“He abandoned us,” Dunn said. “Law and order and the democracy I vowed to protect — he abandoned that.”
With two months until the election, both the Trump and Harris campaigns are trotting out their law enforcement backers as a means of attracting voters in a race in which crime — along with the economy and immigration — has become a major issue.
Despite downward trends in many crime categories nationally, voters are nonetheless weary of retail crime, drug offenses and violence, and looking for solutions. A recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Times, found that a majority of voters in liberal California support stiffer penalties for crimes involving theft and fentanyl.
Both Trump and Harris have said they take such issues seriously and would bring solutions as president, while their opponent would only exacerbate the problems.
Trump has cast Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, as soft on crime and anti-police, including by pointing to persistent crime issues in cities like San Francisco, where she once served as district attorney. Trump has advocated for more aggressive policing, and for less federal oversight and more military equipment for local police departments.
U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn listens during a session of the House Jan. 6 committee in 2022.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
Harris has cast Trump, a felon, as a fraud who solicits law enforcement support when it is convenient for votes, but is otherwise hostile toward law enforcement — especially when they’ve been investigating him. She has advocated for responsive but constitutional policing and for stronger federal oversight and less military equipment for local police departments, and has touted the Biden administration’s record funding for law enforcement through COVID-19 relief funds.
Trump’s event Friday was not his first with law enforcement, but it was a major one, as the police union has members all across the country — including some 17,000 members in California. The group does not represent the biggest law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, said it is not weighing in on the national race and is instead focused on ousting progressive L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.
After being introduced by Yoes, Trump spoke for nearly an hour. He said law enforcement officers face “more danger and threat than ever before,” and that “we have to give back the power and respect that they deserve.”
He said crime was the No. 1 issue that people ask him about, and that he would bring back “stop-and-frisk” and “broken windows policing” to bring it to an end.
He also repeated many of his stump speech lies and grievances — some aimed at Harris, many to applause from the gathered law enforcement officers. He claimed violent and other crime is “through the roof,” when data show the opposite is true in many parts of the country.
He falsely alleged Harris made it so that “you can steal as much as you want up to $950” in San Francisco and “nothing happens to you, no matter what the hell you do.” He mocked the 2022 attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their home in San Francisco, to laughter in the crowd.
The event followed a Trump campaign call where campaign officials and law enforcement officials in swing states praised Trump’s record, blamed Harris for crime problems in California and accused her of being “pro-crime” and “coddling criminals.”
The Harris campaign this week has also touted law enforcement support, including by releasing an endorsement letter from more than 100 former and current law enforcement officers and leaders.
The letter cited a spike in homicides during Trump’s presidency and a sharp decline during the Biden administration. It described Harris as someone who has “spent her career enforcing our laws,” and Trump as someone “who has been convicted of breaking them.”
On the call with Dunn, Sheriff Clarence Birkhead of Durham County, N.C., said there that Trump tries “to portray himself as a friend of law enforcement, but we know it’s not true.”
He said Trump would use federal law enforcement to go after his political enemies instead of investing resources in local law enforcement, and use plans set out in the conservative Project 2025 to withhold even more — “making it nearly impossible for us to keep our communities safe from violence.”
He said Harris, by contrast, “has spent her entire career fighting for people and standing with local law enforcement like me,” which is why officers like those who signed the letter are “lining up” to support her.
Sheriff Javier Salazar, of Bexar County, Texas, said he was confused by the Fraternal Order of Police endorsement of Trump, whom he called “a person that wouldn’t qualify to be a law enforcement officer,” given his felonies.
Salazar said Trump “uses cops as nothing more than a photo opp, or a television prop,” and that he “purports to support law enforcement until we get in his way — until we stand in the way of him doing exactly what he wants to do. He proved it on Jan. 6.”
Dunn said Trump’s only allegiance is to himself.
“The truth is that he doesn’t care that he put my life and the lives of my fellow Capitol Police officers in danger on Jan. 6,” Dunn said.
Voters rank the economy and inflation as the most important issues facing the country, and in spite of good news on both fronts, discontent over pocketbook issues remains steady. There’s one stretch of Southern California where, one could say, that all began: Los Angeles’ harbor and coast.
As the center for U.S. Pacific trade and an archetype for exuberant housing markets everywhere, the region’s waterfront clarifies why so many Americans feel frustrated and under pressure — and just how challenging it may be to fix this, no matter who becomes the next president.
Stretching back to the mid-19th century, when the United States annexed Southern California from the Mexican Republic, Americans looked to Pacific trade and westward settlement to stabilize their nation. That’s why our local ports were developed.
In the 1850s, a federal agency, then called the U.S. Coast Survey, identified San Pedro Bay as a focal point for shipping efforts. Since the 1910s, this has been home to the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, collectively the busiest shipping hub in the Western Hemisphere, making the region prominent in global supply chains and transpacific trade.
Officials believed Pacific trade and settlement to be a safety valve for turmoil back East, that over slavery most of all. The results proved them wrong. Commerce and settlers intensified political conflict, both in Washington and in California, by increasing the stakes. Land speculators — in most places pushing out Indigenous people and Mexicans — looked to grab former rancho claims near California’s prospective harbors, in Southern California’s enviable climate. It was a rush for beachfront property like the region had never seen. Their actions set Los Angeles’ property lines and the basis for today’s real estate markets from Malibu to Newport Bay.
This history was invisible to me as I grew up around L.A., but its effects were and are all around, continuing to reshape Southern California during my lifetime. By the early 2000s, container ships, larger than before, accumulated in the outer waters as the ports were sometimes overwhelmed. Semitrucks crowded the 110 and 710 freeways. At the same time, the coastal real estate market boomed yet again. My parents — new arrivals to the region — found it full of opportunity. They purchased their first and only home, in a subdivision on former rancho lands, and they paid it off as valuations exploded around them and their nest egg grew. The region’s economy was a dynamo, a safe harbor in more ways than one.
Shipping and competitive real estate — two legacies of 1850s Southern California — remain with us. Moreover, they are part of an ongoing story of Los Angeles and its place in American life. Today’s voters’ sense of their economic well-being is based on the prices of household necessities, mostly imported goods, and about one-third enter the U.S. through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Historically, the ships and containers that crowd San Pedro Bay have expanded affordability, but the COVID-19 pandemic and international crises disrupted their flow. Suddenly transpacific trade was blamed for soaring costs, not credited with making household items affordable. Even after the disruption abated, high prices and memories of scarcity have lingered. Nationally, politicians and the public have come to doubt the virtues of globalization. The clash between high hopes for Los Angeles’ harbors and the realities of global trade contribute once more to Americans’ sense of an uncertain world, and once again the high stakes linked to Southern California’s economy feed into tensions nationwide.
Sure investments, meanwhile, no longer offset troubled times. Americans’ primary investment — triumphant in the post-World War II era — is the single-family home. However, the nation’s high-priced real estate has unsettled this convention. Rather than absorbing newcomers and providing a path to financial security, it has multiplied voters’ sense of distress by locking many out of homeownership. The exhilarating prices and low interest rates of recent decades — profit and security to prior home purchasers — now put inflationary pressure on renters and prospective buyers, and on middle-income, low-income or young voters especially. This is most true around coastal Los Angeles, west and south of the 405 Freeway. It is true as well in markets farther afield, such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, long shaped by Southern California migrants and money.
The Southland’s residents and visitors were drawn to the promise of Pacific waters, just as generations before have been. And while many in all eras have benefited from the region’s industries and real estate appreciation, many others have always been left behind. Remembering such connections with history can clarify uncertain times. Recent polarization in U.S. politics has been compared to the Civil War era, but there is perhaps a more apt parallel between today and the 1860s: the economic ideas of trade and land investment, intended to calm political passions and to distribute prosperity, fell short in both moments.
The consequences will play out in the months ahead as pocketbook issues quite likely decide the presidential election. But regardless of the election’s outcome, we should understand that Southern California is never a place apart from U.S. politics and its dilemmas. Instead, these have deep roots in the region. And today, the region continues to invest in imports and real estate as vehicles for prosperity — even as the adverse costs accumulate in national politics.
That makes Southern California the opportune place to resolve these dilemmas of history and to lead the U.S. forward, whether by policy experimentation or new principles for how wealth might be built, sustained and shared. Shaping the nation’s better future will involve tough choices. It certainly will take visionaries and daring. Yet that, too, is a legacy of Southern California’s past, one ready to be reclaimed.
James Tejani, an associate professor of history at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is the author of “A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America.”
OK, my choice to replace President Biden as the Democratic nominee is George Clooney.
Yes, I am semi-serious. No, I don’t expect anyone else to take me seriously — let alone the Oscar-winning actor.
His lifestyle, privacy and pay would suffer immensely — even if a $400,000 salary plus free housing, food and travel would sound very alluring to most people. Even with the hefty workload increase.
Why Clooney?
Most importantly, he’d whip the dangerous Donald Trump easily, probably by a landslide. Clooney’s a better actor. That’s all Trump is, besides a compulsive liar. Clooney is much more.
He has an easy smile that exudes sincerity and is extraordinarily telegenic. Trump pouts and frowns and is a horror show.
Clooney exhibits conviction and is a humanitarian. Trump displays self-centered opportunism and sows hate.
Clooney is relatively young for a presidential candidate these days. He’s an upbeat 63. Trump is a whiny, grouchy 78.
“I love Joe Biden. … In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he faced. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can,” Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed.
“Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw…. The [ABC] George Stephanopoulous interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. … Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. … We are not going to win in November with this president. …
“Top Democrats … need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside. … Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out. It sure would.”
Agreed.
Biden has been a good president despite a few screwups, most notably on illegal immigration. But that doesn’t mean he’d be effective in a second term.
And Biden’s candidacy is not sustainable. Support among Democratic members of Congress is cracking.
Much more importantly, voters have been telling pollsters for months that they desire a younger Democratic standard bearer. But the party didn’t listen. Now, Biden is losing more ground to Trump and there’s even speculation about some blue states turning purple.
Patrons watch President Biden debate former President Trump at a watch party on June 27 in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Freed from the inane two-minute time limit on answering questions in the TV debate, Biden was able to respond with thoughtful replies. He particularly was impressive when answering a foreign policy question about dealing with China and Russia.
But he awkwardly flubbed the first question. Biden was asked whether he was concerned about Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to beat Trump if she were the nominee.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president. So, let’s start there,” he replied.
That could be dismissed as a minor slip of the tongue, but the president did a similar name botch an hour earlier. At a Washington ceremony, Biden accidentally introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the Russian tyrant who invaded Zelensky’s country.
“Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” Biden said, before quickly catching himself.
Then there was the July 4 radio interview when Biden said: “I’m proud to be … the first vice president, the first Black woman to serve with a Black president.”
He was scrambling his often-used line about being proud of serving with the first Black president and also choosing the first Black woman as vice president. It was a too-common verbal fumble that accentuates voters’ concern about the president’s decline.
Clooney’s a world-class communicator.
He’s a Kentucky native who conceivably could draw support from Southern border states. Remember that wonderful “O Brother, Where Art Thou” flick when he played a lead bluegrass singer? Sure, he was an escaped convict, but that was just pretend. Trump’s a true-life convicted felon.
Clooney piloted the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail into “The Perfect Storm” and it perished, but I’m confident he wouldn’t sink the ship of state.
Look how he cleverly and deftly upended the corrupt corporate attorney who tried to kill him in “Michael Clayton.”
And showed his environmental creds and family values in “The Descendants.”
Politicians should never underestimate the voters’ desire to be entertained.
Yes, Clooney is just a movie star who has never served in public office. But neither had actors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger before they were elected California governor.
And Trump, a reality TV star, had never held office either before shockingly being elected president. In his case, it showed.
All right, Clooney is not going to be nominated for president. Democrats haven’t the imagination.
But they should entertain us at their August convention by engaging in a competitive, wide-open contest for the best candidate to stop Trump. And it’s not Biden.
At a fraught moment in President Biden’s reelection campaign, as he faces calls to drop out of the race due to serious flubs at last week’s debate, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed donors at a private fundraiser Tuesday in San Francisco and focused on the election as a choice between civil liberties and dictatorship.
“Let’s just deal with the elephant in the room. There are actually two: One is the debate, and the other is Trump,” Harris said to light laughter from a group of about 35 supporters at the Nob Hill condo of real estate executive Susan Lowenberg, in a high-rise building overlooking the city and bay.
“The debate, as the president said, [was] not his finest hour. We all know that,” Harris told the room. But the outcome of the election, she added, “cannot be determined by one day in June.”
“It is still the fact that the stakes are so high in this election. It is still the fact that the race is close. It is still the fact that there is a profound contrast on the two sides of the split screen in terms of who stands for what and what each has accomplished,” she said. “And it’s still true that Trump is a liar.”
Her appearance at the San Francisco fundraiser came the same day Trump’s campaign reported raising $331 million compared with Biden’s $264 million during the second quarter of this year, eliminating the cash advantage Biden previously had over Trump.
“President Trump’s campaign fundraising operation is thriving day after day and month after month,” the Republican’s top campaign advisors, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, said in a statement. “This fundraising momentum is likely to grow even more as we head into a world-class convention and see the Democrats continue their circular firing squad in the aftermath of Biden’s debate collapse.”
Harris didn’t say anything further about Biden’s debate performance while a Times reporter was present at Tuesday’s private fundraiser.
Elizabeth Ashford, a Democratic strategist who served as Harris’ chief of staff during her tenure as California’s attorney general, applauded Harris’ focus in recent days on delivering a crisp, clear message to an anxious American electorate. Harris’ job, Ashford said, is to focus on the administration’s accomplishments, and to demonstrate to voters — without actually saying it — that she can step in if necessary to effectively lead the nation.
“That is where I would be singularly focused,” Ashford said. “One of Kamala’s areas of growth has been to be really confident in how she communicates. And this is that moment.”
A new CNN poll indicates some 75% of voters think Democrats would have a better shot at keeping the White House if they swapped Biden out for someone new. The poll also showed nearly as much support for Harris as for Trump in a hypothetical matchup — with 47% of registered voters surveyed nationwide saying they would support Trump and 45% saying they would vote for Harris. The same poll indicated the difference between the current likely candidates was larger, with 49% backing Trump and 43% favoring Biden.
At the fundraiser Tuesday, Harris seemed comfortable and relaxed in a room full of longtime donors and friends stretching back to her start in San Francisco politics as district attorney 20 years ago.
Harris touted the administration’s policy accomplishments, such as capping the price of insulin for seniors on Medicare and erasing student loan debt for millions of borrowers. She highlighted the White House’s commitment to mitigating climate change through investments in green energy, and its support for reproductive freedoms and other rights for women and marginalized communities.
“There is an awareness among the American people that there is a full-on attack — an intentional attack — against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and liberties,” she said.
Those stakes became “even higher” with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Monday that gave Trump — and possibly future presidents — legal immunity from criminal charges stemming from official actions while in office, Harris said.
“And let’s not forget, Donald Trump has openly said he admires dictators and intends to be ‘a dictator on Day One,’” Harris said. “We gotta fight, and we know how to fight.”
Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal were speaking to a crowd of business leaders in 2013 about creating their first company when the conversation seemed to go off script. Originally from South Africa, Kimbal said the brothers lacked lawful immigration status when they began the business in the U.S.
“In fact, when they did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants,” Kimbal said, according to a recording of the interview from the Milken Institute Global Conference.
“I’d say it was a gray area,” Elon replied with a laugh.
Eleven years later, Elon was back at the Milken Institute last month in Beverly Hills, talking once again about immigration. This time, he described the southern border as a scene out of the zombie apocalypse and said the legal immigration process is long and “Kafkaesque.”
“I’m a big believer in immigration, but to have unvetted immigration at large scale is a recipe for disaster,” Musk said at the conference. “So I’m in favor of greatly expediting legal immigration but having a secure southern border.”
Musk, the most financially successful immigrant in the U.S. and the third-richest person in the world, has frequently repeated his view that it is difficult to immigrate to the U.S. legally but “trivial and fast” to enter illegally. What he leaves out: Seeking asylum is a legal right under national and international law, regardless of how a person arrives on U.S. soil.
But as the election year ramps up and Republicans make border security a major theme of their campaigns, Musk’s comments about immigration have grown increasingly extreme. The chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, who purchased the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) in 2022, has sometimes used his giant microphone to elevate racist conspiracies and spread misinformation about immigration law.
Musk’s business manager did not respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives for SpaceX and Tesla. X does not have a department that responds to news media inquiries.
While Musk’s views are clear, what’s murkier is his influence. Some see him as an influential opinion maker with the power to shape policy and sway voters, while others dismiss him as a social media bomb thrower mainly heard within a conservative echo chamber.
“If you haven’t heard it already, I’m sure you’re going to see members of Congress citing Elon Musk and pointing to his tweets, and that’s a scary concept,” said Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-San Pedro), who leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
She says she believes Musk is influential with her Republican colleagues who are “always looking for new anti-immigrant talking points.”
Polling shows immigration is a top issue for voters. For the third month in a row, it was named by respondents to an open-ended April Gallup poll as the most important problem facing the U.S.
The November election that’s shaping up as a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump will be the first presidential contest since Musk bought X — a site Trump had been banned from for inciting violence before Musk reinstated his account last year.
Musk used the platform to come to Trump’s defense last week after the former president was criminally convicted for falsifying records in a hush money scheme. “Great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system,” Musk wrote on X, calling Trump’s crime a “trivial matter.”
After meeting with Trump in March, Musk told former CNN anchor Don Lemon that he’s “leaning away” from Biden, but doesn’t plan to endorse Trump yet. He also said he won’t donate to any presidential campaign.
Campaign contribution records show Musk regularly donated to both Republicans and Democrats through 2020. That includes a handful of donations to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said his relationship with Musk dates back to his time as San Francisco mayor but that they’ve never discussed immigration.
“I think people have formed very strong opinions on this topic,” Newsom said. “I don’t know that he’s influencing that debate in a disproportionate way. Not one human being has ever said, ‘Hey, did you see Elon’s thing about immigration?’”
How Musk talks about immigration on X
Last year Musk visited the Eagle Pass, Texas, border, meeting with local politicians and law enforcement to get what he called an “unfiltered” view of the situation.
He also helped spread viral reports falsely claiming the Biden administration had “secretly” flown hundreds of thousands of migrants into the U.S. to reduce border arrivals.
“This administration is both importing voters and creating a national security threat from unvetted illegal immigrants,” Musk wrote March 5 on X. “It is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11.”
But the migrants in question fly commercial under a program created by the Biden administration, exercising the president’s authority to temporarily admit people for humanitarian reasons. The program allows up to 30,000 vetted people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela lawfully relocate to the U.S. each month and obtain work permits if they have a financial sponsor.
Contrary to Musk’s claim that the administration is looking for Democratic voters, those arriving under the program have no pathway to citizenship. The claim gives fuel to extremist ideologies such as great replacement theory, the racist conspiracy that there’s a plot to reduce the population of white people.
Elon Musk, wearing a black Stetson hat, livestreams while visiting the southern border in September in Eagle Pass, Texas. Musk toured the border along the bank of the Rio Grande with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).
(John Moore / Getty Images)
Earlier this year, Musk targeted a controversial bill in the California Legislature that would help immigrants with serious or violent felony convictions fight deportation using state funds. Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) pulled the bill after Republicans slammed it on social media, garnering the attention of Musk, who wrote about it on X: “When is enough enough?”
In February, shortly after a bipartisan group of senators released details of a border security bill that had gone through lengthy negotiations, Musk again echoed great replacement theory, writing on X: “The long-term goal of the so-called ‘Border Security’ bill is enabling illegals to vote! It will do the total opposite of securing the border.”
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) shot back.
“No, it’s not focused on trying to be able to get more illegals to vote,” Lankford said on CNN. “That’s absurd.”
Musk’s immigration journey
There’s a particular irony in Musk attacking the program that allows limited arrivals for humanitarian reasons while simultaneously saying he favors legal immigration, said Ahilan Arulanantham, a lawyer, professor and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA. The program offers would-be migrants a lawful pathway to reach the U.S. and reduced arrivals at the border from the beneficiary countries.
“That shows a very deep confusion about a fairly basic point about immigration law and the way the policy works,” Arulanantham said. Musk’s lack of criticism of a similar program for Ukrainians illustrates the undercurrent of racism accompanying attacks on the program for Latin American migrants, he added.
Musk amplifying false claims is counterproductive to rational immigration policy, Arulanantham said.
“Every voice adds to the pile, and the louder the voice, the marginally greater the addition to the pile,” Arulanantham said. “He is a very loud voice.”
David Kaye, a UC Irvine law professor who studies platform moderation, said Musk’s promotion of misleading or false statements, including those about immigrants, is concerning because he can influence conversations on X in a way no one else can.
“There’s already a pretty robust kind of alarmist approach to immigration, so Musk might only add a little bit of fuel to a pretty big fire,” Kaye said. “But the fact is he’s got a ton of followers. To the extent he promotes disinformation, I think that’s a cause for concern for the United States having fair and fact-driven debates over immigration.”
Musk’s own immigration story is described in the biography “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson. Musk left South Africa in 1989 for Canada, where his mother had relatives, Isaacson wrote. While in college he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and, after graduating, enrolled at Stanford but immediately requested a deferral.
He and his brother Kimbal had invented an interactive network directory service, like a precursor to Google Maps.
Just before pitching the idea to a venture company, Kimbal was stopped by U.S. border officials at the airport on his way back from a trip to Toronto “who looked in his luggage and saw the pitch deck, business cards and other documents for the company. Because he did not have a U.S. work visa, they wouldn’t let him board the plane,” Isaacson writes in the book. So a friend picked him up and drove him into the U.S. after telling another border agent that they were seeing the David Letterman show.
After finalizing the investment, the firm found immigration lawyers to help the Musk brothers get work visas, according to Isaacson.
Once Musk married his first wife, he became eligible for U.S. citizenship, and took the oath in 2002 at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.
Musk’s recent commentary on immigration and other political issues appears to be a reversal from his views a decade ago, said Nu Wexler, who has worked in policy communications at tech companies and for congressional Democrats.
Wexler recalled when Musk left Fwd.us, the political action organization spearheaded by Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in 2013 to advocate for immigration reform. Musk left because Fwd.us backed conservative lawmakers who wanted immigration reform but supported oil drilling and other policies that went against Musk’s environmental priorities.
“I agreed to support Fwd.us because there is a genuine need to reform immigration. However, this should not be done at the expense of other important causes,” Musk told the news site AllThingsD at the time.
When Zuckerberg created Fwd.us, it made smart business sense for tech executives to make the business case for immigration reform, Wexler said. Now, immigration is a more divisive issue and executives on the left are less willing to dive into politics.
“At some point he decided that being the main character was helpful personal branding,” Wexler said of Musk. “I don’t know if he’s going to change minds on immigration, although he might be able to fire up the base.”
Alex Conant, a GOP consultant and partner at the public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies, said Musk’s influence could grow if Trump wins the election. If an immigration bill were to take shape at that point, Musk’s endorsement or rejection could shape the debate, he said.
“That’s the sort of scenario where all the sudden he might have some power,” he said.
There appears to be growing evidence for that possibility. Trump and Musk have discussed a possible advisory role for the billionaire, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. If Trump reclaims the White House, Musk could provide formal input on border security policies.
Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
Sharing a salt-and-butter breakfast roll with her grandson at a Newhall bakery, stalwart Republican Jill Brown said former President Trump’s guilty verdict in a Manhattan courtroom won’t dent her plans to vote for him in the November presidential election.
The longtime Santa Clarita resident and retired teacher, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, suspects Biden was also guilty of unspecified crimes and didn’t know why prosecutors were focusing on Trump’s actions.
“Hush money has been going on since the beginning of time. So I don’t know why they’re making such a big deal about it,” Brown, 69, said Friday.
In Santa Clarita, nestled in a hotly contested congressional district that is expected to help determine which party controls Congress next year, Trump’s guilty verdict did little to sway Brown or other hardcore Republicans.
But it may nudge moderate swing voters, and that could be pivotal in deciding the fate of Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) this election.
Still, it remains to be seen whether the verdict — and anycorresponding stain on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — will affect a congressional race in which the overheated national discourse has often taken a backseat to the issues affecting the day-to-day lives of Californians.
“Those who try to nationalize this race and make everything super partisan fundamentally misunderstand our district,” said Charles Hughes, an Antelope Valley resident and president of the local Republican central committee. Hughes didn’t think the verdict would have any impact on the race or support for Garcia.
Garcia is hoping to fend off Democratic challenger George Whitesides in California’s closely divided 27th Congressional District, where voters have twice reelected their Republican congressman — despite a double-digit Democrat voter registration advantage. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden beat Trump in the district by 12 percentage points.
About an hour’s drive from the solidly liberal confines of downtown Los Angeles, the congressional district sprawls from Santa Clarita into the folds and valleys of the San Gabriel Mountains and high desert frontier of Lancaster and Palmdale.
Once staunchly red territory, this district has been on the front lines of partisan warfare since a millennial Democrat unseated the Republican incumbent in a nationally watched 2018 race. But her meteoric rise met an equally quick fall, with Rep. Katie Hill resigning less than a year later amid a sex scandal. Garcia won the seat in a special election and has managed to retain it in two subsequent regular elections.
Kevin Mahan, 72, an independent voter, hasn’t decided how he’ll vote in the November congressional race. As a recent transplant from Glendale, he doesn’t know much about Santa Clarita politics or Garcia. But Mahan said he’d be unlikely to support Garcia, adding, “If somebody’s in bed with Trump, I’m not gonna vote for him.”
The historic criminal conviction of Trump was a sad day for America, Mahan said.
Outside money, busloads of volunteers and unabated national attention have poured in during each of those election cycles. 2024 will be no different: The race for the 27th remains one of the most competitive congressional contests in the nation, and the results will undoubtedly help shape partisan control of the House. It’s one of four California races rated as a “toss up” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
But the Trump verdict and potential associations for Garcia — who had been endorsed by Trump in the past — could influence independent voters, who account for more than a fifth of the district’s electorate.
Views of the trial and verdict have been shaped by a voters’ underlying political allegiances, with polling showing that Democrats overwhelmingly saw the trial as fair, whereas only a tiny fraction of Republicans agreed with that sentiment. Independents were evenly split on the relative fairness of the trial.
Garcia has yet to comment on the verdict. Whitesides used it as an opportunity to highlight the ties between the former president and the L.A.-area congressman, saying in a statement that “Garcia is focused on defending Trump, rather than serving us” and noting that his opponent was one of several California Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
Democratic allies, like Santa Clarita Valley Democrats Chair and founder Andrew Taban and former Democratic candidate Christy Smith, who ran three unsuccessful campaigns against Garcia in the past, were hopeful that the trial could push independent voters toward Whitesides.
“The key thing to remember about CA-27 is that while the biggest voting bloc of registered voters are Democrats, the second largest bloc are independent voters, and independent voters consistently in this district have broken for President Biden,” Smith said. With “the right kind of exposure,” she posited, Garcia’s ties to Trump could impact how those independents vote in the November congressional race.
Democratic congressional candidate George Whitesides, pictured at a 2013 event in Mojave, has noted that opponent Rep. Mike Garcia was one of several California Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
(Reed Saxon / Associated Press)
As his group canvasses for Whitesides and other local Democratic candidates, Taban said he expected the verdict might come up in conversations with voters, particularly as he and other club members plan to underscore the fact that Garcia is “for sure a Trump loyalist.”
But at the end of the day, congressional swing voters are going to be much more focused on economic issues such as gas and grocery prices, crime and the border, said Jon Fleischman, a Republican strategist and former state GOP executive director.
“I’m not saying that voter opinions about Trump do not matter,” Fleischman said. “I just don’t think the verdicts Thursday change many minds.”
It was a choice few relished, in a dismal election season.
The incumbent was deeply unpopular, spending his entire campaign on the defensive as he struggled to sell voters on his accomplishments.
His opponent, a wealthy businessman, was equally disliked. At one point during the contest he was dragged into court to face fraud charges.
The year was 2002, and Democrat Gray Davis was struggling mightily to win a second term as California governor.
“The night before the election, his favorability was only 39%,” his campaign manager, Garry South, recollected. “That’s something you don’t forget.”
Strategists for Joe Biden can no doubt relate. For the past many months, the president has dwelled in similarly abysmal polling territory. The latest aggregation of nationwide surveys pegs his approval rating at 38%.
No two elections are alike. But there can be striking similarities, like the parallels between that surly California contest 22 years ago and Biden’s tough reelection fight.
Even strategists for Davis can’t agree on the lessons gleaned from the Democrats’ uphill reelection effort.
South said that campaign convinced him Biden will ultimately prevail. “I’ve gone through this before,” he said.
Paul Maslin, the pollster for Davis’ 2002 race, is less certain. He makes no predictions beyond his expectation the presidential race will be close. The only similarities Maslin sees between then and now are the candidates’ lousy approval ratings and voters’ sour mood.
But even if past experience is no guarantor of future results, history can inform the way we view existing circumstances — which suggests that, as difficult as things look today for Biden, the president can’t be counted out.
Mainly because of who he’s running against.
“It’s a binary choice,” said South. “Yes, there are other candidates in the race. But in the final analysis, it’s between Biden and Trump.”
David Doak, the chief ad-maker for Davis’ reelection campaign, agreed. He, too, tends towards a glass-half-full assessment of Biden’s chances, suggesting a race between two disliked candidates “is a very different equation than if you’re lined up against someone popular.”
In 2002, Davis faced Republican Bill Simon Jr. The political neophyte was a bumbling candidate who ran a terrible campaign. Compounding his difficulties, Simon was slapped just a few months before election day with a $78-million fraud verdict. (The case involved his investment in a coin-operated telephone company, which, even then — five years before the iPhone was introduced — was a head-scratcher.)
Though the verdict was overturned after just a few weeks, the political damage was done and Davis limped past Simon to a narrow victory.
As it happens, Trump has also been tied up in court. He’s spent the last several weeks gag-ordered and squirming as his salacious behavior is examined in forensic detail at a hush-money, election-fraud trial in New York.
But Maslin, the number-cruncher for Davis’ campaign, warned against getting too carried away with comparisons.
For starters, he pointed out, California was a solidly Democratic state, giving Davis a considerable advantage even as his support flagged amid a recession and rolling blackouts. Biden doesn’t have that partisan edge in the roughly half-dozen toss-up states that will decide the presidential race.
Moreover, Maslin noted, Simon was a little-known commodity, which left the Davis campaign free to define him in harshly negative terms. Trump, by contrast, has been America’s dominant political figure for nearly a decade. His reputation, for good and ill, is firmly fixed; there are plenty of voters who won’t be dissuaded — by rain, sleet, snow, a sexual-assault verdict,multiple criminal indictments — from voting for Trump come November.
Perhaps most significant, Biden is the oldest president in American history and, at 81, very much looks it. Davis’ age — he was 59 when he sought his second term — was never remotely a campaign issue.
“There are many millions of voters who, even if they appreciate Biden’s achievements, still question his ability to serve on the job, much less for four more years,” Maslin said. “I’m not saying that’s accurate, but that’s what they’re thinking.”
Davis, for his part, expects Biden to be reelected, given his record and the contrast he offers to the wayward, unprincipled ex-president. Biden, he noted, has been repeatedly underestimated.
“I experienced that when I ran for governor,” said Davis, who was considered an exceeding long-shot before he romped to victory in the 1998 Democratic primary. “Everyone told me I had no chance to make it, so I know the fire that burns inside you when people say that.”
He’s loath to offer the president advice — “he’s got access to the best minds in the world” — but Davis had this to say to hand-wringing Democrats: “We have a winner. Stick with him. Get excited about him.”
“Because,” the former governor added, “another four years of Trump and you’re not going to recognize this country.”
President Biden’s recent pro-housing pivot didn’t come a moment too soon. Even though the housing shortage is long-standing, well-known and worse in blue cities, high housing costs somehow sneaked up on Democrats.
By facing the crisis head on, Biden and his fellow Democrats can show voters they’re committed to expanding and strengthening the middle class and dealing with its most serious concerns. Let’s hope it’s not too late.
The housing shortage has generated deep economic resentment. Meanwhile, wealthy communities from Cupertino, Calif., to Milburn, N.J., have done everything they can to stifle construction, driving up the cost of renting or owning a home. These high prices chip away at paychecks and morale, pushing people into ever longer commutes as well as crowded and substandard housing.
The housing shortage is a dark cloud over America’s otherwise sunny economic forecast, generating dissatisfaction and endangering Democrats in the coming election.
By all the usual measures, the economy is rebounding. Inflation has fallen from the highs of the past few years to near 3%. Wages are growing, and unemployment is low. The pandemic’s worst economic consequences are over.
And yet anyone trying to afford a home is stuck in the mud of high costs. Experts think inflated housing prices are part of the reason 8 in 10 Americans in key swing states see the economy as just “fair” or “poor.” The restricted housing supply keeps workers from feeling the benefits of higher wages and moving to places where incomes are even higher.
When people are struggling, they blame those they perceive to be in charge. That helps explain the discrepancy between economic indicators and Biden’s polling.
Instead of trying to convince people that the way they’re feeling about the economy is wrong, Democrats must address the pain that working- and middle-class people are feeling. Injecting positivity into the online conversation — as Biden’s team has tried to do by countering economic doomsayers on TikTok and other platforms — will only go so far.
To his credit, the president has been quietly working on housing affordability throughout his term. The administration’s Housing Supply Action Plan, released in July, provided funding to municipalities that have made it easier to build housing, among other pro-growth measures. The administration has also promoted commercial-to-residential conversion and financed affordable housing designed to be resilient to climate change. All of this will help bring housing costs down.
But in the last few months, Biden has finally grown louder about making housing affordable by increasing supply. As Neera Tanden, the director of his Domestic Policy Council, put it: “We know we need to increase housing supply to ensure that we can bring down rents and the cost of homeownership.”
Democrats are beginning to understand the need for a rallying cry that speaks to economic anxieties and signals that the administration is focused on bringing housing costs down. It’s a message that resonates with members of an eroding middle class, many of whom believe the Democratic Party isn’t fighting for them. It’s a message that appeals to young people, minorities and every other demographic being locked out of prosperity in America. It’s a message that puts Democrats back in the conversation about the economy, an area where voters still trust Republicans more.
Is Biden a YIMBY, a “Yes in My Backyard” advocate for increasing housing supply? Whether or not he calls himself one, his work and rhetoric on the issue suggest he is.
By publicly embracing YIMBYism as an ideology and an agenda, Biden can align himself with a bipartisan majority of Americans who believe in easing zoning restrictions to allow more housing to be built. And he can signal to those struggling with housing costs that he has their backs.
Housing offers Democrats a chance to talk about rebuilding an America that works for everyone, one with a thriving, growing, expanding middle class. The administration has to show voters it understands that current housing prices are unacceptable and that it will do what it takes to bring them down. Until more people believe they will one day be able to buy a home, pessimism about access to opportunity will persist, and so will the risk to Biden’s reelection effort.
Laura Foote is the executive director of YIMBY Action and a member of the board of Up for Growth.
Los Angeles City Council candidate Ysabel Jurado didn’t have any big-money backers spending lavishly on her behalf.
The Highland Park resident didn’t mail out glossy campaign mailers either, opting instead for an estimated 3,000 postcards, which were less expensive and personally handwritten.
What Jurado, a tenant rights attorney, did have was a supercharged canvassing operation. According to her campaign, she sent 20 paid staffers and about 250 volunteers to 85,000 doors across the 14th District, which stretches from Boyle Heights and downtown north to Eagle Rock and El Sereno.
That strategy is paying dividends. On Tuesday, she pulled ahead of Councilmember Kevin de León, who had been leading in the eight-way race to represent his Eastside district, according to the latest election results. Now in first place and likely headed to a runoff, Jurado is yet another example of the electoral might being wielded by the city’s political left.
Jurado, in an interview, said she’s not certain who her opponent will be in the Nov. 5 runoff election, since votes are still being counted. She portrayed her campaign as a lean operation, one focused on supporting renters, fighting gentrification and “uplifting the voices of those who haven’t been heard.”
“We don’t have an office. We haven’t sent mailers. We are talking to voters one-to-one,” she said. “Everything involved in building this campaign has been an uphill battle.”
Jurado’s first-place showing was revealed Tuesday as part of the latest daily election update from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk since the March 5 primary. Jurado had 24.5% of the vote, compared with 23.5% for De León — a difference of 318 ballots.
On Tuesday, Assemblymember Miguel Santiago was 730 votes behind De León, with 21.2% of the vote.
Election officials say an estimated 126,000 ballots are left to be processed countywide. Up until now, each of the county’s daily updates has broken in Jurado’s favor.
On Friday, Jurado pulled into second place, securing more votes than Santiago. Four days later, she was leading the pack.
De León, who is seeking a second four-year term, will face some serious challenges if he makes the second round. A former state lawmaker, he was at the center of the 2022 scandal over leaked racist remarks that spurred the resignations of former Council President Nury Martinez and Ron Herrera, former head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
De León repeatedly apologized for his remarks during that conversation, and for failing to put a stop to those made by others. He resisted calls to step down from a wide array of politicians, including President Biden, showing up at meetings where he was frequently jeered by audience members.
Less than a fourth of voters opted to keep De León in office, according to the results so far.
De León voted last year for Mayor Karen Bass’ budget, which called for the hiring of 1,000 police officers. Jurado said she would have voted against the spending plan, pushing for funds to be allocated to social services instead.
De León also voted for a four-year package of police raises, which Jurado opposed. In addition, De León is a supporter of Municipal Code 41.18, which bars homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, day-care centers and “sensitive” locations designated by the council, such as senior centers and freeway overpasses.
Jurado has called for 41.18 to be repealed, saying it has led to the criminalization of homelessness.
On Tuesday, a De León representative made clear that his candidate would highlight some of those differences in a runoff against Jurado.
“The voters have a clear choice in November between an experienced, results-driven elected official and someone who has promised to undo some of the progress we’ve made in housing Angelenos and cleaning up sidewalks,” said David Meraz, a De León spokesperson.
Meraz pointed out that 18 months ago, in the wake of the audio leak scandal, many political groups called for De León to step down. The results so far show that “the community makes the choice of the candidate, not outside organizations,” he said.
Jurado has been running to push the council to the left, expanding the size of the council’s ultra-progressive bloc if she wins. She would be the first Filipino American to serve on the council, representing a district that is 61% Latino, 16% white and nearly 15% Asian, according to a demographic breakdown posted by the city in 2021.
De León, who was born in Los Angeles, is of Mexican, Guatemalan and Chinese descent, Meraz said. During the campaign, De León highlighted his own efforts to reduce homelessness, aid renters and halt gentrification in downtown L.A. and Boyle Heights.
Brian VanRiper, a political consultant who does not have any clients in the race, said Jurado is in a strong position to prevail in the runoff. Still, he offered a word of caution for the Jurado camp, noting that the district has a “history of forgiving” incumbents with major political baggage.
District voters reelected Councilmember Jose Huizar in 2015, even after he was sued by a former staffer who alleged that he had sexually harassed her. In that contest, Huizar easily defeated former County Supervisor Gloria Molina, a political “titan” who had been in office for about three decades.
“[Huizar] doubled down on constituent services and making the case that he delivered for the district,” VanRiper said. “It seems like Kevin de León is following that playbook.”
Huizar was later charged in a sweeping federal corruption case and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. De León was elected to the seat in 2020.
In recent months, many of the groups that supported De León four years ago lined up behind other candidates. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Western States Regional Council of Carpenters and other groups spent a combined $687,000 on efforts to elect Santiago, the state lawmaker who was in third place.
A consultant for Santiago did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jurado, for her part, has secured endorsements from an array of politicians and community groups, many of them at the left end of the political spectrum.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, City Controller Kenneth Mejia and former mayoral candidate Gina Viola have been campaigning for Jurado. Volunteers from the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles, Ground Game LA and Boyle Heights Vota — formerly known as Boyle Heights for Bernie — have knocked on doors for her.
Caleb Elguezabal, who lives in Eagle Rock and is a member of the DSA, said the district has not “had the best representation” over the last decade.
Elguezabal, who volunteered on Jurado’s campaign, said he expects her to bring change to City Hall with a new approach to homelessness, fighting for a tax on vacant residential units and helping renters purchase their apartment buildings.
“Having someone with integrity would be a massive sea change,” he said.
Times staff writer Angie Orellana Hernandez contributed to this report.
Tech billionaire backers of a sweeping proposal to build an idealistic community from the ground up in the Bay Area released an aerial view of the project’s plans for tens of thousands of homes surrounded by open space, trails and using renewable energy sources.
In the photo and an accompanying ad released Wednesday, California Forever showcased the community’s proximity to the broader Bay Area, while touting that the Solano County project would convert unused farmland into “walkable middle class neighborhoods with homes we can afford.”
The new material comes as California Forever is gathering signatures for a ballot initiative in Solano County that would amend zoning codes to allow the project to be built on agricultural land. With 13,000 valid signatures, the ballot measure titled the East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative would go before voters in November.
Backers of the project include Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader who is chief executive of California Forever; LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; venture capitalist Marc Andreessen; and Patrick and John Collison, who founded the payment-processing company Stripe.
The new ad and renderings of the proposed utopia attempt to answer some of the questions locals have had about the project, which for years was shrouded in secrecy as tech billionaires quietly bought up farmland.
The proximity of the project to Travis Air Force Base has been one point of contention. California Forever said the new community would be 4.5 miles from the base with a security buffer zone where there would be nothing other than agriculture and solar farms. The community would create an open space of 712 acres featuring sports fields and trails between itself and neighboring city Rio Vista, a town of about 10,000 people on the Sacramento River.
Renderings of the community show picturesque open spaces where families could host birthday parties and go on bike rides, along with tree-lined neighborhoods and a bustling downtown.
In the newly released ad, backers say the project would use unused land “rated among the worst for agriculture in all of Solano County, land where for years and years, nothing much has been able to grow.” The project promises to provide $500 million for down-payment assistance, scholarships and parks for Solano County residents and 15,000 new higher-paying jobs in manufacturing and technology.
The community would be designed to have 50,000 residents at first, then grow to as many as 400,000.
The campaign faces opposition from the Solano County chapter of the Sierra Club, which said housing should not be built on agricultural land. Residents in the area have also expressed concerns about the effect on traffic.
If the ballot measure is approved by voters, other government approvals would then be required. Environmental groups have signaled lawsuits are possible, which could tie up the matter in court.
“A knowledgeable voter is the best kind of voter, and we find that the more Solano County residents learn about our project, the more they like it,” said Matt Rodriguez, campaign manager for the East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative. “We’re excited to be engaging with members of the Solano County community and this is another opportunity for us to continue sharing information about how we plan to bring middle class homes and good paying jobs to Solano County.”
Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian on Wednesday defended using a city email account to support a candidate whom Krekorian had endorsed in Tuesday’s primary election.
In a statement emailed by his office to media outlets shortly before midnight Tuesday, Krekorian praised former Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, a onetime aide to the council president who is seeking his former boss’ east San Fernando Valley seat. Krekorian could not seek another term because of term limits.
“I am especially proud to see former Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian asserting a commanding lead in the race to succeed me as the representative of the Second District,” Krekorian’s statement said.
“It has been my privilege to represent this district for 14 years and I am glad to see the voters have chosen a candidate with experience, vision, ability and a record of absolute integrity in public service,” Krekorian wrote. “Adrin’s achievements in the state Assembly have earned the trust of voters in the East Valley, and I am confident that his strong grassroots support will carry him to victory.”
Krekorian’s statement also congratulated his City Council colleagues, who were all leading in their respective races, saying that “across the city, voters are validating the council’s work in turning Los Angeles around.”
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Officials are barred under city ethics law from using city emails or city resources, including staff, for political activity. The Ethics Commission defines “political activity” as “activity directed at the success or failure of any candidate for elective office or ballot measure in a future election.”
Such violations can result in fines of up to $5,000.
Asked Wednesday whether the email ran afoul of the city’s ethics laws, Krekorian said: “I didn’t intend for it to. I don’t think that was anything that sounded like a campaign. I hope it didn’t. Saying that you support somebody isn’t campaigning.”
His communications director, Hugh Esten, wrote the statement at his instruction, Krekorian said.
Krekorian said he is sure that he will hear from the Ethics Commission if there is an issue with the email. The council president served on the all-volunteer panel in the late 1990s.
In 2015, then-Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office was forced to retract an email endorsing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after it was sent from a city email account. The endorsement was later sent out by Garcetti’s campaign consultant.
Travis Wilson, candidate for N.C. labor commissioner in the 2024 Republican primary.
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Candidates for North Carolina labor commissioner
The North Carolina labor commissioner primary has four Republican candidates vying for the nomination: Luke Farley, Jon Hardister, Chuck Stanley and Travis J. Wilson. Incumbent Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson, a Republican, is not seeking reelection. Democratic candidate Braxton Winston is unopposed, so he will appear on general election ballots with the Republican primary winner.
RALEIGH
To help inform voters, this candidate questionnaire is available without a subscription and may be republished by local publications across North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible.
What offices have you run for or held before? Have you had any other notable government or civic involvement? Previous candidate for Union County commissioner and current member of the Union County Historical Preservation Commission.
What do you think is the biggest issue in North Carolina that you would be able to shape if elected?
I look forward to working with the commissioner of insurance and the Industrial Commission to protect those who wish to be classified as independent contractors.
What do you think is or is not working well under the current labor commissioner? If not, how would you change it?
Until recently the commissioner had been fairly conservative in the creation of new rules, but that changed when he moved to mandate* an Exposure Control Plan upon employers. Placing additional workplace education burdens on employees and giving outside entities increased influence on defining and combating airborne illnesses is a step backwards.
*Editor’s Note: There is a proposal before the Department of Labor for consideration that deals with airborne infectious diseases. It was submitted as a rulemaking petition by groups including Episcopal Farmworker Ministry; North Carolina State AFL-CIO; Union of Southern Service Workers; Western North Carolina Workers’ Center; the Hispanic Liaison of Chatham County/El Vinculo Hispano; and the North Carolina Conference of the NAACP.
What can be done to make sure the state is regularly inspecting workplaces for health and safety?
Schedules and time allotments need to be reviewed to ensure efficiency.
Should North Carolina increase penalties for health and safety violations by employers? Do you believe that would reduce workplace deaths and injuries?
No.
What should be done to address staff vacancies in your agency and in state government as a whole?
First determine if existing staff are being utilized efficiently and then engage in conversations with high school students who are choosing an education path to pursue after graduation.
North Carolina has the second lowest unionization rate in the country. Do you think that should change, and how?
Low rates of unionization do not concern me. What concerns me instead are efforts throughout the country, sometimes backed by unions, to redefine independent contractors as employees.
Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan is the Capitol Bureau Chief for The News & Observer, leading coverage of the legislative and executive branches in North Carolina with a focus on the governor, General Assembly leadership and state budget. She has received the McClatchy President’s Award, N.C. Open Government Coalition Sunshine Award and several North Carolina Press Association awards, including for politics and investigative reporting.
And they’re not going to just sit there and take it.
Protect Huntington Beach — a revolution led by retirees — is waging a spiritedfight against what the group sees as a City Hall attempt to screen, and perhaps ban, library books with sexual content, reel in Pride flags and suppress voting rights.
A posse of six or seven hell-raisers in their 60s, 70s and 80s agreed to meet with me Tuesday night as they geared up before a city council meeting, but before long, the group had grown to 10, then 15, then 20. Some of them were new to activism; others have histories.
“I took my bra off in the ‘60s,” JoAnn Arvizu said proudly.
California is about to be hit by an aging population wave, and Steve Lopez is riding it. His column focuses on the blessings and burdens of advancing age — and how some folks are challenging the stigma associated with older adults.
“I’ve never done this before,” said Carol Daus, who added that she and her husband, Tony, were out posting signs late one evening. “This is our new hobby, I suppose. It’s midnight, and we’re out driving around. I have a torn meniscus, I’m going up a hill, there’s railroad tracks and for a minute I thought, ‘How crazy are you?’ ”
“We’re dedicated,” said one rebel.
“No, we’re mad,” said Tony Daus.
Former Huntington Beach Mayor Shirley Dettloff, who’s almost 89, didn’t hesitate to join the resistance.
“We’re really the people who built this city, and we’re proud of what we did,” Dettloff said. “And this new council is diminishing all that we worked for.”
Members of Protect Huntington Beach protest outside City Hall before a city council meeting.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Dettloff said there’s long been a conservative strain in the city, which once had a John Birch Society presence and led the mask-resistance forces in the early days of the pandemic. But when she served on the council in the ‘90s, Dettloff said, there was always civil discourse and respectful compromise. The focus was on managing the city for the betterment of residents, not on culture wars.
So what’s changed? Dettloff had a two-word explanation.
“Donald Trump.”
The former president unleashed “a whole new way of politics being done,” Dettloff said. And the current majority on the Huntington Beach City Council — Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark and council members Pat Burns, Casey McKeon and Tony Strickland — has joined the conga line.
As mayor, Dettloff said, she was co-author of a human dignity policy after reports of a skinhead presence in Huntington Beach. But in September, the council voted 4-3 to remove references to hate crimes from the policy, and it added a line saying the city “will recognize from birth the genetic differences between male and female…”
Huntington Beach City Council members from left: Pat Burns, Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark, Tony Strickland, and Casey McKeon listen to speakers from Protect Huntington Beach.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
And that wasn’t the only waste of time or insult to civility that set off Dettloff and others. They were steamed about a council discussion on whether to continue observing Black History Month, and about a March election that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, to put three controversial measures before voters.
One would effectively ban the flying of the Pride flag on city property, one would require voters to produce ID and allow drop-box monitoring despite the absence of any evidence of voter fraud, and one would grant more mayoral power in what the Orange County Register warned “can be misused to reduce public access and limit dissent.”
“Vote no on all three,” a Register editorial advised, and “encourage the council to get back to governing rather than political theater.”
That’s precisely the message the protesters carried to City Hall on Tuesday evening, where I expected them to clash with political foes. There’s a reason, after all, that four conservatives were elected to the seven-member City Council.
But the several dozen people who gathered outside City Hall were all on the same side of the skirmish, while supporters of book bans and voter suppression apparently stayed home. And roughly 90% of those in attendance were in their 60s and older.
I spotted one Support Huntington Beach lad of 39 years, who was shooting video of the protest, and asked how he ended up in the company of so many people twice his age.
“I saw a group of senior citizens start to step up, and I joined one of their meetings,” said Michael Craigs. “I realized that their presence on social media and video content wasn’t going to reach younger generations, so I volunteered to help with that.”
Cathey Ryder rallied the group with a barb aimed at the City Council majority that wants to crack down on perceived rigged elections.
“If there’s so much fraud and mistrust, how do we know the four of them got elected?” she cracked.
“We will be mailing out 30,000 postcards,” Ryder said. “We will be knocking on doors and leaving campaign literature to between [12,000]and 15,000 voters.”
The crowd then moved indoors to confront the City Council, filling most of the auditorium and some of an adjacent spillover room with a video feed. Of the more than 40 people who signed up to speak, almost all were 65 and older, and all but a few denounced the ballot measures.
“They stink,” said Andy Einhorn.
“The City Council needs to get about the business of running the city,” said Tony Daus, who ripped council and staff for unspecified and unnecessary election costs.
“This is our new hobby, I suppose,” Carol Daus said, referring to her activism. “It’s midnight, and we’re out driving around. I have a torn meniscus, I’m going up a hill, there’s railroad tracks and for a minute I thought, ‘How crazy are you?’ ” Daus of Protect Huntington Beach addresses City Council members in City Hall on Tuesday.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“If I ran a business like this, I’d be fired,” said his wife, Carol, who warned of litigation costs if the state follows through on a threat to block any voter suppression tactics.
Barbara Shapiro opened a gift-wrapped box and pulled out three sausages labeled Measures A, B and C, along with a piece of paper.
“Oh, it’s a bill,” she said in mock surprise. “Oh my gosh. We’re going to be paying millions of dollars for these sausages.”
Two days after the meeting, Carol Daus shared with me some social media feedback from Huntington Beach residents on the other side of this fight.
“So much frosted hair,” said one post, while another referred to Dettloff as a “leftist granny.”
“Maybe they did too much LSD at Berkeley,” said another post.
I was prepared to visit with the other side, but if that’s the level of discourse, maybe I’ll pass.
When I met with Protect Huntington Beach before the council meeting, two people said that if the ballot measures pass, they may move out of the city.
Kathryn Goddard, 82, said she’s staying put.
“I’ve been here 30 years and I feel like my job is to not let this happen,” she said. “This is my town, and I’m going to fight.”
A few knew that Garvey, a Republican, was running for the U.S. Senate. But they all remembered his steely forearms — “Hey Popeye,” one yelled — and success on the diamond in two baseball-mad towns.
“Is he a Republican?” Kenneth Allen, 56, asked a reporter as Garvey toured the San Diego homeless shelter where Allen works. “I’m a Democrat but if he is the best person for the job, I’d think about it.”
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Garvey’s baseball fame is central to a Senate campaign that, at best, is considered a long shot in a state where GOP candidates running statewide often receive an icy reception from California’s left-leaning electorate. He hopes what propels him into contention is a nostalgia for his playing days and a political message light on specifics but heavy with criticism about the declining quality of life in California and the scourge of illegal drugs flowing through cities.
This excitement from older fans trailed the 75-year-old first-time politician as he moved through Southern California last week on a listening tour about homelessness. Last fall, he joined a Senate race already dominated by prominent Democratic members of Congress: Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland.
“Once we get through the primary, I’ll start a deeper dive into the [issues],” Garvey said Thursday outside the San Diego homeless shelter.
“I haven’t been at this very long, so you got to give me a little bit of leeway here. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not full-speed ahead in policy and coming up with ideas that will make a difference.”
Since entering the contest Garvey has offered a range of views, including saying he supported closing the U.S.-Mexico border, but also taking decidedly more liberal positions on subjects such as gay marriage and abortion rights — both of which he supports.
“The people of California have spoken. They have spoken for abortion, and as an elected official my responsibility would be to uphold the voice of the people and I pledge to do that,” Garvey told The Times on Thursday in Compton during one leg of his listening tour.
Since entering the race, Garvey quickly rose to be the field’s top Republican, increasing his chances of finishing in the top two of March’s primary election and advancing to the November general election. In the latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studiespoll, which was co-sponsored by The Times, Garvey finished in third with support from 13% of likely voters. He trailed behind Porter and Schiff, who had 17% and 21% support, respectively.
The Dodgers’ Steve Garvey kisses manager Tommy Lasorda’s forehead in the locker room of Dodger Stadium after the team beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-3 to win the National League pennant on Oct. 7, 1978.
(Associated Press)
Support for Garvey has nearly doubled since August, evidence that he might have enough momentum to consolidate the Republican vote and attract some No Party Preference voters for a strong showing in the March 5 primary.
It’s why, in part, Porter and Schiff have ramped up criticism of Garvey’s party affiliation and support of former President Trump. The first Senate race debate is this month and the Democrats on stage are expected to go after the late-entering Republican candidate.
“With Trump’s MAGA loyalists turning out to vote for him in the presidential primary the same day as our election, it could give Garvey the boost he needs,” one recent Schiff fundraising email said.
Garvey told The Times he voted for Trump twice, reasoning that he was the best choice on the ballot in 2016 and 2020. There were good things Trump did, he said, but he won’t identify them. He previously said he doesn’t have an opinion on who is responsible for the violent pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol three years ago.
News cameras trail Dodgers great Steve Garvey during his visit to Skid Row in Los Angeles on Thursday. Garvey is campaigning to represent California in the U.S. Senate, an office formerly held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
For Garvey to do well in the March primary, he needs the support of California Republicans loyal to the former president. But in doing so, he runs the risk of angering an even larger proportion of the electorate who despise Trump.
On Thursday he sidestepped the question of whether he’d vote for Trump this fall or accept his endorsement, saying with a smile: “That’s a hypothetical question. If he calls, I’ll let you know.”
“I’m a moderate conservative,” he said. “I never took the field for Democrats or Republicans or independents. I took the field for all the fans and I’m running for all the people, and my opponents can’t say that.”
Stanford University public policy lecturer Lanhee Chen, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for controller in 2022, said that Garvey starts with an advantage many Republican candidates lack: People know Garvey and have fond memories of him. If he were to make the runoff, which Chen says is possible, he’ll face the monumental challenge of overcoming Democrats’ enormous voter registration advantage.
In the general election, Garvey, who said he wants to serve just one term, would hope to consolidate his hold on Republicans and pick off a small margin of Democrats and No Party Preference voters by appealing to moderates — and in particular, Latino voters — who might be attracted to his Catholic faith and focus on economic issues.
Chen said in a general election he would need to face head-on some of the questions about Trump. The recent Berkeley poll indicated that 34% of likely voters have a favorable view of Trump, compared with 63% who have an unfavorable view, and of that, 58% have a strongly unfavorable view of the Republican presidential front-runner.
“Every Republican candidate, regardless of where they sit on the spectrum of these questions, is having to address them, which is part of the reason why Trump is such a unique challenge for the Republican Party in a place like California,” Chen said.
Democratic political consultant Bill Carrick says that Garvey’s rise is a reflection of the weak Republican bench of candidates. The state has a long history of these sorts of candidates, he said — pointing to Hollywood action star Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election as California governor in 2003, when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was recalled from office.
Steve Garvey, center, visits Los Angeles’ Skid Row on Thursday, accompanied by executives with the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
In that election, Carrick said that voters in Los Angeles in particular didn’t just see Schwarzenegger as a film star. They saw someone who had been doing charity work in the community and was known to voters on a very human level.
Garvey, who lives in the Coachella Valley, has flirted with politics for decades after his successful baseball career, which included a World Series title and 10 National League all-star selections that ended in the late 1980s.
“The Republicans have no farm system now, so nobody moves up the ladder,” Carrick said, pointing to the small Republican minorities in the state Legislature.
“That leaves it open for people, like Garvey, who have their own capacity to jump in.”
Still, a general election in which 47% of the electorate are registered Democrats, 24% are Republicans and 22% are No Party Preference will be an uphill battle, Carrick said.
During his campaign swing last week, Garvey toured a shelter in downtown San Diego before visiting Los Angeles’ Skid Row alongside the head of the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District Estela Lopez and a local business owner named Sergio Moreno. He took photos with five uniformed Los Angeles police officers and told them, when elected, he’d make sure that people “you arrested weren’t back on the streets before you finished the paperwork.”
After explaining the challenges of owning property in the vicinity of Skid Row, Moreno told Garvey about the joy he experienced getting a ball signed by him at an event at the Glendale Galleria’s JCPenney in the mid-1970s.
Dodgers and Padres great Steve Garvey, right, visits Ruben Ramirez Jr., owner and operator of Ruben’s Bakery and Mexican Food in Compton, on Thursday.
The business’ interior was essentially destroyed after a crowd of more than 100 people robbed the bakery during an illegal street takeover this month.
But Thursday the 48-year-old establishment was back open and Ruben Ramirez Sr., 83, and his wife, Alicia, 76, were behind the counter in Dodgers gear.
Both recalled watching games as a family and the joy Garvey brought their family — including Ruben Ramirez Jr., who now runs the store.
“All my life I wanted to meet him,” Alicia said in Spanish — a Dodgers scarf around her neck. “He’s such a handsome man.”
She clutched a ball he signed for her and snapped a photo to send to her family. Ramirez Jr. said their family wasn’t political and just works hard. They had little interest in talking politics, he said.
Garvey didn’t either. He just smiled and shook their hands.
On Jan. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the caseof Californian George Sheetz, who applied for a permit to put a manufactured house on his land in El Dorado County and got hit with a $23,420 traffic mitigation fee. Objecting to the lack of any connection between the dollar amount and his family’s actual impact on traffic in the area, Sheetz paid the fee but turned to the legal system. Sheetz vs. County of El Dorado, California, addresses just a small piece of the state’s housing crisis. Nonetheless, it will matter for millions of people unable to find affordable homes here and in many other states.
When “impact fees” are unmoored from the increased costs a city or county will incur because of a new house or development, the fees can do more than present someone with an unfair bill — they can also reduce housing construction. In a country where a shortage of homes has led to sky-high prices, this matters more than you might think.
Developers should pay their fair share, of course. If construction fees fail to cover the costs of the increased public services required by new development, elected officials and voters turn to other means to cover or avoid those costs. They may impose growth restrictions or other exclusionary zoning policies to block the building of new homes rather than accept projects that lead to higher taxes or degraded services.
We see pervasive evidence of this happening when localities adopt rules such as single-family zoning, minimum lot-size requirements and aesthetic requirements that ensure that only expensive housing, which generates higher property taxes, can be built.
Properly set impact fees offer a way for development to pay its way, and they reduce political pressure against necessary growth. Local studies have found that appropriately set fees are associated with increased construction in suburban areas.
But when fees are set at arbitrarily high levels, they disincentivize new home building and add to the country’s housing affordability challenges, causing strain for renters and new home buyers.
In 2013, the Supreme Court held that all permit fees must have an essential connection to the actual impact of a development on city or county services, and a roughly proportional price tag. This sensibly reduces the risk that fees will choke off development.
In some states, such as Florida, jurisprudence goes even further, requiring that fees fund only infrastructure that serves the specific developments they were levied on. Not coincidentally, Florida has seen its population grow more than twice as fast as the country as a whole, reflecting its openness to new homes and relatively fair prices compared with much of the rest of the country.
But in other states, including California, Maryland, Washington and Arizona, courts have carved out an exception to the Supreme Court’s proportionality principle, allowing higher fees if they are set by legislation. Sheetz’s case will test whether that exception is constitutional.
Part of the rationale for the carve-out is that voters have a remedy against excessive assessments at the ballot box. In theory, they can vote out the lawmakers who are responsible.
However, any claim that voters can and will actually do this is dubious. Housing developers are a small share of any electorate. Future home buyers or renters — those who need municipalities to incentivize, not discourage, home building — may not even vote or live in the jurisdiction when the fees are determined. On the other hand, the people who do vote are likely to be those who already own homes nearby, and they tend to resist growth: Their property increases in value if high fees keep the housing supply low.
The housing affordability crisis is real. Californians in particular should understand the simple calculus of supply and demand that is exacerbating homelessness and causing seven cities (or metro areas) in the state to rank among the 10 most expensive in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report. When and where state courts allow local politicians to cater to their wealthiest constituents, charge exorbitant impact fees and otherwise keep out new homes, the situation won’t improve.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on the El Dorado County fees in the first half of 2024. The legal case that all impact fees, no matter who sets them, should be subject to the same conditions is strong. And during a nationwide housing crisis, the economic case against state and local practices that worsen housing affordability and impede needed housing production is even stronger.
Charles Gardner is an attorney and research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Emily Hamiltonis a director of Mercatus’ Urbanity Project.
