California
Column: How organized labor boosted California Democrats — by not talking like Democrats
SACRAMENTO — Democrats have a growing problem with union members and working-class voters, a building block that’s been foundational to their political success.
Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation, thinks she has at least a partial solution.
“We’ve got to listen to them,” she said, “and not talk about things that do not play in their life, or that they don’t identify with.”
That may seem as straightforward as a palm-slap to the forehead. (Well, duh!) But it’s not necessarily something union leaders have done in the past. Often, Gonzalez said, the top-down instruction to labor’s political troops has been, “This is our message. Go sell it.”
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But none of that, she said, resonated with the large number of Republican and conservative-leaning California voters who also happen to be union members in proud standing. So the Labor Federation tried something different this election, avoiding words such as “Democrat” and “Republican,” “Biden,” “Harris” and “Trump” in its political pitch.
“The usual go-to, the top-of-the-ticket discussion with our union members, wasn’t going to get us anywhere,” Gonzalez said last week in a lengthy conversation at the Labor Federation’s downtown Sacramento headquarters. “And it would just shut them down for everything else.”
California was an oasis this November in a largely barren Democratic landscape. Even as they lost the White House and Senate, the party flipped three House seats in the state, helping Democrats to an overall gain of a single seat and holding Republicans to the barest majority in decades.
Several of those California races were very close, so the Democratic success can be attributed to any number of factors. But at least some credit goes to the Labor Federation and its speak-no-partisanship strategy, which helped yield a significant number of crossover votes in a several closely fought congressional contests.
As Democrats spend the next few years soul-searching and wilderness-wandering, it’s an approach to winning union members and working-class voters that, Gonzalez suggested, is worth studying across the country.
As recently as 2012, Democratic presidential candidates could count on the support of about 6 in 10 voters from union households. (That’s how exit pollsters typically measure the sentiment of union members; they ask whether a voter or someone they are living with belongs to a union.)
That percentage has fallen in every election Donald Trump has been on the ballot, to just about 5 in 10 voters. The decline may not seem like a lot, but even a small shift matters in close elections — especially in battleground states with large union memberships, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The California strategy grew out of a series of focus groups undertaken soon after Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker, became head of the Labor Federation in July 2022. “What did I want to do?” she asked, as the clang of a trolley car rang from the K Street Mall below. “Not talk to our members, but listen to them.”
Discussions were held throughout the state, in the Central Valley, the Inland Empire, Orange County and the L.A. region — home to the half-dozen most competitive congressional races in California. The groups were split among men and women, Democrats and Republicans; the separation was intended, Gonzalez said, to avoid turning conversations into political arguments.
The survey found that in virtually every district there were more self-identified Republican union members than Democrats — which didn’t necessarily match up with members’ voter registration. “Take back the House,” the national Democratic rallying cry, was obviously “not gonna fly,” Gonzalez said, nor would a message built around keeping a Democrat in the White House — even if both were seen as being to the greater advantage of union members.
Instead, strategists drew on something that emerged from those focus groups: a fundamental belief in the value of diligent labor. “We would ask questions like, ‘What do you like about your union?’ ” Gonzalez recollected. The oft-heard response: “My union fights for me because I work hard.”
That, in turn, led to a campaign focused on the failings of the 118th Congress, historically one of the least productive in history. The message was simple. If you performed as poorly on the job as your representative in Washington, you’d be fired.
Variations on that theme were repeated to tens of thousands of union members in each of the six competitive districts. In mailers. In discussions on front porches. On refrigerator magnets sent to their homes. “If I got as little done at my job,” the magnets read, “this refrigerator would be empty.”
A refrigerator magnet mailed to union members by the California Federation of Labor suggested they would be fired if they performed as poorly as their congressional representative. This one targeted Rep. Ken Calvert
(California Federation of Labor Unions)
Care was taken to include documentation from the likes of CNN and Fox News, lest attacks on the do-nothing Congress came across as a one-sided attack.
(It was a somewhat tougher sell in the open-seat contest to replace Democrat Katie Porter, but union strategists counted on Republican Scott Baugh being tainted by association with the Republican-led House. Democrat Dave Min narrowly won the Orange County contest.)
Rather than telling union members who they should vote for — the usual approach — “we left them to come to their own conclusion,” Gonzalez said. Not by making a partisan argument, but appealing to their work ethic.
It seemed to work. Not perfectly. Democrats knocked off Reps. Mike Garcia in northern L.A. County, Michelle Steel in Orange County and John Duarte in the Central Valley. (The latter two by not much). They failed to oust Republicans David Valadao in the Valley and Ken Calvert in the Inland Empire.
But the strategy was successful enough that Gonzalez plans to sit down with national labor leaders for a debriefing.
It was admittedly difficult for the self-described “bleeding-heart liberal” not to press the hair-on-fire argument about the dangers of Trump and the need for a Democratic check on his authoritarian impulses. Typically, Gonzalez said, “That’s how we talk.”
The approach to California union members — more a nudge than a shove — also had to be sold to skeptics. There has long been a sense within the labor movement that if “we just … ‘educate’ them enough,” she said, “they’ll be good Democrats.”
But that bespeaks an arrogance the party will have to overcome if it’s going to stanch the bleeding among union and working-class voters. Only then will Democrats end their exile in Washington.
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As the nation prepares for its 250th Independence Day celebration, a decades-long California Fourth of July fireworks tradition that has raised millions for local children’s programs is going dark this year after the California Coastal Commission rejected a final effort to keep it alive, citing environmental concerns to protect the bay.
“We’ve raised over the past 14 years $2 million for kids programs here in Long Beach,” event organizer John Morris told Fox News Digital, adding the July 3 event is fully funded by the local community.
“This community pays for everything — everything. City fees, and the city doesn’t give us a break. We pay $20,000 to the city for police and fire, which I’m fine with, because there’s 100,000 people enjoying the fireworks,” said Morris, a Long Beach resident and business owner.
Morris, who owns the Boathouse on the Bay restaurant, had planned a scaled-up fireworks display this year to mark America’s 250th Independence Day.
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Long Beach residents have enjoyed the fireworks organized by John Morris for over a decade. (Scott Varley/MediaNews Group/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images)
In January, Coastal Commission staff rejected the proposal, and last week commissioners unanimously upheld that decision despite an appeal backed by local, state and federal officials.
Regulators warned Morris last year that 2025 would likely be the final year for fireworks at the event, as they continue pushing organizers to switch to drone shows they say are more environmentally friendly.
The decision stands in contrast to other approvals by the commission, including a permit granted to SeaWorld allowing up to 40 nights of fireworks.
“They get 40 nights in Mission Bay. All I’m asking for is 20 minutes — it doesn’t make any sense,” Morris said.
Morris, 78, also pushed back on the environmental concerns cited by the commission, pointing to years of testing around the event.
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Due to the lack of fireworks, Morris has decided to cancel the July 3rd celebration.
“We’ve had 10 years of environmental studies,” Morris said. “We test the water before and after the fireworks and send a robotic camera into the bay to check for debris — there’s never been any. It’s been spotless.
“We’ve also had eight years of bird reports to make sure we’re not harming wildlife. We’ve never had an issue. We’ve never been written up one time. So what is it really about?”
Joshua Smith, a spokesman for the California Coastal Commission, told Fox News Digital that permits are determined on a case-by-case basis, citing environmental concerns to “protect the bay.”
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Organizer John Morris said environmental studies are regularly conducted to measure the impact of the fireworks show on the bay. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Smith said Morris was approved for a permit to hold a drone show in lieu of fireworks. Morris told Fox News Digital such a show would cost about $200,000 — roughly four times more than traditional fireworks.
Smith confirmed that SeaWorld received a permit allowing 40 nights of fireworks. When pressed on the discrepancy, he reiterated that decisions are made individually and declined to provide further details.
Morris said the loss of the fireworks show will be felt across the community, from local businesses to families who have made the event an annual tradition.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the wide-open race for California governor, billionaire Tom Steyer is on a spending binge.
The hedge fund manager-turned-liberal activist is using his personal fortune to saturate TV screens and mobile phones with advertising, while his competitors accuse him of trying to use his vast wealth to buy the state’s most powerful job.
Steyer’s ads — in which he promises to bring down household costs or rails against federal immigration raids — appear inescapable at times in heavily Democratic Los Angeles, the state’s largest media market. Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact show Steyer has spent or booked over $115 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio — nearly 30 times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.
If he makes it through the June 2 primary election, Steyer could easily eclipse the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history.
Even when ad buys from all his major competitors are combined, along with ad purchases by independent committees supporting candidates, Steyer is outspending the field by tens of millions of dollars.
“Billionaire money is flooding our state in an attempt to buy this election,” former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of Steyer’s chief rivals, warned her supporters this month.
Mail-in ballots are set to go out to voters next month. Steyer is among a crowd of candidates hoping to seize a spotlight after former Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dramatic departure from the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies.
But while Steyer has ticked up in polling amid his spending splurge, he has not broken away from the field, leaving some wondering if he’s getting value for his dollars.
“If your first round of ads doesn’t move you dramatically (in the polls), the third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh and eighth rounds won’t either,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who for years advised the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “There is something inherently holding Steyer back.”
In recent prior campaigns for governor, at this stage a leading candidate was taking control of the race. This year, voters appear to be shrugging at a contest that lacks a star candidate among seven leading Democrats and two Republicans.
“Somehow the campaign is frozen,” Carrick added.
History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, when he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.
Steyer has never held elected office.
In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”
His campaign did not respond directly when asked about similar criticism facing his run for governor.
“Tom now stands as the only Democrat with the grassroots energy, institutional backing and resources to advance to the general election,” spokesperson Kevin Liao said in a statement.
The governor’s race was recently reordered by two developments: Swalwell, a leading Democrat, abruptly withdrew from the race then resigned from Congress, following sexual assault allegations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton.
Still, there is no clear leader.
Polling in late March and early April by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found a cluster of candidates in close competition: Democrats Steyer and Porter, Republicans Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Swalwell. Other candidates were trailing. The polling was conducted before Swalwell withdrew.
Democrats have feared the party’s large number of candidates could lead to them getting shut out of the general election in November. That’s because California has a primary system in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Leading Democrats are all claiming to have picked up support since Swalwell’s exit. Steyer nabbed one plum endorsement, when the influential California Teachers Association, which previously backed Swalwell, recommended him.
In his ads, Steyer promises to “abolish” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been staging raids across California. In another, he laments the state’s punishing cost of housing, “Everybody needs an affordable place to live,” he says.
Rapper was stabbed 16 times by fellow inmate in May 2025 while 10-year sentence in Megan Thee Stallion shooting case
Tory Lanez has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections stemming from a May 2025 incident where the rapper was stabbed in prison.
Lanez — born Daystar Peterson and currently serving a 10-year sentence after being found guilty in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case — also sued the warden and guards at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, where the rapper was stabbed 16 times in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by another inmate, the lawsuit states.
Peterson was hospitalized following the May 2025 incident, suffering a collapsed lung among stab wounds to his back, torso, and head.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit criticized the Department of Corrections for housing Peterson with fellow inmate and alleged attacker Santino Casio, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. “The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit said, adding that Tory Lanez’ “high-profile celebrity status” made him a target.
The lawsuit also said that prison guards were slow to respond to the shanking, and didn’t employ flash grenades or other measures to halt Casio’s attack.; Casio was not charged for stabbing Peterson, the Associated Press notes.
Lanez, who following his hospitalization was transferred to San Luis Obispo County’s California Men’s Colony, also alleges in the lawsuit that he never received his possessions from the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, including songbooks filled with lyrics to his unreleased music.
Lanez is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during a confrontation in the summer of 2020. He was eventually convicted on several firearms charges, including assault with a firearm, in December 2022. In November 2025, his appeal was denied by a three-judge panel, and the 10-year sentence was upheld.
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