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Kamala Harris Has Scrambled the California Governor’s Race Without Entering It

Published

1 year ago

February 19, 2025

Kamala Harris Has Scrambled the California Governor’s Race Without Entering It

In a different scenario, the governor’s race in California would already have taken shape. Aspiring candidates would have been making appearances around the state. Donors would have begun bankrolling their favorites, and organizations would have started to announce endorsements.

Instead, Kamala Harris came home.

The former vice president, after a stinging defeat in the presidential race last year, has shaken up the 2026 governor’s race by her mere presence in California. Speculation has grown each week since her return from Washington: Will she or won’t she enter the race?

After flying back to Los Angeles last month, Ms. Harris has stood with firefighters in Altadena, greeted evacuees at a Red Cross shelter and toured fire damage in Pacific Palisades. During her most recent stop, she did little to quell speculation.

“I am here, and would be here, regardless of the office I hold, because it is the right thing to do,” Ms. Harris said when reporters pressed her about whether she was running for governor.

The possibility has made it difficult for most other Democrats to move forward, realizing that any calculations they make now would be upended if Ms. Harris entered the race . The 2026 contest to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run again because of term limits, is currently populated by lesser-known aspirants, many of whom likely would step aside if Ms. Harris decided to run.

“She hasn’t frozen the field, but definitely made it icy enough to force everyone to slow down and watch their step,” said Dan Newman, a Democratic strategist who advised Mr. Newsom during his campaigns for governor.

Ms. Harris is weighing whether to run for governor next year, run for president in 2028 or pursue a role outside of elected office, according to a person with knowledge of her deliberations. She has put together an advisory team that includes former White House staff, veteran Democratic strategists, policy experts, a speechwriter and a fund-raiser.

Running for governor might seem to be a step down for someone who served four years as the vice president and was the Democratic nominee for president. But by doing so, Ms. Harris would avoid the competitive slog of a presidential primary and have a strong chance to lead the nation’s most populous state with the help of fellow Democrats who control the legislature. Ms. Harris has won in California every time she’s been on the statewide ballot — as a candidate for president, vice president, senator and attorney general.

By this point eight years ago, the last time California had an open governor’s seat, the major Democratic candidates had fully launched their campaigns and Mr. Newsom had emerged as the front-runner in polls. Though the primary election is still 16 months away, it takes longer in California than elsewhere for candidates to raise money and become known to voters across a vast state with expensive media markets.

So far, the declared Democratic candidates include the lieutenant governor, the schools superintendent, a former mayor of Los Angeles, a former state controller and a former legislative leader. Though they’ve begun to raise money and seek endorsements, they are little-known to voters, making the race an unpredictable free-for-all.

Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor, was the first to jump into the governor’s race when she declared her candidacy in April 2023. At the time, the possibility that Ms. Harris might enter the race was on few minds.

Because Ms. Kounalakis and Ms. Harris have been friends for more than two decades, it’s difficult to imagine them running against each other. Their friendship dates back to when Ms. Harris was the San Francisco district attorney and Ms. Kounalakis was running her family’s home-building company in the same city, “both young women, trying to navigate the halls of power,” Ms. Kounalakis said in a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Ms. Kounalakis was not available for comment.

While most Democrats are in wait-and-see mode, the prospect of Ms. Harris’s entry seems to have energized some Republicans. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, launched his campaign on Monday. Republican Steve Hilton, a Fox News commentator and former adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, who lives in Silicon Valley, is also weighing a run. And Richard Grenell, who has a home in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and is President Trump’s envoy for special missions, said last week that he would consider running for California governor — if Ms. Harris gets into the race.

Such candidates would face long odds in a state that has not elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006, when voters re-elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. But Republicans believe competing against Ms. Harris, especially after her loss to President Trump, could energize their supporters and attract more donations.

“She would be a very enticing opponent to Republicans,” said Matt Shupe, a campaign strategist who is advising Mr. Hilton.

If Ms. Harris does run, it would be a rare move for someone who came so close to the presidency. Only four vice presidents have run for governor, and one dropped out to support another candidate, according to Joel Goldstein, an emeritus law professor at Saint Louis University who has studied the history of vice presidents.

In 1804, Aaron Burr lost his race for governor of New York, an outcome that he blamed on Alexander Hamilton before he shot Mr. Hamilton dead in their famous duel. In 1894, Levi Morton, the vice president under President Benjamin Harrison, won the New York governor’s race.

The most direct parallel, however, was Richard Nixon. In 1960, Mr. Nixon, then the Republican vice president, lost the presidential race to John F. Kennedy. He returned home to Southern California and ran for governor in 1962.

Mr. Nixon adjusted to the parochial nature of a governor’s race and pledged to visit every county in the state, according to news accounts. He signed autographs in the rain in the Sierra Nevada foothills, posed for photos with “coonskin capped” mountain men and played piano for potato farmers near the Oregon border, The Los Angeles Times reported in February 1962.

In the 2026 governor’s race, some prominent Democrats have yet to announce their intentions as Ms. Harris weighs her decision.

Katie Porter, the former congresswoman known for viral moments in which she grilled executives with her whiteboard on Capitol Hill, has made several trips to Sacramento in recent weeks to meet with labor leaders and others who are influential in Democratic politics — indications that she has been laying the groundwork to get in the race. But she also has suggested that she and others would be unlikely to take on Ms. Harris.

“If Vice President Harris were to choose to run, I am certain that that would have a near field-clearing effect on the Democratic side,” Ms. Porter said at a post-election discussion in December.

Another Democratic leader has decided to forego the governor’s race. Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, had been considering a run but announced this month that he will instead seek re-election as the state’s top lawyer and will support Ms. Harris if she runs for governor.

Not every Democrat would scatter. Two candidates who are positioning themselves as business-friendly moderates said that they will stay in the race even if Ms. Harris jumps in. Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 and now works for the cryptocurrency company Coinbase, said that he’s running again because too many Californians are struggling with the cost of living.

“Because nothing has changed for them, nothing has changed for me,” Mr. Villaraigosa said.

Stephen Cloobeck, a real estate developer who has given his campaign $3 million, said Ms. Harris’s time in Washington has left her disconnected from California voters.“I welcome her entering the race if she decides to do that,” he said.

It is not clear when Ms. Harris might make a decision.

Lorena Gonzalez, the president of the California Labor Federation and a former Democratic state lawmaker, said that the prospect of Ms. Harris’s entry has “slowed everything down.”

The labor federation has invited candidates for governor to speak to union members at an event in May to begin considering an endorsement.

“We never thought that would look too early,” Gonzalez said. “But now it seems like it might be.”

In 1962, the last time a vice president came home to run for governor, Mr. Nixon lost to Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, the Democratic incumbent.

It was that defeat that led Mr. Nixon to tell reporters, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

Six years later, he was elected president.

Orlando Mayorquín and Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting. Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.

Related Topics:antonio Elections Featured Gavin governors harris Kamala D Katie (1974- )Newsom porter Villaraigosa

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News

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Published

4 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Getty Images, Dept. of Homeland Security and The White House via X/Collage by Emily Bogle/NPR

Two days after At Chandee, who goes by Ricky, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the White House’s X account posted about him, calling the 52-year-old the “WORST OF WORST” and a “CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN.”

Except that the photo the White House posted was of a different person. The post also incorrectly claimed Chandee had multiple felony convictions — he has one, for second-degree assault in 1993 when he was 18 years old. He shot two people in the legs and served three years in prison.

At “Ricky” Chandee with his wife, Tina Huynh-Chandee.

Via the Chandee family

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Via the Chandee family

Chandee, who came to the U.S. as a child refugee, was ordered to be deported back to his home country, Laos. But Laos had not been accepting all of the people the U.S. wanted it to, so the federal government determined that it was likely infeasible to deport him, his lawyer Linus Chan told NPR. Chandee therefore was granted permission to stay in the U.S. and work so long as he checked in with immigration authorities periodically. He has not missed a check-in in over 30 years and has not had another criminal incident.

People who know Chandee do not see him as “worst of the worst.”

After Chandee completed his prison sentence, he finished school and became an engineering technician. He worked for the City of Minneapolis for 26 years, became a father, and his son grew up to join the military.

In his free time, Chandee enjoys hiking and foraging for mushrooms, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“We are proud to work alongside At ‘Ricky’ Chandee,” said Tim Sexton, Director of Public Works for the City of Minneapolis in a statement. “I don’t understand why he would be a target for removal now, why he was brutally detained and swiftly flown to Texas, or how his removal benefits our city or country.” Chandee is petitioning for his release in federal court.

Chandee’s case is not unique

Social media accounts from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and other immigration agencies have spent much of the past year posting about people detained in the administration’s immigration crackdown, typically portraying them as hardened, violent criminals. That’s even as over 70% of the people detained don’t have criminal records according to ICE data.

NPR’s research of cases in Minnesota shows that while many of the people who have been highlighted on social media do have recent, serious criminal records, about a quarter are like Chandee, with decades-old convictions, minor offenses or only pending criminal proceedings. Scholars of immigration, media and criminal law say such a media campaign is unprecedented and paints a distorted picture of immigrants and crime.

A year into President Trump’s second term, the X accounts of DHS and ICE have posted about more than 2,000 people who were targets of mass deportation efforts. Starting late last March, DHS and ICE began posting on X on a near daily basis, often highlighting apprehensions of multiple people a day, an NPR review of government social media posts show.

Among the 2,000 people highlighted by the agencies, NPR identified 130 who were arrested by federal agents in Minnesota and tried to verify the government’s statements about their criminal histories.

In most of the social media posts, the government did not provide the state where the conviction occurred or the person’s age. Public court records do not tend to include photos so definitive identification can be a challenge.

NPR derived its findings from cases where it was able to locate a name and matching criminal history in the Minnesota court and detention system, in nationwide criminal history databases, sex offender databases, and in some cases, federal courts and other state courts.

In 19 of the 130 cases, roughly 1-in-7, public records show the most recent convictions were at least 20 years ago.

Seventeen of the 19 cases with old convictions did include violent crimes like homicide and first-degree sexual assault. ICE provided some of those names to Fox News as key examples of the agency’s accomplishments. “It’s the most disturbing list I’ve ever seen,” said Fox News reporter Bill Melugin on X, highlighting the criminal convictions of each person on the list.

For seven people, their only criminal history involved driving under the influence or disorderly conduct.

ICE agents approach a house before detaining two people in Minneapolis on Jan. 13.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

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Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Six of the 130 Minnesota cases highlighted by the administration involved people with no criminal convictions. The government’s social media posts for those six instead rely upon the charges and arrests as evidence of their criminality, even though arrests don’t always lead to charges and charges can be dismissed.

In yet another case, the government highlighted a criminal charge even while noting it had been dismissed. (The person did have other existing convictions.)

For 37 of the 130 people, NPR was unable to confirm matching criminal history after consulting the databases and news coverage. Some of the names turned up no criminal history at all. The government said these people committed crimes ranging from homicide and assault to drug trafficking, and cited one by name to Fox News. NPR tried to reach out to all 37 people and their families for comment but did not receive a response from any.

In a statement to NPR, DHS’s chief spokesperson Lauren Bis did not dispute NPR’s findings or provide documentation where NPR wasn’t able to confirm matching criminal history.

“The fact that NPR is defending murderers and pedophiles is gross,” Bis wrote. “We hear far too much about criminals and not enough about their victims.” before listing four of the people with old convictions of homicide and sexual assault, underlining the date of deportation order for three of them.

Images designed to trigger emotion

The stream of social media posts with photos of mostly nonwhite people are meant to draw an emotional response, says Leo Chavez, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. They “have been used repeatedly over and over to get people to buy into, really drastic, drastic and draconian actions and policies,” he said.

Chavez, whose most recent book is The Latino Threat: How Alarmist Rhetoric Misrepresents Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, recalls how political campaigns in past decades presented images of Latinos — often men — without context. “Just by showing their image, showing brown people, particularly brown men, it’s supposed to be scary.”

The fact that the government’s social media posts come with statements about criminal history as well as photos reinforces that emotional response, Chavez said. DHS has previously acknowledged inaccuracies on their website. But even if the department issues corrections, Chavez said, “the goal was actually achieved, which was to reinforce the criminality and the visualization.”

CNN’s analysis of DHS’s “Arrested: Worst of the Worst” website showed that for hundreds out of about 25,000 people posted on the website, the crimes listed were not violent felonies. Instead, DHS listed people with records that included traffic offenses, marijuana possession or illegal reentry. DHS said the website had a “glitch” that it will fix but also that the people in question “have [committed] additional crimes.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this when it comes to immigration enforcement in the modern era,” said Juliet Stumpf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who studies the intersection of immigration and criminal law. She said the drumbeat of social media posts focused on specific individuals was like “FBI’s most wanted posters” or “like reality TV shows.”

Then-DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Madison Sheahan (left), and Acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, speaks during a news conference at ICE Headquarters, in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

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Jose Luis Magana/AP

Stumpf drew a parallel with an incident from the 1950s when the U.S. government deported two permanent residents suspected of being communists. “The government was kind of proclaiming and celebrating their deportation because getting rid of these communists was making the country safer,” said Stumpf, “Maybe that’s comparable to something like [this].”

An analysis by the Deportation Data Project shows a dramatic increase in arrests of noncitizens without criminal records during President Trump’s current term compared to President Biden’s term.

“If you look at research, immigrants actually tend to commit fewer crimes than even U.S. citizens do. And that’s true of immigrants who have lawful status here and immigrants who don’t,” said Stumpf. “If we have a number of social media posts that are painting immigrants as the worst of the worst…it’s actually really putting out a distorted version of reality about who immigrants actually are.”

Some claims are disputed by other authorities

In some posts, DHS and ICE have also used photos of people and statements about their criminal histories to burnish the federal government’s accomplishments, defend their agents and criticize states like Minnesota. State and local authorities have in turn pushed back, and some of the federal government’s claims about the people it has detained have been met with setbacks in the courts.

DHS accused Minnesota’s Cottonwood County of not honoring detainers, written requests by ICE to hold prisoners in custody for a period of time so ICE can pick them up. In one post, the agency identified a person who was charged with child sexual abuse, writing “This is who sanctuary city politicians and anti-ICE agitators are defending.”

The Cottonwood County sheriff’s office said DHS’s post “misrepresented the truth” in their own post on Facebook. According to their account, the county did honor the detainer but ICE said it was unable to pick up the person before the order expired and the county had to release the suspect.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections wrote in a blog post that dozens of people DHS listed on its “Worst of the Worst” website were not arrested as DHS described, but were transferred to ICE by the state because they were already in state custody. The Corrections Department has since launched a page dedicated to “correct the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) repeated false claims.”

The “Worst of the Worst” website has some overlap with the department’s social media posts, but it contains a much larger number of people — over 30,000 nationally. It included a Colombian soccer star who was extradited to the U.S., tried in Texas, convicted of drug trafficking and served time in federal prison. The website incorrectly describes him as being arrested in Wisconsin. The soccer player, Jhon Viáfara Mina, recently finished his sentence early and returned to Colombia, according to Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco.

In some instances, DHS and ICE wrote about incidents where they ran into conflict when carrying out arrests. In those posts, they named the arrestees and posted their photos. But in one case where the incident went to court, the government’s account of the events shifted. After a federal agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis in January, DHS claimed he was lodging a “violent attack on law enforcement.” Assault charges against Sosa-Celis fell apart in court as new evidence surfaced, and the officers involved were put on leave.

Despite the fact that the charges were dropped, DHS’s post profiling Sosa-Celis remains online.

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Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Published

16 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.

During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.

The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.

Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.

Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.

The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.

The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.

“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.

The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.

During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.

Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.

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Read Judge Schiltz’s Order

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM

Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26

Page 5 of 17

and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.

Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)

On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.

Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)

On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.

Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)

On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.

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