Politics
April showdowns: 4 key races to watch this month that will test Trump, GOP grip on power
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After kicking off in March, the 2026 primary calendar takes a break this month before returning with a vengeance in May.
But that doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of consequential elections in April.
Special U.S. House contests in Georgia and New Jersey, a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin, and a Virginia referendum that is the latest face-off between President Donald Trump and Republicans and Democrats in the high-stakes congressional redistricting wars — with the House majority on the line — will all draw national attention this month.
Here’s a closer look at the four ballot box showdowns.
TRUMP-BACKED FULLER ADVANCES IN RACE TO FILL MTG’S CONGRESSIONAL SEAT
Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller, left, speaks next to President Donald Trump, during a visit to the Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Georgia, Feb. 19, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
April 7 — GA-14 special election
Trump-backed Republican House candidate Clay Fuller faces off with Democratic candidate Shawn Harris to fill a vacant congressional district in solidly red northwest Georgia that was once held by MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Harris, a retired brigadier general and cattle farmer, and Fuller, a local prosecutor and Air National Guard member, were the top two finishers in a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the early March special election. With no candidate topping 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to a runoff.
SPECIAL ELECTION TO FILL MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’S OLD SEAT IN CONGRESS HEADS INTO OVERTIME
The special election comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. That means the GOP cannot afford any surprises or allow Democrats to pull an upset in a district that extends from Atlanta’s northwest exurbs to Georgia’s northwestern border with Alabama and northern border with Tennessee, which Trump carried by 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.
Fuller, who is expected to consolidate the Republican vote that was divided in the first round, is considered the clear frontrunner in the race. But if Harris holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in the 14 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they’ve overperformed.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The congressional seat was left vacant when Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
April 7 — Wisconsin Supreme Court election
While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in the Midwestern battleground have become extremely partisan in recent years.
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With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contests, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally Elon Musk, who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.
Then-Trump adviser Elon Musk appears at a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in March 2025. Musk and his super PACs spent more than $2 million to support conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel’s campaign. (Scott Olson/Getty)
Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s highest court.
With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although liberals with a win could expand their majority to 5-2.
But if the conservative candidate wins, or keeps it close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.
April 16 — NJ-11 special election
Republican Joe Hathaway, a local mayor, is hoping to pull off an upset in the special election to fill the congressional seat left vacant after now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill stepped down after winning last November’s gubernatorial election.
Hathaway, who was unopposed in February’s primary, faces off in the election against Democrat Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer backed by left-wing champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Analilia Mejia secured the Democratic Party nomination in a special election to find out who will take over newly elected New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s vacant House seat. (Heather Khalifa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Mejia pulled off an upset, narrowly edging out front-runner former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a field of 11 candidates. The face-off was one of the latest between progressives and more mainstream Democrats.
The 11th Congressional District in northern New Jersey’s New York City suburbs was once the kind of seat where Republicans excelled at the ballot box. Hathaway, who has pointed out his differences with Trump, is the type of Republican who could attract crossover voters.
Add in that Mejia may be too far to the left for some voters in the district, and there’s a chance for some intrigue on Election Day.
April 21 — Virginia redistricting referendum
Voters in Virginia are casting ballots on a Democrat-pushed referendum that would give the competitive state up to four more left-leaning U.S. House districts in time for this year’s midterm elections.
That could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the state’s U.S. House delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.
Signs urge early voters to vote yes or no on the Virginia redistricting referendum at the Ellen M. Bozman Government Center in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Early voting continues across the state for Virginia’s redistricting ballot referendum. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
With three weeks until Election Day, early voting is surging, according to officials, with turnout outpacing early voting from last autumn’s general election. Despite being vastly outraised by Democrats, Republicans see positive signs in early turnout.
Republicans call the Democrats’ redistricting effort an “unconstitutional power grab.” Democrats counter that it’s a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented in other states by the GOP.
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Virginia is the latest redistricting battleground, with Florida on deck, to alter congressional maps ahead of November’s elections.
Republicans are defending their razor-thin House majority in the midterms, and Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to win back control of the chamber. That means the redistricting efforts in Virginia and other states may very well decide which party controls the House next year.
Politics
Trump expands TrumpRx prescription drug discount program to more than 800 medications
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President Donald Trump on Friday announced a major expansion of his administration’s initiative aimed at helping Americans access discounted prescription medications.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said the government-backed website TrumpRx.gov has added 160 prescription drugs, bringing the total number of discounted medications available through the program to more than 800.
“I am pleased to announce that TrumpRx.gov is adding another 160 Prescription Drugs, at highly discounted prices, for a new total of over 800 of the most commonly-used Prescription Drugs,” Trump wrote.
“TrumpRx.gov will now provide clear, transparent, and DISCOUNTED offerings for FOUR OUT OF FIVE of every prescription filled by Americans,” he added.
TRUMP ENDS BIDEN’S DRUG PRICE NIGHTMARE — AMERICANS GET REAL RELIEF WITH TRUMPRX
President Donald Trump announced an expansion of the TrumpRx program, which the administration says will provide discounted pricing on more than 800 prescription drugs. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)
Trump unveiled the initiative in February, arguing that Americans have long paid more for prescription drugs than consumers in many other countries.
The website was launched after the administration finalized agreements with 16 major pharmaceutical companies under so-called “most-favored-nation” pricing arrangements.
Under the agreements, participating drugmakers received tariff-related exemptions while agreeing to lower prices for certain medications and extend discounted pricing to eligible cash-paying consumers through TrumpRx, according to the administration.
MARK CUBAN SHOOTS DOWN PRESIDENTIAL BID AS HE TEAMS UP WITH TRUMP ADMIN TO CUT HEALTHCARE COSTS
Shelves with prescription drugs inside a pharmacy in Los Angeles, California, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Companies including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are participating in the program and have agreed to reduce prices on popular GLP-1 weight-loss medications.
Administration officials have also highlighted discounts on a range of other products, including inhalers, HIV treatments, diabetes medications and fertility drugs.
TrumpRx.gov allows users to search for discounted medications, view estimated savings and generate coupons for participating prescriptions.
SOARING MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES TARGETED IN TRUMP’S NEW EXECUTIVE ORDER
The Trump administration launched TrumpRx.gov, a website designed to direct patients to drugmakers’ websites. (Trump RX)
Trump said the initiative builds on efforts from his first term to reduce prescription drug costs.
“I was proud to make History during my First Term when we lowered Drug Prices, even if by a tiny percentage, because this amounted to a HUGE change compared to other presidents only raising Drug Prices, endlessly and significantly, every year,” Trump wrote.
“Then, during my Second Term, I decided to go BIG with Most Favored Nations Pricing — That is to say, we pay no more or, ideally, less than any other Country for the same exact Drug,” he continued. “Now we are cutting Prices, and cutting them by a LOT, sometimes by 400 or 500 or 600 Percent!”
HERE’S HOW TRUMP’S TARIFFS ON CHINA COULD IMPACT DRUG PRICING AND OTHER HEALTHCARE COSTS
President Donald Trump speaks about TrumpRx in the South Court Auditorium of the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington on Feb. 5, 2026, as Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz listens. (AP Images)
Trump also claimed the program has generated significant savings for consumers.
“These Most Favored Nations Deals have already, in fact, saved American Patients over 400 Million Dollars since the launch of TrumpRx.gov,” he said.
The president further argued that tariffs played a key role in securing the pricing agreements.
“Of course, Most Favored Nations would not be possible without my use of TARIFFS, which are getting other Countries to ‘pay up’ instead of relying on American Patients getting ripped off, as they were for decades until I ordered an immediate ‘stop’ to this very unfair and, frankly, foolish situation,” Trump wrote.
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“This is all great news, and I have instructed my Administration to secure more Most Favored Nations Deals, more Partnerships, and Lower Prices for every American Patient,” he added.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey contributed to this report.
Politics
How a simple mix-up fueled false conspiracies about L.A. vote count
Since election night in California, a single theory of election fraud has taken root like no other — not just among online conspiracy theorists or bot accounts, but among major conservative influencers and people close to President Trump.
Late on election night, an update of vote counts in the Los Angeles mayor’s race appeared on election results pages of various media outlets including the Los Angeles Times.
It showed leading Democrats Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman receiving tens of thousands of new votes, and leading Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt receiving no new votes.
Close observers of the vote tally immediately took screenshots, with some shouting fraud. Others ran statistical analyses that showed it would be impossible for a candidate such as Pratt — running second in the race — to receive zero votes in such a large batch of ballots.
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“They’re not even trying to hide the fraud anymore,” wrote Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one-time member of Trump’s inner circle.
The claim fit into the broader narrative being pushed relentlessly by Trump and other Republicans in recent days, that California Democrats were cheating.
But the discrepancy in the Tuesday vote count in the mayor’s race was not fraud.
What attracted far less attention than the update with zero Pratt votes was another update one minute later that showed tens of thousands of votes for Pratt, and none for Bass or Raman.
There was no batch of votes that included zero votes for any candidate, as Los Angeles County’s own data show plainly.
But voting data pushed out by the Associated Press came as two separate updates one minute apart, with Bass’ and Raman’s votes in the first and Pratt’s in the second.
“The AP vote count receives updates as provided by election officials and adds them to our vote count. What happened in this case is that there was a lag in an automated update such that some candidates’ votes were added in one update and the other candidates followed about a minute later,” the Associated Press said in a statement to The Times.
“Specifically, an electronic update from the Los Angeles County website pulled in votes for only one group of candidates, including Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Exactly one minute later, the electronic update picked up the votes for another group of candidates including Spencer Pratt. Taken together, the updates included 21,870 votes for Pratt, 12,850 votes for Bass and 9,521 votes for Raman, along with votes for other candidates.”
The Times’ election results page relies on the AP’s data feed, and checks for updates once a minute.
According to a Times review of election night results data, The Times pulled data from the AP’s feed at approximately 8:35 p.m. that included 0 new votes for Pratt and eight other candidates. When The Times’ system next checked for new numbers a minute later, there was an update with votes for Pratt but no new votes for Raman, Bass and others.
Michael Sanchez, a spokesperson for Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, said he could not speak for how news outlets report county data, but that he could confirm there were no batches of votes that included zero votes for Pratt.
“It is false,” he said of that narrative. “In every single result update that we released on election night and since election night, he has received votes,” Sanchez said.
Justin Grimmer, a political science professor at Stanford University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who researches and evaluates claims of election fraud, conducted his own data analysis of the vote updates, and came to the same conclusion.
He said there was an initial update with no Pratt votes, but a second one 41 seconds later with no votes for Bass or Raman — leading him to believe the single batch of ballots was just reported in two back-to-back updates rather than one.
“Because they came so close together, it looks like it was just a sequence of updates,” he said.
Grimmer said news outlets are “thinking about speed” and the best way to get people the most accurate information as quickly as possible, but “haven’t quite adjusted to being in this world where there’s this group of people who monitor these data feeds as if they are official government reports.”
“It leads to these horrible tweets about there being evidence of fraud,” he said.
Grimmer said he operates under the “mantra” that such fraud claims can’t be dismissed “by mere assertion” that the fraud didn’t happen, but must be looked into — which is why he dived into the data in the first place. This claim, he said, was similar to claims about odd-seeming vote tallies that were made during and after the 2020 election of Joe Biden over Trump, so he was familiar with how to look into the data.
“You can just go to the source code for the page, and then you can find where the sort of feed is, and that’s all I did — just found the feed, downloaded it, and then just saw what the updates were,” he said.
Grimmer said it was not surprising to him that people were watching the data feeds come in closely enough to notice an apparent discrepancy in the data that lasted less than a minute.
“There is a group of individuals who are convinced that there’s lots of fraud going on in U.S. elections, and for whatever reason, this group is convinced that they’re gonna uncover this by careful monitoring of these data feeds and the data that is being reported,” he said.
Grimmer said he would not presume to tell news outlets how to do their job of delivering election results quickly in the future, but does hope they balance the need to move quickly with “this reality that their feeds are now being monitored by individuals who think that they’re able to discover instances of fraud from what’s happening in the feeds.”
Sanchez reiterated that the county’s own official results of votes have been accurate — saying that “at no point” did the county office “report an official results update in which Pratt received zero votes.”
Politics
Spencer Pratt loses ground to Democrat while Hilton maintains lead in latest California ballot batch drop
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Former reality star Spencer Pratt’s lead over Councilwoman Nithya Raman in the Los Angeles mayoral contest narrowed Thursday, while Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton maintained a lead over Democratic candidates Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer.
Following the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, California’s key elections have taken on national significance, serving as critical testing grounds for the future of progressive leadership.
Pratt, a registered Republican, remains behind incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass for a chance to advance to the November general election. Bass has already secured enough votes to advance.
With 163,549 votes in Los Angeles’ latest tabulation, Pratt maintains a near 6% lead on Raman, who has 130,473 votes, according to the Thursday vote count from Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder and the County Clerk.
A Fox News Digital review of an archived version of Los Angeles’ official vote tally shows that Raman gained over 10,000 votes in the latest count compared to under 6,000 for Pratt. At the previous count, Pratt had 157,116 votes compared to Raman’s 119,809.
LA CITY COUNCILWOMAN PREVIOUSLY BACKED BY DSA RUNNING FOR MAYOR IN PRIMARY CHALLENGE TO BASS
Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt hosts a campaign block party on 10th Avenue in Los Angeles on May 20, 2026. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
CALIFORNIA ELECTION RESULTS STILL UNDECIDED AS LOS ANGELES BEGINS COUNTING BALLOTS
In the governor’s race, Republican Steve Hilton maintained a slim lead over former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. Hilton has 1,533,435 votes as of Friday afternoon, according to the California Secretary of State. Becerra is behind with 1,470,100 votes.
Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer trails both with 1,139,517 votes.
HILTON, BECERRA IN THE LEAD WITH VOTES STILL BEING COUNTED IN BATTLE FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR
Democratic candidate Tom Steyer attends a debate in the race for governor of California, hosted by the San Francisco Examiner and CBS, in San Francisco, California, on May 14, 2026. (Carlos Barria/REUTERS)
Like the mayoral race, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes in the gubernatorial race, the top two candidates will advance to a November runoff.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, speaks during a roundtable discussion with representatives from the Child Guidance Center in Santa Ana on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
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While California’s polls closed on June 2, it could take weeks for results to be final. The state did not have its official final results from the 2024 election until state Secretary of State Shirley Weber certified the election results in December, 38 days later.
A bipartisan bill has since passed in 2025 requiring “non-problematic” votes to be counted within 13 days.
The state leads the nation in mail-in ballots, with 81% of voters sending their choices by post in 2024, nearly double the national average of 43% for 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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