Politics
GOP Rep. Mike Garcia, in tough reelection bid, says job is to keep U.S. from becoming California
There was a bogeyman at Republican Rep. Mike Garcia’s town hall in Santa Clarita this week: the state of California.
Onstage at the Performing Arts Center at College of the Canyons, Garcia spoke in front of a large screen projecting the red-lettered words: “My mission is to prevent the U.S. from adopting California’s extreme policies.”
Garcia blasted California’s gasoline prices, its homelessness crisis, housing costs that are about double the national average. And he blamed it all on the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento.
“I want to be very clear, because this has been misinterpreted in the past: I love California,” Garcia said. “It’s why I’m here. It’s where I’ve raised my family. It’s where I was raised. I have no intentions of leaving California, but, boy, does Sacramento make it hard to stay in California.”
Then, he added: “My job is to prevent the country from turning into what California has become.”
The packed auditorium burst into applause.
Decrying the cost of gas and housing in the Golden State is a potent message in Garcia’s sprawling district in northern Los Angeles County. Many residents here endure two-hour commutes to jobs in Los Angeles because they had to relocate to the high desert to find a home they could afford.
On Tuesday night, Garcia, a thrice-elected Republican running for reelection in one of the state’s most competitive congressional races, held court for more than three hours during his town hall. Because he was there in his official role as a congressman, Garcia did not speak directly about the election. His spokespeople have not responded to multiple requests from The Times to discuss the campaign.
In a lengthy question-and-answer session, constituents at the forum made their concerns clear: public safety, the cost of living, better health benefits for veterans, and the culture wars in California’s public schools, especially regarding gender identity issues.
Garcia, a former Navy pilot, is facing a tough reelection bid to represent the 27th Congressional District, where Democrats hold a significant advantage in voter registration.
The race between him and his Democratic opponent, George Whitesides, a former NASA chief of staff under President Obama, will be crucial in determining whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, calls this year’s race a toss-up.
“Some of you want me to be further right. Some of you want me to be further left. I am who I am, and I believe what I believe,” GOP Rep. Mike Garcia told a packed town hall in Santa Clarita.
(Hailey Branson-Potts / Los Angeles Times)
The once staunchly conservative district stretches from Santa Clarita to the Kern County line and includes Lancaster and Palmdale. With its proximity to Edwards Air Force Base, it has deep ties to the military and aerospace industry.
Just over 41% of registered voters are Democrats, and about 30% are Republicans. More than a fifth are independents
Garcia, 48, first won his seat during a 2020 special election to replace former Rep. Katie Hill, a young Democrat who resigned amid a sex scandal. It was the first time the GOP had flipped a California district from blue to red in more than 20 years.
Garcia retained the seat in two subsequent elections. And he won last spring’s three-way primary election with 55% of the vote, while Whitesides got 33%, setting the stage for the top two vote-getters to face off in the November runoff.
Whitesides, a former chief executive of Mojave-based Virgin Galactic, is a first-time candidate who has blasted Garcia’s vote against certifying the 2020 presidential election results after the Jan. 6 insurrection, and his 2021 co-sponsorship of the Life at Conception Act, which would have amounted to a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest or threats to the mother’s health.
Onstage Tuesday, Garcia said, “In terms of party affiliation, I am in the minority — I understand that.
“Some of you want me to be further right. Some of you want me to be further left. I am who I am, and I believe what I believe,” he said.
Garcia is the son of a Mexican immigrant who moved to the U.S. in 1959. He said that his late father “came here legally” and “did it right” and that illegal immigration is one of the nation’s biggest threats. In Congress, he voted against creating a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. as children.
Garcia called for higher pay and more leave time for members of the military — drawing cheers from a crowd filled with veterans.
“You’ve got to pay them better. You’ve got to lead them better, and you’ve got to invest in the military industrial complex that supports them and gives our war fighters the … advantage that they, frankly, deserve overseas and at home,” said Garcia, a former executive for defense contractor Raytheon.
“As people who have a heart for patriotism and a love of this country,” one woman asked Garcia, “what can we do to restore patriotism in our schools?”
Garcia, a father of two, said politics needed to stay out of public schools and blasted a new state law that bans schools from enacting policies that require teachers to notify parents about changes to a student’s gender identity — for example, if they ask to be called by a different name or pronoun.
“For every bill like this one in Sacramento, there’s an ugly twin sister in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “And my job is to make sure that twin does not get allowed to be signed into law and that California doesn’t effectively become the norm throughout the entire country.”
The evening did include one tense exchange. Garcia had told the crowd that he co-sponsored a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark 1994 law providing aid for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
“This is a big deal. Not very many Republicans are on this Violence Against Women Act, and I’m proud to be a co-sponsor,” Garcia said.
But in 2021, Garcia voted against another reauthorization measure, as conservatives protested provisions that expanded protections for LGBTQ+ people and tightened gun access for people convicted of abusing or stalking a dating partner.
Instead, Garcia co-sponsored a failed Republican-led alternative to renew the act for one year, minus the new provisions. He was not a co-sponsor of the compromise bill that passed the following year as part of a broader spending package.
Megan Johnson, an 18-year-old from Santa Clarita who will be voting for the first time this fall, called out the discrepancy.
“You voted against renewing the act. Is this the same act you talk about co-sponsoring in your slideshow?” she asked him.
Garcia said that he supported “a pure version” of the Violence Against Women Act, and that the version he voted against “ended up unintentionally depriving other people of their constitutional rights as a result of the protection of women who have been the victims of violence.”
Dan Gottlieb, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, described Garcia’s representation of his vote as “a new low.”
“The truth Mike Garcia apparently can’t bear to admit is that he voted to block the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2021 — a move that risked gutting funding to improve criminal justice responses to sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking, and cutting the availability of services for victims and survivors across California,” Gottlieb said.
Outside the auditorium, Johnson, a registered Democrat, said that the congressman did not fully answer her question and that she would be voting for Whitesides.
In addition to women’s safety and reproductive rights, she said she cares most in this election about gun reform, an issue that hits close to home in Santa Clarita: In 2019, a student at Saugus High opened fire in a crowded quad, killing two classmates and injuring three others before killing himself.
“Growing up in the generation that had to do active training shootings … it’s caused, honestly, a lot of fear,” she said. “I have nightmares about mass shootings.”
As she left the auditorium, Trish Lester, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clarita Valley Republican Women, said she respected Garcia for explaining his vote to Johnson and liked everything he had to say.
Wearing a shirt that said, “My Governor is an Idiot,” Lester said she agreed with Garcia that California has become too extreme and too expensive.
Lester and her husband, an Army veteran, “supported his campaign from the very first day,” she added. “It was obvious that he was a class act, that this was a man who was a real patriot, with his military service and his business experience.
“I’m very pleased with Mike,” she said.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS
President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES
Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.
The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.
“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.
As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.
The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.
That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.
The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.
Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.
Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.
Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.
The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.
“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.
Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.
The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.
“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.
Politics
Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.
“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”
“It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.
Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.
President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.
The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.
To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL
Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.
“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.
Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.
Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.
“I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.
ALERT DAY: Tornado threat north this evening; severe threat sinks south overnight
Steelers Add Year to Cam Heyward’s Contract, Creating Cap Space
EARLY RESULTS: Special election underway for Ga. House District 130 seat
Lime updates subscription service for frequent riders in DC – WTOP News
Cleveland Cavaliers Creating Space Outside Arena to Honor 2016 Championship Team
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Reported North of New York City
Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf
Israeli air strike targets building in south Lebanon
Ed Martin, outspoken Justice Department lawyer, is formally accused of ethical violations | CNN Politics
Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’
-
Wisconsin1 week agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMassachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
-
Maryland1 week agoAM showers Sunday in Maryland
-
Pennsylvania5 days agoPa. man found guilty of raping teen girl who he took to Mexico
-
Florida1 week agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Detroit, MI5 days agoU.S. Postal Service could run out of money within a year
-
Miami, FL6 days agoCity of Miami celebrates reopening of Flagler Street as part of beautification project
-
Sports6 days agoKeith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death