Early on a Saturday morning at Rawley Duntley Park in Lancaster — the high-desert sun blazing — George Whitesides, a Democrat running for Congress, was encircled by dozens of cheering, noisemaker-blasting volunteers.

“I really want to make sure that even the astronauts out there can hear his name!” Nadia Abrica, an organizing director with the state Democratic Party, shouted, pointing to the sky. “George! George! George!”

“Are you guys feeling fired up?” Whitesides asked the crowd. “Are you feeling ready to go? … Are we going to change the House of Representatives?”

“Yes!” they screamed.

Whitesides, a former NASA chief of staff under President Obama, is running to unseat Rep. Mike Garcia, the thrice-elected Republican incumbent, in California’s hotly contested 27th Congressional District in northern L.A. County. The race will be crucial in determining whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House.

Democrats, riding the national enthusiasm unleashed by Vice President Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race, feel good about their chances to flip the district.

“You feel the difference — and what really helped is the re-energizing when we found out about Biden dropping out,” said Alvarez Marcos, 61, a volunteer for Whitesides. “We’re building off that.”

But after leaving the pep-rally vibe at the park to knock on doors at a nearby apartment complex, Whitesides spoke with middle-of-the-road voters who made one thing abundantly clear: Winning this purple suburban district will not be easy.

“I am not a Democrat,” said a young woman who was the first to open her door. “Are you for open borders?”

“No, ma’am,” Whitesides said, after trying to summarize his message — largely about creating local jobs — in about 90 seconds. “We’re trying to create a secure border for our country.”

In this presidential election year dominated by hyperpartisan national issues — including immigration — both Whitesides, 50, and Garcia, 48, are trying to cast themselves as a moderate and their opponent as a political hardliner.

“People are excited to bring positive change to the district, and they’re really excited to beat Mike Garcia, who they view as this extreme guy who doesn’t connect or fit with the folks in our district,” Whitesides told The Times.

Rep. Mike Garcia is looking to keep the Antelope Valley seat he has held since 2020. The race will be crucial in determining whether Republicans maintain their House majority.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Whitesides calls Garcia a pro-Trump sycophant and highlights the congressman’s vote against certifying the 2020 presidential election results after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well as his vote against President Biden’s $1-trillion infrastructure bill.

Whitesides also points to Garcia’s anti-abortion record. Garcia was among the GOP congressional members who signed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and, in 2021, co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which amounts to a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions. (Garcia later indicated he could support such exceptions for rape, incest or threats to the mother’s health — a departure from the bill. He did not sponsor a reintroduced version.)

Garcia’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

But his backers are trying to paint Whitesides as a far-left mega-donor trying to use his personal wealth to buy a congressional seat.

As a first-time candidate, Whitesides has no voting record to scrutinize. So, Republicans have zeroed in on his hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to progressive candidates and causes.

Ben Petersen, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement that Garcia, a former Navy pilot, “has led a life of service, from flying fighter jets in combat to his mission in Congress of lowering inflation and defending public safety.”

“Voters can easily spot the difference with extreme George Whitesides, who backed legislation raising the cost of living and bankrolled radical activists attacking police and dismantling law and order,” he added, referencing Whitesides’ support of Equality California, an LGBTQ+ rights organization that prominent conservative fundraisers have dubbed a defund-the-police group. (Whitesides has touted his endorsement by Equality California.)

About an hour’s drive north of solidly liberal downtown Los Angeles, the 27th Congressional District stretches from fast-growing Santa Clarita to the Kern County line. It includes the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, as well as rural desert towns such as Acton and Pearblossom.

With its close proximity to Edwards Air Force Base, the region has deep ties to the military and aerospace industry, as reflected by the name of its recently disbanded Minor League Baseball team, the Lancaster JetHawks.

Once staunchly conservative, the district has become more favorable to Democrats, with the population growing younger and more diverse as L.A. residents moved in for more affordable housing. Redistricting after the 2020 census made CA-27 even bluer by excising conservative Simi Valley.

Just over 41% of registered voters are Democrats, and about 30% are Republicans. More than a fifth are independents, a wildcard that makes the district somewhat unpredictable.

The district voted for Biden in 2020. But in the 2022 gubernatorial race, it backed Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle over Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Though his district has more registered Democrats than Republicans, frustrations over California’s high cost of living have given GOP Rep. Mike Garcia an edge in earlier campaigns.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

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The district has been on the front lines of partisan warfare since Katie Hill, a millennial Democrat, unseated the Republican incumbent in 2018, only to resign less than a year later amid a sex scandal. Garcia won the seat in a special election and retained it in two subsequent elections, thrice defeating the same Democratic challenger, former state Assemblywoman Christy Smith.

In the 2020 general election, Garcia defeated Smith by just 333 votes. He won by 12,732 votes during the subsequent midterm election, when fewer people cast ballots.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, calls this year’s election a toss-up.

“When you’ve run a company that launches humans into space on a test-flight program, you kinda get used to being involved in high-stakes things,” said Whitesides, the former chief executive of Mojave-based Virgin Galactic. “We’ve got to flip the House so we can protect all these hard-won gains in healthcare and climate and jobs.”

“The Republican caucus right now is totally dysfunctional,” he added. “I”m trying to bring, like, actually getting stuff done back into focus. Wouldn’t that be great? Make the Congress work again.”

Lawrence Becker, a political scientist at Cal State Northridge, said it’s “going to be a tough election for Garcia.”

Most voters “are going to the polls with the presidential election on their minds,” he added. Trump is deeply unpopular in California, and having him at the top of the ticket “becomes a bit of a headwind that Mike Garcia has to face.”

Still, frustrations over California’s high cost of living and gas prices — potent issues for the many residents in this district who make the long commute to L.A. for work — have previously given Garcia an edge. He easily won last spring’s three-way primary election with 55% of the vote, while Whitesides got 33%.

State GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said the fact that Republicans are able to be so competitive in a district where Democrats have a large registration advantage shows how much voters “are getting sick and tired of what California Democrats have been serving up to them.”

Both parties are pouring money into the race.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that supports Republicans running for the House, is planning an $18.2-million ad blitz in the L.A. area this fall, with a focus on the 27th district.

Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the super PAC, said Garcia has a unique biography that resonates in his district. As a Navy pilot, the congressman flew in more than 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom before spending 11 years as an executive with the defense contractor Raytheon.

“California voters remain fed up with rising crime, chaos at our border and skyrocketing costs — all caused by Democrats’ progressive single-party rule,” Parella said in a statement. “The House majority runs through California, and CLF is committing significant resources here this fall.”

George Whitesides introduces himself to Sean and Megan Holst. “It’s supposed to be more affordable in the Antelope Valley,” Megan says. “I thought we had a decent income, and it’s still — it’s hard.”

(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)

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Meanwhile, Whitesides — who loaned his campaign more than $1 million — is outraising his opponent. As of June 30, Whitesides’ campaign had $3.9 million in the bank, according to the Federal Election Commission. Garcia’s campaign had $2.2 million on hand.

Whitesides’ campaign is seizing on accusations that Garcia hid his sale of up to $50,000 in Boeing stock in August 2020, just before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, of which he was a member, released a scathing report about the company.

According to the Daily Beast, which first reported the sale, Garcia missed the 45-day deadline to disclose the sale and filed paperwork only after narrowly winning his election that November.

A spokesman for Garcia’s campaign told Politico that Garcia had not seen the report before it became public and that his failure to disclose his stock sale was an accident.

After leaving Rawley Duntley Park that late-July Saturday, Whitesides — who has embraced his nerdy-dad vibe — donned a white NASA ball cap and brandished a 50-SPF spray can of sunscreen for his canvass of the apartment complex.

In each brief interaction, he said that, while running Virgin Galactic, he created 700 local jobs and that he was centering his campaign around job creation.

Propped in one apartment window was a license plate that read, EPDMLGY. Whitesides bounded up to the door, saying, “Epidemiology! Come on, that’s my voter.”

“I’m a moderate Democrat,” he said when Nancy Welsh, a 63-year-old pharmaceutical administrative assistant, opened the door. “I worked for NASA, so I’m a big science and facts kind of person.”

When Whitesides asked what issues were important to her, she laughed and said: “Don’t get me started.”

He stopped Megan and Sean Holst, a married couple in their early 30s, as they walked their golden retriever, Cosmo. “I know you from my dad!” said Megan, whose father planted a Whitesides yard sign outside his home on a dirt road in Acton.

Megan said she supports abortion rights and did not like Garcia’s record on the issue. But the couple — she is a clinical lab scientist and he is a programmer — are pretty moderate, she said. Mostly, they care about local issues, such as crime and cost of living. They have lived in the apartment complex for years and hope to someday be able to afford a house.

“It’s supposed to be more affordable in the Antelope Valley,” she said. “I thought we had a decent income, and it’s still — it’s hard.”

Whitesides handed her his campaign flier. She said she would consider it.

FIRST ON FOX: House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital his committee will continue to probe a scrapped plea deal with the alleged terrorists behind the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday stunningly revoked a controversial plea deal that would have reportedly taken the death penalty off the table for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, who are awaiting trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The announcement came after House Republicans on the Armed Services and Oversight committees separately launched investigations into the circumstances of the plea agreement.

“I appreciate that Secretary Austin listened to my concerns and reversed this horrible decision,” Rogers told Fox News Digital on Saturday. “However, this plea deal should have never occurred. I still expect the Secretary to provide HASC with answers on how this happened.” 

The chairman wrote to Austin on Thursday demanding documents related to the plea deal, including “all documents and communications containing terms, conditions, agreements, side-deals, or any mutually developed, related, conditional, or linked agreements with any party relating to terms and conditions of the plea agreements.”

‘BAND OF KILLERS’: MAJOR HOUSE COMMITTEE LAUNCHES PROBE INTO ‘UNCONSCIONABLE’ 9/11 PLEA DEAL

The GOP committee chairman also asked for records of communications spanning the Biden administration regarding the plea deal, which he called “unconscionable.”

“I, along with much of our nation and Congress, are deeply shocked and angered by news that the terrorist mastermind and his associates who planned the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, which killed nearly 3000 innocent people, were offered a plea deal,” Rogers wrote in the letter, first obtained by Fox News Digital. 

“Tragically, the news is a ‘gut punch’ to many of the victims’ families.” 

Rogers gave the Defense Department an Aug. 23 deadline to comply with his request. 

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION BACKTRACKS, REVOKES PLEA DEAL FOR 9/11 TERRORISTS

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers is demanding more information on the plea deal for Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and two other 9/11 defendants.  (Getty Images)

The terms and conditions of the deal were never disclosed, but it took the death penalty off the table, three relatives of 9/11 victims were told by the Office of Military Commissions (OMC), the New York Post reported.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001 in the worst terror attack on U.S. soil in American history. Families of the victims, groups that represent them and lawmakers had expressed bewilderment and fury that those who planned the attack might not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

PLEA DEAL REVERSAL FOR 9/11 TERRORISTS WINS PRAISE AND DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE FROM VICTIMS GROUPS, REPUBLICANS

The Brooklyn Bridge 9/11 Tribute in Light in New York City. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)

However, that deal was rescinded after Austin relieved the official in charge of the military commission who had signed off on the agreement and assumed their authority for himself. 

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” the secretary wrote in a short memo Friday.

The defense secretary did not explain why he had not intervened before the plea deals were signed and publicly released. The Department of Defense declined to comment on Austin’s decision. 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced a parallel investigation into the plea deal in a letter to President Biden on Friday. The committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Biden-Harris administration’s sudden reversal. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and Stepheny Price contributed to this report.

Donald Trump is nothing if not consistent, and his Dumpster fire of an interview with reporters at the National Assn. of Black Journalists convention in Chicago this week showed the Republican presidential nominee in full, foul mode.

He lied. He insulted. He whined. He was racist and misogynistic. He evaded questions and elided answers, and showed all the grace and gratitude of a kindergartner who pees in a sandbox and expects others to clean up the mess.

Above all, the Republican presidential candidate kept stabbing at the same illegal immigration scapegoat that’s the centerpiece of his 2024 presidential campaign. This time, though, he tried to further his contention that Donald J. Trump is the greatest president for Black people since Abraham Lincoln.

He unveiled the strategy during his June 28 debate with President Biden, when Trump stated that immigrants were a “big kill on the Black people” and were “taking Black jobs.” In Georgia, which he narrowly lost in 2020, his campaign has aired radio and television commercials insisting Biden cares more about illegal immigrants than the Black community.

At the NABJ convention, Trump blamed open borders for endangering the job security of Black workers — never mind that unemployment rates for them have reached historic lows under both the Trump and Biden administrations, a time when illegal immigration has grown to numbers not seen in a generation. When a moderator asked what was his message to all the Black reporters gathered before him and people watching online, Trump responded it was “to stop people from invading our country … who happen to be taking Black jobs.” When asked what he would do on Day 1 of a new term, he blurted out, “Close the border.”

Trump’s gambit is yet another legacy of Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot initiative that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants. Then and now, GOP politicians figure that the best way to court Black voters — a longtime bedrock of the Democratic Party — is to argue that immigrants in the country illegally are a burden that hits their community harder than others by taking away social services and bleeding jobs away.

Here’s the thing: There is a historical basis for these concerns, even if Trump has pushed the Illegal Immigrant Bogeyman dial to 11.

When South L.A. began to turn from the heart of the city’s Black community to a Latino-majority enclave during the 1980s and 1990s, the subsequent tensions were real. In the wake of the L.A. riots, groups protested outside work sites and blasted contractors for giving jobs to Latinos instead of Black workers because the former group would work for cheaper than the latter. The assumption by Latino political leaders during the fight against Prop. 187 that Black people would join them without question offended leaders and community activists.

Incidents like that led to 47% of Black voters favoring Prop. 187, a margin that helped the resolution pass comfortably.

Some of the most prominent Black voices in the anti-immigrant movement over the past 25 years — homeless activist Ted Hayes, the late radio show host Terry Anderson, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, former gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder — came from that era. One of the loudest anti-immigrant voices in Southern California today is Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren, a Compton native who has scolded immigrants from the dais for not speaking English and has waged an aggressive campaign against street vendors. Throw in deep-rooted anti-Black sentiments among Latinos that got a prominent showcase during the 2022 L.A. City Hall racist tape leak scandal, and no wonder Trump thinks banking on getting Black voters angry enough against a supposed south-of-the-border invasion is a winner.

The reality is that Black people aren’t as receptive to an anti-immigrant message as Trump and the GOP would like to think.

A 2006 Pew Research Center study showed that 47% of Black people thought immigrants in the U.S. without legal documents should be allowed to stay, compared with 33% of whites. But by 2013, a similar Pew report showed 82% of Black people felt there should be a path toward legalization for those immigrants, compared with 67% of whites. The figure dropped in a Pew survey released this year to 73%, but it’s still far higher than the 53% of whites who feel the same, and just two percentage points behind Latinos, who have increasingly turned to the right against illegal immigration since the Prop. 187 days.

This general acceptance doesn’t surprise L.A. Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson. He campaigned against Prop. 187 in 1994, going door-to-door in his native South L.A. to argue that the initiative was a wedge issue being used by Republicans to divide Black and Latino neighbors against each other and make them forget their shared working-class status.

“One line I would tell people is, ‘Do you hear them [Prop. 187 supporters] talk about people from Canada? From Germany?” Harris-Dawson said. “Black and Latino people I talked to understood it clearly.”

Harris-Dawson didn’t have to make the same argument recently in Atlanta, where the subject of illegal immigration came up in conversation.

“They said, ‘We support immigration reform, because we don’t want working-class people who can’t play defense,’” he said. In other words, it was better for the Black community for immigrants to have full rights instead of keeping them without papers and thus easier to use to undercut Black workers. “The sophistication of that! They get that workers don’t take jobs; employers give jobs.”

He can see Trump peeling off Black voters from the Democrats by continuing to hammer on the illegal immigration issue — but “he’ll also lose them” because of Trump’s long history of racist dog whistles. Besides, the councilmember argued, “people have seen it play out. … You see new neighbors come in and think, ‘Oh, there’s a good family.’ And they are. And then 10 years later, the parents still don’t have papers and the kids can’t go to college.

“Black folks can sympathize,” Harris-Dawson concluded, with “people who deal with systems that are ostensibly there to help you, but in fact do the opposite.”