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Mike Garcia campaign runs misleading ad on the House Republican's role in Violence Against Women Act

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Mike Garcia campaign runs misleading ad on the House Republican's role in Violence Against Women Act

In its first advertisement for the general election season, the campaign for Rep. Mike Garcia, a politically vulnerable Santa Clarita Republican, offers a misleading description of the congressman’s role in passing the Violence Against Women Act, which provides aid for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

The 30-second advertisement, titled “Voices,” was released Tuesday. It features an unnamed female constituent who says: “Mike co-sponsored the Violence Against Women Act to protect us against domestic violence. That’s why we need Mike Garcia in Congress.”

Garcia made the same co-sponsorship claim at a Santa Clarita town hall event last month, calling his support “a big deal” because “not very many Republicans” had sponsored reauthorization of the landmark 1994 law.

But in 2021, Garcia voted against a version of the reauthorization measure that was passed by the Democratic House majority, joining conservatives who 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 Republican-led stop-gap measure to renew the act for one year, minus the new provisions, that failed to move forward.

He was not a co-sponsor of the amended reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that Democratic President Biden ultimately signed into law the following year as part of a wide-ranging federal spending measure. It is that version of the act that remains in force today.

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The Garcia campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Garcia’s Democratic opponent, George Whitesides, also released his first ad on Tuesday. The 30-second TV spot, titled “Experience,” highlights Whitesides’ time as a NASA chief of staff and a chief executive of Mojave-based Virgin Galactic.

“I’ll use my business experience to solve problems instead of playing politics,” Whitesides says in the ad.

The race between Garcia and Whitesides to represent Congressional District 27 in northern Los Angeles County, including the Antelope Valley, is one of the most competitive — and consequential — in the country.

Erin Covey, an analyst for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, said the race will be crucial in determining whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House. Although Garcia has been elected three times, he represents a district where Democrats hold a significant voter registration advantage, and which President Biden won by double digits in 2020.

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“I think this is going to be a race to watch,” Covey said during a roundtable discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month. “It’s suburban. It’s diverse. It’s a race where [Vice President Kamala] Harris should really be a boost.”

George Whitesides, a Democrat looking to unseat Garcia, is advertising his past as a NASA chief of staff and as Virgin Galactic CEO, saying he created hundreds of local jobs.

(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)

The new ads by Garcia and Whitesides mark the start of a major advertising blitz that will inundate Southern California airwaves through election day.

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The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that supports Republicans running for the House, has reserved $18.2 million for advertising in the Los Angeles area this fall, with a focus on the 27th District.

The House Majority PAC, which backs Democrats, has booked more than $22.4 million in television and digital ads in both English and Spanish in the Los Angeles media market, one of the country’s most expensive.

The House Majority PAC said last year that it would spend $35 million in California, roughly triple what it spent on the 2022 midterm campaigns in the Golden State, when Democrats underperformed in some districts that had been expected to be strongholds.

The new advertisement from Garcia’s campaign leans into his military credentials. The congressman, a former Navy fighter pilot, flew in more than 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom before spending 11 years as an executive with defense contractor Raytheon.

“While I’m no longer in the cockpit, my fight for you and the country never stops,” he says in the ad, wearing a brown leather flight jacket.

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Constituents chime in to say that his “new mission” includes lowering prescription drug costs and “fighting the career politicians” to lower costs for families. The ad does not specify which costs.

The new ad for Whitesides says he created more than 700 jobs in the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita while leading Virgin Galactic.

Those jobs included positions for engineers, technicians, accountants, human relations professionals and others, with a focus on early-career development for recent high school and community college graduates, Whitesides said in an interview this week.

Whitesides, a first-time candidate, said his first ad focuses on job creation because so many of the district’s residents endure long commutes to work in Los Angeles while living in the Antelope Valley, where housing is more affordable.

“People are hungry for local job opportunities so they don’t have to spend four hours on the road,” Whitesides said.

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In the ad, Whitesides also says people are struggling with crime and that he will “get more funding for police.”

Whitesides has come out in favor of Proposition 36, a statewide ballot measure that calls for stiffer penalties for some drug and theft crimes.

The measure, called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, asks voters to partially unwind Proposition 47, a controversial ballot initiative passed in 2014 that reclassified some nonviolent felonies as misdemeanors.

Proposition 36 has been endorsed by the California Republican Party.

Democrats are split on the measure. It has been endorsed by some big-city mayors, including San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. But Gov. Gavin Newsom and some top Democratic leaders in the state Legislature have spoken out against it, alleging it would return California to a draconian tough-on-crime era that swelled the state’s prison population to unconstitutional levels.

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Whitesides said he’s “one of the few Democrats who have come out in favor of the reform measure” because residents want to get smash-and-grab robberies under control and are “rightly concerned about public safety.”

In his town hall meeting last month, Garcia said he, too, supported more funding for law enforcement. He said Proposition 47 needed to be nixed and that state Democrats had been pushing too many “pro-criminal” policies.

Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report.

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.

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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.

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

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.

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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.

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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.

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.

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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.

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