Politics
More than 40% of Californians voted for Trump, state 'not as liberal as Newsom' thinks, says expert
More than 40% of Californians voted for President-elect Trump this year, making it the most votes for a GOP presidential candidate in the blue state since George W. Bush re-election in 2004.
Experts say Californians aren’t as far left “as Newsom thinks,” citing several state ballot measures that swung conservative, followed by the ousting of progressive Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.
Though Trump lost California to Vice President Kamala Harris, his electoral showing in the Golden State increased significantly; he got 31% of the vote in 2016 and 34% in 2020. Even with something of a conservative exodus driving many residents to red states like Florida and Texas, Trump increased his percentage of the state vote by six points.
In absolute terms, Trump’s vote numbers from California come in third behind his showings in Texas and Florida.
“Trump built a cross party, multi party coalition,” Susan Shelley, VP of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “He’s built a movement that crosses party lines, and it’s reaching people who have not benefited from the policies that have been put forward.”
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Regarding California’s clean-energy mandates, Shelley said, “People have paid dearly for this, and that’s what crosses party lines.”
“Everybody’s electricity bill is higher because of the climate policies,” Shelley said. “And Trump is promising to do more domestic energy production to bring down the cost of energy, and he has a track record now of having done this as president for four years.”
“The legislature is much, much more liberal, much more much further to the left than the voters are. And you can see that in the results in the propositions,” Shelley, who is also a columnist, said.
Proposition 36, which would reverse some soft-on-crime policies authored by L.A. DA George Gascon and re-establish felony offenses for certain drug and theft crimes, was overwhelmingly passed by California voters.
Another tax-related measure, Proposition 5, also failed. Critics of the measure said it would likely have led to higher property taxes, because it would have lowered the threshold to local bond issues, which are backed by tax dollars.
Gascon, L.A. County’s district attorney since 2020, was also voted out. Independent candidate Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, will replace him.
“I think he knows that California is shifting and needs help,” Shelley said. “And he has spoken many times about California’s election process, mailing out 22 million ballots. He has concerns about that. He’s spoken about voter ID laws. Whether he’ll do anything about that as President, I don’t know, but he certainly has indicated that he knows Californians are not as liberal as Gavin Newsom presents them to be.”
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California was also ground zero for several culture wars in children’s education and transgender issues, such as sex change surgeries for incarcerated people on the taxpayer dollar.
Lance Christensen, a California Policy Center political expert, told Fox News Digital these issues also played a role in earning Trump more votes in the Golden State.
“I think people got tired of the rope-a-dope stuff that Governor Newsom was doing over the last several years,” Christensen said. “And they saw him doing that because of an enabling power from the Biden-Harris administration. And when they realized that the insane progressive policies that were happening in California were being amplified in D.C., I don’t think they felt like there was a good backstop.”
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In July, Newsom signed a new law banning school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a gender that is different from what’s on their school record.
The law created significant pushback from California parents who spent months protesting the new law at local school district meetings, and one school district went so far as to sue Newsom over the law.
“A lot of the social and cultural issues, the ethnic studies, the gender stuff, the hyper-sexuality that was happening in a lot of our schools, and they just didn’t want that nationwide, especially with issues like Title Nine, where more and more women feel disenfranchised by the Biden administration,” Christensen said.
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“I think that you’re seeing a shift in the partisan landscape of California, and it won’t be dramatic, and it won’t necessarily be consistent across the board, but I think there’s a march towards some sort of sanity when it comes to politics that won’t necessarily be a red-blue divide,” he said.
On Thursday, Newsom called a special emergency session for December with the state’s legislature in response to Trump’s victory and bolster the blue state’s legal response to any future attacks.
“California is ready to fight,” Newsom said on X. “Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action – we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked.”
His action comes just a day after Newsom said he “will seek to work with the incoming president.”
Politics
Democrat Tammy Baldwin details recipe for running in a swing state after victory in Trump-won Wisconsin
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., successfully won re-election in Wisconsin all while President-elect Donald Trump simultaneously flipped the state back to red in the presidential election.
As to how she did it, the Democrat attributes much of her win to her “72-county strategy.” Baldwin made sure during her campaign to traverse the entire state, venturing far from the two large blue enclaves of Milwaukee and Dane counties.
“I think showing up matters, listening matters,” she said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “And so I go, and I really listen and get to know the challenges and aspirations of people all over the state, rural areas, suburban areas, urban areas.”
Baldwin won by a few tens of thousands of votes in the state, clinching victory by roughly the same margin as Trump.
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According to her campaign, she did more than 250 events in Wisconsin in 2024 alone. She also hosted several targeted tours during her campaign, including her Dairyland Tour and her Rural Leaders for Tammy Tour.
Further, Baldwin’s campaign microtargeted rural communities to deliver content regarding her agricultural work.
But her rigorous travel is not the only thing that sealed the deal for her. The senator acknowledged that people can go everywhere, but they also need to effectively engage voters in each place they travel to.
One thing she noted is that she’s “had years to earn the trust of Wisconsin voters,” referencing the short few months that the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris had to turn out voters for her in the state.
Baldwin also said she convenes roundtables and forums on relevant issues while she travels in Wisconsin.
“So I’ve done that on, say, the fentanyl and opioid epidemic, bringing together first responders, public health officials, concerned community members to talk about what does the epidemic look like in this community, in this area of the state? What resources do you need? What are your biggest worries?”
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She also held events geared toward agricultural issues, she noted.
Baldwin notably credits, in part, her work on agricultural issues with her re-election win. In early October, Baldwin earned the endorsement of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors, which was a significant achievement for a Democrat in a statewide election.
“They cited a number of different measures that I either championed or actually got into law,” she said.
The senator pointed to her Dairy Business Innovation Act, which provides small grants to various dairy producers and processors.
“I went this past spring to a particular farm that had received one of these grants, and they had also invited several other farmers and processors who had received grants to show me what they were able to do with these grants in order to grow their business and improve their bottom line,” she said.
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The Wisconsin Democrat also pointed to the large manufacturing sector in her state and attributed her push for “buy America” rules in pieces of legislation as helping her win some of those voters.
On whether her campaign is a model for other Democrats, specifically those in swing states, she said, “I think it is something that would be helpful to many public officials.”
Baldwin added that she realized the need to travel Wisconsin to this extent during her first Senate campaign: “I had been in the House of Representatives representing, as you know, seven counties in [the] south-central part of the state. I had to learn Wisconsin as I was running.”
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“And so traveling to do that learning was extremely important, being exposed to, you know, the timber industry and the north woods. We didn’t have a big timber industry in the south-central part of the state.”
The Midwestern senator also said this was the first time she heard from Wisconsinites that elected officials hadn’t been spending much time in certain parts of the state.
“One thing I will say that I hear from constituents when I show up is just like, ‘I don’t remember the last time we had a U.S. senator visit our community, and especially not a Democrat,’” she said.
“It’s like, you know, the timber industry folks saying, ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had a senator pay so much attention to us,’” she added.
Politics
Graphic details revealed in Monterey sexual assault claim against Pete Hegseth, Trump Cabinet pick
A woman told Monterey police that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, took her phone, blocked her from leaving his hotel room and sexually assaulted her, according to a newly released police report.
On Wednesday evening, the Monterey Police Department released a 22-page report revealing graphic details in the 2017 assault claim filed against Hegseth, which did not result in any charges. The report reveals two starkly different narratives about what unfolded during a sexual encounter in his hotel room while the two were attending a Republican women’s conference in the city in October 2017.
The woman, who is referred to as Jane Doe in the report, claimed that she repeatedly told Hegseth “no” during the alleged assault, and that he ejaculated on her stomach and told her to “clean it up” — an incident she said left her with nightmares, according to the report.
Hegseth told police that the pair had consensual intercourse and that he made multiple attempts to ensure she was comfortable during the encounter, according to the report.
His attorney has said that he entered a confidential settlement agreement with his sexual assault accuser for an undisclosed sum.
Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing since the accusation was revealed last week, and the Trump transition has continued to publicly support his nomination.
The recently released report brings more questions to what was already gearing up to be a controversial confirmation process for Hegseth’s nomination as U.S. secretary of Defense. Hegseth, 44, is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been a Fox News host since 2017 and a contributor since 2014.
Hegseth was a keynote speaker at the 2017 Republican women’s conference hosted at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa.
According to the police report, both Doe and Hegseth told officers that the two of them went with a group to the hotel bar after Hegseth’s speech and an after-party hosted in a hotel suite.
Doe told police that she informed Hegseth she was uncomfortable when he touched her knee at the bar and declined his offer to return to his hotel room. The woman also reported that she observed Hegseth acting inappropriately toward woman at the conference, rubbing them on their legs and giving off a “creeper” vibe, according to the report.
The report contains conflicting information over how intoxicated each of them were. Doe had difficulty remembering some of the nights events and, during a sexual assault exam, later told a nurse that shes believed something might have been slipped into her drink, according to the report.
Doe remembered trying to leave Hegseth’s hotel room and being physically blocked from doing so. She also recalled Hegseth wearing dog tags, ejaculating on her stomach and telling her to “clean it up.” And she remembered saying “no” a lot, according to the report.
Hegseth recalled a very different sequence of events.
He told police that Doe led him to his hotel room, where things progressed between the two of them, according to the report. He told police there was “always” conversation and “always” consensual contact between himself and Doe.
Hegseth recalled Doe displaying early signs of regret following the incident and that she said she would tell her husband she fell asleep on a couch in another hotel room, according to the report.
Four days after the encounter, on Oct. 12, Doe went to a hospital to request a sexual assault forensic exam and brought with her the clothes she was wearing during the alleged assault.
Doe reported experiencing memory loss and nightmares in the aftermath of the sexual encounter, according to the report. An associate of hers also told officers that she had very little energy and would burst into tears out of the blue after the incident, according to the report.
Hegseth is a graduate of Princeton University, and has a graduate degree from Harvard University. He was decorated with two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge for his military service. He left the military after President Biden was elected, saying he’d been ordered to stand down from guard duty at the inauguration after top brass dubbed him an extremist and “white nationalist.”
Politics
Trump-district House Democrat loses Alaska seat to political scion
Conservative Republican Nick Begich will win a tight race for Alaska’s lone seat in the House of Representatives, according to the Associated Press.
Begich defeated his main rival, Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, the first Native Alaskan in Congress, and one of only five House Democrats currently representing a district won by President-elect Trump in 2020.
The win widens the Republican majority in the House to 219 and 213 for Democrats.
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The GOP candidate is no stranger to politics, having been born into a prominent political family in Alaska – made up of mostly Democrats.
His grandfather, Nick Begich, Sr., was an Alaska congressman, before mysteriously disappearing on a flight and being pronounced dead in 1972. His uncle, Mark Begich, was a U.S. senator for Alaska from 2009 to 2015.
The other two hopefuls in the race were Alaska Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe and Democratic candidate Eric Hafner.
Alaska is one of only two states to use ranked-choice voting in federal elections, something that benefited Peltola in 2022, when Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin knocked each other out of the running by splitting the Republican vote.
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Republicans took a lesson from that defeat, however, and instead, coalesced around Begich earlier in the race.
Alaska has just one House seat given its modest population compared to more densely packed states. It is also one of only two states to use ranked-choice voting in its federal elections.
Peltola won her seat in a special election following the sudden death of longtime Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, in 2022.
Young’s daughters and several former staffers endorsed Peltola for re-election in the November race later that year.
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The moderate Democrat has been known to break from her party on certain climate and energy issues, among others.
Begich’s victory is a much-needed win for House Republicans who have fought tooth-and-nail to retain and even expand their majority.
He was added to the House GOP campaign arm’s “Young Guns” list in August of this year, giving him access to National Republican Congressional Committee resources, support, and advisement.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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