Politics
Newsom lifts drought declaration for most Californians, yet measures remain in some areas
Following two wet winters that boosted California’s water supplies, Gov. Gavin Newsom has officially lifted a drought emergency declaration in 19 counties that are home to 70% of the state’s population.
The decision will roll back certain drought-related state authorities in counties including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Orange and Riverside, among others.
At the same time, Newsom decided to keep the drought state of emergency in effect in 39 counties where state officials say significant effects of the severe 2020-22 drought have persisted, including depleted groundwater supplies and threats to native fish.
These 39 counties include regions across the Central Valley and in the watersheds of the Scott, Shasta and Klamath rivers, among other areas.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a visit to the San Diego Zoo in August.
(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)
Newsom referred to this week’s extreme heat wave as he explained why his administration is retaining certain drought authorities in parts of the state.
“As this week’s weather makes clear, California and the West experience extreme weather swings that exacerbate our water challenges and make it more important than ever that we build a climate-resilient water system,” Newsom said. “This targeted action is responsive to current conditions while continuing the tools and support for work underway to help future-proof water supplies in the most impacted communities.”
State officials said Newsom’s order responds to the improved conditions in parts of the state while continuing efforts to support drought recovery. They said where certain drought measures remain in place, they will help the state address continued impacts to local water supplies.
“We continue to help local communities recover from drought conditions,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s natural resources secretary. “In some cases, the powers that we have under these orders are quite helpful to support local communities recovering.”
The measures that will remain in place in 39 counties include suspending environmental requirements for certain groundwater recharge projects, giving the state natural resources secretary the authority to suspend environmental requirements for conservation projects and allowing the Office of Emergency Services to continue providing disaster assistance funding. State agencies will also continue to have the authority to adopt emergency regulations to require minimum flows in the Klamath River and Clear Lake watersheds to protect salmon and other fish.
“We know that our water extremes are getting more extreme. Our dry periods are becoming drier. Our wetter periods are becoming wetter,” Crowfoot said. “So business as usual is no longer an option. That is in part why we’re maintaining some of these provisions, to enable us to move more quickly to allow communities to recover from these impacts, but also to prepare for what will be worsening droughts and floods over time.”
California suffered through the state’s driest three-year period on record from 2020 through 2022.
Newsom declared a statewide drought emergency in October 2021 and called for Californians to voluntarily reduce water use 15%.
The drought ended dramatically in early 2023 as one of the wettest winters on record unleashed flooding and blanketed the Sierra Nevada in heavy snow.
In March 2023, following that series of storms, Newsom rolled back some of the most stringent drought measures, including an order that had required urban suppliers to activate conservation plans for a shortage of 20%.
The termination of the drought emergency in 19 counties ended provisions that had enabled emergency conservation measures, suspended restrictions on water diversions during storms for groundwater recharge, and suspended requirements of state contracting laws, among other things.
In addition to lifting the drought measures, the governor rescinded provisions of prior executive orders that were aimed at recovery efforts following the flooding in 2023.
During the last two wet years, the governor’s drought executive order effectively became a “drought-flood” executive order, enabling expanded efforts to capture floodwaters and address damage, said Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources. She said it’s now the drought provisions that have a “long tail” and are still needed in parts of the state.
“Even if there isn’t a hydrologic drought, we still have the supply challenges,” Nemeth said.
In the coming decades, climate change is projected to shrink the amount of water California can deliver in an average year. The Newsom administration’s long-term water plans call for California to prepare for an estimated 10% decrease in the state’s water supply by 2040.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor website, about 41% of the state is currently classified as being abnormally dry or in a moderate drought. The unusually dry regions include large portions of Northern California and the southeastern corner of the state.
“We have full reservoirs. That’s a really good thing. But we also have dry conditions on the horizon. We’ve had really high temperatures this summer that are kind of reminiscent of the summer of 2020,” at the beginning of the last drought, Nemeth said. “So at the onset of yet another year that may provide a degree of extremes, we know we continue to have these counties that we consider to be kind of drought hot spots still because of supply problems, and we’re ready to address those issues as they arise.”
Politics
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Politics
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.
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’
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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.
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)
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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.
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