Politics
Opposition concedes that Newsom likely to eke out a win on Proposition 1 in California
Gov. Gavin Newsom brimmed with confidence about Proposition 1 in January as he sat in a Costa Mesa Motel 6 room that was converted into housing for homeless veterans.
“I think it’s going to win overwhelmingly,” the governor said in an interview with The Times. “Period. Full stop.”
Nearly two months later, Newsom’s cockiness appears misplaced.
Despite millions spent by his campaign, Newsom’s ballot proposal to increase care for drug addiction and fund more treatment beds has held only a narrow lead since the March 5 primary. Still too close to officially call more than a week after the election, preliminary tallies from the California secretary of state showed Proposition 1 ahead by less than a percentage point.
Even with that uncertainty, the meagerly funded opposition campaign conceded Tuesday morning that the measure was “almost certain” to pass.
“We almost took down the bear, but it looks like we will fall short,” the Californians Against Prop 1 campaign said in a statement.
Newsom’s campaign said it was “optimistic” about the outcome, but there are still ballots to be tallied. More than 1.5 million ballots remain uncounted statewide in an election expected to exceed 7.5 million votes in all, which could be one of the lowest turnouts in state history.
The Associated Press, which member news organizations rely on to read results and call elections, said in a statement that “the race could flip if ‘No’ does just 1.5 percentage points better among the outstanding votes.”
“AP has determined that is too much uncertainty to make a call at this time as results across the state are uneven.”
Pollsters say Proposition 1 — and most Democratic candidates — underperformed on election day because of lower than expected voter turnout that inflated the Republican share of the electorate. Election returns showed inland counties and parts of Southern California opposed the measure, while a majority of voters in Los Angeles and the Bay Area backed the plan.
“It was the angry versus the apathetic,” said Jim DeBoo, a consultant for Proposition 1. “Republicans are angry and they showed up.”
Though Newsom’s proposal received rare bipartisan support from Central Valley Republicans and San Francisco Democrats in the state Legislature, that political harmony didn’t extend to voters. The measure was criticized by civil rights groups on the left who were concerned about the repercussions of funding secure mental health facilities and his GOP opponents on the right who scoffed at the estimated $14-billion price tag amid a massive state budget deficit.
Proposition 1 would approve a new $6.4-billion bond to support 10,000 treatment and housing beds and reconfigure a 20-year-old tax for mental health services to also fund services for drug addiction. The plan is essential to Newsom’s strategy to address California’s homelesness crisis, a persistent obstacle for the state and political vulnerability for the Democratic governor.
Under mounting pressure to clean up encampments and get people into treatment, the governor has adopted a series of policy positions that depart from the liberal model of voluntary treatment to a more moderate approach of compelling people with severe mental illness and substance disorders into care.
Newsom signed a law last year to expand conservatorship to allow courts to appoint someone to make decisions for people struggling with severe substance use disorders. Counties began implementing his CARE Court program, which gives families an opportunity to request that courts require treatment for a loved one, last year.
The lack of treatment beds and places to house an influx of patients has been the primary argument against Newsom’s strategy. In her state of the city address days after the election, San Francisco Mayor London Breed touted that the passage of Proposition 1 would provide “a real opportunity to add hundreds more” treatment beds.
“So when the state opens the pipeline for new beds, San Francisco is ready and first in line,” Breed said.
Civil rights organizations and advocates for the disabled community opposed the measure and raised alarm bells in 2023 over a last-minute change to Proposition 1 that allows counties to use the bond money for “locked facilities,” where patients cannot voluntarily leave.
American Civil Liberties Unions in California and League of Women Voters of California urged voters to reject the measure, arguing that community mental health services are more effective than institutionalization.
“I think the governor and mayors often just want the encampments to disappear by any means necessary,” said Katherine Wolf, a doctoral student in society and environment at UC Berkeley, who said she voted against Proposition 1.
Wolf said she believes that community programs that provide stability to some mentally ill Californians will lose funding if money shifts to involuntary treatment. Similar to the ACLU and League of Women Voters, she also opposes forcing people into care.
“For them to sneak it in at the last minute after promising all summer that the bond would only be used for community-based voluntary unlocked treatment, I think is really underhanded and I think they did it specifically to avoid objections from the groups and people who they knew would object,” Wolf said.
Newsom cast the measure as an opportunity to get more people off the streets and into treatment. The measure, he argued in an interview with The Times, addressed the most important issues to voters — crime, homelessness, substance abuse and mental health — and “90% of the boxes that unite the vast overwhelming majority of Californians.”
Early polls seemed to suggest Newsom was right. A survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California in November, for example, suggested that two-thirds of likely voters approved of Proposition 1, 30% opposed and a mere 2% remained undecided.
But despite the governor’s bullish stance publicly, behind the scenes his campaign predicted the final result would end up tighter than polls showed and sought to lower expectations in the months and weeks before the election.
Support dropped to 59% among likely voters in a second PPIC poll conducted in February.
By the end of the month, the measure teetered with only 50% support in a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. More than one-third of voters were opposed and 16% remained undecided. A large majority of Republican voters who responded to the Berkeley poll opposed the measure, raising concerns about how Proposition 1 would fare in an election with higher GOP turnout.
In a memo sent days before the election, David Binder, a pollster hired by Newsom’s campaign, suggested the PPIC polling was optimistic given low turnout and underperformance among Democrats.
“It is likely that even as yes-on-Proposition 1 may have polled in the low 60s when first introduced in 2023 that the yes vote could end up in the low 50s, given the history of erosion in support for bond and tax measures and the specifics regarding low turnout and disproportionate Republican turnout that California is experiencing for the March 5th election,” Binder wrote.
Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll, said that despite the bipartisan support at the state Capitol, it should come as no surprise that Republican voters didn’t rally behind Proposition 1.
Republicans tend to oppose big-ticket ballot measures. Voters of all political affiliations who remain undecided in the final days before an election also often end up voting against a measure if their mind isn’t made up, he said. Complicated measures, such as Proposition 1, can easily confuse voters as well.
“One other difference that probably worked against it in this election was that the turnout was so low that you basically have three times as many older voters, who tend to be more conservative than younger voters,” DiCamillo said.
Newsom’s campaign said the governor intentionally chose to place the measure on the March ballot because they believed it could “withstand a more conservative electorate and still pass on election day” and due to the urgency of the issue.
Anthony York, a spokesperson for the campaign, said — and pollsters agreed — that the measure would have performed better if placed on the November ballot where Democratic turnout is projected to be higher.
But Democrats in Sacramento are also eyeing several other bond measures on housing, schools and climate to put before voters in November that could total tens of billions of dollars. With the state struggling to offset a budget deficit of at least $37.9 billion, bonds act as a method of sorts for government to take out loans paid back over time to fund big-ticket policies.
Voting on Proposition 1 in March instead of November was a strategic decision that allowed Newsom to avoid a crowded ballot in the fall, said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc.
“Voters do, if you accumulate ballot measures that have spending, start to kind of collectively go ‘no’ on them,” Mitchell said.
Times staff writer Hannah Wiley contributed to this report.
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Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration, accusing federal health officials of illegally withholding $243 million in Medicaid payments from the state.
Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Department of Human Services sued the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), arguing the funding freeze violates federal law.
The state is seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately block the action.
The dispute stems from a January notice in which the Trump administration said it would withhold more than $2 billion annually from Minnesota’s Medicaid program over what it described as “noncompliance” with federal regulations, specifically, alleged failures to “adequately identify, prevent, and address fraud in its Medicaid program.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison speaks during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Tom Brenner/AP)
State officials say they have not been told specifically how Minnesota is out of compliance or what changes the administration wants to see.
The lawsuit follows a Feb. 25 announcement from CMS that it was deferring roughly $260 million in quarterly federal Medicaid funding to Minnesota, including about $243 million tied to “unsupported or potentially fraudulent” claims.
CMS said the deferral is part of a broader fraud crackdown and cited unusually high spending and rapid growth in personal care services, home- and community-based services, and other practitioner services.
HEAVILY-REDACTED AUDIT FINDS MINNESOTA MEDICAID HAD WIDESPREAD VULNERABILITIES
Vice President JD Vance looks on as Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz speaks about combating fraud at the White House complex in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2026. (Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images)
“For decades, Medicare fraud has drained billions from American taxpayers — that ends now,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “We are replacing the old ‘pay and chase’ model with a real-time ‘detect and deploy’ strategy, using advanced AI tools to identify fraud instantly and stop improper payments before they go out the door.”
Minnesota officials contend the move improperly uses a funding “deferral” mechanism and amounts to denying the state due process before any formal finding of noncompliance.
WALZ SLAMS TRUMP ADMIN FOR TEMPORARILY HALTING MEDICAID FUNDING TO MINNESOTA: ‘CAMPAIGN OF RETRIBUTION’
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The threatened cuts represent about 7% of Minnesota’s quarterly Medicaid funding and could force reductions in health care services for low-income residents, according to Ellison’s office.
“Trump’s M.O. is to cut first, no matter what the law says or who gets hurt, and ask questions later, if at all,” the attorney general said. “These cuts are the latest in a long series of efforts to go around the law to punish Minnesotans — but just as we fought back and won when they illegally tried to cut funding for childcare, hungry families, and our schools, we are suing them again today to make them follow the law.”
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Politics
Fearing GOP win, California’s Democratic leader urges unviable party candidates for governor to drop out
Fearing the prospect of a Republican winning California’s gubernatorial race, state Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks on Tuesday urged his party’s candidates who lack a viable path to victory to drop out.
“It is imperative that every candidate honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign,” Hicks wrote in an open letter to the politicians vying to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I recognize my suggestions are hard for many to contemplate and may be even viewed as overly harsh by some.”
Hicks did not name the Democrats he wants out of the race, but such a public admonishment by a party leader is a rarity in California politics.
Even though the odds are relatively low, California cannot risk having a Republican elected as the next governor at a time when President Trump is in the White House, Hicks said.
“[S]o much is at stake in our Nation and so many are counting on the leadership of California Democrats to stand up and speak out at this historic moment,” Hicks wrote. “California’s leadership on the world stage is significantly harder if a Democrat is not elected as our next Governor.”
Hicks urged Democrats languishing at the bottom of the field of candidates to drop out before the Friday deadline to officially file to run for governor — to ensure their names do not appear on the June primary ballot.
Under California’s top-two primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.
With nine top Democrats running, the fear is that the candidates will splinter their party’s vote and allow the top two Republicans in the race to finish in first and second place. This is despite Democratic registered voters outnumbering Republicans in the state by almost 2 to 1, and no GOP candidate winning a statewide election since 2006.
Having two Republicans competing in the November election would be devastating to Democratic voter turnout and could hurt party candidates in pivotal down-ballot races.
“The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats’ chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump’s term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025,” Hicks said in his letter. “We simply can’t let that happen.”
A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that five candidates lead the contest — former Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Eric Swalwell and hedge fund founder Tom Steyer among Democrats and conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, both Republicans. Hilton and Bianco have led all candidates in other polls over the last few months. No other candidate received the support of more than 5% of likely voters.
After Hicks issued his directive, two influential leaders in California Democratic politics said they shared his concerns.
Lorena Gonzalez, the head of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said she worries that Democratic candidates who are drawing low single-digit support in the polls and remain in the race could tilt the election.
“You’re in a situation where a candidate who pulls 2 or 3% could make all the difference whether there’s two Republicans and anti-union folks in the runoff or if there’s not,” she said.
Gonzalez said that while she believes the legislature, where Democrats hold super majorities in both chambers, would be a check if a Republican was elected the state’s leader, that might not be enough protect Californians from Trump’s destructive policies.
“We are seeing with Trump how much damage an executive who wants to ignore normal rules of engagement or the Constitution can do,” she said. “We can’t afford that.”
The federation began its endorsement process last week, and there were difficult conversations with gubernatorial candidates not only about their political beliefs, but also about their viability. The umbrella group of unions is expected to make an announcement about any potential endorsement on March 16.
Jodi Hicks, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said it was imperative to block the “real possibility” of two Republicans advancing to the general election because of the deep cuts that the Trump administration has made to health care, including access to abortion.
“Given the severity of this moment, we urge candidates to consider how continuing their candidacy may put California’s values and reproductive freedom at risk,” Jodi Hicks said. “The stakes are too high for all of us, but especially for immigrant communities, transgender individuals, the over 15 million patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, and the over 25,000 patients a week who access essential health care at Planned Parenthood health centers.”
Discussions about the need for some Democrats to exit the race took place at last weekend’s California Democratic Party convention.
But a politically thorny issue is that nearly all of the Democrats lagging in the polls are people of color, as former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted at a candidate forum Monday evening.
“There are people who are calling for candidates to get out of the race,” he said at the gathering hosted by Equality California and the Los Angeles LGBT Center at the Renberg Theatre in Hollywood. “Isn’t it interesting that the candidates they are asking get out of the race are the candidates of color?”
Rusty Hicks, asked about the effect on minority candidates who have spent years or decades of their lives in public service, did not directly answer the question but lauded the field’s accomplishments.
“We have a number of strong candidates. They have incredible stories, and they are reflective of the diversity of our party. That being said, there are some political realities of where we are at at this particular moment,” he said in an interview. “I’m not calling on any specific candidates to move in one direction or the other. I’m just calling on them to assess their campaign and determine if they have a viable [path] and if they don’t, to not file.”
During Monday evening’s gubernatorial forum, Porter said she is concerned about the prospect of two Republicans making the top two.
“I hear people say to me, it could never happen, but everybody said that about Trump too,” she said at the forum. “And I look at how much harm we’re suffering, and I think about all the political risks that people are facing every day, the risk of an immigrant to leave their home and walk on our streets, the risk of a kid who’s trans to try to play sports even in this state. And I just don’t think we can take any more political risks.”
Times staff writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.
Since moving back in, President Trump has significantly altered the “People’s House.” East Wing: gone. Oval Office: maximalized. Rose Garden: Mar-a-lago-ified. And the art? Lots of Trump.
Over the last year, The New York Times has captured at least nine paintings, posters, memes, and even a mugshot outside the Oval Office, that Mr. Trump added throughout the historic space.
Many of the selections are gifts from his supporters that highlight his political stature and reinforce the idea that Mr. Trump is invincible.
All presidents or first ladies add to and shuffle the art in the White House.
Barack Obama brought in abstract paintings.
George W. Bush decorated with images from his Texas roots.
In Mr. Trump’s first term, Melania Trump added a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi to the Rose Garden.
But never before has a sitting president displayed so much of his own image on the White House walls.
There is an “assertion of symbolic power that he wants to be on view essentially everywhere in that space,” said Cara Finnegan, a communication professor at the University of Illinois and author of “Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital.”
Even outside his current residence, Mr. Trump’s visage has proliferated in unexpected places — on banners hanging from government buildings, on National Parks passes and on social media, where he has been likened to a king. There has also been talk of a U.S. Treasury-minted coin with Mr. Trump on both sides.
Break with tradition
In recent decades, each president’s official White House portrait has been unveiled in a ceremony hosted by his successor.
The Carters hosted the Fords:
The Clintons hosted the Bushes:
And the Bushes hosted the Clintons:
The mood has often been lighthearted, with political party tensions melting away.
“I am pleased that my portrait brings an interesting symmetry to the White House collection,” George W. Bush joked in a ceremony hosted by the Obamas. “It now starts and ends with a George W.”
In a break with tradition, Mr. Trump did not schedule a ceremony for the unveiling of the Obamas’ portraits during his first term. Joe Biden later did, in a ceremony with a “Welcome Home!” vibe.
Typically, the latest available presidential portrait — often a realistic oil painting — hangs in the main entrance hall, where heads of state are welcomed.
The Obama portrait was in the spot until April …
… when Mr. Trump replaced it with this painting by Marc Lipp, a Florida pop artist, last April.
It depicts a striking moment in 2024 when a bloodied Mr. Trump pumped his fist in defiance, soon after being shot at by a would-be assassin during a campaign event.
Presidential historians have criticized the departure from convention.
Though Mr. Trump had a portrait commissioned for the Smithsonian’s American Presidents collection after his first term, none was confirmed for the permanent White House collection, and the White House said that this is where that portrait would have hung.
It is not totally unprecedented for a president to hang a painting of himself in the White House during his term. Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland all did, according to the White House Historical Association. But more often than not, paintings of presidents and first ladies are hung after they have left office, historians said.
Flags, fists and faith from fans
In what has become something of a muse for many of the president’s artistic supporters, there are at least three other depictions of the fist-pumping scene in the White House.
The image “is in people’s garages when I walk around my neighborhood,” said Leslie Hahner, a Texas resident and communication professor at Baylor University, who studies visual political culture. “People love that image.”
Behind the Oval Office, one is in a small room that houses Trump merchandise:
Another was seen in the West Wing next to a “Still Life with Fruit” painting from 1850:
A statue form was spotted in the Oval Office:
The sculptor, Stan Watts, told a Utah TV station last year that he believes the president was saved by God that day. Many of Mr. Trump’s Christian supporters have echoed that sentiment.
At least two works by a self-described “Christian worship artist,” Vanessa Horabuena, are among Mr. Trump’s White House collection. He has called Ms. Horabuena, who often paints live in front of an audience, “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world.”
In 2022, she painted a portrait of Mr. Trump at a booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference. When he saw it, he asked to meet her, Ms. Horabuena’s representative said. She most recently painted Mr. Trump live at a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-A-Lago.
One of her portraits was spotted in the Cabinet room in January.
It shows Mr. Trump, his eyes closed, in front of a mountain with a small cross on the top:
Ms. Horabuena hand-delivered it to the White House, according to her website.
Her other painting shows the president walking through a phalanx of flags. It was seen hanging prominently in a hallway leading to the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office:
“He’s positioned as this embattled warrior in a lot of these images,” Dr. Hahner said.
Historical figures Mr. Trump adulates are co-stars in some of the art he has chosen.
In an image created by the team of White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump is pictured with William McKinley and Henry Clay, who, like the president, championed the use of tariffs:
Here, Mr. Trump is with two other Republican presidents, Abraham Lincoln (to whom he has compared himself) and Ronald Reagan (whom he is a fan of):
Titled “Great American Patriots,” the piece was painted by Dick Bobnick, an illustrator and Trump supporter from Minnesota. He said he mailed several prints to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but he had no idea his work was on the White House walls until a USA Today reporter called him about it.
“I could hardly believe it,” said Mr. Bobnick. (He said the print is now his best-seller.)
If not in portraits, Mr. Trump’s image is reflected on mirrors that he has added to the White House complex.
Two are in the Oval Office …
… making his image visible from the Resolute Desk.
The mirrors, the portraits and the gilding mimic the look of his properties, like Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.
“Trump is obsessed with his image,” Dr. Hahner said. “And he is so controlling of his image.”
Trump everywhere, all the time
One portrait seen in the White House has become a communication tool between Mr. Trump and his supporters in the real world.
This is his social media profile picture.
It was seen last October hanging between former first ladies Laura Bush and Barbara Bush in the now-demolished East Wing:
The portrait was painted by Lena Ruseva, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, who goes by the name MAGALANGELO. Mr. Trump invited her to his Bedminster golf club in 2022, and she gave it to him as a birthday gift.
“Every time social media or the news quotes the president and I see my artwork alongside it, I feel proud and grateful,” she said.
For a time, the same portrait hung next to Hillary Clinton, his political rival and a former first lady.
Supporters at that time lauded the placement on social media:
This example of a positive feedback loop demonstrates how Mr. Trump has used social media to redefine the presidency and presidential communication. Ms. Ruseva’s portrait was used on social media, hung up in the real world, then photographed and put back on social media by supporters who praised the president.
When Mr. Trump was elected to his first term in 2016, Dr. Hahner said that scholars referred to him as the first “meme president.”
Mr. Trump and his internet fans are used to a meme culture based on irony, and rehashing, repurposing and remixing existing images. The collection of White House artwork — much of it originating from his supporters — sits in an uncanny valley between realism and meme-ism, Dr. Hahner said.
Like memes that multiply, Mr. Trump’s image has been reproduced in other ways, outside the White House.
Last month, a huge banner with Mr. Trump’s face was draped outside the Justice Department headquarters …
Last year, similar signage was strung over the Labor Department building …
… and the Agriculture Department building (this one, alongside Lincoln).
At his request, Mr. Trump’s portrait was recently updated at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery:
Still, Mr. Trump wants more. The White House has suggested that the National Portrait Gallery add a separate section for Trump-related art.
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