Politics
With oil funds and Formula One, Saudi Arabia steamrolls its way onto sports’ hallowed grounds
To understand the scope of Saudi Arabia’s ambitions in the sporting landscape, don’t look just to this spring’s Formula One race in Jeddah — which ended with a predictable one-two win for the Red Bull team. The revealing action was at the after-party.
Amid a bloom of fireworks over Jeddah’s coast, dozens of drones buzzed in synchronicity to spell out the kingdom’s goal: “Saudi Arabia. Home of Sporting Events.”
It’s a vision that increasingly seems within reach. Backed by funds from the state-owned oil giant Aramco and the vast endowment of its Public Investment Fund, the autocratic monarchy has in only a few years steamrolled its way onto the sporting world’s most hallowed grounds.
In soccer, it has lavished its local clubs with hundreds of millions of dollars, courted superstar players to its league and successfully lobbied to host the 2034 World Cup. Its bid to create a rival golf tournament rattled the genteel PGA enough to force it into a reluctant union. Tennis, boxing, cricket, pro wrestling, even eSports — all have been rocked by the sheer scale of investment the kingdom is wielding to transform itself into a sports and entertainment powerhouse.
Soccer fans hold pictures of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, left, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ahead a match at King Abdullah stadium in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is building a new stadium for the 2034 World Cup.
(Uncredited / Associated Press)
But it is in motorsports, and Formula One in particular, where Saudi Arabia has made some of its most audacious and expensive moves, outpacing its regional rivals — Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, all host F1 races — amid a wider push to establish the Gulf as a racing hub.
“It’s amazing what they’re doing here,” said Jefferson Slack, commercial and marketing director for Aston Martin Aramco.
“No county in the world is investing in motorsports as much as Saudi Arabia.”
Slack would know. An executive with three decades of experience in sports investments and management of athletes such as Michael Jordan, he joined the team before Saudi Arabia came on board, when Canadian billionaire Lance Stroll bought the defunct Force India Formula One team and rebranded it as Aston Martin in 2021.
Since then, Aramco, the kingdom’s flagship oil company, has plowed money into the team, while the Saudi Public Investment Fund increased its stake in car manufacturer Aston Martin to more than 20%. As of January, Aramco became exclusive title sponsor and is signed on as a strategic partner until 2028. Rumors abound that Aramco may try to buy the team outright.
Critics charge that the massive investments are an attempt at “sportswashing,” calculated to distract from an abysmal human rights record — imprisonment and violence against commentators and activists, travel bans, and male guardianship laws over women.
The kingdom says it is merely modernizing and diversifying its economy, with F1 as an eager partner. Less than two years after Saudi henchmen killed and dismembered a Saudi Washington Post columnist and monarchy critic, the F1 and the kingdom’s flagship oil company entered into a 10-year partnership deal.
The deal, which began in 2020, is believed to have cost the Saudis some $45 million a year. Some whisper it’s only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia bids for the race series franchise as a whole, which Liberty Media Corp. bought for $4.6 billion in 2017 and whose valuation has since risen many times over — in no small part because the Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” has supercharged the sport’s international popularity.
A light show spells out Saudia Arabia’s ambitions after the Grand Prix in Jeddah in March.
(Anadolu / Anadolu via Getty Images)
In addition, there’s a half-billion dollar racing circuit under construction in the city of Qiddiya, a mega project near the capital, Riyadh, intended to be part city and part tourism, sport and entertainment zone.
Plans are also in place to develop racing at a grassroots level, said Martin Whitaker, head of the Saudi Motorsports Company, the PIF-owned commercial entity charged with bringing motor sport events to the country.
“We’ve raised the bar in how the sport is seen globally,” he said. “Now we have to produce a concrete set of foundations and platforms so we can build it here.”
Creating that sort of ecosystem for racing is harder than it sounds. Soccer for example, can be played just about anywhere: Find an empty lot or quiet street, use whatever is available for goalposts, and that’s largely it.
Racing on the other hand requires infrastructure and major investment. Starting a pipeline of kids in karting — the gateway into circuit racing — can be painfully expensive; move up the ranks to the higher classes and you’re looking at $80,000 a race.
Logan Sargeant of the Williams team drivings qualifying for the Formula One race at Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
(NurPhoto / Getty Images)
Without serious sponsorship, drivers have little hope of sustaining a career, restricting the sport to what Mercedes driver and F1 superstar Lewis Hamilton (who comes from a working-class background) said in 2021 was a “billionaire’s boy’s club.” Even with that advantage, the odds of getting a seat in an F1 car are astronomical.
One afternoon this spring, visiting journalists were given a tour of a new regulation karting circuit in Jeddah — the first of its kind in the country that could host internationally sanctioned events. The idea, according to Prince Khaled bin Sultan Al-Faisal, chairman of the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation, was to have many more such circuits across the country, with a focus on drawing children as young as 5.
“We’ve hosted events and championships, but we have to focus on the sport itself and serve its practitioners, and start with a young generation. A circuit like this is the first step,” he said, adding that he was expecting a 15- to 20-year-long timeline before a Saudi F1 driver appears on the grid.
Whitaker, standing nearby, said it wasn’t just about finding drivers of the future.
“It’s engineers, technicians, placing kids with internships with other teams, talking to international teams to base themselves here,” he said.
Mercedes driver George Russell drives in a practice sesson at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
(Darko Bandic / Associated Press)
“It’s developing career paths for young people.”
That puts the endeavor in line with Vision 2030, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s all-encompassing plan to diversify the oil-rich kingdom’s economy and change its reputation from strict religious realm to tourism and sports hot spot, all while providing jobs for young Saudis.
But first you have to get people interested in F1.
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Soccer remains far and away the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region, but Liberty representatives have identified the Middle East as one of F1’s fastest-growing markets.
About a third of F1’s roughly 1.55 billion fans worldwide became interested in the sport in the last four years, according to Salesforce data. Meanwhile, analysts at the World Economic Forum predict sport industries in the Middle East to grow by 8.7% in 2026 — more than double the global average.
The region, meanwhile, has gone all-in with Formula One. Races in the Gulf bookend the season — Bahrain in the beginning, Abu Dhabi at the end. The Gulf region is home to four races, the second most after Europe’s nine.
At F1’s top administrative levels you find Emirati former rally driver Mohammed Ben Sulayem heading the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, or FIA, the sport’s governing body. Bahrain’s Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa serves as the FIA’s vice-president of sport for the Middle East and North Africa.
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Almost anyone who attends an F1 race, if they’re honest, will tell you it’s easier to understand what’s happening if you watch it on TV. But it’s not just about who’s leading the field.
In Jeddah, the rich and connected watch the race from the premium lounge, with a commanding view of the track and “grazing tables” loaded with precision-prepared pastries and concoctions such as caviar cheesecake. Extra perks include traversing the pit lane as the teams prepare or paddock access, all the way up to meet-and-greets with F1 ambassadors. The price tag on that sort of package? $13,999.
In the cheap seats — which at a cost of at least $200 for a three-day pass are hardly cheap and allow only the occasional glance at the cars as they scream by — the fans didn’t seem to miss the caviar cheesecake.
Before the Jeddah race, a DJ bounced among fans, riling up the crowd with impromptu quizzes or throwing F1 merch, and some of the drivers passed by and signed shirts. Above, the Saudi Falcons, the country’s jet aerobatics team, roared back and forth over the circuit.
Even in the stands farther from the track the sound of an F1 car is a multisensory affair: speed takes on physical proportions, the engine roar passes through your body.
The Saudi Hawks aerobatic team performs over the racetrack in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
(Hassan Ammar / Associated Press)
“My friends and I are really into it. In my community, at least, there are a lot of F1 fans,” said Sireen Fataani, a 16-year-old wearing a Ferrari jacket. Beside her was Ibaa Qattan, also 16, and her sister, Shumookh Qattan, 22.
The three were walking around the pit lane after one of the non-F1 races at the track that weekend, gazing at the cars and hoping to catch a glimpse of some of their favorite drivers — McLaren’s Oscar Piastri for Sireen, Mercedes’ George Russell for Ibaa, and McLaren’s Lando Norris for Shumookh.
“I wanted something to be obsessed about one summer, and for me it was F1,” Ibaa said.
She insisted she didn’t get into it because of “Drive to Survive.” “Too much drama,” she said dismissively.
Both of the teens were enrolled in “F1 in Schools,” an Aramco-sponsored program that has students establishing and managing their own racing team as part of STEM and other lessons. Ibaa had taken on the role of head engineer for her team, while Sireen was doing marketing.
“Ours is called Fennec,” she said. “It’s a desert fox that lives in Saudi Arabia.”
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Not everyone is convinced that the region’s plans to build up its racing bonafides are a good thing.
There have been grumblings over how the infusion of Gulf money has changed F1. Hosting a race is prestigious and a calling card for countries, but the high fees — Saudi Arabia pays an estimated $55 million for the honor — mean storied tracks in Europe (where the most die-hard fans reside) have to compete in ways they didn’t before, and without the coffers of a petrostate backing them up.
Aside from the fees, tracks such as Belgium’s Spa have been forced into upgrades and expensive face-lifts or risk being dropped from the F1 calendar.
Corruption charges have also been leveled at the FIA’s leadership under Ben Sulayem. He was accused in March of trying to block the Las Vegas circuit from being certified ahead of last year’s Grand Prix. That followed a previous accusation that he had interfered in the 2023 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix in favor of Aston Martin. The FIA’s ethics committee cleared him of both charges.
Christian Horner, left, team principal of the Red Bull Formula One team, talks with FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem before a 2023 race in Austin, Texas.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
And then there are the accusations of sportswashing, as wealthy nondemocratic countries try to lure more sporting events to the Gulf.
During the last soccer World Cup, host Qatar, which had already bought the French team Paris Saint-Germain, was accused of trying to launder its repressive reputation. The monarchy’s human rights record and labor rights nevertheless edged into the spotlight.
Saudi Arabia’s efforts in soccer, Formula One and golf, among other sports, have kicked up similar criticism as Saudi money has continued to flow.
“The leaders of these autocratic nations strategically utilize sports, leveraging major events such as Formula One to operate beyond the conventional political stage,” said Stanis Elsborg, a Danish researcher with Play the Game, an initiative to promote democracy and transparency in international sports.
“While immediate changes may be subtle, the long-term ownership by an autocratic state poses substantial threats to the sport’s integrity and introduces conflicts of interest.”
Max Verstappen, in the Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 at right, leads the field at the start during the Formula One Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia on March 9.
(Eric Alonso / Getty Images)
Others allege that Saudi Arabia is leveraging its influence on F1 officials to have them lobby governments to weaken legislation that curbs usage of internal combustion engines and fossil fuels.
“If your goal is to diversify into other industries, it’s a little inconsistent that your sponsorship is all about the oil business,” said Frank Huisingh, founder of Fossil Free Football, a campaign organization that aims to remove high-polluting companies from soccer sponsorship.
“They need to work on their image to keep selling a product that is becoming very unpopular but also because they’re a country with a bad reputation for both human rights and climate reasons.”
In an interview with Fox News in September, Bin Salman dismissed such accusations, insisting his main concerns are domestic growth.
“If sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by way of 1%, then I will continue doing sportswashing,” he said.
“I don’t care… I’m aiming for another one-and-a-half percent. Call it whatever you want, we’re going to get that one-and-a-half percent.”
In that same interview, Bin Salman expressed shame at the country’s repressive laws, but said that dozens of laws had been amended and that he was “trying to prioritize the change day by day,”
“Do we have bad laws? Yes. Are we changing that? Yes,” he said.
F1 portrays its involvement in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in general as a driver for that change. During the race weekend, F1 Academy, an all-women’s race series and training program run by Scottish former racing driver Susie Wolff, had its season opener in Jeddah. Wolff called the event “iconic.”
“I think to open here in a country where just six years ago women couldn’t drive really shows incredible progress,” she said at a panel on sports’ role in Saudi Arabia.
“Sometimes in life, you have to see it to believe it. And we are out there to show that this sport wants to provide opportunity to women and wants to make the sport more diverse in the long term.”
Drivers were also encouraging.
“We are not going to change the world at the end of the day as a sport, but we try to share positive values. And then, of course, it’s also up to the country to make positive changes,” Max Verstappen said at a post-race news conference. The Belgian-Dutch Red Bull driver added that he had already seen change in the kingdom and that it was a “work in progress.”
Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez of Mexico, left, came in second to Belgian-Dutch teammate Max Verstappen at the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
(Giuseppe Cacace / Associated Press)
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who is from Monaco, said F1 needed to go to different countries “in order to hopefully open minds.” Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez said it was important to expand beyond its traditional areas.
“I feel like in the past, Formula One was very centralized in Europe, not just with drivers, but also the people working in the paddock,” said Pérez, who is from Mexico, adding that now there were more nationalities at different levels of the sport.
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Some in the Gulf are already on the yearslong journey to score a place on the F1 grid.
Sisters Amna, 24, and Hamda Al Qubaisi, 21, started karting in their home country of the United Arab Emirates as children with their father’s encouragement and are now part of F1 Academy. In 2021, Hamda became the first woman to win a podium finish in the history of the Italian F4 series.
When they started competing in races, they’d hear grumblings and anger from the Gulf region.
“In the beginning people were very unsupportive. They didn’t like the fact there was a girl competing in a male-dominated sport. We’d hear ‘Women belong in the kitchen. Women aren’t supposed to be playing a sport, they should focus on studies or something else,’” Amna Al Qubaisi said.
Now “everything switched, and people are happy and supportive of what we’re doing,” she added.
Their racing careers have encouraged other women and girls, Hamda Al Qubaisi said. “They tell their father ‘Amna and Hamda are racing,’ and then he says ‘Why not?’”
“Every time we go back to visit our karting team, we’re seeing it grow more and more with girls from the Middle East, which makes it even more special.”
When Saudi Arabia’s first female racer, Reema Juffali, 32, got her first regular driver’s license while studying in the U.S. in 2010, women in the kingdom weren’t allowed behind the wheel.
Seven years later, King Salman, Bin Salman’s father, issued a decree overturning the ban on women driving. That same year, Juffali — then working a finance job in the U.K. — got her racing license, the first Saudi woman to do so. She made her professional debut at the TRD 86 Cup in Abu Dhabi in 2018 — the same year the kingdom began issuing driver licenses to women.
Nearly six years later, Juffali sped through the turns in front of a home city crowd in the first F1 Academy race in Jeddah, also a significant and emotional milestone for her.
“I’ve been wanting to be able to share what I do with my friends, family, fans, people who have never really been able to come to my races,” she said.
But while there is progress on the track and some restrictions against women have been eased to much fanfare, women in Saudi Arabia are far from enjoying equal rights. Under the patriarchal government, women need a male guardian’s approval to get married or divorced. They are required by personal status laws to obey their husbands, and the law places fathers as the default guardians for children, among other limitations on women.
And though women are now able to drive, one activist who campaigned to overturn the driving ban is still caught up in Bin Salman’s crackdown on dissent.
Loujain al-Hathloul, who was imprisoned from 2018 until 2021, remains barred from leaving Saudi Arabia. Manahel al-Otaibi, 29, another women’s rights activist who had spoken in favor of Bin Salman’s reforms but called for more change to the male guardianship laws, was sentenced in January to 11 years for what the government labeled “terror offenses.”
Saudi Arabia’s first female race driver, Reema Juffali, climbs into her car ahead of a race in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2019.
(Fayez Nureldine / Getty Images)
Though Juffali acknowledges the criticism of her country, she says people need to come to Saudi Arabia and see the changes happening themselves.
“We’re not just advancing on sports, which speaks to me personally, but also to see young people who are so much more ambitious, so much more hungry and happy — I feel that when I’m here,” she said.
Juffali aims to boost Saudi participation in racing through the team she founded, Theeba Motorsport, named for her childhood nickname, which roughly translates as “she-wolf.” She hopes Theeba will become the first Saudi team to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“The aim is to one day be a Saudi team — not just drivers, but mechanics, engineers, for all facets of the team be Saudi,” Juffali said.
“These events we have, they’re for Saudis as well. This is serving a bigger purpose than anyone realizes.”
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing its investigation into former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen in the final months of his administration — focusing on pardons and commutations — though a senior official said Biden is unlikely to face criminal exposure.
A senior DOJ official told Fox News the autopen investigation is ongoing and not closed, adding investigators are reviewing clemency actions taken in the final months of the Biden administration.
The official also pointed out, however, that the use of an autopen by a sitting president is “established law.”
The issue under review is whether the autopen was used in violation of the law, specifically, whether Biden personally approved each name included on pardon and commutation lists.
A framed portrait shows former President Joe Biden’s signature and an autopen along “The Presidential Walk of Fame” outside the Oval Office of the White House. (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
“These types of cases are tough. Executive privilege issues come into play,” the official said.
What is also clear, the official indicated, is that the target of any potential prosecution would not likely be Biden.
“It’s hard to imagine how [Biden] could be criminally liable for pardon power,” the senior DOJ official said.
BIDEN’S AUTOPEN PARDONS DISTURBED DOJ BRASS, DOCS SHOW, RAISING QUESTIONS WHETHER THEY ARE LEGALLY BINDING
The use of the autopen by former President Joe Biden remains under investigation. (AP Photo)
The official noted that one reason the former president would be unlikely to face charges stems from a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that originally involved current President Donald Trump but would also apply to Biden.
“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States in 2024.
“At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute.”
Sources familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s team continues to review the Biden White House’s reliance on an autopen, contradicting a recent New York Times report that indicated the investigation had been paused.
DOJ SIGNALS IT’S STILL DIGGING INTO BIDEN AUTOPEN USE DESPITE REPORTS PROBE FIZZLED
President Donald Trump has pushed for consequences for former President Joe Biden’s alleged use of the autopen. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Trump has pushed for consequences over the autopen controversy, alleging on social media that aides acted unlawfully in its use and raising the prospect of perjury charges against Biden.
Biden has rejected those claims, saying in a statement last year he personally directed the decisions in question.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
The House Oversight Committee has homed in on Biden’s clemency actions, including five controversial pardons for family members in the final days of his presidency, citing what it described as a lack of “contemporaneous documentation” confirming that Biden directly ordered the pardons.
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The committee asked the DOJ to investigate “all of former President Biden’s executive actions, particularly clemency actions, to assess whether legal action must be taken to void any action that the former president did not, in fact, take himself.”
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
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Politics
Anxiety grows among California Democrats as gubernatorial candidates rebuff calls to drop out
SACRAMENTO — Despite a plea from the head of the California Democratic Party for underperforming candidates to drop out of the governor’s race, all but one of the party’s top hopefuls spurned the request.
Party leaders fear the growing possibility that the crowded field will split the Democratic electorate in the state’s June top-two primary election and result in two Republicans advancing to the November ballot, ensuring a Republican governor being elected for the first time since 2006.
His advice largely unheeded, state party Chairman Rusty Hicks on Thursday said the fate of a Democratic victory now rests squarely on the gubernatorial candidates who flouted him.
“The candidates for Governor now have a chance to showcase a viable path to win,” Hicks said in a statement Thursday.
Eight top Democratic candidates filed the official paperwork to appear on the June ballot after Hicks released a letter on Tuesday urging those “who cannot show meaningful progress towards winning” to drop out. Friday is the deadline to file to appear on the primary election ballot. On March 21, the secretary of state’s office will formally announce who will appear on the June ballot.
“It sounded like someone who has his head in the sand,” former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said of Hicks’ open letter. “[Most] of us filed within 24 hours of getting that letter. It created some press but not much else. It didn’t impact [most] of the candidates and it certainly didn’t impact my candidacy.”
Democratic strategist Elizabeth Ashford said it was appropriate for Hicks and other Democratic leaders to make a public plea as opposed to keeping such discussions solely behind closed doors.
But the response showed the limited power of the modern-day party bosses.
“It’s definitely not Tammany Hall,” said Ashford, referring to the storied Democratic political machine that had a grip on New York City politics for nearly a century. “The party and Rusty are influential and they are helpful and that is their role. I don’t think anyone would be comfortable with outright public strong-arming of specific candidates.”
Ashford, who worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with former Vice President Kamala Harris when she served as state attorney general, added that the minimal power of the state GOP is likely a factor in the dynamics of Democrats’ decision to stay in the race. Democratic registered voters outnumber Republicans by almost a 2-to-1 margin in the state, and Democrats control every statewide elected office and hold supermajorities in both chambers of the California Legislature.
“If there were a strong viable opposition that existed, if the Republican Party was actually relevant in California, I think that would sort of force greater unity amongst Democrats,” she said.
Just one of the nine major Democrats did heed the party chair’s message. Ian Calderon, a former Los Angeles-area Assemblyman who consistently polled near the bottom of the field, withdrew from the race and endorsed Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) on Thursday.
Candidates cannot withdraw their name from the ballot once they officially file to run for office, leading to some fears that even if other candidates drop out of the race, a crowded primary ballot could still split California’s liberal votes.
“I’m disappointed most of them will be on the ballot,” said Lorena Gonzalez, the head of the California Federation of Labor Unions, which will announce whether it endorses in the governor’s race on March 16. But “I do still think you can have people drop out of the race or become viable. I think that there are candidates who know viability is a real thing they have to show in coming weeks” before ballots start being mailed to voters.
Jodi Hicks, chief executive and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said she is “still worried” about the prospect of two Republicans winning the top two spots in the June primary, shutting Democrats out of any chance of winning the governor’s office in November.
“I didn’t have any specifics of who I wanted to do what,” she said. “I’m just very, very concerned and the stakes are really high right now and seem to be getting worse by the day.”
Republican candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, said he is “confident that I’ll be in the top two” along with a Democratic candidate. “I find it very difficult to believe that the Democratic Party will just surrender California and allow two Republicans to be in the top two.”
Hilton made the comments Thursday after a gubernatorial forum in Sacramento hosted by the California Assn. of Realtors focused on housing and homeownership. Villaraigosa, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former Rep. Katie Porter also attended. Swalwell, who is currently in Washington, joined the panel virtually.
During the panel, candidates were in broad agreement about the need to reduce barriers and costs in order to build more housing in California, where the median single-family home costs more than $820,000. Many also endorsed proposals to disincentivize private investment firms from buying up homes as well as a $25-billion bond proposed by former Sen. Bob Hertzberg to help first-time homebuyers afford a down payment.
“This really isn’t a debate because we’re agreeing so much with each other,” Hilton said at one point during the event.
That political alignment on one of the most pressing issues facing California may explain why voters are having such a difficult time deciding who to support.
A recent poll of the Public Policy Institute of California found that the five candidates topping the crowded field were within 4 percentage points of one another: Porter, Swalwell, Hilton, Democratic hedge fund founder Tom Steyer and Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Earlier polls had Hilton and Bianco leading the field, though many voters remained undecided.
Some candidates took issue with Hicks’ push to cull the field, noting that most of the lower-polling candidates he asked to drop out are people of color.
“Our political system is rigged, corrupted by the political elites, the wealthy and well connected,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who is Black and Latino, said in a video posted on social media in response to the open letter. “The California Democratic Party is essentially telling every person of color in the race for Governor to drop out.”
Villaraigosa argued that enough voters remain undecided that it was too early for quality candidates to call it quits.
“Most people don’t even know who’s in the race,” said Villaraigosa. “It’s premature to be thinking about getting out of the race. I certainly am not considering it and I feel no pressure.”
Aside from the opinion polls, other indicators on who may emerge from the pack a candidates are slowly emerging.
Though it wasn’t enough to win the party’s endorsement, Swalwell won support from 24% of delegates at the state Democratic convention last month, the most of any party candidate.
While spending is no guarantee of success, Steyer has donated $47.4 million of his own wealth to his campaign. Mahan, who recently entered the race and is supported by Silicon Valley leaders, has quickly raised millions of dollars, as have two independent expenditures committees backing his bid.
Ashford said part of candidates’ decisions to remain in the race could have been driven by their lengthy political careers, as well as Democrats’ crushing November redistricting victory.
“In several cases, these are people who have won statewide office,” she said. “It’s tough to feel like there may not be a sequel to that.”
Nixon reported from Sacramento and Mehta from Los Angeles.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is making it clear: he’s staying in the race for the Republican Senate nomination even if President Donald Trump endorses Paxton’s rival, longtime Sen. John Cornyn.
“I’m staying in this race,” Paxton said in an interview Wednesday evening. “I owe it to the people of Texas.”
Trump says he’ll soon take sides in the costly and combustible GOP primary showdown Cornyn and Paxton.
“I will be making my Endorsement soon,” the president wrote in a social media post hours after Cornyn and Paxton advanced to a May 26 runoff election.
The two heated rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in Tuesday’s primary, but since no one cleared the 50% threshold, the nomination race heads into overtime.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, second from left, President Donald Trump, center, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), second from right, and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, right, take part in a briefing on energy at the Port of Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, Feb, 27, 2026. (Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump added that he “will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”
A Republican operative in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News Digital it’s expected Cornyn will get the president’s endorsement. However, the president has been known to change his mind on candidates or even reverse endorsements.
A second source in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News that while there’s still jockeying to influence the president’s decision, given Cornyn’s better-than-expected performance in the primary, Trump is expected to back the senator and prevent a messy and expensive runoff.
CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS HEADED INTO OVERTIME
Asked if he would end his Senate bid if Trump backed Cornyn, Paxton, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump supporter and ally, said no in an interview with Real America’s Voice.
“I’ve spent a year of my life campaigning against John Cornyn because John has not represented the people of Texas well,” Paxton argued. “He’s been against Trump in both of his elections, said he shouldn’t run last time. … The people of Texas, at least the Republicans, would like something different.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks during a primary election night watch party March 3, 2026, in Dallas. (Julio Cortez/The Associated Press )
And a source in Paxton’s political orbit emphasized to Fox News Digital that the Texas attorney general isn’t getting out of the race.
Cornyn or Paxton will face off in the general election against rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico, who topped progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a vocal Trump critic, in the Democrats’ primary. Talarico is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in right-leaning Texas.
‘OPEN BORDERS, TRUMP-HATING RADICAL’—REPUBLICANS QUICKLY POUNCE ON TALARICO
The 2026 Senate showdown in Texas is one of a handful across the country that could determine if Republicans hold their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the chamber 53–47.
The Cornyn campaign and aligned super PACs spent nearly $100 million to run ads attacking Paxton and Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt — who came in third — with the senator charging in the closing weeks of the primary campaign that Democrats would flip the seat in the general election if Paxton was the GOP’s nominee.
Cornyn, his allies and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm of the Senate GOP, repeatedly pointed to the slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered Paxton over the past decade, as well as his ongoing messy divorce.
“Over the next 12 weeks, Texas Republican primary voters will hear more about my record of delivering conservative victories in the United States Senate, and learn more about Ken’s indefensible personal behavior and failures in office,” Cornyn told reporters on Tuesday night.
“Just like the primary, we have a plan to win the runoff, and we are in the process of executing it,” Cornyn said. “Judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign stop in The Woodlands, Texas, Feb. 28, 2026. (Annie Mulligan/AP Photo)
Paxton, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump supporter and ally who grabbed significant national attention by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, told supporters on primary night, “As we head into this runoff, we’re going to make the choice even clearer. While John Cornyn was cutting deals on gun control and amnesty, I was suing corrupt Joe Biden over 107 times.”
And he charged, “John Cornyn spent around $100 million trying to buy this seat. We’ve spent around $5 million.”
ROUND TWO OF CORNYN VS. PAXTON GETS UNDER WAY
Trump on Wednesday urged, “for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!”
And pointing to Talarico, the president argued, “We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively.”
State Rep. James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks at a primary election watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)
“Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!” Trump warned.
Trump, whose clout over the GOP remains immense, stayed neutral in the Republican primary race. All three candidates, who sought the president’s endorsement, were in attendance Friday as Trump held an event in Corpus Christi, Texas.
“They’re in a little race together,” Trump said of Cornyn and Paxton. “You know that, right? A little bit of a race. It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people, too.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the lobbying campaign to clinch the endorsement for Cornyn hasn’t stopped, and if anything, is intensifying in the hours since primary night.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters that Cornyn had “a great night” against Paxton. The top Senate Republican has spent the last several months bending Trump’s ear at every opportunity to jump into the race and back the longtime incumbent.
“He’s positioned to win the runoff, and if the president endorses early, it saves everybody a lot of money, and a lot of, you know, just 10 weeks of another spirited campaign on our side that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.
Thune spoke with Cornyn on Wednesday morning, and believed that Talarico was the more formidable match-up for Republicans in November — one that Cornyn was better suited to win.
“The matchup that’s good for us is John Cornyn at the top of the ticket,” Thune said.
NRSC communications director Joanna Rodriguez told Fox News Digital, “John Cornyn remains the only candidate who guarantees state Rep. Talarico never becomes a United States senator and ensures the fight for President Trump’s Senate majority is waged in true battleground states, not Texas.”
And the Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the top super PAC backing Senate Republicans, which spent millions on behalf of Cornyn in the primary campaign, made it clear in a statement early Wednesday that it will continue to support the senator in the runoff.
“SLF and its sister organizations were proud to support Senator Cornyn early, and we look forward to him securing the Republican nomination on May 26,” the group’s executive director, Alex Latcham, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a GOP political operative in Trump’s orbit told Fox News Digital, “Talarico being the nominee makes President Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn more important than ever.”
While Trump stayed neutral, his top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, helped the Cornyn campaign. And veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who served as co-campaign manager of Trump’s 2024 White House bid, consulted for a top Cornyn-aligned super PAC.
LaCivita, in a social media post Tuesday night aimed at Paxton and his top political consultant, wrote, “The second wave is going to be a (bi–h.)”
But on the Paxton side of the playing field, operatives and donors are confident they can unseat the senator.
Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling chief executive officer and prominent Republican donor and bundler who supports Paxton, told Fox News Digital, “This was Cornyn’s shot to fend off his challenger by getting over 50%, and he couldn’t do it. The runoff voters will be even less friendly territory for Cornyn.”
Pointing to former longtime Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has often acted as a Trump foil, Eberhart said, “This race is about MAGA vs. McConnell.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks to supporters at a campaign event on primary eve, in Waco, Texas on March 2, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Meanwhile, Lone Star Liberty, a pro-Paxton super PAC, circulated a memo ahead of Tuesday’s election that shrugged off threats that Cornyn would succeed in the runoff by continuing to hammer the attorney general over his litany of scandals, arguing there was nothing new to offer.
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“Cornyn’s talk of ‘unleashing’ new attacks in the runoff is bluster,” the memo states. “The truth is that from day one, his forces fired every bullet they had. There are no new attacks left — only more of the same, at ever-greater cost and with ever-diminishing returns.”
Fox News’ Rich Edson contributed to this report
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