West
California voters pass congressional redistricting proposition in victory for Newsom, Democrats
Obama pushes Newsom’s Proposition 50 ahead of Election Day
Paul Gigot hosts a ‘Journal Editorial Report’ panel to discuss California’s upcoming special election to vote on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Prop 50, which some criticize as gerrymandering, and the upcoming Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice retention vote.
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California voters have passed a ballot initiative that will have a huge impact on next year’s battle for the U.S. House majority.
According to the Fox News Decision Desk, voters in California approved Proposition 50, which would dramatically alter the state’s congressional districts, putting the left-leaning state front and center in the high-stakes political fight over redistricting that pits President Donald Trump and the GOP against the Democrats.
“Donald Trump poked the bear. And the bear roared back,” two-term Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is seen as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender and who spearheaded the push to pass the proposition, said.
Approval of the ballot initiative in the nation’s most populous state will temporarily sidetrack California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature.
The effort in California, which could create five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts, aims to counter the passage in the reliable red state of Texas of a new map that aims to create up to five right-leaning House seats. Failure to approve what’s known as Proposition 50 would have been a stinging setback for Democrats.
OBAMA ENDORSES NEWSOM CALIFORNIA REDISTRICTING PROP 50
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan for a special election to seek voter approval for a new congressional map Aug. 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“If we lose here, we are going to have total Republican control in the House, the Senate and the White House for at least two more years,” Newsom emphasized in a recent fundraising appeal to supporters. “If we win here, we can put a check on Trump for his final two years.”
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The push by Trump and Republicans for a rare mid-decade redistricting is part of a broad effort by the GOP to pad its razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House Oct. 6, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“California voters have sent a strong and clear message that they will not stand by while Republicans try to rig the 2026 election,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene argued in a statement. “By overwhelmingly voting to pass Proposition 50, Californians are fighting back against the GOP’s disastrous record of raising costs and ripping away health care from millions, all to give tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy.”
But Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the rival National Republican Congressional Committee, charged that “no matter how Democrats redraw the lines to satisfy Gavin Newsom’s power grab, they can’t redraw their record of failure, and that’s why they will fail to take the House majority. Even under this new map, Republicans have clear opportunities to flip seats because Californians are fed up with Democrat chaos.”
Missouri last month joined Texas as the second GOP-controlled state to pass congressional redistricting ahead of next year’s elections. The new map in Missouri is likely to give the GOP another right-leaning seat.
North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature also passed a new map likely to score another congressional seat for the GOP. Republican-controlled Indiana is on deck, with a special legislative session getting underway this week.
But, unlike those states, California voters needed to weigh in before giving redistricting power back to the legislature in Sacramento.
“Heaven help us if we lose,” Newsom said in a fundraising pitch. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats.”
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Proponents and opponents of Proposition 50 raised hundreds of millions of dollars, with much of the money being dished out to pay for a deluge of ads on both sides.
One of the two main groups countering Newsom and the Democrats labeled its effort “Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab.”
Getting into the fight was former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last Republican governor of California.
Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposes the move by Democrats to suspend the state’s non-partisan redistricting panel. (Tristar Media/WireImage)
During his tenure as governor, Schwarzenegger had a starring role in the passage of constitutional amendments in California in 2008 and 2010 that took the power to draw state legislative and congressional districts away from politicians and placed it in the hands of an independent commission.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA VOTERS WEIGH IN ON PROP 50 REDISTRICTING FIGHT
“That’s what they want to do is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Prop 50,” Schwarzenegger said in an ad against Proposition 50. “Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”
But as Election Day neared in California, supporters had raised dramatically more than opponents of the proposition, and public opinion polling indicated majority support for the proposition.
Even before Trump initiated his redistricting push, Ohio was under court order to redraw its maps. That could boost Republicans in a one-time battleground state that now leans right.
Republicans in GOP-dominated Florida are also mulling congressional redistricting. And Democrats in heavily blue Maryland are weighing a redistricting push, while the Democrat-controlled legislature in Virginia is already pushing redistricting.
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Other states considering altering maps are Democrat-dominated Illinois and red states Kansas and Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Democrats could possibly pick up a seat in Republican-dominated Utah due to a new, more competitive map, mandated by a judge.
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West
LISTEN: Unhinged voicemail exposes left-wing candidate’s death threats against GOP senator
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Freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., was targeted with death threats and other extreme insults by a left-wing city commissioner candidate from Montana’s capital city of Helena, who called his office several weeks ago to leave her thoughts about the Republican senator over a voicemail.
The voicemail came in July, shortly after Sheehy voted with his Republican colleagues to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping tax and spending package from Republicans that angered many Democrats, including Helena city commissioner candidate Haley McKnight, following its passage.
“Hi, this is Haley McKnight. I’m a constituent in Helena, Montana,” McKnight started off in her voicemail, a recording of which was obtained and verified by Fox News Digital. “I just wanted to let you know that you are the most insufferable kind of coward and thief. You just stripped away healthcare for 17 million Americans, and I hope you’re really proud of that. I hope that one day you get pancreatic cancer, and it spreads throughout your body so fast that they can’t even treat you for it.”
But the anger didn’t stop there. During the roughly minute-long voicemail that phone logs reportedly show came in on the afternoon of July 1, McKnight launches into insults about Sheehy’s fertility and his children, before warning the senator not to “meet me on the streets.”
LAWMAKER TARGETED WITH DEATH THREAT AFTER CONDEMNING RACIST SIGN AIMED AT WINSOME SEARS
U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., (left) and Helena City Commissioner candidate Haley McKnight (right). (Photos from Haley for Helena and Andrew Harnik via Getty Images)
“I hope you die in the street like a dog,” McKnight continued. “One day, you’re going to live to regret this. I hope that your children never forgive you. I hope that you are infertile. I hope that you manage to never get a boner ever again. You are the worst piece of s— I have ever, ever, ever had the misfortune of looking at … God forbid that you ever meet me on the streets because I will make you regret it. F— you. I hope you die.”
McKnight added that Sheehy doesn’t “serve Montanans,” but rather just his “own private interests.”
“All that you have done since you have gotten into power is do s— for yourself.”
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McKnight, originally from North Carolina but now living and working in Montana, owns a small business called Sage & Oats Trading Post, which McKnight describes as “a successful Native American-owned gift store” on her campaign website. She also runs a consulting and design business called Morningstar Design Ltd Co, and is the president and a board member of the Helena Young Professionals group. She touts being the recipient of the Helena Chamber’s 20 under 40 award.
“I am always ready to stand up for what I believe and challenge the status quo,” McKnight’s “About” web page on her campaign website reads, which lists priorities like housing for all, better governmental transparency, increased funding for public art and music, and more accessible streets and downtown living.
Montana State Capitol building, located in Helena, Montana. (Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In an interview with a local news outlet, McKnight touts her past volunteer work for the Obama campaign and more recently working on Democrat candidate Steve Held’s campaign for Congress. Held did not make it out of the primary.
Meanwhile, public campaign donation records reportedly show McKnight has donated to multiple Democratic candidates, according to records reviewed by Fox News Digital.
The Helena city commissioner race, which is traditionally nonpartisan, is her first time running for any sort of political office. McKnight was originally one of five declared nonpartisan candidates before she advanced to the November general election after finishing third in a nonpartisan primary in September.
“I’m a constituent, and I was responding to some horrible policy with some justified rage,” McKnight told Fox News Digital about the voicemail when reached for comment. “I would hope that if Sheehy was so rattled by my voicemail, he would have contacted me instead of leaking my information to conservative news media the night before an election. It feels like a cheap shot. I’m one of his constituents, and you know, this message is nothing that I’d say to my grandmother or in front of any children, it was meant for Senator Sheehy alone.”
McKnight said it was “laughable” that this is how Sheehy responds to constituent voicemails.
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“I also would have thought that somebody from the armed forces could have handled some tough language,” McKnight added. Sheehy is a former Navy SEAL who was shot while deployed in Afghanistan.
Tim Sheehy, founder of Bridger Aerospace, seen in the Bridger hangar in Bozeman, Montana, on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Sheehy is a former Navy SEAL. (Photographer: Louise Johns/Bloomberg via Getty Images )
Meanwhile, McKnight went on to say she was simply trying to “convey the gravity of the situation” with her voicemail. She added that she was not intending to threaten Sheehy with her voicemail. McKnight also reportedly told the National Review she “obviously” had no intent of hurting Sheehy, reportedly telling the outlet: “I couldn’t, I’m a woman.”
“I wanted to drive home the struggles that people that I know are going through because of his policies. I think people were kind of shocked at my specificity, but these are things that are affecting people in my community,” McKnight told Fox News Digital, adding that Sheehy was spending too much time blocking the release of “the Epstein files” as opposed to understanding the struggles Montanans are going through.
But, when pressed on whether McKnight stood by her rhetoric from the voicemail, particularly after public officials from both sides of the aisle have called for folks to turn down the heat in light of the spate of political violence that the United States has faced recently, she simply responded: “No comment on that.”
“I have received numerous death and rape threats since this story has been published,” McKnight said when pressed even further. “My business is being threatened at the moment because of the actions of the senator,” she added, in reference to Sheehy publicly sharing her voicemail with the media.
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“It’s completely politically motivated,” McKnight concluded. “It’s a cheap shot the night before an election … the only thing left I have to say is release the Epstein files.”
Montana has no major statewide elections this year.
Tim Sheehy prepares to debate U.S. Sen. Jon Tester on campus at the University of Montana in Missoula, Mont. Sheehy eventually beat Tester in the subsequent election to take over his Montana Senate seat. (The Missoulian via AP)
In comments to the National Review, McKnight added that, “to see [Sheehy] throw away what Montanans need and want for his own betterment is enough to make me, yeah, want to fight him on site.”
“I’ll gladly say that, because I think in the time of rising fascism, we shouldn’t be afraid to say these things,” she added.
Meanwhile, when pressed by the outlet over whether she thought her voicemail went too far, McKnight reportedly said she didn’t think so, adding that she has had friends die of pancreatic cancer because of an inability to access care they required. “This is a man who’s so rich that he’s never, ever going to have to deal with that problem,” McKnight reportedly said.
In her comments to Fox News Digital, McKnight also recalled having a friend die from pancreatic cancer “because he couldn’t afford to treat it.”
Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy speaks during a rally for Donald Trump when he was running for president, at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University on August 9, 2024 in Bozeman, Montana. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
McKnight, much like Democrat attorney general candidate in Virginia, Jay Jones, who has been in hot water for comments about wanting to murder his political rival and his family, is an example of heightened political rhetoric that members of Congress and other public officials have expressed concern over.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from one side or the other, directed at one party or another, or one person or another. It is all wrong – and it makes us all less safe,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said of political violence in September following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Shapiro has been joined by members from both parties calling on others to turn down the heat amid a spate of political violence the country has seen.
When reached for comment about the voicemail, Sheehy spokesman Tate Mitchell said, “We hope Ms. McKnight gets the help she clearly needs and wish her well.”
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San Francisco, CA
BART equipment issue halts service between South Hayward and Berryessa stations
BART service has been halted between South Hayward and the Berryessa station in San Jose during the Friday morning commute, officials said.
Around 5:20 a.m., the agency issued a service advisory about the issue, which they said involved an equipment problem. In a subsequent update, BART said wayside equipment was damaged due to suspected vandalism.
As of about 6:30 a.m., BART said crews were working on repairs, but there is no estimated time on when service would resume through the area.
Other parts of the system in the East Bay, San Francisco and Peninsula are not affected. Green Line trains from Daly City are going as far as the Bayfair station in San Leandro, while Orange Line trains from Richmond are going as far as Hayward.
The agency has sent extra staff to help at stations with no train service. AC Transit is providing free mutual bus service connecting impacted stations between Hayward and Milpitas.
Denver, CO
Denver ties mark Friday for second-latest date for a first snowfall
Metro Denver residents in some areas woke up to wet sidewalks, marking the first measurable moisture the area has received in 24 days. But outside of the foothills, snow still hasn’t arrived, tying 1934 for the second-latest first snowfall on record.
There was fog and a light mist at Denver International Airport, with the temperature at around 40 degrees, as of 6 a.m. There is a 50% chance of light showers in the area through around 10 a.m. before things dry up again. The skies should turn partly cloudy with a high of 49 degrees and a slight wind from the north at 3 to 5 miles per hour, according to a forecast from the National Weather Service in Boulder.
But still no snow. If there isn’t 0.1 inches of snow measured by the end of today, unlikely given where temperatures are at, then the next mark to reach will be Dec. 10, which represents the latest first snowfall ever measured locally. That record was set in 2021.
The next best chance for snow is expected on Thanksgiving morning, when temperatures will dip down into the mid-20s overnight. But the forecast calls for only a slight chance of snow and showers. The high on Thursday is forecast to reach 54 degrees. After that, Sunday, Nov. 30, offers a 50% chance of snow showers.
The weather shouldn’t interfere with the morning commute. But light snow is expected to continue through the I-70 corridor for those heading up into the mountains.
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