Uncommon Knowledge
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Katie Porter has claimed that California’s Senate primary race was “rigged” after she lost a vote on Wednesday.
Porter, a progressive Democrat, came third in the non-partisan primary, losing out to Adam Schiff, a centrist Democrat who has been vocal in his support for Israel.
In response to the results, she blamed billionaires for spending money on attack adverts against her.
Newsweek contacted representatives for Porter by X to comment on this story.
The Senate seat has become available after Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate, died in September 2023.
Porter, who has represented Orange County, California, since 2019, got 14 percent of the state vote in the election. Schiff got 33 percent of the vote and will face Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, who got 32.6 percent of the vote.
It became the most expensive race in the state’s history. At least $65.3 million was spent on adverts, according to Politico, who cited data from political ad-tracking service AdImpact.
Schiff outspent the other candidates and raised more money, according to campaign finance data. He had $35 million on hand at the start of 2024 while Porter had $13.2 million.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Porter said: “Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and voted to shake up the status quo in Washington. Because of you, we had the establishment running scared—withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election.
“I also want to thank every person who supported us over the past six years. It’s clear Californians are hungry for leaders who break the mold, can’t be bought, and push for accountability in government and across our economy. And that’s exactly what we as Americans deserve.
“Special interests like politics as it is today because they control the politicians. As we’ve seen in this campaign, they spend millions to defeat someone who will dilute their influence and disrupt the status quo. But take my word for it: I’ll never stop fighting for you.”
Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and voted to shake up the status quo in Washington. Because of you, we had the establishment running scared — withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election. (1/)
— Katie Porter (@katieporteroc) March 6, 2024
In a statement added to X, she added: “‘Rigged’ means manipulated by dishonest means. A few billionaires spent $10 million+ on attack ads against me, including an ad rated ‘false’ by an independent fact checker. That is dishonest means to manipulate an outcome. I said ‘rigged by billionaires’ and our politics are—in fact—manipulated by big dark money. Defending democracy means calling that out. At no time have I ever undermined the vote count and election process in CA, which are beyond reproach.”
Following the result, Schiff’s victory speech was drowned out by people calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Adam Carlson, a former political pollster, said: “New York Democrats are the absolute worst, but California Democrats aren’t far behind,” in response to Porter’s claims.
Katie Porter is saying the California Senate primary was “rigged” because she was outspent by Adam Schiff.
Barbara Lee is refusing to concede even though she’s 966K votes shy of second place.
New York Democrats are the absolute worst, but California Democrats aren’t far behind. https://t.co/6bCBxPhK8b
— Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) March 7, 2024
It is likely Schiff will win the Senate seat in the November vote as California is a Democratic stronghold. Republicans have not won a state-wide California seat since 2006.
Update 3/7/24, 3:50 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information and background.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.
Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.
On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.
Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.
Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.
The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.
The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.
California’s attorney general is suing the consumer genetics testing company formerly known as 23andMe, alleging the company failed to protect customers’ sensitive personal information in a massive 2023 data breach that exposed the ancestry and genetic data of nearly 7 million people.
Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court against Chrome Holding Co., formerly known as 23andMe, accusing the company of failing to properly investigate or respond to numerous warnings that its systems had been compromised. The company’s mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing before it filed for bankruptcy in 2025.
In 2023, cybercriminals breached 23andMe’s systems by using a “credential-stuffing attack,” which involves bombarding online accounts with huge sets of user names and passwords stolen in previous unrelated attacks. Over a period of months, the intruders were able to make off with the personal data of more than 6.9 million people.
“23andMe’s security measures were so lax that the threat actor was able to operate undetected within 23andMe’s systems for over five months, and remarkably, 23andMe only began investigating after the threat actor offered the stolen user data for sale on the dark web and reached out to 23andMe to demand a ransom,” Bonta’s office said in the complaint.
The San Francisco-based company, which allowed people to submit genetic materials and get a snapshot of their ancestry, revealed in October 2023 that hackers had accessed customer information in the prolonged data breach that targeted customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The stolen data of more than 1 million Asian-Pacific Islander and Ashkenazi Jewish users was later posted for sale on the dark web.
“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence,” Bonta said in a press release. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”
A January 2024 lawsuit accused the company of not doing enough to protect its customers and not notifying certain customers that their data had been targeted specifically. It later settled the lawsuit for $30 million.
23andMe representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying upwards of $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.
Last July, TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s cofounder and former CEO, acquired 23andMe’s assets for $305 million.
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, signed legislation Wednesday that aims to shield California elections from federal interference, saying he expected Donald Trump’s administration to try to meddle in the midterms this year.
The law, which took effect immediately and came days before next Tuesday’s primary, prohibits any person – including federal agents – from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order. Law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies.
Trump administration officials so far have said they have no plans to send immigration agents to polling locations across the US, a concern raised this year by several Democratic secretaries of state. But Newsom warned “we have to be prepared for everything” because “there’s no rules any more with the Trump administration”.
Voting is already under way in California’s closely watched primary for governor, where a crowded field of Democrats and two viable Republicans are vying for just two spots on the November ballot. Under the state’s open primary system, only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Newsom, who cannot seek a third term, said the election law is a response to “legitimate anxiety” about Trump’s tactics, primarily in Democratic-led states, where the president has deployed federal agents over the objections of local leaders. The Democratic governor warned against underestimating someone who “doesn’t believe in free and fair elections”.
“I expect the worst with Trump because he’s done the worst,” he said at a news conference.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Associated Press later Wednesday that Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections.
“Instead of levying false attacks at the President, Newscum should look in the mirror,” she said in a statement, using Trump’s derogatory nickname for Newsom.
In an interview last year with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, knocked down the idea that Trump would deploy the military to suppress voting, saying it was “categorically false”.
The California law also makes it a crime to knowingly take voted ballots out of the custody of election officials.
Earlier this year, the FBI under Trump seized the 2020 general election ballots from Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and has long been at the center of the president’s false claims that fraud cost him the race. The FBI and justice department also have sought records from previous elections in the largest counties in Arizona and Michigan.
Trump triggered a national redistricting frenzy ahead of the midterms when he urged Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to redraw their US House districts to help the party retain control of the closely divided chamber. Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could benefit Republicans, and Louisiana is expected to be next.
Republicans so far think they could gain as many as 14 seats from redistricting in November, while Democrats think they could gain six in California and Utah.
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