LA Times Today: California Democrats try to figure out how to win national elections again
L.A. Times reporter Laura Nelson joined Lisa McRee to discuss what we need to know.
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate eager to broaden Kansas voice in D.C. politics
Christy Davis, one of three candidates seeking the Kansas Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. Senate, is eager to challenge in 2026 incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican loyal to President Donald Trump. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Democrat Christy Davis' campaign for U.S. Senate is steeped in the politics of incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and President Donald Trump. But the resident of Cottonwood Falls is also driven by frustration that many folks holding power in Washington, D.C., have been quick to disenfranchise Kansans with no interest in placing a Marshall sign in the yard or branding themselves by wearing a MAGA cap. 'All Kansans are served by their elected officials, or should be,' Davis said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. 'When you're elected to the U.S. Senate, you're representing everyone in the state regardless of who they voted for.' 'Kansans deserve the best representation, and we're not getting it in Washington,' she said. 'Register to vote, show up at the polls and help however you can.' Davis said Marshall, who won a competitive race in 2020 and has committed to seek reelection in 2026, chose to be among the Senate GOP's most partisan members rather than bring civility to the job. 'There's not enough resources in the world … for us to be spending all of our energy fighting each other,' she said. 'Kansans need to know that they're being heard, not just the ones who are invited to private meetings.' Davis, who hasn't held elective office, launched one of three bids for the Kansas Democratic Party's nomination for Senate. In terms of the August 2026 primary, her rivals would include Michael Soetaert of Wellington and Anne Parelkar of Overland Park. Davis grew up in Harvey County and earned degrees at Kansas State University and Wichita State University. She worked as a preservation planner for the city of Newton and was a preservation officer with the Kansas Historical Society. She moved to Chase County in 2013 to become executive director of Symphony in the Flint Hills. 'The Flint Hills is one of the most endangered landscapes on the planet and so we were really focused on conservation of that landscape,' Davis said. From 2023 until January, she was state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the administration of President Joe Biden. The job was to deliver hard-to-fund projects important to communities, she said. 'During the Biden administration, we invested about $1.3 billion in projects in Kansas and worked on housing, local business, energy efficiency in agribusiness and also a lot of hospitals, clinics, child care, those sorts of projects,' she said. Davis is married with a son. She said her grandfathers served in World War II, one as a surgeon and the other with soldiers who helped liberate concentration camps. She said their service wasn't easy, but they did it because they 'understood the importance of right and wrong, and they believed that it was an American value.' Davis said her sister was a physician who died while advocating for the Affordable Care Act, the landmark law signed by President Barack Obama that reshaped health care in the United States. 'I tell people I've survived 36 hours of labor, and I've survived a double mastectomy, and after that, it doesn't seem so hard to fight, to fight for what's right,' Davis said. Davis ran for the U.S. House in 2020 but lost the Democratic primary. That 1st District campaign was won by U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, a Republican who still serves a district stretching from Dodge City to Lawrence. The last time Kansas elected a Democratic candidate to the U.S. Senate was in 1932. Both of the state's Senate seats have been held by Republicans since 1939. 'Sometimes there are other factors at play besides who the best candidate is,' Davis said. 'The key is garnering that support, raising enough money early to get, you know, on the ground and begin the hard work.' She said one of her strengths as a candidate was that she had worked in every county in Kansas and understood issues relevant to a diverse constituency. She said Congress wasn't fighting battles that needed to be fought for Kansans, including affordable housing and the rising cost of living. Congress should stand up for fundamental rights, including due process, amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, Davis said. She said she was an unwavering supporter of public education and was convinced the effort to close the U.S. Department of Education would make education a significant campaign issue in 2026. She opposed appropriation of tax dollars to private schools. 'I believe that we should be doing everything we can to shore up public education,' she said. Davis denounced the proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would have laid the foundation for more stringent restrictions on abortion. In 2022, Kansas voters rejected the amendment to nullify a Kansas Supreme Court opinion that said the state constitution guaranteed women bodily autonomy and the right to end a pregnancy. Votes in Congress to remove millions of people from Medicaid could jeopardize dozens of rural hospitals in Kansas, she said. Davis said work by Republicans to demolish the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, was a tragedy. 'It's an embarrassment that we have cut funding to USAID, that we have had opportunities to help people who are experiencing food insecurity, and that we have cut those programs off at the knees,' she said. Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
The plot to destroy Black political power
Get ready for the rage: The conservative majority on the Supreme Court looks likely to gut the last remaining parts of the Voting Rights Act. Prompted by a Black conservative, Justice Clarence Thomas, the high court will consider in October a question that answers itself — whether it is wrong to stop openly racist tactics in drawing congressional districts. Even if the right-wing justices manage to close their eyes to the racial politics involved, they will feel the heat and hear the explosive impact of the backlash to a one-sided ruling. The fuse will be lit in several Republican-controlled states, largely in the South, as white politicians begin diluting votes in Black-majority districts to silence Black voices in Congress. Deep-red state legislatures — think of South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi — will be free to demolish their Black-majority congressional districts. Those white-majority, Trump-backing state legislatures aim to bring an end to the careers of several Black Democrats in Congress, such as Reps. Cleo Fields (D-La.), Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). As a purely political exercise, Trump and his Republican allies have wanted to eliminate these districts for years, because Black voters are key to the Democratic Party's congressional strength. The Voting Rights Act allows for federal courts to look for racial damage done by gerrymandering districts. In the case now before the high court, involving redistricting in Louisiana, the state was forced to add a second Black-majority district. A federal court ruled that, with 33 percent of the state being Black, it was wrong for only one of its six congressional districts to be majority Black. But that led to a lawsuit over the new map. Along the lines of Thomas's recent call for a total end to the Voting Rights Act, the challengers contend that the law — which was created to protect equal voting rights for Black Americans — now prohibits the court from stopping white Republicans from playing politics and crushing Black power as a proportional representation of a state's racial makeup. Thomas makes the case that attention to 'race-based' construction of congressional districts is out of touch with recent history. He argues that 'specific identified instances' of racial bias, including violent voter suppression, are now distant and amount to relics of the nation's past. Last week, a federal appeals court disagreed. The Fifth Circuit ruled that Louisiana's congressional district map 'packed' and 'cracked' Black populations to limit their political power. The ruling stated there are 'decades of binding precedent' under the 15th Amendment allowing Congress to contest racial bias in redistricting. The 1965 Voting Rights Act was written in response to the nation's long history of keeping political power in white hands. Even after Black men gained the right to vote, it was common for that vote to be suppressed through violence. For perspective, South Carolina is 26 percent Black and 67 percent white. But white-majority Republican congressional districts are 86 percent of South Carolina's seven congressional districts. Only one of seven districts has a majority of Democrats and Black voters — Clyburn's district. The Supreme Court plans to hear arguments on racial redistricting on Oct. 15 — early enough for a decision that could affect the 2026 midterms. If the Black vote is diluted, the Democratic Party's ability to win seats in Congress shrinks, increasing Republican chances of retaining majorities in the House and Senate in 2026. That would keep Trump from becoming a lame duck facing a divided Congress. The Republicans' goal is to maintain majorities in Congress for Trump's last two years in the White House. Then Republicans can appoint more judges to issue more rulings that further weaken Democrats. The downward spiral for Black political power will go on and on. Trump is not hiding his interest in the outcome of gerrymandering efforts in Texas. 'We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats,' Trump told CNBC earlier this month. 'We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas … and we are entitled to five more seats.' Excuse me, Mr. President? Neither you nor the Republican Party is entitled to any seats. Those seats belong to Americans of all colors and parties. Texas Republicans' threats to send law enforcement to forcibly return Texas Democratic legislators to the state capitol to provide a quorum for passing gerrymandered maps are a sideshow. They distract from the real effect that racially-designed gerrymandering can have on race relations and politics for decades to come. Comedian Dave Chappelle famously called Trump 'an honest liar.' In the fight over Texas redistricting, the 'honest liar' is saying that the people looking at redistricting's racial impact are themselves racist. Don't let Trump or his partisans on the high court fool you. Racial justice in Congress is at stake. Democrats will have to fight fire with fire to prevent Trump from diminishing Black voting power. Democrats owe that much to Black voters, who have carried them to electoral victories over the last 60 years. They owe it to the memory of the brave people who marched, were beaten and even died to demand voting rights only 60 years ago.
The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
Sherrod Brown and Mamdani are very different — today's Democrats need both
News that former Sen. Sherrod Brown intends to enter the 2026 race to regain a Senate seat in Ohio is just the kind of development that the Democratic Party sorely needs. With polls showing approval of their party at historic lows, and that it is bleeding support from working-class voters, Brown promises a return to the pragmatic liberalism that once made the Democrats this country's home for blue-collar voters. Welcome back, Sherrod. Brown is a longtime proponent of what he calls the 'dignity of work.' And stylistically, he is the polar opposite of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Since he won his party primary, Mamdani — educated at an elite liberal arts college and a self-described Democratic socialist — has become a news media darling and lightning rod for Republicans eager to paint Democrats as radical left lunatics, out of touch with the American mainstream. Mamdani, whose website notes that he 'co-found(ed) his college's first Students for Justice in Palestine chapter,' has leaned into that caricature. His campaign promises city-owned grocery stores, 'free public buses, universal child care, new affordable housing, and a higher minimum wage — all to be funded through a 2 percent tax on the top 1 percent of earners.' And it doesn't help that he was initially reluctant to denounce the anti-Zionist catch phrase, 'Globalize the Intifada.' Yet Mamdani succeeded by energizing young voters and bringing new voters to the polls. Brown, who graduated from Yale, displays none of the polish or easy cosmopolitanism associated with an Ivy League education. His gravelly voice, down-to-earth manner, and rumpled appearance suggest that he is more comfortable in bowling alleys and union halls than in the company of New York socialites. More importantly, Brown understands and speaks to the grievances of working-class Americans of all races. He embraces a populist agenda, without the hard edge of anger that often comes with it. The more America sees of him, the better it will be for the Democratic Party. During his three terms in the Senate, Brown was a workers' rights champion. That is why he earned a 4 percent rating from the ultra-conservative political action group Heritage Action for America and a 100 percent rating from the AFL-CIO national labor union. Despite this record, he lost his bid for re-election in 2024 to Trump-backed candidate Bernie Moreno by 4 percent of the vote. He could not overcome the red wave that swept Ohio. After the election, Brown offered the following diagnosis of the problems of the Democratic Party. 'I've seen [an] erosion of American jobs, and I've seen the middle class shrink. People have to blame someone. And it's been Democrats.' For emphasis, he added, 'At this point, this has been 30 years since NAFTA of the Democrats drifting away from workers.' Now, he argues Democrats need to focus on 'the dignity of work and show up at picket lines and go to union halls and listen to workers and tell stories about how unions have changed people's lives for the better.' Brown makes a compelling case that the dignity of work should be at the center of the Democratic Party agenda. In his view, it is one thing that Americans have in common. He knows that the party cannot recover if it does not speak to the broadest swath of voters in a language that they recognize and understand. Promises of 'free' stuff won't go over well in communities where working people take pride, justified or not, in earning everything they have gotten. He is not shy about calling out rising corporate profits and executive salaries at a time when wages ' are largely flat, and the cost of living keeps getting more expensive.' He recognizes that 'We have an economy today that does not reward work and does not value the work of Americans without four-year college degrees.' Brown's vision for the Democratic Party begins with an acknowledgement of those facts. And he is telling his colleagues that they cannot win if they are seen as the party of the status quo. Or, if they are the party of the coastal elites. There is much to admire in what Mamdani did in his New York City campaign, and he sure looks like the kind of new voice that Democrats need. But for people between the coasts, the Mamdani phenomenon may seem to be just the latest twist in the political tastes of coastal elites. That's why the Democrats also need Sherrod Brown. Whether or not he can win in Ohio, his campaign will offer a vision for a Democratic Party looking to compete beyond the coasts and its current wealthy, well-educated base.
