At the same time, Kalshi’s own market was showing Becerra with a 74% chance of winning the governor’s race as of Monday afternoon.

The contribution, one of the company’s largest reported donations to a California state candidate, is drawing scrutiny from campaign finance advocates who say it raises questions about whether a prediction market should financially support candidates while offering contracts tied to those same candidates’ electoral prospects.

Trent Lange, executive director of the California Clean Money Campaign, said the situation is troubling because betting markets can influence how voters view a candidate’s strength, even though the public may not have a full understanding of how the odds are shaped.

“It does seem especially problematic when a betting market is giving large contributions to any candidate that they are holding betting markets for,” Lange said.

Kalshi declined to comment on the donation or whether it presents a conflict of interest.

Lange said prediction markets can affect public perception by signaling which candidates appear viable, potentially influencing voters before they cast ballots.

“We do know that people often look to where candidates stand on the betting markets to see how viable people think they are and it may actually change many people’s votes,” he said.

Becerra’s campaign did not answer specific questions about the Kalshi contribution or the company’s market on his chances of winning.

“Californians from every walk of life are lining up to support Xavier Becerra,” campaign spokesperson Jonathan Underland said in a written statement.

Kalshi, founded in 2018, has recently expanded its political activity in California. Since the second quarter of 2025, the company has given $115,000 to state candidates, including Becerra, and $100,000 to the California Democratic Party. It also reported spending $72,000 lobbying state officials, including lawmakers, the attorney general and the governor.

Late last year, Kalshi joined Crypto.com, Coinbase and Robinhood in launching an advocacy organization called the Coalition for Prediction Markets. The group, led by former Democratic staffers, registered to lobby in California earlier this year.

Kalshi and the coalition have lobbied on state legislation involving prediction markets and online gambling. One bill would require the attorney general to investigate prediction market payouts of at least $5,000 when the outcome involves national security. Another bill seeks to prevent children from gambling online.

Both measures remain under consideration in the Assembly. State disclosure filings do not indicate whether Kalshi supported or opposed the bills.

Polymarket, one of Kalshi’s largest competitors, has not reported any California campaign contributions or state lobbying expenses.

Original source: CalMatters

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The Republican nominee for president in the upcoming November election took the podium at about 10 a.m. at Trump National Golf Course, which is a course he’s owned for more than 20 years.

Trump talked about the ongoing crisis in Rancho Palos Verdes during the news conference Friday. Many residents have been displaced from their homes, and thousands of others have had electricity shut off as landslides have affected crucial elements of the community’s infrastructure.

“I want to express my support for all of the families affected by the landslides in Rancho Palos Verdes,” Trump said. “Landslides are something to be taken care of … The mountain is moving and it can be stopped, but they need some help from the government.”

Trump’s criticism of the government’s response comes more than a week after California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in the community, giving the city state funding and support from the Office of Emergency Services.

Still, many residents congregated outside the golf course on Friday, hoping to have the chance to show the former president the impact that the landslides is having on their lives.

One resident, identified as Jerry, told KTLA’s Omar Lewis that his daughter was about to move into his new home in the city when Southern California Edison abruptly turned his power off on Labor Day weekend.

“We’re hoping for FEMA money to come in,” he said. “It’s a working class neighborhood. I think the perception is these people have an endless amount of money … You have a lot of older people that have nowhere to turn.”

Jerry said he was not present at the event in support of former President Trump, but rather to get his attention on the issue.

“We’re not going to go out without a fight,” he said. “We’re here to stay.”

While lots of residents were there to advocate for the residents affected by the natural disaster, most in attendance were there in support of Trump, who rarely makes campaign stops in California due to the political demographics of the state.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of Trump supporters were seen outside. One large banner read “Kamala Harris is an idiot,” alongside an American flag.

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BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — Just blocks from the shuttered Bethlehem Steel plant, the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley was bustling on a recent day with scores of older people eating lunch. Downstairs, out of sight, a constant stream of visitors was shopping in its massive food pantry.

Over the past seven months, the number visitors to the pantry has risen by more than a third. The center’s executive director, Raymond Santiago, sees that as a stark sign of something he has felt over the past couple years: Many in the area’s Latino community are struggling to meet their basic needs.

Northampton County, which includes Bethlehem, is a traditional bellwether for Pennsylvania, one of the most important presidential swing states, and Latinos are a key part of the coalition that President Joe Biden is trying rebuild as he embarks on his campaign for a second term. In doing so, the Democrat might have challenges selling a crucial part of his reelection strategy.

One of the messages he has delivered in previous visits to Pennsylvania is that former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, is a danger to American democracy. Biden is hoping that message energizes the same voters who turned out four years ago, when Northampton County narrowly flipped to him after supporting Trump by a thin margin in 2016.

Based on his interactions with visitors to the Hispanic center, Santiago isn’t so sure. It’s the price of groceries and lack of affordable housing that dominate conversations there.

“I think so many people are already immune to that messaging, it won’t land as cleanly this election as it did in 2020,” he said. “If he keeps pushing that message, it might turn voters away.”

Biden chose a location near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with its deep symbolism for the country’s struggle for freedom, for his initial campaign event for 2024, portraying Trump as a grave threat to America and describing the general election as “all about” whether democracy can survive. It was a message similar to one he gave before the 2022 midterm elections at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the nation’s founding documents were created. Biden warned that Trump and his followers threatened “the very foundation of our republic.”

Biden has continued the theme during the early primary season, telling supporters winning a second term is essential for maintaining the country’s democratic traditions.

Over the course of several days, The Associated Press interviewed a cross section of voters in Northampton County to ask whether Biden’s messaging around the fate of democracy was resonating. These voters represented parts of the very coalition Biden will need to win Pennsylvania again — Black voters, Latinos, independents and moderates from both parties.

Their overarching response: The president’s warning that a second Trump presidency will shred constitutional norms and destroy democratic institutions is not one that, alone, will motivate them and get them out to vote.

Like people across much of the rest of the country, most of those interviewed would prefer avoiding a rematch of the 2020 contest, and several suggested they would seriously consider a serious third-party candidate with a strong message and a chance of winning.

Evelyn Fermin, 74, who regularly visits the Lehigh Hispanic center, has lived in the county for two years after spending most of her life in New Jersey. Her opinion about Trump has been set since Jan. 6, 2021, when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win. But she doesn’t think reminders of that day will be sufficient to persuade voters in November.

For the daughter of parents who immigrated from the Dominican Republic, her concerns are border security and spending abroad.

“Rather than sending it out to foreign countries, I think we should use it for our people,” she said.

As a divorced mother who supported her son as he worked his way through school to become a lawyer, she also doesn’t support Biden’s attempt to waive student loan debt: “If I was able to to do it, I feel that they should.”

Curt Balch, 44, worked in the health care industry and is now a stay-at-home dad. He was weathering a two-hour school delay with his 5-year-old daughter in his home in Hellertown, in a more rural part of the county. He registered Republican so he could vote in primaries, but describes himself as more libertarian.

Balch said the messaging by both sides is “pretty toxic” when they warn that the other is “a threat or a danger to the fundamentals of the country moving forward.”

He supported Trump in the past two elections but is open to considering other candidates this year, especially if he thinks there is an appealing third-party or independent candidate. Balch believes the dire warnings about a potential second Trump term are overblown. Balch notes that even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump let states decide for themselves how to handle it.

“I understand the rhetoric, ‘Oh, he’s going to be a fascist dictator,’” Balch said. “I don’t think it’s a message that’s getting people to the polls. I don’t think people are legitimately thinking that they need to be afraid of Donald Trump.”

Christian Miller was a lifelong Democrat but became an independent in 2022 out of frustration with political gridlock and a sense that as he got older, he was growing more conservative.

He said he might one day consider switching to the Republican Party, but not as long as Trump is leading it. That’s not out of any worry that Trump would become a dictator if he wins a second term.

“I don’t know that I fear it as much as it’s being made out to be in the media from either side,” said Miller, a 53-year-old bank executive who lives in Nazareth. “I feel that the institutions are safe and and are strong enough to withstand the challenges.”

Miller cited the dozens of failed court challenges seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential results by Trump and his allies as an example of the institutions holding firm.

Surveys indicate concern about the state of democracy, but it’s not clear how that will translate in November’s election. A Biden campaign spokesperson said the democracy message is central to the campaign but it is not the only one the campaign will use to reach voters. Protecting abortion rights and fighting for higher wages will be among the issues essential to the president’s pitch.

Northampton County, especially Bethlehem, has been slowly emerging from the economic shock that followed the collapse of the local steel industry. The plant produced the steel that built the Golden Gate Bridge during the Great Depression and a decade later, during World War II, became the country’s largest shipbuilder.

The blast furnaces, which fell silent nearly 30 years ago, are still visible for miles as they sit alongside the Lehigh River. But Bethlehem has been enjoying a revival in recent years as it has evolved into a hub for health care and technology companies. New shops, an art center, museum, performing arts stage and a casino, among other developments, have added vibrancy to a picturesque city dotted with historical structures dating to the 18th century.

Northampton also is a historical bellwether. As the county has gone in the presidential election, so has the state, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg University in Allentown. The last time they split was 1948, when the county voted for Democrat Harry Truman but the state went for Republican Thomas Dewey.

“It’s about as great a benchmark county as you’ll ever find,” Borick said.

Biden narrowly carried the county in 2020, four years after Trump had narrowly prevailed in his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Anna Kodama, 69, is the type of voter who traditionally has swung back and forth between the parties.

She grew up in a Republican household in Ohio but switched parties during college. She recalls voting across party lines frequently since she moved to the Lehigh Valley in 1977 — until 2016 when Trump was making his first run for the presidency and she voted a straight ticket for Democrats.

The people Kodama encounters are not listening to Biden’s messages about a dark future under Trump. Instead, she would like him to speak more about what he is doing to improve the economy and forge stronger ties with Europe. She paid attention to a Biden visit earlier this year to a nearby town, Emmaus, where he stopped at local stores to discuss the importance of supporting small businesses.

She said Biden seems to connect better with people when he promotes a positive message, rather than a negative one that she believes will not motivate people in the fall.

“That’s where I find it compelling — look what we can do together,” said the artist and former teacher who was sipping coffee at Café the Lodge in Bethlehem. “That message resonates with me and with people I know.”

For Esther Lee, the 90-year-old president of the local NAACP, the threat-to-democracy message is not generating much concern among the people she contacts. She already plans to vote, but not because she is fearful of another Trump presidency.

“We already know who he is,” she said.

Getting Black voters engaged is going to take more from Biden, she believes, because so far his campaign messages have not resonated. She questions whether the Black community in Northampton County is the target audience: “I’m not seeing evidence of it,” she said.

Lee said the issue she hears about most in her circle is homelessness: “It’s No. 1,” she said, adding that the resources don’t seem to be sufficient to address the local problem. The companion to that, she said, is affordable housing.

“With Biden’s campaign, they need to reach down further,” with the messaging, she said.

At the Lehigh center, Guillermo Lopez Jr., 69, recalls his deep ties to the area and the many members of his extended family who worked at Bethlehem Steel. He worked at the plant for 27 years, following a father who worked there for 36.

He is now on the center’s board of directors and a local leader in the Latino community. A Democrat who said he leans independent, he plans to vote for Biden in part because of how he thought Trump’s rhetoric, beginning with is campaign announcement in 2015, made targets of Latinos and other minorities.

“It just speaks to me that there’s so much misguided hatred toward people like me,” he said.

But Lopez thinks messages of fear and Trump imperiling American democracy are essentially meaningless for many of the county’s working class voters. Their concern, he said, is finding steady work with good pay.

“I actually think that harms the vote,” he said of the democracy warnings. The average person who “just puts their nose to the grindstone and goes to work, I don’t think that motivates them. I think it scares them and freezes them.”

___

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ends nearly every speech by saying he’s “never been more optimistic” about the country’s direction. But lately he also has begun painting a vision of a catastrophic future for the United States — that is, if Donald Trump returns to the presidency.

Biden in recent days has accused the former Republican president of being “determined to destroy American democracy” and being out for “revenge” and “retribution.”

Biden’s reelection campaign is sending more emails with stark warnings: “Trump’s America in 2025: A Unilateral National Abortion Ban” and “Trump’s America in 2025: Mass Detention Camps.” Trump has proposed the largest operation to arrest and deport migrants in U.S. history. He has not endorsed a a federal ban on abortion.

Contrasting Biden and Trump was always going to be central to the Democratic president’s 2024 strategy. But there was a time when Trump only merited short and derisive mentions in Biden’s speeches, if Trump was mentioned at all.

Today, Biden’s campaign has sharply increased its references to Trump with just under a year until the election. The change reflects how, with Biden low in the polls, lukewarm Democratic voters might be more motivated by stopping Trump than hearing about investments in infrastructure and renewable energy.

Biden has acknowledged that many voters don’t feel great about the economy. Voters are frustrated by high inflation and have concerns about his age. At nearly 81, Biden is already the oldest person elected president.

Speaking on Wednesday to campaign donors in San Francisco, Biden argued that Trump was using the rhetoric of Nazis to demonize perceived political enemies after Trump recently pledged to to “root out” enemies he described as “vermin.” Moments later in his remarks, Biden returned to a usual refrain, saying, “I’ve never been more optimistic about our country’s future.”

There is a dissonance between Biden’s stoking of hopes for an ascendant America and his dark warnings that the country could fall under the sway of someone he labels a would-be despot. The campaigns sees the two messages as complementary.

“I don’t think they’re in tension. That’s literally the choice,” said Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler. “These are two sides of the exact same coin, and it’s our responsibility to push on both on both sides.”

When asked about Biden’s comments and comparisons to Nazi rhetoric, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung claimed that Biden is “tearing democracy to shreds.”

“It’s despicable and racist” for Biden “to make that disgusting connection” regarding Nazis, Cheung said. ”But I wouldn’t expect him to conduct himself in an honorable manner. He’s clearly suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome and should get professional help.”

To be sure, Biden took credit for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection after a campaign in which the Democrat often promoted federal spending on infrastructure and COVID-19 relief — two areas that Biden allies play up as accomplishments.

But it’s becoming conventional wisdom for Democratic strategists to argue that Biden needs to push Trump front and center with voters. Jim Messina, the manager of President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, wrote in Politico on Monday that voters would move to Biden once they are reminded “of the chaotic, lawless circus that was Trump’s presidency.”

Biden’s campaign is aiming to shift the political conversation to Trump and away from the GOP candidates who lag the former president in polls. Biden’s team also wants to spotlight what Trump would do in office, not just his myriad legal troubles.

“Our very democracy is at stake,” Biden said in his San Francisco speech. Trump “is running on a platform to end democracy as we know it, and he’s not even hiding the ball.”

There’s evidence to suggest that messages about safeguarding democracy can resonate with voters. AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of U.S. voters, found half of voters in the 2022 midterm elections called inflation the single most important factor in thinking about the election, but the future of democracy came closely behind.

But voters for Democrats were especially focused on democracy issues. In congressional elections nationwide, Democrats won 6 in 10 voters who identified the future of democracy as their “single most important” factor, while about 4 in 10 backed Republican candidates.

The Trump campaign has countered with a messaging strategy that accuses Biden of being corrupt and destructive. Trump’s two impeachments and four major indictments are proof to his supporters of the former president’s persecution, while they claim without conclusive evidence so far that Biden profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter, who is being investigated by a special counsel.

“He’s a corrupt politician and he’s totally compromised,” Trump said as he campaigned in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on Saturday.

Polling does suggest that Republican attacks over Hunter Biden have raised questions for many Americans about the integrity of his father.

An October poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 35% of U.S. adults believe Joe Biden personally has done something illegal with regard to the business dealings of his son, who has acknowledged struggling with drug addiction. An additional 33% say the president acted unethically but did not violate the law. Just 30% say Joe Biden did nothing wrong.

Even if Biden does overcome negative poll numbers and does win a second term, there is no guarantee that democracy is automatically saved.

In a Nov. 9 speech to donors in Chicago, the president acknowledged that he would still need to create a sense of unity by having the nation return to the principles of equality in the Declaration of Independence. But those are the same principles that he also said Trump and his millions of supporters are willing to abandon.

“My notion is if you can’t unite the country, how do you keep a participatory democracy going if you can’t get consensus?” he said. “How does that work?”

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Donald Trump may be running for president, but he still can’t use Facebook.

The social media platform has no plans to reinstate Trump’s account following the former president’s announcement that he will seek a second term in the White House, the company confirmed Wednesday.

Trump was kicked off Facebook following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump may not have to wait long to get back on the site, however. His suspension from Facebook is set to be reconsidered in January, two years after it was first imposed. One change will be immediate: As a candidate, Trump will no longer be subject to Facebook fact checks.

That’s because under Facebook rules, comments by elected officials and candidates for office aren’t subject to fact checks on its site. The Associated Press participates in Facebook’s independent fact-checking program. Throughout his tenure as president, Trump’s use of social media posed a significant challenge to major social media platforms trying to balance the public’s need to hear from their elected leaders with worries about misinformation, harassment and incitement of violence.

Following the Jan. 6 riot, Trump was also kicked off Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook parent company Meta. Trump’s ability to post videos to his YouTube channel was suspended.

YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi said Wednesday the company had no plans to lift the suspension. Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has said he disagreed with the platform’s decision to bar Trump following the Jan. 6 attack. Musk said no announcement about reinstating banned users will be made until a content moderation council has reviewed the issue Twitter did not respond to questions about whether Trump’s candidacy will impact the decision. Since his suspension, Trump has started his own social media platform, TruthSocial, and said he has no plans to rejoin Twitter if allowed.

The platforms would be justified if they extend their restrictions on Trump or make them permanent, said Heidi Beirich, founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and a member of the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group that has criticized Meta’s response to extremist content and misinformation. “The big problem is treating candidates as if they’re in a special category and deserve special treatment,” Beirich said. “If you have a set of rules, it should apply to everyone.

The decision shouldn’t be a struggle.” Facebook initially placed a 24-hour suspension on Trump’s account on Jan. 6 after he praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol. Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an indefinite suspension on Jan. 7, adding that “the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”

The company’s quasi-independent oversight board upheld the ban but directed Facebook to set a time limit. The ban is now set to expire Jan. 7, 2023.

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Manuela Tobias | Contributed

It’s difficult for housing advocates to criticize Gov. Gavin Newsom because he’s done more to boost production than any other governor in recent memory — but that’s mostly because the bar is so low. Measured against the goal he set for himself, Newsom’s record is less impressive.

Just 13% of the 3.5 million homes he campaigned on building have been permitted, let alone built. He’s walked back the goal many times, settling on a new target earlier this year: Cities need to have planned a combined 2.5 million homes by 2030. So, a million fewer homes planned for, not built, and over a longer time frame. Newsom can point to some accomplishments: He signed bills that capped big rent hikes statewide, legalized duplexes and fourplexes on most developable land and unlocked millions of potential apartments on empty strip malls.

He sheltered tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness amid a generational pandemic and dedicated more dollars to housing and homelessness than ever before. But as he finalizes his first term and coasts into the second, Newsom finds himself mired in an even deeper housing and homelessness crisis than the one he inherited. Running for governor in 2017, then-Lt. Gov. Newsom pledged to spur a never-before-seen tsunami of homebuilding in California to bridge the gap between the growing population and shrinking stock of housing driving the affordability crisis. “As Governor, I will lead the effort to develop the 3.5 million new housing units we need by 2025 because our solutions must be as bold as the problem is big,” Newsom wrote on Medium. The goal was true to character: big, hairy and audacious.

It would have required building an average of 500,000 homes a year in a state that has only surpassed the 300,000 mark twice in more than 50 years. Newsom didn’t get even close. In the nearly four years since he took office, California cities are projected to have permitted a total of about 452,000 homes — less than he pledged he’d build in one year alone, according to local data collected by the Construction Industry Research Board. When asked about his shortcomings at a recent press conference, Newsom wrote off his original goal as he has many times before, by paraphrasing Michelangelo. “The biggest risk in life, however one defines risk, is not that we aim too high and miss it.

It’s that we aim too low and reach it,” Newsom said. “It was always a stretch goal.” Housing advocates acknowledge that policy change is by nature slow and incremental, and like many other proposals, long-term housing goals took a backseat to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the reality on the ground — that there aren’t enough houses for everyone and the ones that exist are hideously expensive — continues to exasperate Californians who repeatedly rank housing and homelessness among their top concerns. State Sen. Brian Dahle, the Republican candidate for governor, and other state Republicans have routinely attacked Newsom’s record on housing, including calling for a special session on homelessness. “We need government to treat this the way we treat a natural disaster, because that’s how it’s impacting people’s lives,” said Chione Lucina Muñoz Flegal, executive director of Housing California, a housing advocacy organization. “And that’s not what we see happening.”

A Marshall Plan for housing? Housing policy advocates described Newsom’s stated goal of 3.5 million new homes in four years the same way he has: aspirational. They say that’s because the state doesn’t build housing in California — private developers do, with the approval of local governments. So what really grabbed advocates’ attention was the “Marshall Plan for affordable housing” Newsom pledged to launch during his inaugural speech, recalling the multi-billion dollar program to rebuild Western Europe following World War II. “As much as the number was important, the idea of building a streamlined process of building, that was amazing, because that’s really the challenge of California,” said Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association.

He said that dream remains elusive. California has some of the highest housing costs in the nation because of how little “marshaling” there is, Dunmoyer said. Land costs are prohibitive, and zoning rules limit much of what can be built. Housing must get approved at the local level, which has ample opportunity for community input. Those communities can then block unpopular projects, such as multi-family or affordable housing. Another culprit: impact fees cities charge to fund infrastructure that can exceed $150,000 a home, some of the highest in the nation. The closest Newsom may have gotten to bulldozing those barriers is Project Homekey. After COVID-19 hit, the administration scrambled to turn 94 hotels and motels into more than 6,000 shelter units for people experiencing homelesnsess, which would later become permanent homes, within record-setting months.

The projects bypassed local land use rules and a marquee environmental law often blamed for slowing or killing controversial projects. The state has since expanded the $800 million project with more than $2.75 billion in new funding. Newsom signed more than a dozen bills allowing housing types that met certain conditions to skip lengthy approval processes at the local level. Two are expected to have the biggest impact: one which legalized duplexes and fourplexes on the two-thirds of developable land in California previously zoned for single-family homes, and another that allows apartments on land previously allotted for retail centers, parking lots and offices along arterial roads. While a zoning change doesn’t build housing, it’s a first step to making it legal.

Combined, the two laws could open up previously blocked space for more than 2 million housing units. “The effect of legislation is often hard to prove, because it’s only one factor of many in the development process,” said Louis Mirante, vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council. “To stop a project, you only need one red light. But to make a project go, you need at least 100 green lights. A lot of the legislation the governor has been signing has been those green lights.” But yellow and red lights abound, including rising interest rates and prohibitive material costs. While it took political courage to sign a controversial measure like the one streamlining duplex and fourplex construction, Newsom remained largely quiet on those bills until they reached the finish line, and hasn’t championed a more sweeping production policy proposal on his own. “He can step in and resolve the problems if he really wanted to prioritize the issue,” said Chris Martin, policy director at Housing California. “He has the power to do it but politically, it’s challenging. He’s going to have to make some uncomfortable decisions.”

Moving the goalposts While Newsom has repeatedly called the 3.5 million goal taken from a 2016 McKinsey study a moonshot, he has put his weight behind another number: 2.5 million. That’s how many homes the Legislature has mandated California cities to plan for by 2030, and Newsom’s team is making sure they do. “Before we can reach our stretch goals, before you can reach the moon, you’ve got to get off the launch pad,” said Jason Elliott, Newsom’s senior counselor on housing and homelessness. The planning law has been on the books for decades, but it wasn’t until 2017 that the state Legislature gave the process teeth by creating standards and penalties cities must abide by. The plans for the housing that those standards and penalties apply to weren’t even due for most cities until this year. And the deadlines are different for different regions. It’s a slow process. Cities now have to zone for more than double the housing they did in previous years, and it has to be on sites where housing could actually be built. And if they don’t do it, they risk losing affordable housing dollars or even forgoing housing approval decisions.

But having laws on the books — even if they feature new penalties — doesn’t mean anything unless someone is there to enforce them. To that end, Newsom staffed up a $4.65 million accountability and enforcement unit within the housing department, with reinforcements at the state’s Justice Department. Cities seem to be paying heed, but it’s all fun and games until actual homes get built. “For many years in California, the Regional Housing Needs (Allocation) process was an afterthought at best,” Elliott said. “It was not taken seriously because there were largely no consequences for local governments failing to meet their responsibilities. And that’s not ancient history, but through a very concerted effort by this governor and the administration in partnership with the Legislature, RHNA is now very serious. And I think communities are taking it seriously.”

But planning isn’t building, and a recurring complaint about the process from cities is that while it requires a lot of affordable housing to be planned for — 1 million of the 2.5 million units must be affordable to the lowest earners — the state doesn’t provide nearly enough tax credits and other subsidies to build it. “We’re funding a quarter of that, at best,” said Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. “So that’s an interesting conundrum, where their own goal is unattainable. And there’s not really a Manhattan Project to make that happen.” With the Legislature, Newsom has dedicated unprecedented dollars to affordable housing, including $10.3 billion in 2021.

Funding the current affordable housing need alone, however, would require nearly $18 billion a year over a decade, according to a recent estimate from Housing California and California Housing Partnership. And there is no long-term source of funding for housing in California.

As budget projections for next year sour, affordable housing advocates worry those funds might dry up. “In these years of good budget outlook, the administration has done a really good job,” said Marina Wiant, vice president of government affairs at the California Housing Consortium, a non-partisan housing advocacy organization. “It’s going to be interesting to see what they do when they have to make tough budget choices.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gavin Newsom will almost certainly win reelection as governor of California in November, with a little-known Republican state senator the only thing between him and a second term leading the nation’s most populous state.

That’s why Newsom’s campaign is more about his political future and overhauling the Democratic Party ahead of the 2024 presidential election — the success of which is much harder to predict.

It’s been just two years since Democrats retook the White House by lining up behind Joe Biden, an old-school elected official who came of age before social media amplified the worst parts of politics and changed what it takes to win.

Now, many in the Democratic Party worry whether Biden can win in 2024, especially in a rematch with former President Donald Trump who, despite his legal troubles, could still be a formidable opponent. If Biden doesn’t run, Newsom has been floated as a potential replacement for him on the ballot.

Newsom’s actions of late have done nothing but reinforce that idea. His campaign has paid for ads in Florida and Texas, home to Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, the country’s two most outspoken Republican governors and potential 2024 GOP candidates for president.

He has moved quickly to build support among the party’s base of liberal voters and donors, ordering state regulators to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars and signing more than a dozen laws to make California a sanctuary for women in other states seeking abortions now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.

“He doesn’t want to talk about his race in California, he wants to talk about him running for president. Because, again, it’s all about him,” said Brian Dahle, the Republican state senator challenging Newsom on the ballot this fall.

Newsom insists he isn’t running for president, saying he supports Biden and, if Biden doesn’t run, Vice President Kamala Harris — who came up in politics at the same time and place as Newsom, with the pair even sharing political advisers.

While Newsom’s focus on national Republicans infuriates the California GOP, it’s the best strategy for him right now, said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

“Yes, he could attack California Republicans,” Schickler said. “But it seems probably more California Democrats know who Ron DeSantis is than Brian Dahle.”

Instead, Newsom says he is tackling perhaps an even bigger project: a complete overhaul of Democratic Party messaging ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Democrats, in Newsom’s view, are too soft. He says Democrats are always defending and never attacking, a strategy that lets Republicans control the political narrative on cable news and social media.

He’s careful to praise the party’s leaders, including Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But in a recent interview, Newsom made it clear the party’s strategy of trying to bridge the gap between the country’s left and right wings won’t work.

“I think the president’s learned it the hard way,” Newsom told MSNBC during a campaign trip to Texas. “I mean, he’s hardwired for a different world, and that’s gone.”

Instead of appealing to a broad base of voters, Newsom’s TV ads in Florida told residents that “freedom is under attack in your state” and urged them to move to California. In Texas, Newsom took out a full page newspaper ad featuring a quote from Abbott about children losing their lives to abortion, editing it to say “gun violence” instead.

And in seven conservative states that have banned or severely restricted abortion, Newsom has paid for billboards urging women there to come to California for the procedure — including a link to a website that will show them how California taxpayers will help pay for their travel expenses.

“I’m optimistic about (Democrats’) ability to turn this around — if we go on the offensive,” Newsom, who declined an interview request with The Associated Press, told MSNBC. “That’s why I’m doing the billboards. That’s why I’m doing these ads.”

Newsom’s aggressive critique of the Democratic Party is “rubbing some people the wrong way,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic political operative in California who has clashed with Newsom on a statewide ballot initiative that would raise taxes on the wealthy.

If Newsom really wanted to help the party, Maviglio said, he would be spending his time and resources to help California Democrats win and retain their U.S. House seats, which could determine which political party controls Congress for the final two years of Biden’s term.

“Here’s a popular governor who should be paying attention to tight races not only in his home state but across the country instead of this vanity campaign,” Maviglio said. “Every national Democrat would agree that it’s more helpful to raise money and campaign for candidates in tight races than it is promoting yourself two months before the midterm.”

Newsom campaign spokesperson Nathan Click said the governor is supporting all of California’s congressional Democratic candidates by either hosting fundraisers for them or raising money on their behalf through email.

“He has one of the best email lists in the country — we often raise more (with) a single email than a traditional event,” Click said.

Click also said Newsom is raising money for Democrats running for governor of other states, including Katie Hobbs in Arizona, Charlie Crist in Florida, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Chris Jones in Arkansas and Beto O’Rourke in Texas.

Newsom’s campaign says he is also the second-largest financial contributor backing Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would enshrine the right to an abortion in the California Constitution. Last month, Newsom’s campaign donated more than $876,000 to the campaign.

“He’s helping the entire party elevate their national message in ways that people who are in competitive races and in smaller states maybe can’t do,” said Matt Barreto, a UCLA political science professor and a senior adviser to Building Back Better, a nonprofit that launched to support the Biden administration’s agenda. “I don’t see him as taking any spotlight away from anyone.”

Newsom is overshadowing Dahle, his Republican opponent. Dahle is a farmer from the far northeast corner of the state and is little known outside his district. He doesn’t have enough money to run statewide TV ads, so he’s been traveling a lot and promoting himself on social media.

Dahle’s one chance against Newsom will be during a debate on Sunday, broadcast live on the radio on a Sunday afternoon during the NFL season.

“I’ve been an underdog my whole life,” Dahle said. “I believe I can win.”

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Dan Walters | Contributed

California Gov. Gavin Newsom insists that he’s not running for president but continues to cultivate a national political profile that may indicate otherwise. Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to insist that he has “sub-zero interest” in running for president should Joe Biden decide against a second term.

However, Newsom continues to cement his place on the informal list of potential presidential candidates by grabbing opportunities to raise his national political profile. Late last month, while dealing with the hundreds of bills passed by the Legislature in August, Newsom found time for cross-country dashes to two high-profile events, where he praised himself, criticized his own Democratic Party for being too timid and seemingly suggested that the 79-year-old Biden is out of touch.

The first jaunt was to New York for two days of speeches and schmoozing at the Clinton Global Inititative conference on climate. He bragged publicly about California’s leadership on attacking climate change and met with top political figures, including several from other countries. “California’s climate leadership was on display at the closing session, as Governor Newsom highlighted the state’s recent passage of world-leading climate measures,” his office declared while releasing a lengthy account of his appearances, complete with pictures of him posing with other attendees.

Newsom barely had time to change his socks before he was off again to Texas, whose Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is one of Newsom’s top rhetorical targets, this time for the Texas Tribune’s annual political gabfest. Declaring that his party is “being crushed” by Republicans in the war of words, Newsom said, “These guys are ruthless on the other side. Where are we? Where are we organizing, bottom up, a compelling alternative narrative? Where are we going on the offense every single day? They’re winning right now.” However, the most interesting, and perhaps most revealing, aspect of Newsom’s trip to Austin was an interview with Alex Wagner of MSNBC — progressive Democrats’ favorite TV outlet — in which he indirectly suggested that Biden’s not up to the job of confronting Republican “bullies” because he’s “hardwired for a different world.” “It’s very hard for him,” Newsom said of Biden.

“His decency, his honor, his character, his moral persuasion…those are tools in his toolkit.” Newsom said that while Biden “wants to compromise, he wants to find our better angels, and he wants to find that sweet spot in terms of answering our collective vision and values but that’s not how the system is designed.” Newsom’s very evident message was that to win, Democrats need a leader who is glibly confrontational — someone, it would seem, very much like the governor of California.

Newsom closed out his week of high-octane politicking with a final gesture indicating that despite his oft-repeated declarations of non-candidacy, he’s at least keeping his options open. Without advance notice, Newsom walked out of the Capitol to gree t United Farm Workers Union activists who had been camped outside the building, beseeching him to sign legislation that would make it easier for the union to win representation elections by allowing mail ballots.

Although Newsom had vetoed a similar bill in 2021 and his office had declared opposition to this year’s version, he signed the bill while the UFW’s protesters looked on, saying that union leaders had agreed to some tweaks that would be added to the law next year. Biden and other high-level Democratic figures had been publicly urging Newsom to sign the bill and had he vetoed it, it would have angered not only the union but the progressive wing of the party that views unionization of low-wage workers as a holy grail.

It could have caused significant damage to a Newsom presidential campaign — if, of course, there would be such a thing.

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Caitlyn Jenner’s candidacy for California governor is about to go from virtual to reality.

The Republican who calls herself a “compassionate disrupter” sits down for her first in-person campaign event, a one-on-one interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

The 71-year-old Jenner — who won the men’s Olympic decathlon in 1976 and decades later became a reality TV star and transgender woman — announced her candidacy about two weeks ago in a written statement on Twitter. Since then, her campaign has been slow to unfold, and the taped interview with Hannity will mark some of the first words voters will hear from Jenner since her campaign launch.

She has been active on Twitter and has posted a video and other materials on her website. She told TMZ on Saturday that she opposes transgender girls competing in girls’ sports at school, calling it “a question of fairness.” The comment angered many in the transgender community.

Thus far, Jenner, a Republican, has provided only a rough sketch of how she would manage the nation’s most populous state.

She’s choosing an exclusive location for her kick-off event. Malibu, where she lives, is known as a playground for the wealthy, with sprawling mansions perched above the Pacific. It has about 12,000 mostly white residents, and the median value of homes is over $2 million, according to government statistics.

Her cautious steps into the campaign highlight the risks for a political newcomer who could be tripped up by a vast array of complex subjects, from immigration to tax policy to vaccine distribution.

The written statements and video released so far, which include shots of her Olympic competition and gold medal, appear intended to introduce Jenner’s story to voters who might be only glancingly familiar with her.

With the Olympics more than four decades behind her, she’s probably best known these days for reality TV shows, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and the spin-off, “I Am Cait.”

Hannity’s show is likely to prove a welcoming stage for a critic of California’s Democratic-led government. It was a favored venue for former President Donald Trump.

“For a candidate like Caitlyn Jenner to win, it has to be like a layered cake. The bottom layer has to be Trump supporters,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who was a speechwriter for former GOP Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

“Where do you go to get Trump supporters? Simple. Sean Hannity,” Whalen said.

Jenner made headlines in recent years with her ties to Trump, who lost to Joe Biden in the state by over 5 million votes.

Jenner supported Trump in 2016 but later criticized his administration’s reversal of a directive on transgender access to public school bathrooms. She also split with Trump after he said transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the U.S. military.

Jenner’s first TV appearance comes as candidates in California’s expected recall election that could remove Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom later this year are becoming more visible. On Tuesday, Republican businessman John Cox appeared with a Kodiak bear named Tag to relaunch his campaign in Sacramento. Cox lost to Newsom in a 2018 landslide.

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and ex-Congressman Doug Ose, both Republicans, also are running.

Despite her notoriety. Jenner is a longshot to win her first try at elective office. Her threat to other Republicans — as well as Newsom — is her ability to capture the media spotlight, Whalen said.

“She is the shiny article in this recall right now,” he said. “She can make news any time she wants.”

The challenge she faces is getting past what Whalen called the “giggle factor” that comes with being a reality TV figure looking to run the largest state government in the country and the fifth-largest economy in the world.

“Will there be policy behind the polish?” he asked. “She’s going to need to produce serious ideas.”

Jenner took a small first step to answering those questions Tuesday, saying on her website that she would establish a working group to review state regulations, including those that could block the development of affordable housing, and promising to veto any tax increases.

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Starting today through Nov. 29, the “Slow the Fast Down” campaign will feature a series of safety messages on digital platforms, including social media, streaming and gaming services, and outdoor billboards. In addition, video public service announcements will run on broadcast and social media, as well as audio versions on radio.

The OTS hopes to raise awareness about the dangers of speeding, which has been a top traffic safety issue.

“It’s clear that there have been immediate changes in driver behavior with more drivers speeding, some at excessive and extremely dangerous speeds,” OTS Director Barbara Rooney said. “This trend is alarming. We should be focused on protecting lives and the simple action of following speed limits helps keep ourselves and others safe.

Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31 of this year, California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers issued 4,851 citations for speeding in excess of 100 miles per hour, a 93% increase when compared to the same period last year.

In federal fiscal year 2017-18, speed was a factor in approximately 31% of all fatal and injury crashes in California.

According to a 2020 survey conducted by the OTS and California State University, Fresno, nearly half of respondents believed it is acceptable to speed as long as it is not more than 10 miles per hour, but 78% believed it to be unacceptable to drive 20 miles per hour or more over the speed limit.

“Speeding is a choice,” Director Rooney said. “We hope to shift social norms for speeding and encourage people to slow down on the road.”

To learn more about the campaign and ways to stay safe on the go, visit gosafelyca.org.

The OTS administers traffic safety grants that deliver innovative programs with the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and injuries on California roads. The OTS is a department under the California State Transportation Agency.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, reminding everyone to ‘Report Drunk Driver – Call 9-1-1

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

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