August 4, 2026

02c U.S. Politics – Election

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Over the last decade, California became a national leader in voter accessibility and security, expanding options for when and how ballots can be cast while also strengthening election safeguards.

But those reforms came at a cost: speed. And in a political climate where unsupported conspiracies about election fraud can run rampant on social media — pushed, at times, by top political leaders — some fear the slow vote count is becoming a liability.

Election outcomes in recent years have become more drawn out in California, most recently taking about a week to determine the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral candidates advancing to November’s runoff after hotly contested primaries. And in prior years, it’s taken even longer to determine tight U.S. House or state Senate seats.

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First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli — President Trump’s loyalist federal prosecutor in Los Angeles — has not been shy in recent days about his intention to ferret out voter fraud in California’s primary election and criminally charge those responsible.

He has announced that his office “has multiple election fraud investigations underway” in coordination with the FBI, urged Californians on social media to submit evidence of “potential election fraud” directly to his office, and said flatly he “will be charging some people” with election fraud — just as soon as California certifies its vote count and his office “can prove some of the allegations.”

Essayli’s public callouts and promises are highly unusual and in direct conflict with Justice Department guidance on ballot fraud investigations at the federal level, which states federal prosecutors should not publicly pursue such claims amid of vote counting.

The Justice Manual — which regulates the actions of federal prosecutors nationwide — says the department “should not engage in overt criminal investigative measures in matters involving alleged ballot fraud until the election in question has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded,” in part because doing so “runs the risk of chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities and of interjecting the investigation itself into ongoing campaigns and the adjudication of any ensuing election contest.”

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The Justice Department defended its authority to ensure “fair” elections in California after it launched multiple election fraud investigations coupled with litigation over voter registration.

California has long been known for liberal practices such as ballot harvesting, with a universal mail-in voting system that allows ballots to arrive a week after Election Day, and no voter ID requirements.

“The Department of Justice has statutory authority to enforce our nation’s election laws, including through requesting state voter rolls and monitoring returns when candidates for federal office are on the ballot,” Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre told the Daily Signal.

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Chuck Schumer has served as a punching bag for angry Democrats for more than a year — taking flak on everything from his 2026 recruiting to his handling of government funding talks.

But with about five months until the midterm elections, the Senate minority leader is gently starting to punch back — pointing out how some of his bets are paying off as his party moves within striking distance of taking back the majority in November.

“There’s no victory lap to take in June,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office suite.

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As more and more revelations come to the fore about Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who just won the Democrat primary this week, many Democrats seem to have adopted a simple mantra regarding his campaign: Vote for the Nazi: It’s important.

The saying echoes a slogan from campaigns past — one that supporters of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Platner’s opponent in the general election, would do well to employ against Platner. The slogan demonstrates how Democrats will embrace a candidate — any candidate — so long as that person opposes President Trump.

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The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.

Progressive city council member Nithya Raman has advanced to a November runoff against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, setting up an unexpected matchup between two Democrats and former political allies to run the struggling city of nearly four million people.

The outcome means Spencer Pratt, a Republican and former reality television personality from The Hills, is out of the running. His candidacy had drawn national attention because of his celebrity and willingness to challenge liberal governance in a city dominated by Democrats, but the buzz did not translate into enough votes to make the runoff.

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The president and CEO of Democrat fundraising giant ActBlue repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination Wednesday when questioned by congressional investigators about the organization’s handling of foreign donations and fraud-prevention policies.

During a hearing before the House Committee on Administration, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones declined to answer a series of questions from Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), including inquiries about whether previous statements she provided to Congress were accurate and whether the organization weakened anti-fraud safeguards during the 2024 election cycle.

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Sometimes you just have to choose the lesser of two evils, and President Trump’s recent decision reflects that.

On Wednesday, President Trump announced he has endorsed Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine’s upcoming Senate election.

Collins has been labeled by many conservatives as a RINO after she voted to Impeach Trump in 2021 for “inciting an insurrection.”

While taking questions from the press inside the Oval Office, Trump was asked if he would be endorsing Collins, who is running against Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, to which Trump responded that he would be supporting her despite the two having different ideologies.

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David Flippo, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who earned President Donald Trump’s support, won the GOP primary to replace retiring Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei.

The race in Nevada’s 2nd District was a proxy war between Trump and prominent state Republicans, many of whom backed former state Sen. James Settelmeyer, including Amodei and GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo. Flippo ended up emerging victorious on Wednesday from a crowded, 13-person Republican field.

The victory continues Trump’s 2026 hot streak in GOP primary endorsements, marred only by a hiccup in last week’s Iowa gubernatorial primary. Trump backed Flippo in a Truth Social post in late May, less than two weeks before Election Day.

Flippo campaigned as a hardliner on immigration and transgender issues, and he slammed Settelmeyer as a “woke liberal” in ads. But Settelmeyer’s opponents took issue with Flippo, a longtime Las Vegas resident who only recently purchased property in Reno, attempting to run the state’s lone safely Republican district.

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There can be only one reason not to count votes on a single election day: fraud. Allowing votes to be accepted and “counted” for days, or, as in California, months after election day, enables one essential Democrat cheating tactic: Democrats get to know the total of Republican votes, so they know how many Democrat votes they’ll have to manufacture to win.

This is compounded by ballot harvesting, ballot drop boxes, and mail-in ballots sent to everyone, including the dead, illegal aliens, and people who haven’t lived in the state for years. Accepting those ballots prior to election day allows Democrats not only to accept and count illegal ballots, but to suppress Republican ballots. Ballots destroyed and never counted can’t be discovered in audits, which they violently resist. Add in allowing anyone to register to vote with just about anything with someone’s name on it, and you have an anti-Republican—as in our constitutional republic—single-party state.

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Legacy media don’t describe. They exist to prevent description, corralling and deflecting. In the famous description from Iowahawk, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”

Four states held primary elections on June 9, and on the morning of June 10, they were either ahead in their count or about as far along in their count of ballots as California, which held its primaries on June 2. These screenshots from live election results at the NBC News website are both from Wednesday morning at 9:30 PT:

California counts far more slowly than anyone else in the country, and California’s results have the most remarkable tendency to drift: What the outcome looks like on election night has nothing to do with the final outcome. Famous 2010 election outcome summarized in a single headline about the 2010 state’s attorney general race: “When Kamala Harris lost on election night, but won three weeks later.”

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O’Keefe Media Group released a photo Tuesday that it said showed multiple California ballots inside a Los Angeles County library safe days after polls closed in the state’s primary elections.

The image was reportedly taken Friday inside Stevenson Ranch Library near Santa Clarita, three days after voters went to the polls.

James O’Keefe said the photo was sent to his organization from inside the library and allegedly showed ballots stored in the same safe used by the facility for other items, including cash.

“Multiple CA Ballots Found Inside LA County Library.

We have just received this picture from within Stevenson Ranch Library near Santa Clarita, CA. The photo allegedly shows multiple ballots inside of the libraries own safe, this is where the library keeps other things such as cash.

This picture was taken last Friday. We are hopeful these ballots made it to the right processing centers.

If you have any tips about election fraud in CA or Los Angeles email us at [email protected] or text our Signal at 9144919395.

Our journalists are standing by!”

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to impose strict penalties, including deportation, on illegal aliens who vote in American elections.

According to a DHS press release, the Immigration and Nationality Act directs the removal of aliens who illegally vote or make a false claim to US citizenship.

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Congressional Republicans returned to the Capitol on Monday, and CNN’s Manu Raju has been tracking them down to ask if they have any proof to support Trump’s claim that the primary election in California was rigged.

When Raju asked the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson said:

I, look, I don’t… Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove, but I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here, and that’s a concern. We need people to believe in the integrity of our election system. It is critical to maintain a constitutional republic. We’re gonna keep working to pass the Save America Act because it requires, as you know, proof of citizenship and a photo ID to vote.

That, those are also 90%-plus issues in public opinion, and 70% of Democrats understand that’s, that’s necessary. We have to have free and fair elections-

Johnson seemed to be claiming that there is no proof that the California primary election was rigged because Democrats in the state are “diabolical.”

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Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) endorsed South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) in the Palmetto State’s GOP gubernatorial primary after she lost the initial primary Tuesday. “I want you to know that I’m going to endorse Alan Wilson for governor,” Mace told supporters after polls closed.  “I want a law-and-order governor, and that law-and-order governor is going to…

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Socialist Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman appeared to concede defeat Tuesday night after it looked like Spencer Pratt would advance to the November runoff election against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. But then votes kept pouring in days after the Tuesday election, and by Sunday evening, Raman had taken the lead over Pratt.

The 180-degree-turn has left many scratching their heads: How does a candidate who was down by roughly 40,000 votes suddenly jump to second place after she herself publicly signaled her path to victory had all but disappeared? (Raman currently leads Pratt by more than 20,000 votes, after post-election ballot dumps have gone overwhelmingly in her favor.)

For NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, however, questions about such outcomes are apparently evidence of nothing more than public ignorance. During a Sunday interview, President Donald Trump said the 2020 election was “rigged” (and he’s right — but more on that later) and that the same rigging is happening in California.

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As people watch the insane vote counting in the Los Angeles Mayor’s race, which comes just weeks after Newsom said the state had a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ plan in the event Republicans won the gubernatorial jungle primary, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is calling on Congress to cut off federal funding to California until it cleans up its ‘shady election process.’

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As the Texas Senate race heats up between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton, BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey feels compelled to remind Texas voters of Talarico’s moral failings — which are anything but small.

These moral failures are reflected even in the church he attends, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, which was recently exposed by the Daily Wire for having “explicit LGBTQ books in its bookstore aimed at children.”

Stuckey calls the books “basically pornographic,” as they contained “illustrations of sexual acts.”

Thanks to four Republican Senators, efforts by the GOP to pass the SAVE Act failed once again. The Act would make Voter ID mandatory. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) attempted to add it as an amendment to DHS funding bills, but the provision failed thanks to four GOP no votes.

Four Republican Senators Join Democrats to Kill SAVE Act slaynews.com
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A Republican effort to attach key election-integrity provisions to a major immigration enforcement funding package failed in the Senate after four GOP lawmakers joined Democrats to block the amendment.

The proposal, offered by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), would have added provisions from the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to a nearly $70 billion budget reconciliation package focused on funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol operations.

The amendment sought to require proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration, establish voter identification requirements, and implement additional election-security measures.

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Nithya Raman speaks at her election night event as early Los Angeles mayoral returns show Spencer Pratt ahead of her.

Spencer Pratt’s stunning Los Angeles mayoral surge now has a viral election-night reaction to go with it.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman became visibly emotional as the early mayoral numbers put Pratt in second place and left her runoff path looking increasingly difficult.

The video does not show a race that is officially over. It does show the moment the progressive favorite realized the math was moving hard against her.

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Adam Hamawy, a controversial candidate who previously volunteered with an al-Qaeda-linked group, has won the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s (D-NJ) seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hamawy, who was endorsed by the so-called “Squad,” became a lightning rod for criticism on the campaign trail due to his intense criticism of Israel and his having volunteered with the Benevolence International Foundation in Bosnia, per the New York Post:

An Iraq War veteran, Hamawy has made national headlines for saving Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-Ill) life after a helicopter crash as well as for his volunteer work in the Gaza Strip.