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With additional reporting from Ari Hawkins
California Rep. Adam Schiff waves to supporters at a rally in February. Schiff faces a crowded Democratic field, including fellow California Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein. | Mario Tama/Getty Images
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN ’ — It’s been a great week for progressives. Between winning a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and capturing City Hall in Chicago, the left has posted big wins in two of the year’s most important elections.
Yet their work isn’t nearly done. There’s one critical race still on the horizon — the open Senate seat in deep blue California, the Democratic Party’s stronghold, that will reveal much about the clout and vigor of the progressive movement.
With millions of dollars pouring into the March primary, the race to replace retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein is already heating up — and familiar lanes are emerging thanks to the profiles of the three leading Democratic candidates. In crude terms, it’s the establishment vs. the Warren wing vs. the Bernie wing of the party.
The contest won’t alter the balance of power in the Senate; California is essentially guaranteed to elect another Democrat. But by virtue of the state’s size and unique place in the Democratic firmament, the winner automatically becomes one of the party’s most influential figures.
And there’s a twist: California’s top-two primary system means an intra-Democratic clash could also play out all the way into next November. The two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the general.
That could mean a Democrat-on-Democrat Senate showdown like California saw in 2016 and 2018. But it also means a yet-to-declare Republican could sneak through a fractured Democratic field. The three House Democrats running for the seat are mapping different courses.
In Rep. Adam Schiff, voters have an establishment-linked figure — underscored by Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s critical endorsement — whose evolution from a fiscally conservative Blue Dog to a self-proclaimed progressive mirrors the party’s broader shift to the left, even as he engenders distrust from California Democrats who cite his history of corporate contributions.
With Rep. Katie Porter, voters can elevate a fast-rising critic of corporate power whose pocketbook progressivism aligns with that of her mentor and star endorser, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Porter has built national visibility and become a fundraising juggernaut for grilling business executives in Congress. She has shown her brand of progressivism can still resonate in the suburban, relatively centrist Orange County seat she flipped in 2018.
And in Rep. Barbara Lee, voters get an icon of the left who is seeking to channel the energy of Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters. Lee is lionized by progressives, many of whom remember her votes against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She is vying to become the only Black woman in the Senate, and her campaign hopes an endorsement from fellow California Rep. Ro Khanna will help unlock Khanna’s Berniecrat base.
For all those distinctions, the three Democrats are aligned on most policy positions. They support left lodestars like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. They back abortion rights and gun restrictions, and they agree Republicans are endangering democracy.
Money will help sharpen the contrasts. Running a statewide rise is prohibitively expensive in California, so raising enormous sums is both an imperative and a key indicator of strength; Lee has the most to prove.
Schiff and Porter both entered the race with millions on hand and demonstrated fundraising success. Lee had a mere $54,000 in the bank. Since launching, Lee raised a respectable $1.4 million which was still a fraction of Porter’s $4.5 million first-quarter take (Schiff has not announced his total yet).
The Lee campaign argued she did not intend or need to match Schiff or Porter — just to raise enough to get through the primary. Lee will be bolstered by a Super PAC that can draw on a national network of progressives and Black women, part of a constellation of outside committees — staffed by top political consultants — that are poised to supercharge spending in this race.
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| WHAT'D I MISS? |
— Pence will not appeal ruling requiring him to testify to Jan. 6 grand jury: Mike Pence has decided against appealing a court order requiring him to testify before the grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The decision follows an unprecedented — but secret — ruling by Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg to require Pence’s testimony but to acknowledge some limits to the topics prosecutors may grill him about.
— Indiana governor signs ban on gender-affirming care: Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill banning all gender-affirming care for minors today, joining at least 12 other states that have enacted laws restricting or banning such care. Holcomb signed the legislation after Republican majorities in the Legislature approved it. The law will go into effect July 1, and trans youth currently taking medication to transition would have until the end of the year to stop doing so.
— Liberals take over Wisconsin Supreme Court: Liberals flipped the ideological makeup of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Tuesday . Janet Protasiewicz’s win in a high-stakes race for an open court seat means the new 4-3 majority is much more likely to strike down a controversial 19th century abortion ban there. Protasiewicz, a liberal judge from Milwaukee County, won her race, 56.9 percent to 43.1 percent, when the Associated Press called the race at 9:53 pm. She defeated conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly. The court is technically nonpartisan, but now has a 4-3 liberal majority through at least 2025.
— Progressive Brandon Johnson wins Chicago mayor’s race: Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner and former teachers’ union organizer, was elected mayor of Chicago on Tuesday . Johnson takes office next month facing challenges to bring together a city divided by race and a view on how best to quell persistent crime, a subject that loomed over the months-long campaign and set him apart from moderate rival Paul Vallas, who has called for swelling the streets with police.
| NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 |
CASH IN HAND — Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced today that she’s raised over $11 million in the first six weeks of her presidential run . The money came from over 70,000 individual donors in all 50 states. Comparatively, Trump raised only $9.5 million in the six weeks after his campaign announcement, but has significant cash on hand and has raised $7 million since his indictment was announced officially on Friday.
EARLY PICKUP — Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie endorsed Ron DeSantis for president earlier today, making him the second House Republican to back the Florida governor as the 2024 Republican field takes shape . Massie is a part of a small but growing coalition considering non-Trump options for 2024; Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has also endorsed DeSantis. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, backed Haley in February.
| AROUND THE WORLD |
Afghan women protest against a new Taliban ban on women accessing higher education on Dec. 22, 2022 in Kabul. | Stringer/Getty Images
GENDERED CRACKDOWN — The Taliban barred women from working for the United Nations on Tuesday, in a move that could complicate Afghanistan’s access to billions of dollars’ worth of humanitarian assistance, Ari Hawkins reports for Nightly.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan “received word of an order by the de facto authorities that bans female national staff members of the United Nations from working," Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. told reporters on Tuesday.
The U.N. asked all Afghan staff not to come into work for two days to grant time for the intergovernmental aid group to communicate with the Taliban. About 400 Afghan women are thought to be employed by the U.N.
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the U.N. said the ban would “inevitably undermine our ability to deliver life-saving aid to the people who need it.” A spokesperson for Guterres added that “female staff are essential for the United Nations to deliver life-saving assistance.”
The country’s economic woes and humanitarian crises deepened after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.
The ruling government reimposed severe restrictions on women and girls enforced during the Taliban’s previous reign, which ended in 2001 following the U.S.-led invasion. Last year, the Taliban barred women from working in non-governmental organizations and girls from attending universities and secondary schools after the age of 12.
Many Western donors cut off assistance as a result, and international actors issued sanctions to punish the country further. While some humanitarian groups and international donors continued to provide financial support, many scaled down operations.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said less than five percent of the funding required to meet the immediate needs of Afghans has been donated, and more than 70 percent of the population reportedly relies on humanitarian assistance.
The U.N. was aiming to raise $4.6 billion to provide to more than half of the population in Afghanistan, the largest fundraising appeal in the world, but the aid group has consistently emphasized that alienating women from the process of aid delivery is a “red line.”
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| NIGHTLY NUMBER |
$144.5 million The amount of money that the Justice Department will pay in a tentative settlement with the families and victims of the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. If the settlement is approved by a court, it would end a yearslong legal battle over the federal government’s partial responsibility for the shooting that left 26 people dead and 22 wounded. A judge ruled in 2021 that the U.S. Air Force failed to exercise reasonable care when it didn’t submit the shooter’s criminal history to the FBI’s background database. |
| RADAR SWEEP |
BURNING UP — Burning Man 2022 was hotter than ever. The nine-day bacchanal held in Nevada’s dusty Black Road Desert, kicked off its latest celebration as temperatures rose to 98 degrees Fahrenheit, before climbing to a record-setting 103. While the skin-cracking-dry expanse has always been the location of choice, last years’ conditions ignited a general sense of burnout and malaise, as many of the 80,000 attendees asked existential questions about whether it’s worth throwing a party on a warm spot of a warming planet. At the same time, festival goers came to terms with how the event itself is inflaming the problem. Ninety-one percent of emissions in Black Rock City, where the festival is held, come from travel by plane, RV and cars to the desolate festival spot three hours outside of Reno, and growing demand for modern technology like AC’s has casted a shadow over any green ambitions. Read Alden Wicker ’s investigation into climate change and Burning Man’s death spiral for Wired.
| PARTING IMAGE |
On this date in 1992: Thousands of pro-choice demonstrators gather on the Ellipse near the White House in a massive March for Women's Lives rally organized by the National Organization for Women. When the march was organized, the U.S. Supreme Court was preparing to consider the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law that limited access to abortions, which resulted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a Supreme Court decision that upheld Roe v. Wade. | Doug Mills/AP Photo
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