Insurgents are defeating establishment candidates across the country.??? But bad election laws and Trumpian interventions could frustrate these trends.??? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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JUNE 10, 2026
On the
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The ICE Occupation of Minneapolis Is Still Wreaking Economic Carnage [link removed]
Many immigrants forced into hiding are still unable to work and facing rent hikes. Aid money is drying up.
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BY BRYCE COVERT [link removed]
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Tracking the Flood of AI Political Spending [link removed]
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Elon Musk Is About to Make Saving for Retirement Even Harder [link removed]
The upcoming SpaceX IPO will make investing in index funds for retirement worse, while Musk and friends rake in millions. [link removed]
BY ELEANOR DAVIS-DIVER [link removed]
****KUTTNER ON TAP****
**The right voting reforms-and the
wrong ones**
**Insurgents are defeating establishment candidates across the country. But bad election laws and Trumpian interventions could frustrate these trends.**
In Maine yesterday, Graham Platner won his primary with 72 percent of the vote, suggesting that the latest allegations against him may be titillating the national media but not scaring off Maine voters. In California, as late mail-in votes were counted from last Tuesday's elections, progressives enjoyed a near-sweep, with the notable exception of the governor's race.
In a Central Valley House swing district, educator Randy Villegas won a runoff slot against Republican incumbent David Valadao, beating state assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, the Democrat backed by the party establishment and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "**It's a classic example of D.C. insiders**
[link removed] and elites trying to swoop in thinking they know what's best for the community," said Villegas, who was endorsed by the state Working Families Party and local Democratic clubs. Federal **campaign finance records show** [link removed] that several groups spent at least $2.2 million against Villegas, including the AIPAC-aligned Democratic Majority for Israel and several super PACs affiliated with the House Democrats' centrist caucuses.
In a Sacramento district, longtime Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui-she or her late husband has held this seat in Congress since 1979-will face progressive city councilwoman Mai Vang, again backed by the Working Families Party. Vang **got more votes**
[link removed] than incumbent Matsui in the primary. And in the contest for Los Angeles mayor, progressive city councilmember Nithya Raman edged out Spencer Pratt, a Republican reality TV star, for one of the two November slots against incumbent Democrat Karen Bass.
But in the governor's race, billionaire progressive Tom Steyer, despite spending at least $210 million of his own money, could not catch Republican Fox commentator Steve Hilton. (Hilton, a British-born transatlantic carpetbagger, served as director of strategy for U.K. prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2012.) So corporate Democrat Xavier Becerra will face Hilton in the fall.
It could have been worse. Had things broken differently in California's jungle primary, with a fragmented Democratic field, the final two in November could have been Republican Hilton and Republican
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. At last count, the major Democrats received about 60 percent of the vote in the state, while the major Republicans received about 35 percent. Yet Democrats might have found themselves locked out of the general election.
One option to solve this problem is ranked-choice voting, where voters rank multiple candidates in order of preference, and lower-performing candidates are gradually eliminated, with voters' next choices receiving those votes until someone gets over 50 percent. This system saves the cost of a runoff and gets closer to true voter preferences.
Maine has led the way on ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoffs. In yesterday's Maine Democratic primary for governor, the three candidates were closely bunched. None got a majority. Before the election, all three urged voters to list their second and third choices, which will be redistributed, producing a winner. Ranked-choice voting is a far superior way of
determining voter preferences than California's jungle primary and top-two runoff.
Alternatively, California could go back to partisan primaries and allow the party base to decide who the party's standard-bearer should be. There are active efforts to roll back the jungle primary system, which would have to go before voters.
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MAGA commentary on California elections has nothing to do with this; in fact, it's a preview of President Trump's election-disruption strategy for November. California's slow count has given Trump ammunition to claim that the results are rigged. These charges are nonsense.
**The Wall Street Journal** editorial page, in a sanitized version of Trump's charges, complained that registration and ballot collection procedures designed to maximize participation invited fraud, **but could find only two actual cases**
[link removed]: a California woman who was paying homeless people to register and vote, and another woman who tried to register her dog.
While nearly all California races are now decided-a better scenario than previous years-a week is too long for ballot-counting. It would not be a bad idea if California joined most states and set Election Day as the deadline for mailed ballots to arrive. That was actually **California's system until 2015** [link removed].
Trump doesn't care about a fair count. He wants to take over election administration from the states to try to rig elections, only in his favor. Most states have resisted, including some states with Republican governors such as Georgia. But early today, the U.S. Postal
Service announced that **it would comply with Trump's directive to refuse to process mail-in ballots** [link removed] from states that had not turned over voter files to the Justice Department. So far, 23 states and Washington, D.C., have filed suit to prevent the USPS from interfering with mail-in ballots.
The courts are generally on the side of defending honest elections. The risk is that in some cases of Election Day disruption, courts will not be able to act in time. If Democrats do take back Congress, they'll need a longer-term agenda for structural electoral reform. That means promoting fair representation and full opportunity for participation, not suppression tactics masquerading as reform.
Robert Kuttner
Co-Editor,
Co-Founder
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