Democrats have won at least 253 House seats and they’re leading in six of the outstanding House races.
That means their ultimate majority will approach and could exceed 260 House seats, depending on how things turn out.
By number of seats flipped — they’re currently at 43 and could end up around 50 — it’s not as big a shift as some other elections. In 2010, Barack Obama’s first midterm, Republicans picked up 64 House seats. And in 1994, Bill Clinton’s first midterm, Republicans picked up 54 seats. But in terms of the size of the majority, this is shaping up to be a banner year.
It would be the largest House majority since 1991, which was at the end of a decades-long era when Democrats routinely had 260 or more House seats before the 1994 “Republican Revolution.”
That’s a larger House majority than Democrats had when they passed the Affordable Care Act under Obama.
Democrats will still have to work with Republicans to pass major legislation. They will not have the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate but rather will have between 54 and 56 seats when the outstanding races in Alaska and Mississippi are resolved. Plus, many of their incoming red state senators were elected with promises to intentionally work with Republicans.
It also means that soon-to-be House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have the luxury of being able to pass legislation without support from his entire caucus, meaning the most liberal or conservative members will have less power over him.
It will also still take buy-in from Republicans to get the 290 votes needed to override anticipated vetoes by President Donald Trump. In the Senate, it takes 67 votes to override a veto.
Bottom line: Democrats are looking at the kind of House majority not seen in decades in Washington — the kind of majority mandates are made of. But it’s not enough to govern on their own.
President Donald Trump has shown repeatedly this week that he simply doesn’t care that his preoccupation with construction projects is alienating Americans and hurting his party politically.
Not only did he make a bizarre visit to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday for his last public event before the Election Day 2026, but then he did a photo op in his under-construction White House ballroom the day after the election, despite the overwhelming GOP losses.
A judge’s ruling overnight has bad news for the GOP: They now face a legal battle over Trump’s coveted triumphal arch that means the subject is sure to continue occupying plenty of Trump’s mind space.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan temporarily halted construction of the arch in a ruling around midnight.
Chutkan, notably, cast doubt on the administration’s belated argument that the arch is important for national security – a legal strategy Trump has repeatedly used, including for the ballroom. She called that assertion “recent and unsupported” and noted it appeared “nowhere in the planning documents on which the project was reviewed and approved.”
The ruling means the arch is set to be the latest Trump project that is due to be the subject of an extended legal battle, much like his ballroom, the Reflecting Pool and the Kennedy Center. And it’s particularly ill-timed, given this is a moment that many in the party would prefer Trump learned his lesson and started focusing on other things like affordability.
The White House X account posted on Friday morning calling the arch “a monumental tribute to America’s first 250 years.”
After Trump went to the ballroom on Wednesday, conservative radio host Steve Deace reflected on X that whoever was responsible “should be fired and never work in politics again, and perhaps even in prison forever like on the moon.”
Polls show these projects are broadly unpopular, and Trump’s focus on them epitomizes what voters say are his misplaced priorities. The CNN Voter Poll of the midterms showed 64% of voters said Trump does not have the right priorities.
But Trump defended focusing on things like the ballroom during his appearance there Wednesday.
“It was sort of mentioned a little bit during the campaign that – about, why does Trump spend time on the White House?” Trump said. “Well, first of all, it’s very little time. Second of all, I like it. It’s good. For me, it’s relaxing. For somebody else it’s the opposite, but for me it’s really – I love construction.”
National party operatives, lawyers, grassroots activists and content creators are descending on Mississippi to observe the vetting of thousands of provisional ballots in the coming days and to gear up for possible legal challenges over the final results.
Mississippi, a state not used to the national spotlight for close elections, now sits at the forefront of a fight that will determine the size of the Democrats’ majority in the US Senate next year.
Democrat Scott Colom has a razor-thin lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 40 years and no Black person to the Senate since Reconstruction.
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Colom tells CNN voters showed the country ‘Mississippi matters’
1:24 • Source: CNN
Colom tells CNN voters showed the country ‘Mississippi matters’
1:24
Both Colom and Hyde-Smith have assembled extensive teams ready to observe and potentially challenge ballot-counting procedures ahead of Mississippi’s December 3 deadline for certifying the results.
“We were prepared for this for months,” Colom told reporters Wednesday. “We have an army of lawyers. We have local lawyers. We have everybody involved to make sure the process is followed according to the law.”
At a press conference Thursday, the state GOP touted the 50-plus volunteer attorneys and observers it had sent across the state, and Mississippi Republican Party Chair Michael Hurst said many more are prepared to jump in to help.
“Our attorneys and observers will continue to be in different parts of Mississippi – watching as election commissioners review and process these outstanding ballots, ensuring that our elections are followed and that only ballots which have been legally cast are counted,” he said.
Read the full story here.
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Midterms fuel data center drama and send AI stocks plunging
1:14 • Source: CNN
Midterms fuel data center drama and send AI stocks plunging
1:14
A tech-driven market selloff is rippling across global markets, sending Asian and European stocks falling amid ongoing worries that a Democrat-controlled Congress could stymie the AI investment boom.
Tech-heavy indexes in Asia were particularly hard hit Friday, following a Wall Street rout that wiped out roughly $2.5 trillion in market value. South Korea’s Kospi index and Japan’s Nikkei 225 index both closed down 6%, while Taiwan’s benchmark Taiex index ended 4.5% lower.
The moves reflect a retreat among investors from some of this year’s hottest trades. Asian tech companies, which play an integral role in the global electronics supply chain, have been buoyed by insatiable demand for components such as semiconductor chips needed to build massive AI data centers.
US tech giants such as Meta, Amazon and Google have become known as “hyperscalers” for their heavy spending on new data centers to power AI.
But backlash against the environmental and community impact of new data centers turned AI spending into a key issue in the US midterm elections.
Democrats’ sweeping victory has spurred concerns that representatives could now block or slow spending on new AI infrastructure, threatening a key driver of economic growth for both the US and Asia.
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Hegseth faces impeachment threat amid rocky tenure as Defense Secretary
2:54 • Source: CNN
Hegseth faces impeachment threat amid rocky tenure as Defense Secretary
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Public affairs staff and advisers to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth flooded social media on Thursday with images of Hegseth and one phrase, “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic.”
The campaign appears to be part of an “aggressive defense” of Hegseth ahead of an anticipated impeachment fight. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said in a statement to CNN that chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell “convened the team to map the most aggressive defense of Secretary Hegseth and the President’s agenda ever assembled, paired with planned offensive maneuvers that will define the next phase.”
“The full scope of that strategy is not being disclosed,” Valdez said.
Posts were made by roughly a dozen civilian public affairs staff and advisers and the Pentagon’s rapid response account, as well as accounts of others who have worked or currently work in the Pentagon for Hegseth, including at least one active duty Army lieutenant colonel. The White House social media account also posted a video of Hegseth and Trump’s praise of him.
A senior administration official told CNN that “the Pentagon and White House made their positions crystal clear tonight. They are coming out swinging in support of Hegseth and that should tell you everything you need to know.”
The social media campaign came just a couple of hours after Hegseth posted to X a defiant video on the steps of the Pentagon, criticizing the “sham” effort to impeach him by members of Congress. “At the War Department: We Stand. We Fight. We Defend the Republic,” Hegseth said in the post, referencing the Department of Defense’s secondary name.
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Sec. Hegseth issues defiant statement amid renewed calls for impeachment
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted a defiant video on social media Thursday amid news that he is facing possible impeachment by Congress, comparing his situation to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments.
1:23 • Source: CNN
Sec. Hegseth issues defiant statement amid renewed calls for impeachment
1:23
Some background: The House of Representatives could vote as soon as next week to impeach Hegseth.
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the outgoing anti-Trump lawmaker, told CNN he plans to trigger a vote to impeach Hegseth when Congress returns — and multiple GOP sources said they expect it to pass.
We’re learning how crucial the early vote was to Democrats in the midterms, with supporters significantly more likely to vote early this cycle.
Some Democratic candidates could have won their Senate races even if none of their voters showed up on Election Day due to early voting and absentee and/or mail voting numbers.
Ballots are still being tallied in two closely watched Senate competitions in Alaska and Mississippi. In both states, Democrats are leading by close margins.
Mississippi
CNN Sightline rates the Mississippi Senate race as neutral, with the contest too close to call. The margin remains razor-thin between Democratic candidate Scott Colom and Republican candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Mississippi Republicans raised the possibility of taking legal action, promising to “fight like hell” to make sure election officials were following the law when counting ballots. National party operatives, lawyers and grassroots activists are descending on the state to observe the vetting of thousands of provisional ballots.
CNN’s Annie Grayer gives us an inside look at how Mississippi is counting:
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Inside a Mississippi election office in too-close-to-call vote count
With Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom leading by a razor-thin margin on Thursday, CNN’s Annie Grayer went inside an election office in Jackson, Mississippi, where county commissioners sorted through ballots as Colom seeks to unseat incumbent GOP Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.
1:54 • Source: CNN
Inside a Mississippi election office in too-close-to-call vote count
1:54
Alaska
CNN Sightline favors Democrat Mary Peltola, who has a very slight edge over Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The contest is mired in controversy, with the Justice Department investigating whether the Peltola campaign aimed to confuse voters by recruiting a second Dan Sullivan to take votes away from the Republican incumbent, after a bombshell New York Times report.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that all votes for Daniel J. Sullivan and Gerald Heikes should be handed to the incumbent, something he called the only “fair solution.”
Handing votes for one candidate to another would be unprecedented. And given Alaska’s ranked choice voting system, it was already possible for voters to indicate both Dan Sullivans on their ballot.
CNN’s Aaron Blake, Dianne Gallagher, Kit Maher, Tierney Sneed, Fredreka Schouten and Annie Grayer contributed reporting.

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.
Today’s top stories
Rising prices and stagnant wages fueled frustration during this week’s midterm elections, prompting voters to express their discontent at the ballot box. Similarly, the stock market experienced a downturn yesterday. Concerns about a Democratic Congress regulating AI led to a more than 5% drop in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, wiping out more than $2 trillion in market value. This decline followed from Wednesday when shares rose as investors were relieved that the midterms had made Congress’s fate clear. In contrast, there has been less volatility in the job market, and today the Labor Department is set to release the latest jobs report.
🎧 Today’s jobs report is expected to show that employers added about 60,000 jobs last month, NPR’s Scott Horsley tells Up First. While this isn’t robust growth, it should keep the unemployment rate low. As long as the job market stays stable, the Federal Reserve can focus on fighting stubbornly high inflation, which likely drove the recent election outcomes.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked construction of President Trump’s 250-foot arch in the capital. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an order just before midnight Friday, halting work for 14 days at the request of D.C. and Virginia governments. In her 33-page opinion, she scrutinized the administration’s justifications for the arch, particularly its focus on national security and agreed that the local governments are likely to be harmed by its construction. The arch is planned for Memorial Circle, a traffic island on the bridge linking the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery.
🎧 The judges’ decision followed a contentious meeting last night, during which the National Capital Planning Commission, filled with Trump allies, voted to approve the arch, NPR’s Rachel Treisman says. The commission’s approval came despite significant opposition to the arch from dozens and dozens of people. After nearly nine hours, the panel gave the go-ahead, which would have allowed excavation to begin. Several Democratic lawmakers are already talking about blocking the arch. Democrat Jared Huffman of California, likely to become head of the House Natural Resources Committee, warned commissioners at yesterday’s meeting that anyone advancing projects not authorized by Congress risks legal repercussions.
School enrollment is set to plunge by another 2 million kids by 2030, and education experts say the crisis will be worsened by the deportation of immigrant families with school-age children. Even before the Trump administration’s policy changes, public schools faced a significant decline due to shrinking family sizes. U.S. Census data show the number of children under 18 nationwide had fallen by about 2.1 million since 2010. The Trump administration’s large-scale deportations began after public schools started facing a demographic crisis, with a Migration Policy Institute study indicating that 1.9 million people left the U.S. during Trump’s second term. This situation marks the first time in nearly a century that birth rates and immigration levels are both low at the same time.
Harmeet Dhillon has left her position as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division after 18 tumultuous months. During her time in the role, she transformed the unit, saw a significant loss of career staff and aggressively pursued Trump’s agenda. She is the first senior official to depart since Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterms. Dhillon called the role “the honor of a lifetime.”
Healthy or hype?
Healthy or Hype? is an NPR series helping readers and listeners sort truth from fiction when it comes to online health claims.
Many people are replacing their fluoride dental products with those containing hydroxyapatite. It is a mineral that boasts cavity protection, whitening and enamel strengthening — all without fluoride. While health experts widely agree that fluoride is beneficial to health, interest in fluoride-free alternatives is growing. A driving force behind the trend is Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blaming water fluoridation for health issues like arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders. Here’s what dentists say about it.
🪥 Fluoride has been extensively researched, especially in long-term studies, but early research on hydroxyapatite shows promising results.
🪥 For patients considering both options, Bennett Amaechi, a professor of dentistry at the University of Texas at San Antonio, recommends using fluoride because there is more evidence supporting its effectiveness.
🪥 Amaechi was an author of a 2021 study in Scientific Reports that followed 177 children for a year and compared hydroxyapatite and fluoride toothpaste. The findings showed similar outcomes of tooth decay in both groups.
🪥 The American Dental Association told NPR that it acknowledges that more people are using hydroxyapatite products, which may aid in remineralization. However, they noted that research on its clinical effectiveness is still limited and unclear.
🪥 The ADA recommends brushing teeth twice daily for two minutes with fluoride toothpaste, flossing every day and visiting a dentist regularly.
Weekend picks
Check out what NPR is watching, reading and listening to this weekend:
🍿 Movies: John Turturro stars as Harry, a skilled pickpocket and caretaker for his wife, in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. His life changes dramatically when he steals a backpack from a college kid, only to discover he is the grandson of a crime boss.
📺 TV: VisionQuest is Marvel’s finale series to the trilogy that started with WandaVision and continued through Agatha All Along. It serves as a timely parable about artificial intelligence, while also exploring themes of daddy issues, according to Pop Culture Happy Hour.
📚 Books: As it gets cooler, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with a good book. Here are six must-read November releases, featuring tales of star-crossed romance, hard-won redemption and high-stakes struggles.
🎵 Music: As 2026 draws to a close, NPR’s All Songs Considered revisits some great songs from earlier in the year that might have been missed, including Northern Iowa’s pop artist Kinji and Mexican singer Silvana Estrada.
🎮 Gaming: Nintendo’s Ocarina of Time remake secures its legacy in gaming, but despite its high production values, NPR’s James Perkins Mastromarino says it left him feeling oddly bereft.
❓ Quiz: The midterms are over, and while this week was politics-heavy, that’s not all that happened. This quiz offers a great recap of the week’s diverse events.
3 things to know before you go
New global data suggest only a small minority of kids and teens get at least one hour a day of exercise that breaks a sweat, as recommended by the World Health Organization.
A new report finds that generational wealth is enabling a record number of first-time homebuyers to pay in cash, increasing the gap between buyers and those priced out. The median age of first-time buyers also remains at a record high of 40.
Herbert Blomstedt, a Swedish conductor whose remarkably long career saw him lead many of the world’s major orchestras, died this week at home. He was 99.
This newsletter was edited by Dorine Bethea.

Nithya Raman will be the next mayor of Los Angeles, making her the first challenger to defeat an incumbent L.A. mayor in more than two decades.
Mayor Karen Bass called Raman on Thursday to concede the race after the latest tally from Tuesday’s election showed Raman with 52% of the vote compared with 48% for Bass, with 76% of the expected votes counted.
Speaking to reporters in the Fairfax District on Thursday evening, Raman promised to work hard to earn the trust of Angelenos by putting aside disagreements to address the city’s biggest challenges, including homelessness, affordable housing and public safety.
“This city has given me and my family so much — and at a time when the federal government, over the past two years … has rejected immigrants,” Raman said at the Original Farmers Market, where she was celebrating her win with her campaign and City Council staff. “This city has opened its arms to people to come and build their dreams here.”
Bass, 73, thanked her supporters and said she accepted the decision of the voters.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken,” Bass said in a statement. “I have called Councilmember Nithya Raman to congratulate her on her victory, and I have committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition. Moving this city forward is what Los Angeles needs from all of us.
“Four years ago, you elected me as the first Black woman mayor in the history of Los Angeles,” Bass said. “You gave me the honor of serving the city that raised me, and every single day since, I have carried that responsibility with me.”
Raman’s win capped off a historic sprint of a campaign. The City Council member entered the mayoral race in the final hours before the filing deadline after deciding to run the night before, going up against a onetime ally in a move that infuriated elected Democrats in L.A. who nearly unanimously supported Bass in her reelection bid.
The initial vote count after polls closed Tuesday night had Raman slightly behind Bass, but analysts saw it as a sign that Raman would win. Polls have consistently shown Raman to be heavily favored by younger, more progressive voters, who tend to turn in their ballots later than older voters.
Late-arriving mail-in ballots pushed Raman ahead, and by Thursday morning she was leading Bass by nearly 35,000 votes.
Raman and Bass were locked in a tight and contentious race up until election day, with final polling in the race showing the second-term council member and the incumbent mayor each with support from 40% of Angelenos while 19% of the electorate remained undecided.
But a blue wave across the country that toppled Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives buoyed Raman’s campaign against Bass from the left.
Raman ran with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America, the leftist organization that endorsed Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), among others.
Bass, meanwhile, ran on a public safety message that was meant to convince moderates and more conservative voters that she was a better alternative to Raman.
The election was, first and foremost, a generational shift, as Raman swept the youth vote throughout the city and Bass performed better with voters older than 50.
“I look at this race almost completely through a generational lens,” said Dan Schnur, a professor of politics at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley.
“I think this is a new coalition built by Nithya Raman based on age,” said Mike Trujillo, a Democratic consultant who supported Bass in the race. “This is not a geographic coalition or racial coalition, this is a when-you-were-born coalition.”
The last challenger to defeat an incumbent mayor was then-City Councilmember Antonio Villaraigosa, who defeated James K. Hahn in 2005.
While she spent much of the day taking congratulatory phone calls, Raman is already preparing for a rapid transition with just over a month before her term begins Dec. 8.
“It’s one of the shortest transitions across the country — for a city of 4 million people where the challenges are absolutely immense,” she said. “So, today’s work was about kick-starting that transition with the skill, the people and the priorities that we need to make sure that our first 100 days are successful.”
None of Raman’s colleagues on the City Council endorsed her bid for mayor. Raman said she wasn’t bothered by the lack of support, casting herself instead as a hopeful technocrat who wanted to deliver “A City That Works,” her campaign slogan, promising to make L.A. a city that fixes broken sidewalks and potholes and repairs darkened streetlights in a more timely manner.
“The idea that Angelenos voted for an immigrant to be their next mayor at this moment in American history is so deeply moving to me,” Raman, who was born in India and moved to the U.S. with her family as a child, told reporters Thursday evening. “And I want to tell every Angeleno out there, I am going to work so hard — and everyone behind me is going to work so hard — to earn your trust.”
While Raman didn’t declare victory on Tuesday, her election night speech at the Greek Theatre plaza in Griffith Park had all the markings of someone who expected to win.
“In just one century, Los Angeles built itself into a global metropolis,” she said Tuesday. “The gateway to the Pacific. A center of ingenuity and invention. The cultural capital of the entire planet. That ambitious Los Angeles, that joyful Los Angeles, that creative Los Angeles, that entrepreneurial Los Angeles, that inclusive Los Angeles is the Los Angeles that this campaign was born to fight for.”
The City Council is expected to schedule a special election to fill her vacancy on the council, where she represented a Hollywood Hills-centered district.
Raman’s status as mayor-elect would have seemed nearly unthinkable at the start of the year, when Bass’ challengers included former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, former L.A. Unified Supt. Austin Beutner, leftist the Rev. Rae Huang and entrepreneur Adam Miller — with L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and billionaire developer Rick Caruso also considering bids.
Beutner suspended his bid after the death of his daughter, and it seemed Bass, despite low approval ratings, might glide to a second term without a serious challenger in the race.
But the night before the filing deadline on Feb. 7, rumors began swirling that Raman was considering challenging Bass.
“She saw the lane open before anybody else. Then she got in. Once she explained to me what the lane was, I was like, she can absolutely win,” said Adam Conover, an actor and writer who volunteered on Raman’s campaign for mayor.
Conover explained there was a lane for a progressive pragmatist who could capitalize on voter frustration with the status quo — similar to how Raman first won her council seat in 2020, when she unseated incumbent David Ryu.
The day after Raman announced her run, Conover and others were in Raman’s backyard ADU helping set up the campaign.
“Who remembers in February when it was the end of the candidate filing and no one was, like, running for mayor?” asked City Controller Kenneth Mejia at Raman’s election night party. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be here again for another four years stuck like this.’
“And then out of nowhere — out of nowhere — Nithya Raman came out of nowhere with the three-pointer and she came out of nowhere and was like, ‘I’m running for mayor!’” Mejia yelled during a rollicking speech as he mimed himself shooting a basketball.
After her speech, Raman asked that her supporters join her on the dance floor, where she shimmied to “Remember the Time” by Michael Jackson, pausing every few moments to hug her backers and pose for selfies with them.
“People want change. They are not happy with what the last four years have brought,” Horvath said at Raman’s election night party. “They didn’t want to rubber-stamp another term of it. Councilmember Raman stepped up with courage and grace to take on the status quo. It’s never easy.”
“It doesn’t always win you friends,” Horvath added, “but she did it.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that he will commute the sentences of all 548 people on death row in the state, the largest mass clemency in United States history.
The announcement on Thursday effectively clears out California’s death row, although the state has not executed a prisoner for 20 years. Those on death row will instead serve life sentences without the possibility of parole.
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“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said in an open letter.
Support for the death penalty in the US has largely declined since the 1990s, although it still holds majority backing.
A Pew Research Center poll released in August found that 66 percent of Americans supported the punishment for those convicted of murder. Roughly 73 percent, however, acknowledged there was a risk of executing an innocent person.
Because death penalty cases often involve long and arduous legal appeals, many of those on death row are never executed.
Twenty-three states have banned the practice outright, and others have effectively abandoned it even if the punishment remains on the books.
Still, President Donald Trump, a Republican, has championed the death penalty for serious federal crimes. In April, his administration pledged to expand the use of federal executions, including by employing firing squads.
While proponents of the death penalty have argued that the punishment has a deterrent effect, critics say decades of scholarship indicate otherwise.
They have also pointed to ethical and logistical issues, including the expense.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), California has spent $6bn on the death penalty since 1978 while carrying out just 13 executions in that time.
Capital punishment has also been criticised for being applied disproportionately to racial minorities and for the frequency of botched executions.
The DPIC says that, since 1973, at least 203 people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the US have later been exonerated.
Newsom’s decision has been praised by criminal justice groups as a step away from a practice they say is outdated, inefficient and immoral.
“Governor Newsom’s announcement marks a decisive moment in the history of the death penalty in the United States. Though other governors have granted universal clemencies, none have been at this scale,” Robin Maher, the executive director of the DPIC, said in a statement.
“By bookending his time as governor first with a moratorium and now this mass clemency, Governor Newsom has irrevocably changed California’s relationship with the death penalty.”
The DPIC noted that about two-thirds of the commutations must be reviewed by the California Supreme Court, which is required under state law to review clemency for anyone with multiple felony convictions, before they become final.
Despite its left-leaning reputation, California previously served as a laboratory for punitive criminal justice policies in the late 20th century, during the heyday of the US’s tough-on-crime politics.
The states of Washington and California, for instance, were among the first to pass “three strikes” laws in the early 1990s, punishing repeat offenders with high minimum sentences.
The state continues to have the largest death row in the country.
Newsom’s decision will reduce the number of people on death row nationally by nearly 30 percent.
The announcement also comes days after a blockbuster night for the Democratic Party in the US midterm elections, with major wins in formerly right-wing strongholds such as Texas and Kansas.
The so-called “blue wave” during the midterms has set off speculation over potential Democratic candidates for the presidency in 2028.
As governor for nearly eight years, Newsom has reached California’s term limits: His second and final term will end in January 2027.
He will be replaced by former US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra on January 4.
But Newsom has long been seen as a likely presidential contender, and he has increasingly dedicated time to serving as a proxy to support Democratic candidates in key races nationwide.
He has, however, taken positions on criminal justice issues that have put him at odds with criminal justice groups and the state legislature.
In 2022, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have placed limits in state prisons on the use of solitary confinement, a practice defined as torture by the United Nations after certain lengths of time.

Councilmember Nithya Raman will be Los Angeles’ next mayor after defeating incumbent Karen Bass in the November general election, CBS News projects.
Raman’s win comes after resounding victories for Democrats across the country on Election Day.
The last time a challenger ousted a sitting LA mayor happened in 2005, when Antonio Villaraigosa defeated incumbent James Hahn.
Raman released a video statement on Thursday afternoon saying she is deeply honored to be the next mayor of LA.
“Thank you to the thousands of people who knocked on doors, sent texts, made phone calls, convinced their neighbors to believe in the promise of this big, beautiful, joyful city that we get to call home,” the video said.
Raman spoke directly to people who voted for Bass or didn’t vote at all, saying she is “going to City Hall to work every single day to earn your trust, and to earn your trust in this city again.”
In the video, Raman also paid tribute to Bass, thanking her for her decades of service and highlighting her as the first woman mayor of LA.
“She has served Los Angeles for so many decades and I know so many people, not just across this city but across this country, are grateful for her dedication to the promise of Los Angeles,” Raman said.
Bass released a statement on Thursday morning conceding to Raman, saying she called her to congratulate her on the victory.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken. I have called Councilmember Nithya Raman to congratulate her on her victory, and I have committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition,” Bass wrote.
Bass thanked her supporters and other leaders who helped during her campaign. She added that she will continue to “ensure the promise of a better life belongs to all of us.”
Raman, a Democratic socialist, has been riding her momentum after pushing past Spencer Pratt in the June primary, but suffered a setback with voters a week before the election, according to the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times.
A survey released by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the LA Times shortly before the election showed Bass and Raman tied, with 40% support among likely voters.
Bass and Raman became frontrunners after the primary election when they rallied ahead of third-place candidate Spencer Pratt.
Councilmember Nithya Raman
Raman announced her surprise bid for mayor in February after previously endorsing Bass’ reelection bid.
During the primary, Raman called her campaign a “long shot” before ultimately overtaking Pratt to face Bass in the general election.
Before being elected to Los Angeles City Council in 2020, Raman served as the co-chair of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Homelessness Committee and co-founded a homeless advocacy nonprofit.
One of her most notable acts in office came in 2025, when she introduced a motion capping maximum annual rent increases for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments built before 1978. It eventually passed 13-2. She said she hoped to undertake similar work to help small businesses.
“I congratulate Nithya Raman on her victory. The voters have spoken, and now it’s time to govern,” LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger wrote in a statement. “Whether it’s homelessness, public safety, housing affordability, or preparing for the Olympics, we need to work together. I’m remaining focused on finding common ground and delivering real results for the people we serve.”
Mayor Karen Bass
After serving more than two decades in public office as a congresswoman and as LA’s 43rd Mayor, Bass said this race will be her last campaign for office.
Bass was raised in LA with her three brothers. She began her professional career as a nurse and physician assistant, where she later founded the Community Coalition to help underserved residents of South LA battle substance abuse, poverty and crime.
She kickstarted her career in politics in 2004 as a member of the California Assembly, where she became the first Black woman to serve as Speaker of a state legislative body. She left the Assembly in 2010 to run for Congress, where she served in the House for 12 years.
Leading up to the primary election, Bass received endorsements from notable politicians including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Nearly a week before the November election, billionaire Rick Caruso threw his support behind his former rival in the 2022 mayoral race and vowed to vote for her in November.
“For the love of LA, I must put the past behind me because this election must be about our future,” Caruso said in a post to X. “I will be casting my ballot for Mayor Karen Bass.”
He also said in the video that he had concerns about Raman that were not “much about ideology, but about competence.”