Democrat Adam Schiff wins Dianne Feinstein’s former Senate seat

Rep. Adam Schiff has won the late Dianne Feinstein's U.S. Senate seat, beating out GOP challenger and former MLB star Steve Garvey, The Associated Press projected Tuesday night.

Garvey, who refused to ask for an endorsement from former President Trump and embraced being a "conservative moderate," congratulated Schiff during an election night appearance with his supporters.

"I want you to know that, despite the outcome, that when the counting is over, we will have gotten the fourth most number of votes in the country," Garvey said. "This means that everyone in California does have a voice, and it will only grow louder and louder.

FOX NEWS PROJECTS JUSTICE VICTORY IN WEST VIRGINIA AS GOP FLIPS SENATE SEAT

"I want to sincerely thank you for your support and vote. It was an honor to be your nominee and represent you around this great state of ours, to discuss the issues and ideas that we care about most — the cost of living, fixing our homeless crisis, making our communities safe, improving our public schools and securing our border," Garvey said.

The Los Angeles-area congressman, who rose to national prominence as the lead prosecutor in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, defeated a Republican former baseball star who had tried to parlay his sports celebrity into a political career.

Schiff, who was favored to win in deeply blue California, did not immediately release a statement. 

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Garvey, a former MLB first baseman, spent a week in Israel as part of his campaign efforts earlier this year to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in California and set himself apart from his Democratic opponent during the college campus riots. 

Schiff shaped his campaign around national issues, including abortion rights, while continuing to play a foil to Trump, calling the former president a threat to democracy. He also contrasted his years of experience in Congress — Schiff was first elected to the House in 2000 — against Garvey, a first-time candidate who positioned himself as an outsider with a fresh perspective to deal with California’s long-running homeless crisis, inflation and housing costs.

Feinstein, a Democrat elected to the Senate in 1992, died at 90 in September 2023. Laphonza Butler, a Democratic insider and former labor leader, was appointed to the seat after Feinstein’s death and decided not to seek a full term this year.

Republicans in California have struggled in recent years to gain momentum in their campaigns, often overshadowed by a Democratic trifecta.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Fox News projects Republican Kelly Armstrong will win North Dakota governor’s race

The Fox News Decision Desk projects Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., will win the North Dakota governor's race.

Armstrong, who holds North Dakota's lone congressional seat, defeated Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller for the Republican nomination in the primary in June after winning the party's endorsement earlier this year. He was challenged in the general election by Democrat Merrill Piepkorn and independent candidate Michael Coachman.

Miller had won the backing of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who had run for the Republican presidential nomination and had also been reported to be a potential running mate for former President Trump. 

REP. ARMSTRONG WINS GOP NOMINATION TO SUCCEED GOV. DOUG BURGUM IN NORTH DAKOTA

Burgum has served two terms and chose not to seek a third term. Armstrong was elected to the House in 2018 after serving in the state Senate. He is an attorney and the former state GOP chairman.

"The short answer is I want to get home and start working — I miss people. I miss my friends. I miss my neighbors. I miss being in North Dakota, I really do," Armstrong said in an interview with The Associated Press in January. 

"Serving the state in Congress has been an absolute — the greatest — privilege of my life, but I really want to come home. I miss my friends in the Legislature. I miss the people who are more interested in solving problems than finding some mediocre social media fame."

Republicans have held the governor’s office since 1992. A Democrat has not won a statewide election in North Dakota since 2012. Some legislative races only had Republican candidates.

Armstrong will take office in mid-December and won the backing of former President Trump, who praised Armstrong for defending him through "two SHAM impeachments."

"Kelly Armstrong has my complete and total endorsement to be the next governor of the great state of North Dakota – HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN," Trump said on social media.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Here are 13 times right-wingers totally whiffed election predictions

Conservatives—both media pundits and Republican officeholders—love to make election predictions. Curiously, most of those predictions tend to see an upside for Republicans. But many of the right’s most infamous predictions go wrong, spectacularly so. 

Here are 13 of the right’s worst predictions, plus one so wrong it had to be noted.

13. Karl Rove’s math

In the days ahead of the 2006 midterms, many of the early signs indicated that the Democrats would secure a majority in the House, largely based on opposition to the Iraq War. But Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s political guru, was unmoved.

Appearing on NPR, Rove insisted, “I'm looking at all these, [NPR host] Robert [Siegel], and adding them up, and I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math, I'm entitled to the math.”

Democrats took the House, and Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to be elected speaker of the House. Democrats also took the Senate, and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid became the majority leader.

Famously, Bush later referred to the result of the election as a “thumping” for him and the rest of the GOP.

12. Dick Morris’ Romney landslide

In 2012, conservative pundit Dick Morris confidently predicted that then-President Barack Obama would lose in a “landslide” to Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Obama was ahead in most national polls at the time, but Morris argued in an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” that there was “zilch, zone, zip nada” chance that Obama would be reelected.

Obama won reelection in November 2012, winning 51% of the popular vote and 26 states plus Washington, D.C., securing 332 of the 270 electoral votes he needed to win.

11. Hugh Hewitt’s Romney win

Conservative columnist and radio host Hugh Hewitt, who recently rage-quit The Washington Post after a confrontation with the paper’s liberal columnists, was also on the Romney train. Hewitt even wrote a book early in the 2012 cycle entitled, “A Mormon In The White House?” speculating on a potential Romney victory. (If Romney had won, he would have been the first Mormon president.)

In National Review, Hewitt predicted that Romney would win Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Obama won all six states.

10. Kathleen Parker: America will be “fine” under Trump

In 2016, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker said the United States would be “fine” if either Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Four years later, nearly a quarter of a million people were dead due to COVID-19 while unemployment was over 6%, and Supreme Court justices who would later overturn Roe v. Wade were installed on the Supreme Court.

9. Arizona Gov. Kari Lake?

Kari Lake, running for governor in Arizona in 2022, told reporters she would not only win that year’s election but also be the media’s “worst frickin’ nightmare for eight years.” Lake lost her election—even though she has denied she lost for years—and is currently trailing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in this year’s Senate election.

8. Erick Erickson and Sen. Herschel Walker

Conservative pundit and radio host Erick Erickson confidently predicted in 2022 that Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker would soundly defeat Sen. Raphael Warnock, and by enough of a margin that a runoff election would be unnecessary.

Instead the Walker-Warnock race resulted in Warnock coming out ahead of Walker in November, triggering a runoff race the next month. In that one-on-one contest, Warnock won reelection with 51.4% of the vote.

7-3. The 2022 red wave that wasn’t

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the right convinced itself that a “red wave” would wipe out Democrats in the House. Instead, what occurred was more akin to a red trickle. While Republicans took a majority in the House, they flipped just 10 seats on net—far from the enormous victory the right expected. And since then, that majority has eroded, and Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker after an internal revolt. Republicans now hold a single-digit majority and are barely holding on.

Some notable punditry about the faux red wave:

  • Former Vice President Mike Pence: “The Red Wave is coming!”

  • McCarthy saw a red wave and large majorities on the way, and said so over and over.

  • Dick Morris (again!) said there would be a massive shift in power in favor of the GOP (and predicted a Senate boost that also failed to manifest).

  • For Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a wave was not enough: While campaigning with Republican candidates, Cruz insisted a “red tsunami” would soon show up.

  • Tucker Carlson, then a host at Fox News, took a break from racist rants and promised his viewers that Democrats were about to get “crushed.”

2. Condi vs. Hillary, according to Dick Morris

Dick Morris (yet again!) went all out ahead of the 2008 election, writing a book in 2005 that predicted both party’s nominees as “Hillary (Clinton) vs. Condi (Condoleezza Rice).

While Clinton did run in that cycle’s Democratic presidential primary, she lost to Obama. And in the 19 years since Morris’ prediction, Rice has never run for political office.

Special mention: Mark Halperin’s good news for John McCain

Journalist Mark Halperin is not openly conservative (though he has worked for right-wing network Newsmax), but before he left NBC News in a storm of sexual harassment allegations, he left a mark on the prediction game.

Throughout the 2008 campaign cycle, Halperin reliably found “good news” for Republican Sen. John McCain. The height of this came as Obama criticized McCain for not remembering how many homes he owned (as thousands of Americans were losing their homes in the foreclosure crisis). Halperin thought this would be a good moment … for McCain.

It was not. McCain lost to Obama by nearly 10 million votes.

1. The Wall Street Journal and Trump’s graceful concession

Ahead of the 2020 election, former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wrote an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal that said if he lost, Trump would “concede gracefully.”

Not only did Trump infamously not accept his loss to Biden, but also Trump litigated the matter in court, has constantly whined about the topic since, and urged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol building, leading to his second impeachment.

It would be difficult for any person or institution to get a prediction as wrong as Mulvaney’s column, but the right has shown that if anyone is up to the task, they are.

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‘This man stood up’: Pro-Trump group launches blistering seven-figure ad buy as closing pitch to voters

FIRST ON FOX: A pro-Trump group has launched a seven-figure ad buy as a closing pitch for the former president after the clip went viral on social media.

On Friday, Building America’s Future (BAF), a conservative nonprofit, released the clip titled "Moments" that it says highlights the "attacks on Donald Trump and his supporters in recent months."

The ad, posted on X by Elon Musk and others, has garnered over 20 million views on X. 

"Think about all they've done to Donald Trump," the ad says. "First it was hoaxes, witch hunts, and impeachments. Then it was FBI raids, courtrooms, and mug shots. Finally, it was bullets in a Pennsylvania field.

JENNIFER LOPEZ CRIES WHILE ENDORSING HARRIS AFTER SHE’S AMBUSHED BY DIDDY QUESTION AS SPECULATION MOUNTS

"And after all that, this man stood up, with blood draining down his face, pumped his fist in the air and told us to ‘Fight. Fight. Fight.’"

The ad then plays a clip from Trump saying. "America's future will be bigger, better, bolder, brighter, happier, stronger, free-er, greater, and more united than ever before. And we will Make America Great Again."

HARRIS CAMPAIGN DISHES OUT SIX-FIGURE DONATIONS TO GROUPS WHO SUPPORT DEFUNDING POLICE, REPARATIONS

"We know what they think of us," a narrator says before a clip of President Biden speaking.

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters," Biden says, echoing his comment that sparked a political firestorm earlier this week. 

"So, if Donald Trump can get through all of that, We can get out to vote," the ad closes.

BAF will begin airing the ad as part of a $1.2 million spend on national television across battleground states as well as paid digital and texting. 

Watch: Right-wing Washington Post columnist quits and walks off livestream

Conservative radio host and columnist Hugh Hewitt has quit The Washington Post following a meltdown on a livestream during a discussion of Donald Trump’s election lies.

On Friday’s edition of the Post’s “Washington Post Live” stream, columnists Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus spoke about efforts by Trump to sow doubt about the election process.

“We’re news people, even though it’s the opinion section,” Hewitt complained before noting the Trump campaign’s recently successful effort to extend application times in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“I don’t appreciate being lectured about reporting when, Hugh, many times you come here saying lots of things that aren’t based on fact,” Capehart responded.

“I won’t come back, Jonathan,” Hewitt said, taking out his earpiece and walking off the broadcast.

The New York Post later reported that Hewitt had quit his position at The Washington Post, where he has been a columnist for years.

Trump has constantly promoted conspiracy theories around elections and how votes are counted, repeatedly lying that he won elections that he lost. He has even lied about his loss in the popular vote in 2016 after he won the Electoral College.

Hewitt has spent years using his position in the media to shill for Trump, after noting in 2016 that Trump did not have “the temperament to be president” and that if he won the Republican Party’s nomination, he was like “Stage IV cancer.”

Hewitt also claimed in 2020 that it wasn’t a big deal that Trump paid a reported $750 in taxes despite purportedly being worth billions, and claimed that Trump’s attempt to use his  presidency to dig up dirt on Joe Biden before he ran that year was a “nothingburger.” Trump was later impeached for abusing his power.

Despite this kind of rhetoric, Hewitt was frequently employed by outlets like MSNBC, NBC News, and The Washington Post. He has also been a contributor to Fox News, where promoting Trump is a key part of the operation.

Hewitt’s confrontation with the Post comes on the same day that the Trump campaign filed a frivolous complaint with the Federal Elections Commission to complain about Facebook ads purchased by the paper to highlight its reporting.

The Post purchased those ads following backlash to the decision by billionaire Post owner Jeff Bezos against publishing an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. More than 250,000 subscribers have dropped the paper since the announcement.

When she was asked about Bezos’ decision, Harris noted that he is a member of the billionaire “club” that stands to disproportionately benefit from the policies Trump hopes to enact if he is elected president.

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House GOP demands ‘immediate action’ on alleged retaliation against IRS whistleblowers

House Republicans are demanding answers about potential retaliation against IRS whistleblowers who brought claims of political influence in the Hunter Biden investigation to Congress.  

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La.; House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.; Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., began investigating in June whether the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) contributed to alleged retaliation and a "smear campaign" against IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.

HOUSE GOP PROBES WHETHER SPECIAL COUNSEL OFFICE HELPED RETALIATE AGAINST HUNTER BIDEN WHISTLEBLOWERS

Fox News exclusively reported on that initial letter requesting a briefing to determine whether there had been improper influence surrounding the IRS whistleblowers’ claims pending before the OSC. 

But on Friday, Comer, Jordan and Smith sent another letter to the acting principal deputy special counsel, Karen Gorman, demanding answers. 

The lawmakers notified Gorman that Shapley’s attorney "recently revealed that approximately one hour after an investigative journalist released an interview with the whistleblowers in which they discussed damaging evidence of the IRS’s disparate treatment of U.S. taxpayers, the IRS issued [Supervisory Special Agent] Shapley a 15-day notice to either accept a demotion or resign." 

Shapley and Ziegler sat down with a journalist on Tuesday to "discuss their disclosures to Congress and how their lives have been affected by making those disclosures." 

During the interview, Shapley said the IRS "has a smothering blanket on me. [They’re] hoping that I quit, that they find some way to terminate me. Or they probably hope that I commit suicide or something,’" the lawmakers wrote. 

Less than an hour after the release of the interview, the IRS sent Shapley a memo informing him that he "could no longer keep his position," the lawmakers wrote.

"This reassignment appears to give SSA Shapley effectively two options: accept a demotion or resign," they wrote. "The IRS is giving SSA Shapley 15 days to decide." 

They added: "This is egregious, and OSC must take immediate steps to pause this action while it examines the IRS’s decision." 

The lawmakers are now requesting a "prompt" update on the OSC’s investigation into the whistleblowers' allegations and for OSC to "use its lawful authority to seek an immediate stay at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board pausing the IRS’s latest threatening action." 

HOUSE REPUBLICANS REFER HUNTER BIDEN, JAMES BIDEN FOR CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AMID IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY

"SSA Shapley’s and SA Ziegler’s whistleblowing took courage and bravery," the lawmakers wrote. "Because of their important disclosures, Americans learned how the IRS treats individuals differently based upon their last names." 

Comer, Jordan and Smith reminded that Shapley and Ziegler "made lawfully protected disclosures to Congress that resulted in unrelenting personal and professional attacks on them." 

"But they have not wavered," the lawmakers wrote. "As this case has rightfully garnered significant public attention, OSC must show the whistleblower community that OSC will take appropriate and immediate action to stand up for whistleblowers." 

Fox News Digital reached out to the IRS and OSC for comment.

Trump shares totally normal fantasy of Liz Cheney facing a firing squad

 Donald Trump fantasized about guns being put in the face of former Rep. Liz Cheney during a campaign event on Thursday night.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her where the rifle’s standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about—you know when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said.

Cheney responded to Trump’s comments after the video was posted online.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she wrote on X. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Ian Sams, a senior adviser for the Harris-Walz campaign, slammed Trump’s remarks in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday morning.

“Think about the contrast between these two candidates: You have Donald Trump, who’s talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad and you have Vice President [Kamala] Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet,” Sams said.

Trump’s comments come just days after he attempted to cast himself as a “protector” of women, “whether the women like it or not.” The venue for Trump’s attack on Cheney was an interview with disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has a long history of misogynist remarks.

Trump has expressed anger at Cheney for crossing the aisle and endorsing Harris’ presidential campaign. Cheney has said she backs Harris, despite disagreeing with her on a host of issues, because Trump represents a threat to American democracy.

At a campaign event in Wisconsin in early October, Cheney specifically called out Trump’s actions during and after the Jan.6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is.”

Cheney was the vice chair of the Jan. 6 congressional committee that investigated the attack and was one of only two Republicans (the other was former Rep. Adam Kinzinger) willing to cross the aisle to do so. She was later defeated in Wyoming’s Republican congressional primary by a pro-Trump Republican, Rep. Harriet Hageman.

Both Cheney and Kinzinger also voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol attack. The vote was Trump’s second impeachment.

The former representatives are joined by a host of former Republican officials—including some who served in Trump’s administration—who are now supporting Harris’ campaign. 

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The ‘garbage’ campaign: Why mistakes and distractions could tilt the outcome

If there’s one image that captures the craziness of this campaign, it’s got to be Donald Trump driving around in a garbage truck.

He put on the orange vest and talked to reporters after a Joe Biden blunder put Kamala Harris on the defensive.

And this was after a Trump rally filled with profane insults, including a comic who mocked Puerto Rico as an island of floating garbage.

And that, in turn, followed the spectacle of the former president cooking up some fries at McDonald’s, where he actually likes to eat.

THE FATAL FLAW IN KAMALA HARRIS’ SPEECH, MARRED BY BIDEN’S ‘GARBAGE’ COMMENT

But all this is unfolding against the backdrop of the ugliest and perhaps most divisive race in American history, with each side accusing the other of being a danger to democracy. 

And the tightness of the polls–assuming they’re not off again–has created an almost apocalyptic sense of drama, with many voters worried about post-election violence if Trump loses.

Trump, after all, has survived two impeachments, the Jan. 6 riot, four criminal indictments, one conviction and two assassination attempts. He has spent the last four years insisting, despite numerous failed lawsuits, that the last election was stolen from him.

Can there be more than 500 voters in the six or seven swing states who don’t have a rock-solid opinion of him, positive or negative?

As for Harris, she was a relatively unpopular vice president thrust into a 100-day sprint when Democrats pressured Biden into stepping aside. She soared through the convention but hid from the media – that’s now changed – yet kept sticking to talking points and didn’t make much news. 

What’s more, Harris would be the first female president–and, of course, woman of color–to win the presidency in a country where some men, especially Black men, are reluctant to take that step. 

BACKLASH BUILDS AGAINST BEZOS AS NON-ENDORSEMENT SPARKS HUGE SURGE IN CANCELLATIONS

I have never witnessed such a chasm in coverage as in 2024, not even when Barack Obama first ran for the White House. The Kamala coverage ranges from glowing to gushing, with minimal scrutiny even when she makes false claims. The Donald coverage is overwhelmingly negative, right down to the Hitler comparisons–which the press has pushed for years, even before John Kelly went on the record with his accusations.

It’s not hard to sense the frustration in the press that the improving economy isn’t helping Harris, especially with the news that inflation has dropped to 2.1 percent. 

The New York Times says voters feel "relatively glum" about the economy, with the "lingering pessimism…The job market has been chugging along, although more slowly, overall growth has been healthy and even inflation is more or less back to normal." 

A Wall Street Journal columnist said yesterday the next president will inherit a "remarkable economy," but that 62 percent of those in its poll rated it "not so good" or "poor."

There is generally a lag in public perception, as when George H.W. Bush found when he talked up economic improvements in 1992 but lost to Bill Clinton.

In this supercharged environment, every mistake counts.

JAKE PAUL ENDORSES TRUMP IN FIERY VIDEO TORCHING BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION: ‘CAN’T SIT BACK AND WATCH THIS’

Trump, speaking about criminals who cross the border illegally, said "I told women I will be their protector. They [his advisers] said, ‘Sir, please don’t say that.’ Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not." 

That has an unfortunate ring to it, and Harris said yesterday it is "very offensive to women," including on controlling "their own bodies."

All of which brings us back to the last few days. When every hour counts, every distraction is costly. If you’re explaining, you’re losing. If you’re playing defense, you can’t put points on the board.

Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally was marred by racist and misogynist talk, the coverage of which totally overshadowed his speech. What drew the most attention was comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and his ridicule of Puerto Rico. Podcaster Joe Rogan said he heard the joke the day before and told the comic there would be a big backlash. But the Trump camp hadn’t vetted the speakers.

When Harris naturally denounced the "garbage" language, Trump hopped on the sanitation truck emblazoned with his name.

Biden has been hurting his VP’s candidacy with a series of screwups. First he said of Trump, "Lock him up." Then the president blurted out that "the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters." He stumbled before adding that this was about the "demonization of Latinos."

Castigating the other side’s voters is about the worst thing you can do, as Hillary Clinton learned eight years ago. That choked off the favorable coverage of her speech on the Ellipse–itself designed to mirror Trump’s Jan. 6 speech–and was the focus of reporters’ questions the next morning.

Harris distanced herself, saying Biden had clarified his remarks and she would never criticize voters who don’t support her. An NBC reporter asked her about it again yesterday.

Trump’s brief stint at McDonald’s was meant to highlight his contention that Harris never worked at one during college, as she has insisted. It was a brilliant tactic and one her side should have conjured up first. 

National Review writer Noah Rothman says the candidates are just "trolling" each other, presenting voters with "a choice between two gratingly flip campaigns that are consumed with frivolities."

I would differ on the main point. The whole point of a campaign is for voters to size up how the candidates perform under pressure, since no one knows what crises may arise. How they react to attacks, stunts and interviews gives us a sense of their rapid-response abilities that go beyond policy positions–especially in such a razor-thin election.