Democratic challenger Derek Tran unseated Republican incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel in California's 45th congressional district on Thursday, narrowing the GOP's already slim House majority.
Tran defeated Steel by fewer than 600 votes, making this one of the closest House races in the 2024 election cycle. Republicans now hold 220 seats while Democrats have 214 seats.
California's 45th congressional district was also one of 19 House districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 and that had a Republican incumbent in 2024.
"From the moment I came to the United States, I knew that giving back to the country that welcomed me with open arms would be part of my future," Steel said in a Thursday post on X. "Because of the opportunities offered by this great country, and God’s great blessings, I was able to go to college, start a family, and build my own American Dream."
"I embarked on a mission to assist First Generation Americans, stand up to our adversaries, and defend human rights," Steel continued. "The journey to work on behalf of legal immigrants and struggling families took me somewhere I never could have imagined — and for which I will always be grateful — the United States Congress."
Steel was first elected to serve in California's 45th congressional district in 2022 after the state underwent redistricting, replacing Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who now represents California's 47th congressional district. Steel also served California's 48th congressional district for one term in 2020 prior to the redistricting.
"I will never stop fighting for you," Steel said.
California's 45th congressional district was also one of 19 House districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 and that had a Republican incumbent in 2024.
"Just a short while ago, Congresswoman Michelle Steel called me to concede, and I expressed my appreciation to her for her service," Tran said in a Thursday post on X. "I plan to work closely with her office over the next month to ensure a smooth transition and handover of constituent casework, so my team hits the ground running in early January."
"I look forward to once again taking the oath to support and defend our Constitution and beginning this next chapter of public service so we can put people first," Tran continued.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
I was nervous before Election Day.
After the nightmare of the 2020 election — when it seemed like every single rioter who lobbed Molotov cocktails at cops in the streets and beat folks to a pulp during the "Summer of George (Floyd)"; and every single lunatic who drove shoppers from stores for failing to adhere to their holy "mask up" doctrines; and every single one of their comrades in the halls of Congress, governors' chairs, district attorneys' offices, Antifa and BLM enclaves, mainstream media newsrooms, and Hollywood studios mailed in ballots for Joe Biden — I wasn't terribly confident that conservative voters could pull off a win against leftists in 2024.
So take your oaths of office, and get to work. Destroy awful laws, pass great ones, and put our country back on a path that makes sense.
Despite Donald Trump running against a deeply subpar Democrat opponent in Kamala Harris, who made misstep after misstep while her die-hard supporters desperately tried to prop her up, I feared a repeat of 2020 — and another four years of leftism in the White House and more lawlessness and lunacy that habitually accompany it.
But as the returns rolled in Tuesday night, Nov. 5, and into Wednesday morning, it began to feel a bit like the night of the 2016 election — only way better. Not only did one state after another side with Trump, but a majority of Americans who went to the polls picked him.
Leftists love to rattle their "Our Candidate Won the Popular Vote" sabers and declare ridiculous moral victories when the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Electoral College says differently. But they didn't even have that this time.
The White House. Both houses of Congress. The popular vote for president. All went Republican. What's more, there was nary a hint of unrest this time. Remember what happened right after Trump was elected in 2016 and then when he was inaugurated? Violence in the streets. Destruction of property. Riots. I braced myself for that in the days following Trump's 2024 victory, but leftists didn't collectively rise up this time. It was as if they had no more fight left in them.
If that's so, then good. And good riddance.
This year's election sent a clear message that most of the country is done with leftism and the lawlessness and the lunacy that accompany it.
Therefore, on this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for all the American voters who made their voices heard to that end.
What do most Americans want? No more Democrat lawfare. No more weaponized government agencies unleashed against political enemies. No more upside-down justice that lets repeat-offending criminals go free so they can commit more crimes. No more Biden-Harris illegal immigration quagmire that not only allows killers and rapists to cross our border but also pays for them to live here. No more cancel culture. No more innocent people getting beaten up in the streets while leftist politicians and district attorneys turn a blind eye. No more public schools that promote drag queen performances and let males compete against female athletes.
What else do most Americans want? More jobs and a better economy. More common sense in government. More feeling safe just going outside. More justice without consideration of politics or skin color. More public schools that teach math, science, and literature — and do so without leftist doctrines and biases mixed in. More freedom of speech. More legal immigration.
Now, it's time for conservatives in office to roll up their sleeves and deliver for those who put them there.
Now, it's time for elected Republicans who are on board with the Trump agenda to avoid wielding power almost as if they're embarrassed they have it, to resist the urge to cave to the whims of angry Democrats in Washington who have no legs to stand on, and to govern without fear of being characterized as mean, heartless fascists and knuckle-dragging Neanderthals for passing laws and enacting policies the majority of voting Americans want.
Hey, let them call you all of those things. It's noise. It's a death rattle. It's the last collective gasp of a defeated party fighting desperately as its oxygen runs out.
So take your oaths of office, and get to work. Destroy awful laws, pass great ones, and put our country back on a path that makes sense.
Because if you don't — or stand in the way of such outcomes — Americans will vote for others who will do the job in your place.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
The massively popular YouTube show "Hot Ones" rejected a proposed pre-election appearance by Vice President Kamala Harris, according to her campaign leaders.
On Tuesday, Harris campaign chiefs made an appearance on "Pod Save America" — a left-wing political podcast hosted by former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor.
'So, we had discussions with Joe Rogan’s team. They were great. They wanted us to come on.'
The Harris campaign heads attempted to explain why Kamala lost to Donald Trump despite the Harris campaign spending roughly $1.5 billion in 15 weeks.
"This political environment sucked. We were dealing with ferocious headwinds, and I think people's instinct was to give the Republicans and even Donald Trump another chance," stated Harris campaign senior adviser David Plouffe.
Harris campaign senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon claimed that Kamala didn't succeed because she didn't have enough time.
“In a 107-day race, it is very difficult to do all the things you would normally do in a year and a half, two years,” Dillon alleged.
The Harris leaders claimed that time constraints prevented Kamala from appearing on "The Joe Rogan Experience."
“I hate to repeat this over and over, but it was a very short race with a limited number of days, and for a candidate to leave the battleground and go to Houston is a day off the playing field in the battleground [states],” Harris campaign staffer Stephanie Cutter alleged. “As it turns out, that was the day that Trump was taping his Joe Rogan [episode], which they had never confirmed to us. We kind of figured that out, in the lead-up to it. ... She was ready, willing to go on Joe Rogan. So we had discussions with Joe Rogan’s team. They were great. They wanted us to come on. We wanted to come on. We tried to get a date to make it work, and ultimately we just weren’t able to find a date.”
However, Joe Rogan claimed that he offered to interview Harris at any time to make it happen as long it was a long-form conversation in his Austin studio.
"You could look at this and you can say, ‘Oh, you’re being a diva,’ but she had an opportunity to come here when she was in Texas, and I literally gave them an open invitation. I said anytime," Rogan explained. "I said if she’s done at 10, we'll come back here at 10. I go, I’ll do it at nine in the morning, I’ll do it at 10 p.m. I’ll do it at midnight if she’s up, if she wants to, you know, drink a Red Bull."
As Blaze News previously reported, Rogan stated that the Harris campaign wanted an interview that would be under one hour long in a location outside his Austin studio.
Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville previously skewered the Harris campaign for not doing an interview with Rogan — host of the most popular podcast in the world.
Meanwhile, Trump embraced long-form podcasts that garnered massive audiences with young, male Americans. Trump did a nearly three-hour podcast on "The Joe Rogan Experience" in Austin as well as making appearances on comedian Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend,” golfer Bryson DeChambeau’s “Break 50,” Mark “The Undertaker” Calaway’s “Six Feet Under,” and Barstool Sports’ “Bussin' with the Boys.”
The Harris campaign attempted to counter by requesting to appear on the extremely popular internet show "Hot Ones."
The well-received YouTube show features host Sean Evans interviewing celebrities while they eat progressively spicier chicken wings.
However, the producers of the "Hot Ones" show rejected the Harris campaign's request to have Kamala on the show before the 2024 election.
"Pod Save America" host Dan Pfeiffer said, "'Hot Ones' as an example. Like, there never in time has there been a candidate better suited for a podcast than Kamala Harris on 'Hot Ones.'"
Cutter noted that the Harris campaign tried to get her on the show, but "Hot Ones" producers didn't want to get involved in the divisive world of politics.
“I think, if I remember correctly, on 'Hot Ones,' that they didn’t wanna delve into politics,” Cutter noted. "Anybody that took him would take us. It was more some of the, like, like 'Hot Ones,' which is a great show, they didn’t want to do any politics, so they weren’t going to take us or him. So that was the issue. But we got on plenty of them, and the bottom line is she was willing to do just about anything and have a conversation with anybody regardless of where they sat."
"Hot Ones" has more than 14 million followers on YouTube. Episodes of "Hot Ones" regularly have millions of views, and the episode with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has nearly 130 million views.
The "Hot Ones" podcast did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
President Joe Biden admitted on Sunday that his Department of Justice (DOJ) is “infected” by politics. It’s an admission that’s entirely true — but not for the reasons Biden thinks. Biden issued a blanket pardon for his son Hunter for “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken […]
With the forces of leftism soundly (if impermanently) beaten, we have many reasons to be thankful.
www.theblaze.com
freebeacon.com