News Analysis: Uncertainty, frustration define messy midterm battles for mayor, governor and Congress

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With little more than a week left until primary voters winnow the candidates for Los Angeles mayor, California governor and Congress, there remains a palpable sense of political uncertainty among the electorate — attributable to a lack of clear front-runners, redrawn political maps, messy party infighting and competing voter frustration with both President Trump and the state’s Democratic establishment.In a state where Democrats hold a substantial advantage among registered voters and Trump lost in 2024 by more than 20 percentage points, MAGA-aligned Republicans are nonetheless competing on a message of ineptitude from longtime liberal leaders to address the state’s most intractable problems.Even some Democrats have railed against the status quo.With Trump’s grip on the Republican base intact despite abysmal overall approval ratings, many Republican candidates have courted his approval — and been hammered for it by their Democratic opponents.But those same Democrats have found it harder to explain why their own party should continue to lead the state despite allowing its affordability, housing and homelessness crises to take root and persist — taking little responsibility while swiping at each other for having failed to find solutions sooner.All that party infighting — present before every primary, but at a fever pitch now — comes against a backdrop of broader voter unease about the war in Iran, volatile oil and gas prices, and the burgeoning threat of AI to the American workforce.Republican voters are being warned of a blue wave in November giving Democrats control of Congress and grinding Trump’s agenda to a halt.

Democratic voters are being warned of Trump administration efforts to undermine local and state elections, and of control of Congress unfairly slipping from reach thanks to further Republican redistricting following a U.S.Supreme Court decision unde...