Inside California’s most competitive House races

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, September 29, and you can expect autumn to remain missing in action (high 80s).

Back in fall 2024, amid a heated presidential race, congressional leaders including Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries trekked west. In the waning days of election season, some of the country’s most powerful politicians popped up at a fundraiser in coastal Orange County, a rally in the Inland Empire and a get-out-the-vote stop in the Antelope Valley. 

Control of the House of Representatives (which ultimately remained in GOP hands) appeared up for grabs, and California had a half-dozen districts that were feverishly-contested battlegrounds.

Oh, how times have changed. After voters approved Prop. 50 last November — the gerrymandering ballot measure that temporarily scrapped independent redistricting and redrew the congressional maps to favor Democrats — there are only three. 

That handful of California races, however, could still help determine which party commands the House. 

Here are the CliffsNotes on each of those three races, so you can sound smartly informed in the 35 days until the election.

Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s score-settling memoir Behind the Castle Walls is out today, with a look at his 30-year career at the entertainment giant and his 2022 ouster. 

The book absolves Chapek himself of blame for his short-lived tenure and instead puts the culpability on Bob Iger, the former Disney CEO who both preceded and succeeded him in the post. (Variety counted and found that Iger is mentioned no less than 121 times in the book.) The book also characterizes Disney’s new CEO Josh D’Amaro as Chapek’s protégé.