Does anyone else feel just like the outcomes of California’s Tuesday election were largely predictable?
It’s true that county elections officials still need to tally greater than 4.8 million ballots, based on Thursday estimates. And it’s true that some state legislative and U.S. House races are still too near call, and will remain that way for days and even weeks.
But on the state level, results were almost instantaneously set in stone. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s victory over Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle was so assured that the Associated Press called the race one minute after polls closed. And each Democratic incumbent running for statewide office easily sailed to victory.
The one exception: the race for controller, the one statewide office without an incumbent in search of reelection. Democrat Malia Cohen has declared victory, but Republican Lanhee Chen — who as of Thursday was trailing her by about six percentage points — hasn’t conceded.
Nevertheless it was futile for Chen to think that he could grow to be the primary Republican to win statewide office in California in nearly 20 years, especially without widespread name recognition or an enormous campaign warchest, Democratic political consultant Bill Wong said at a Thursday post-election event hosted by the Sacramento Press Club.
- Wong: “It kills me since the Asian guy doesn’t know math. It’s like, 47% of the population is Democratic. Unless, , divine intervention is gonna occur, you’re not going to give you the chance to do it.”
- Wong added: “He’s a fantastic guy. He’s got a fantastic profile. But you may’t communicate that when, the sad thing is, in a whole lot of ways demographics is your destiny.”
One other massive headwind for Republican candidates: the reluctance of GOP voters to solid their votes by mail, which experts largely attribute to former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud and suppression. The California Republican Party has tried to counter this message, repeatedly telling residents this fall that mail voting is secure and urging them to vote early since it “advantages Republican candidates.”
- Tim Rosales, a Republican political consultant and president and CEO of Rosales Johnson Agency: “As much as we wish them to return ballots, as much as you must make sure that that you simply get those early votes, there’s that belief on the market amongst many who they don’t trust that their votes will probably be counted. Until we actually get a reputable national figure that may say something different, that may penetrate within the minds of Republican voters and flip that script again, I believe we’re prone to see that very same behavior proceed in subsequent elections.”
2022 Election
Your guide to the 2022 general election in California
Indeed, a general sense of fatality — that in statewide races between Democratic and Republican candidates, the end result is sort of preordained — hung over the Thursday event.
One in all the most important reasons, the panelists agreed: growing political polarization. A couple of examples:
- It could be extremely difficult for a no-party-preference candidate to mount a successful statewide political campaign in California, because “the one biggest predictor of vote is partisan registration,” Rosales said. He added that he’s conducted polling where he asks residents to choose from a fictional Democrat or Republican and an actual person running as an independent, and the party members will still “get more votes than that independent. I mean, it’s just the best way persons are wired.”
- No-party-preference voters — who make up about 23% of California’s registered voters — usually are not nonpartisan. “Independents on this state are oftentimes the individuals who don’t think the Democratic Party is liberal enough or fights hard enough, or individuals who don’t think that Republicans are conservative enough,” said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic political consultant and vice chairman of Political Data Inc. “It’s not similar to this middle-of-the-road party.”
- People aren’t just polarized in favor of their political party, they’re “sort of reverse polarized against the opposite party,” Mitchell said. “And the information and the polling and the election results just support that. There’s no latest path that we haven’t found out.”
The coronavirus bottom line: As of Tuesday, California had 10,542,434 confirmed cases and 96,332 deaths, based on state data now updated only once per week on Thursdays. CalMatters can be tracking coronavirus hospitalizations by county.
California has administered 84,661,14 vaccine doses, and 72.5% of eligible Californians received their primary vaccine series.
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1
Rivas to assume speakership next summer
It was like a Sacramento episode of “Succession”: Following months of backroom jockeying, closed-door meetings and controversial fundraising practices, Assembly Democrats — including some who haven’t yet won races too near call — announced Thursday evening a transition plan for the speakership, probably the most powerful roles within the state Capitol. Current Speaker Anthony Rendon will stay on until June 30, 2023, at which point he’ll pass the torch to Assemblymember Robert Rivas of Hollister, CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff reports. The sport plan — which Assembly Democrats are expected to formally approve on Dec. 5, the primary day of the brand new legislative session — signifies that Rivas will ascend to the speakership greater than a 12 months after his original unsuccessful try to oust Rendon.
- Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Woodland Hills Democrat who supported Rivas, told Alexei that many lawmakers supported the compromise because they didn’t want the speakership fight to be a distraction in the brand new legislative session, which is able to happen concurrently a special session called by Newsom to think about a “windfall profits tax” on oil corporations.
- Gabriel: “We want to place our internal politics behind us and get to the policy work.”
- The transition could mark an enormous change for the Legislature, which can be welcoming an unusually large number of latest lawmakers. Rendon has been speaker for the reason that starting of 2016, the longest reign since Willie Brown — “the Ayatollah of the Assembly” — led the chamber within the Nineteen Nineties, when California voters adopted term limits. Rendon is about to term out in 2024.
2
Flavored tobacco, sports betting fights removed from over
Some California ballot box battles didn’t end on the ballot box: On Wednesday, the day after voters overwhelmingly upheld a state law banning the sale of certain flavored tobacco products, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company — the maker of Newport menthol cigarettes and popular vaping products — filed a federal lawsuit to dam it from taking effect, the Latest York Times reports. The move comes after a two-year pause on the law, which tobacco corporations secured by gathering enough signatures to qualify a referendum — allowing them to maintain selling flavored tobacco products until voters had a likelihood to weigh in on the ban.
- Attorney General Rob Bonta told the Latest York Times: “Time and time again, Big Tobacco has attempted to steamroll state efforts to guard our youngest residents from the damaging effects of tobacco use. … We stay up for vigorously defending this vital law in court.”
Voters also resoundingly rejected a pair of ballot measures to legalize sports betting in California — but Native American tribes, which qualified certainly one of the initiatives, still see the end result as a win. That’s because their efforts to defeat Prop. 27 — which might have authorized online sports betting within the state — sent a transparent message to gaming corporations: “You don’t come and check out to screw the tribes,” Victor Rocha, conference chairperson for the national Indian Gaming Association, told CalMatters’ Grace Gedye.
3
State unveils contentious latest solar proposal
A controversial proposal to overhaul California’s rooftop solar incentive program has been replaced by … one other controversial proposal to overhaul California’s rooftop solar incentive program. The revised blueprint, unveiled Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission, goals to incentivize more people to put in rooftop solar panels to assist the state meet its ambitious climate goals while ensuring that low-income residents aren’t saddled with higher energy bills. The brand new plan removes a proposed tax on homeowners with solar systems — an idea opposed by Newsom, consumer advocates, the solar industry and environmental justice organizations — but additionally reduces how much utilities would pay homeowners for supplying power to the grid. The result, CalMatters’ Julie Cart reports: Neither utilities nor solar groups are glad.
In other environmental news: Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday sued manufacturers of PFAS, toxic substances commonly referred to as “without end chemicals” because they don’t degrade over time. Within the lawsuit, Bonta alleged the businesses — including 3M, DuPont and other manufacturers — “knew or must have known that PFAS are toxic and harmful to human health and the environment, yet continued to supply them for mass use and concealed their harms from the general public” in violation of state consumer and environmental protection laws.
- 3M told the Associated Press that it “acted responsibly in reference to products containing PFAS and can defend its record of environmental stewardship.” DuPont said the corporate because it currently exists mustn’t have been named within the lawsuit.
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Here’s how GOP control of the House would affect California. // San Francisco Chronicle
Will dead candidate win Chula Vista’s city attorney job? Race gets tighter. // San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego Democrats can have a 9-0 City Council majority for the primary time. // San Diego Union-Tribune
California sending first openly gay immigrant to Congress. // Los Angeles Times
California installs first lesbian Supreme Court justice. // Associated Press
Federal grand jury indictment reveals latest details in attack on Paul Pelosi. // Los Angeles Times
California union alleges state illegally outsourced work in lawsuits against video game makers. // Sacramento Bee
California financial regulator proclaims FTX investigation. // CoinDesk
Amid catastrophic staffing issues, Tehama County Sheriff’s Office halts daytime patrols. // KRCR
Consumer prices in Bay Area heat up again and skyrocket higher. // Mercury News
Nearly 500 homeless people have died in San Diego County in 2022. // CBS 8
California should change fishing rules after a whole lot of sturgeon die, scientists say. // Sacramento Bee
San Francisco cuts cope with California water regulators to avoid severe restrictions. // San Francisco Chronicle
California stockpiles penalties from uninsured residents as a substitute of lowering care costs. // California Healthline
California expected to partner with nonprofit Civica Rx to supply its own low-cost insulin, sources say. // NBC News
