California

Democrat Xavier Becerra beat Republican Steve Hilton, 65.6% to 34.4%, in a state Kamala Harris carried by 20.1 points, and keeps the governor’s office in his party’s hands. Democrats also won the races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, controller, treasurer and insurance commissioner and all four seats on the Board of Equalization, one of them taken from the Republicans. In the U.S. House they won five districts that Republicans held, by the widest margin where Randy Villegas beat Republican David Valadao by 35.8 points in a district Donald Trump had carried by 1.8. Of 52 seats, 47 are called for Democrats and two for Republicans.

Set against the 2024 presidential vote, the governor’s race ran 11.1 points more Democratic, from D+20.1 to D+31.2. Both parties drew fewer votes than in 2024, the Republicans by more: Becerra drew 90 votes for every 100 Harris won, and Hilton drew 72 for every 100 of Trump’s. The votes counted for governor so far come to 80% of the 2024 presidential total and 116% of the 2022 total.

The gain was uneven. The Riverside metro area, which Trump had carried narrowly, moved furthest: 19.5 points, from R+1.7 to D+17.9, on 11% of the state’s 2024 vote. The Los Angeles area, 32% of the vote, moved 12.1 points, to D+36.8. The San Francisco area, the most Democratic region, moved only 4.7, and the small towns and rural counties least of all: 3.0 points, from R+4.5 to R+1.5. They are the one region Hilton carried.

Of the 12 counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Becerra this year, Riverside County is the largest. It went from R+1.3 to D+16.7 on 668,856 votes. San Bernardino County, in the same metro area, made nearly the same trip, from R+2.1 to D+19.1. Kern County, in the Bakersfield area, moved further still: 22.4 points, from R+21.1 to D+1.4. Not every county went the same way: El Dorado, Marin and Modoc counties moved toward the Republicans from 2024.

Democrats keep the governor’s office and their supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature, KQED and CalMatters reported.^{1, 2} In our count they have 32 of 40 Senate seats, up from 30, and 68 of 80 Assembly seats, up from 60; no newsroom total we read confirmed those figures. Becerra said on election night: “As governor, my mission is straightforward, but not simple: Deliver a California we can afford, and defend a California that we can’t afford to lose.”²

Days later he stood in the Capitol rotunda with Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and promised to govern with them. “We’re going to work together. This will be a partnership,” he said. None of the three has committed to concrete proposals, CalMatters reported, and lawmakers return in January to federal cuts to Medi-Cal that could cost more than 1 million people their coverage.³ KQED reported that his January budget proposal will be the first window into his plans.²

The larger majority does not reach the maps. The Citizens Redistricting Commission, a 14-member body of five Republicans, five Democrats and four members of neither party, was created by voters in 2008 to draw district lines and given congressional districts in 2010, by its own account.⁴ The secretary of state has until December 11 to certify the results.⁵ In our count Democrat Shirley Weber won that office, keeping it in Democratic hands.

A statewide measure in California passes with a majority vote, the secretary of state’s office says.⁶ Voters faced 14 of them, and the fight over taxing wealth ran through three. Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ net worth, failed with 47.6% yes.⁷ Proposition 42, written by the tax’s opponents to prohibit new state taxes on personal property such as business holdings and financial assets, passed, CalMatters reported; our count has it at 51.4%.⁸ Voters did approve a tax on high incomes: Proposition 3, at 60.7% yes, makes permanent an income tax on individuals making more than $360,000 a year and sends the money to K-12 education.⁷

On elections, voters rejected Proposition 39, which would have required proof of citizenship at the polls or an identification number on mail ballots, with 39.5% yes. They approved Proposition 5, which splits a recall into two elections, one on removing the official and a later one on the replacement; CalMatters reported its approval on November 12, and our count has it at 51.9%.^{7, 9} They approved Proposition 1, up to $11.25 billion in borrowing for housing, at 61.0%, and Proposition 38, $8.4 billion for immunology research, at 54.0%. They rejected Proposition 45, which would have pared down the environmental review law known as CEQA, and Proposition 44, a spending rule for health clinics that drew 17.9% yes.⁷

Los Angeles voted out its mayor. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Mayor Karen Bass, who conceded on November 5 with the count at 52% to 48%. LAist called it the first ouster of an incumbent from that office in nearly a quarter century.¹⁰

Republicans kept two of the U.S. House seats they held: Tom McClintock won the Fifth District by 11.7 points and Vince Fong the Twentieth by 22.6, in districts Trump carried by 20.7 and 32.2. Hilton carried 21 of the state’s 58 counties. In the Legislature the party shrank, from 10 senators to 8 and from 19 Assembly members to 12 in our count. CalMatters had framed the question as whether Republicans could hold the seats they flipped in 2024, and in partial counts the morning after the election Republican incumbents were trailing in at least two of them.¹

Alex Padilla’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028. He is a Democrat in a state that voted Democratic by 20.1 points for president in 2024 and by 31.2 in this year’s race for governor. Before then the results have to be made final: the secretary of state has until December 11 to certify them, and an approved initiative takes effect the fifth day after certification.^{5, 11} Proposition 42 will then stand in the way of any new state tax on wealth, and the backers of the defeated billionaire tax have vowed to keep pushing for one, CalMatters reported.⁸

Among the U.S. House seats, three are not called. In the Twenty-third District, Republican Jay Obernolte leads Democrat Tessa Lynn Hodge by 1.6 points. The other two are contests within a party: Democrat Eric Jones leads Democrat Mike Thompson by 4.4 points in the Fourth District, and Republican Ken Calvert leads Republican Young Kim by 5.7 in the Fortieth. Proposition 4, which would allow public financing of political campaigns, was trailing with nearly 50.6% opposed in CalMatters’ count as of November 7 and had not been marked as decided; our count has it at 49.7% yes.⁷