These 10 California Elections Might Decide Partisan Control of U.S. House in 2024

Whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives in 2025 is a toss-up, election analysts say, with a handful of California incumbents’ seats on the line. The state had some of the closest House races in the nation in 2022, ultimately delivering Republicans a slim majority and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, the speaker’s gavel. The Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Inside Elections and Elections Daily rank districts by partisan advantage. The nonpartisan forecasters rate close elections as “toss-up,” “leaning” or “likely” for a Democrat or Republican. Projections will probably shift as more details about 2024 races emerge. Many contenders have already announced their intent to run, or at least filed the required paperwork. Prospective candidates have until mid-December to file. These are 10 House races to watch in California:

LIKELY REPUBLICAN

3rd Congressional District Most analysts believe freshman Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, will keep his seat in 2024, representing a district stretches from the northern Sierra Nevada along the Nevada border into Death Valley. 40th Congressional District Rep. Young Kim, R-La Habra, will win in 2024, forecasters say. The 40th holds parts of Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Two Democrats have announced they will challenge Kim, who has been in Congress since 2021. LEANS REPUBLICAN 41st Congressional District Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, has an advantage, three analysts predict. The Cook Political Report rates the Riverside County district as a toss-up for the Republican, who has served since 1993. Redistricting landed Palm Springs, a liberal and LGBTQ stronghold, in the 41st. Calvert had his closest House race in over a decade in 2022, edging out Democrat Will Rollins by less than 4 percentage points. The Republican’s previous history against LGBTQ rights, coupled with Rollins’ identity and positions, might have contributed to the closeness. Now Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is in for a 2024 rematch. Two more Democrats have so far announced their candidacies. 45th Congressional District Rep. Michelle Park Steel, R-Seal Beach, will edge out an opponent, all forecasters think. Four Democrats have already entered the race for the 41st, which takes in parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties. Steel was first elected to the House in 2020. TOSS-UP 13th Congressional District Home to the second-closest House race in 2022, the 13th is expected to be hotly contested again. Rep. John Duarte, R-Modesto, edged out former Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, by fewer than 600 votes. Gray hasn’t announced his 2024 candidacy but has filed the paperwork to run. Three other Democrats so far have said they would contest Duarte, a first-time candidate last year. The district, which holds all of Merced County and chunks of Madera, Stanislaus, Fresno and San Joaquin counties, voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 by 11 percentage points. It has more registered Democrats than Republicans. 22nd Congressional District Analysts are split on whether on Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, can keep his seat. Some give him a slight edge over a Democratic challenger. He’ll be in for a rematch with former Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield, whom Valadao beat by a 3% margin in 2022. The 22nd, which has more Democrats than Republicans, includes most of Kings County and parts of Tulare and Kern counties. Valadao, who has been in the House for about a decade, survived tough elections before: He lost and regained his House seat on slim margins between 2018 and 2020. 27th Congressional District It looks like a toss-up for Rep. Mike Garcia, R-San Clarita, most experts say. Garcia, who has represented northern Los Angeles County in the House since 2020, will face at least two Democrats in 2024. Garcia became the first California Republican in two decades to flip a district represented by a Democrat; he won a special election in 2020 after former Rep. Katie Hill resigned amid scandal over a relationship with her staffer. LEANS DEMOCRATIC 47th Congressional District Forecasters are divided on whether Democrats have a clear advantage in the district that Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, is vacating to run for Senate. Porter is among a handful of House Democrats competing to succeed retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The 2024 field for the Orange County district has drawn at least 10 candidates. Scott Baugh, an attorney, is running in the district again as a Republican. Among Democrats, State Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, garnered Porter’s endorsement. He was arrested in May for driving under the influence.

LIKELY DEMOCRATIC

9th Congressional District This Stockton-anchored district held by Rep. Josh Harder, D-Tracy, is likely, rather than safely, Democratic, three analysis organizations think. Harder unseated a four-term Republican to win a seat in 2018. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, campaigned last week for a GOP challenger, Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln. Ripon pastor Brett Dood also said he would run as a Republican.

Click here to read the full article in the Modesto Bee

Buried Treasure: California Politicians Stash $35 Million in Leftover Campaign Cash

It has been nearly eight years since Bill Lockyer held elected office in California.

For more than four decades, he climbed the ranks of state politics — Assembly member, Senate leader, attorney general, treasurer — before ending a campaign for controller amid turmoil in his marriage and retiring at the start of 2015.

Nevertheless, Lockyer still has more than $1 million in a campaign account for the 2026 lieutenant governor race. Every month, he pays $2,500 to consultant Michelle Maravich, who said she helps maintain his donor list, manage meetings and appearances, and provide advice on occasional contributions to other candidates as the 81-year-old Democrat contemplates a comeback.

“He misses the public arena and obviously still wants to be of service,” Maravich said. “I haven’t seen him lose a step.” 

Lockyer’s seven-figure war chest is among the largest of nearly 100 accounts belonging to state political candidates with leftover campaign cash, according to a CalMatters analysis of California campaign finance records. Collectively, they hold about $35 million — funds that never got spent on the campaigns for which they were raised — ranging from $13.1 million that former Gov. Jerry Brown didn’t need to win re-election in 2014 to $9.62 in the account for a failed Assembly run that same year run by investment manager Thomas Krouse.

CalMatters counted campaign funds for the Legislature and state constitutional offices that politicians are sitting on years after leaving their positions, that are in committees for past races or for which the candidate did not end up running. These 96 accounts rarely raise new money, and in some cases, politicians have carried the same leftover contributions through election cycle after election cycle, transferring the money to new committees for positions they never actually sought.

The total does not include committees for candidates who ran in 2022. Those who lost in the June 7 primary have not yet had to file paperwork declaring what they did with any leftover campaign cash, while the deadline is still three months away for candidates who made it to the Nov. 8 general election to decide their next move.

Some of the politicians holding onto past campaign contributions are simply waiting to figure out their next race, at which point they may tap into those eligible funds. Others are using the money to keep a foothold in the public arena, slowly spending down what’s left on political donations, charitable contributions and administrative expenses. Many of the accounts hold massive debts and must remain open if the candidates ever plan to raise cash to pay off outstanding loans and bills. And some of the money is merely sitting idle, in accounts where nothing much goes in or out, save interest and annual state filing fees.

“Perhaps the lack of activity reflects my innate frugality,” said Mike Gatto, a Democrat who served in the Assembly from 2010 through 2016 and has almost $2.1 million in a lieutenant governor 2026 account, some of it from an abandoned campaign for state treasurer in 2018.

In the first half of 2022, the most recent period for which Gatto has filed a campaign finance report, he contributed about $2,500 to other candidates and earned nearly the same amount in interest.

Gatto said he typically raises money for candidates by turning to his donor list, rather than giving away his own leftover campaign cash, and he sits on the board of a family foundation that provides funding to charitable organizations. He is keeping his residual campaign funds for what he anticipates will be a return to politics in his retirement, after he finishes raising his three children.

“I hope there’s more in my future. I believe I can contribute to this beautiful state that we all call home,” said Gatto, who founded a law firm after leaving the Assembly. “I believe there’s a lot more freedom for people to run for office in their golden years.”

Avoiding surplus funds

Once a politician leaves office or loses an election, a regulatory countdown begins. 

If a candidate wants to use any of the spare cash from a prior campaign to fund a future political venture, state law allows 90 days to set up a new account and transfer the money. Miss that window and the funds are designated “surplus.” 

Surplus cash can be used to pay down debts, refund donors, expense administrative costs, support political parties or contribute to a “bona fide” charity. But it cannot fund a campaign for state office in California, whether the candidate’s own or someone else’s.

Avoiding that dreaded surplus designation is why so many former politicians always seem to be running for something — at least on paper.

The “dull” job of lieutenant governor, as Gov. Gavin Newsom once put it, is an especially popular choice. There are currently 21 open lieutenant governor committees for the 2026 primary, including for both Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. Fewer than half are actively fundraising. 

By passing cash from one account to another each election cycle, some former politicians can hang onto campaign contributions for years — even decades — after they held state office.

The 2026 treasurer campaign controlled by former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, for example, is sitting on nearly $2 million. That’s what remains of the $2.1 million the account received from Núñez’s treasurer 2022 committee in late August. That account, in turn, got its cash from a Fabian Núñez for Treasurer 2018 committee, which was funded by a treasurer 2014 account, which was funded by a committee for a 2010 state Senate campaign.

This daisy chain of electoral accounts, connected by transfers made within those crucial 90 days after the end of each election cycle, reaches back to its ultimate source: the former speaker’s 2006 Assembly committee, which was shored up with a then-controversial influx of cash from the state Democratic Party. 

Núñez has not campaigned for office since he was termed out of the Assembly in 2008. Through a colleague at the consulting and lobbying firm Actum, where he is a managing partner, Núnez agreed to an interview for this story, but never followed up.

He isn’t the only former elected official to play this game of financial hot potato. Besides Lockyer and Gatto, Jerome Horton, who served in the Assembly and on the Board of Equalization; former state Sen. Jean FullerJeff Denham, who spent two terms in the Senate before he was elected to Congress; and others have all kept their electoral funds active by transferring the money from one account to the next.

Former Assemblymember Dario Frommer, who did not respond to multiple interview requests, still has $593,000 sitting in a committee for a 2026 controller campaign, all of it raised before he termed out of the Assembly in 2006.

Maintaining political influence

Former legislators hoarding leftover political funds may be an odd artifact of California law, but the rules are a significant improvement over the old days when politicians “were buying cars with the money, they were taking the money with them” upon retirement and they were using the money to expense “vacations that had nothing to do with legislation,” said Bob Stern, who served as the first general counsel to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the state campaign finance regulator.

Throughout the 1980s, state lawmakers passed a series of gradual restrictions on what candidates could do with spare campaign cash. For the last two decades, spending has had to be plausibly tied to a “political or governmental purpose.”

So what counts as a legitimate purpose? Charities and political allies, for example.

In recent years, Núñez has used campaign funds to support the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit for which his son, Esteban, is a lobbyist, and After-School All-Stars, a charity founded by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a personal friend who before leaving office commuted Esteban Núñez’s prison sentence for his role in a stabbing death.

Núnez campaign accounts have also poured six-figure sums into Proposition 1, the successful measure to add abortion rights to the California constitution, and a committee backing the unsuccessful mayoral campaign of Kevin de León, the former state senator and now scandal-laden Los Angeles city council member.

With $3.1 million in a lieutenant governor 2026 account, De León sits on the largest post-incumbency nest egg of any former state legislator.

He has doled out nearly $100,000 of that money over the last two years, mostly supporting political allies and causes. Top beneficiaries include an unsuccessful 2020 ballot measure to restore affirmative action in California, this year’s successful re-election campaign of Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.

De León’s most recent publicly reported contribution was a $25,000 payment filed on Election Day to the Santa Clara County Board of Education campaign of Magdalena Carrasco, his former romantic partner and the mother of his daughter. Carrasco lost her race.

De León initially responded to an interview request by text message, expressing incredulity about the amount of money reported in his account: “That’s all I have?” he said. “I must have some money missing.” He later said he was being facetious, though neither he nor his spokesperson replied to follow-up requests for an interview.

Electoral expenses are another legal way to distribute old campaign dollars.

Former Assemblymember Ian Calderon, who stepped down in 2020 to focus on his family, maintains a lieutenant governor 2026 committee from which he makes monthly $1,500 payments to a campaign consultant: his former chief of staff.

But the line that separates legitimate political purpose and personal expenditure can be blurry, especially for former politicians who have yet to show that they are actually running for the office listed on their campaign account. 

“The harder part is when they go on a trip to Hawaii and attend an event,” Stern said. “If they’re not in office anymore, it’s kind of hard to justify.”

Not that some former lawmakers haven’t tried. 

Shortly after Election Day this year, an account set up to fund a 2026 lieutenant governor campaign for former Assemblymember Autumn Burke reported spending $10,000 on a five-day trip to attend the Independent Voter Project conference in Maui with a guest. Burke left office last February to join a lobbying firm.

Neither Calderon nor Burke replied to emails and calls requesting comment.

Giving up on future campaigns

Politicians with no further plans to run for office — at least, not any time soon — can still avoid the surplus designation and retain more control over their leftover campaign funds by transferring them to a general purpose committee. Direct contributions to candidates are permitted from these accounts.

After finishing his second eight-year stint as governor in early 2019, Brown moved more than $14.7 million from his 2014 re-election campaign to the newly formed Committee for California. It has since spent $855,000 to defeat a 2020 initiative that would have rolled back a parole expansion pushed by the governor; donated $250,000 to the Oakland Military Institute, a charter school founded by Brown when he was the city’s mayor; and directed $141,000 into the most recent Oakland school board election.

“The primary focus is advancing the issues central to Gov. Brown’s gubernatorial terms, including but not limited to climate action, criminal justice reform and public safety, and education,” spokesperson Evan Westrup said in an email.

Westrup’s consulting firm, Sempervirent Strategies, is paid $10,000 per month by the Committee For California, its largest expenditure during the most recent two-year election cycle.

Lorena Gonzalez, who resigned from the Assembly in January to become the head of the California Labor Federation, used $1.1 million remaining in accounts for Assembly and secretary of state campaigns to form a new committee in May: The Future of Workers Action Fund.

Spokesperson Evan McLaughlin, in a text message, declined to provide further information on the goal of the account “beyond the obvious motivation reflected in the committee’s name and the reputation of its sponsor.”

A final, if rarely used option, for campaigns: Give back the unused cash to donors.

Across the accounts scrutinized by CalMatters, only a few reported significant refunds to contributors once a race was over, including former treasurer John Chiang, who returned more than $100,000 to supporters of his failed 2018 bid for governor — in December 2021, three and a half years after he lost. A representative for Chiang did not respond to emailed questions.

Former Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, with his eye on higher office, had amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lieutenant governor 2026 account by December 2021, when he launched a campaign for Congress. Over the next four months, he returned more than $170,000 in contributions to his supporters, alongside payments to his political consultants and donations to other candidates.

A spokesperson for Garcia, who will be sworn into Congress next month, did not respond to multiple interview requests. By November, after another $350 payment to the committee treasurer, his lieutenant governor account had just $73.76 left.

Click here for the full article in CalMatters

CA GOP Candidate Josh Hoover Defeats Assemblyman Ken Cooley in Assembly 7th District Election

Cooley concedes after slow 3 week vote counting

Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova) conceded the Assembly District 7 election to Republican candidate Josh Hoover on Tuesday, ending one of the closest Assembly elections three weeks after election day.

Cooley, who previously was the Mayor and a City Councilman of Rancho Cordova  in the 2000’s and early 2010’s, was first elected to the East Sacramento County seat in 2012, replacing outgoing Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada. The Assemblyman won his next elections by at least 54% of the vote. However, redistricting in the last few years, as well as GOP efforts at signing up people to vote, made 2022 his first real Assembly election challenge.

Meanwhile, the GOP backed Hoover, the Chief of Staff to outgoing Assemblyman/incoming Congressman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) and a school board member of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, bringing both Assembly and elected experience. The election proved to be tight, with neither candidate managing to pull far out ahead in any pulls throughout the summer and fall. Early results on election day showed Cooley out ahead by only about 300 votes with 25% of the vote in. As more votes were counted, Hoover slowly took the lead, with mail-in votes, which usually favors Democratic candidates, going more towards Hoovers favor.

By November 18th, a large Democratic vote influx swung the race toward Cooley by over 900 votes. But the rollercoaster of the count continued, and by last week Hoover was up again. On Tuesday, the results stood at 50.5%, or 82,226 votes, for Hoover and 49.5%, or 80,749, for Cooley. With 92% of the votes now counted, the lead was seen as insurmountable for the Cooley campaign, who conceded late on Tuesday, officially flipping what was a Democratic seat.

“I received a call from Assemblyman Ken Cooley today,” said Hoover in a press release. “He was gracious in defeat and congratulated me on my victory. Thank you to the voters for entrusting me to serve the people of the 7th Assembly District and represent our community in the Legislature. I am truly honored.”

Many political experts noted that the win, while not being part of an overall red wave, showed that California is still competitive for Republicans, and may indicate a growing conservative voting base within the state in the coming years.

“Hoover’s win showed that there is still a strong GOP force in California, or at least one strong enough to keep flipping seats,” explained Michelle Wallace, a Washington political analyst of state and federal elections in Western states, to the Globe on Friday. “In terms of the House, California looks like it is going to gain GOP held seats for the first time in forever, Governor Newsom became the first Democratic candidate for Governor to get under 60% since 2006, LA almost elected a non-liberal Democrat as Mayor, and, while more of a mixed-bag, we are still seeing surprises like this pop up in Assembly and state Senate races. The Democrats just lost their Rules Committee Chairman in the Assembly.

“I think we need 2024 to make sure, as the Presidential election and the evening out of the chaos of redistricting can smooth it all out, but it looks like California might be in a gentle turnaround on conservative candidates and policies. There’s been a lot of efforts to turn it around, and with crime worries and growing wildfire, housing and homeless crises affecting everyone, the problems are much more visible and Democrats are being asked now why they didn’t prevent this. Hoover’s win was definitely part of this first tremor, taking an area long held by a Democratic candidate. Democrats now have to go on the offense in a lot more places than usual, and in California, they just aren’t used to that.”

Before Cooley’s concession on Tuesday, the Assembly 7th District race had been the closest in the state.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Battle for Congress? Not here. Bay Area Democrats on Average Serve Even Longer Than Supreme Court Justices

The Bay Area has changed radically in the last few decades — new companies, new residents, new energy. But the people we send to Congress? They’ve stayed — remarkably — the same.

As Democrats and Republicans mount a pitched battle across the nation for control of the House and Senate, a Bay Area News Group analysis shows why our political inertia is all but certain to survive election day: Our region is by far the least competitive major metro area in the country for congressional races.

No Bay Area House race outcome is likely to cross the lips of cable news pundits on Tuesday night. Amid nail-biting across the nation, our cluster of the political map will fill in with the deepest blue — once again.

The current slate of 12 Bay Area House members — all Democrats — won their 2020 races by an average of 47 points. In the runner up region of Boston, victors in House races had an average 40-point margin.

And when it comes to job security, our members also come out on top, serving an average of 9 terms, or about 18 years, in office. Lifetime appointment? Well, no. But it’s even two years longer than the average time on the bench for every justice who ever served on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It is extraordinary,” said Dan Schnur, a UC Berkeley politics professor. “If California is a blue state, then the Bay Area is down right indigo.”

Five of the Bay Area’s 12 representatives have each spent more than two decades on Capitol Hill. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, long villainized by Republicans as an enduring symbol of Democratic control, is the longest-serving member of the Bay Area delegation: She won re-election in 2020 by 55 points and is running for her 19th term. Barbara Lee, the Bay Area’s maverick progressive, captured 92.6% of the vote in 2020 and routinely beats her challengers by about 80 points. The Oakland Democrat is running for her 14th term on Tuesday.

No other major metropolitan area in the country comes close to the Bay Area’s longevity. Six terms, or about 12 years in office, is the average for House members in Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Seattle and Southern California’s Inland Empire, the news organization’s analysis found.

But it’s not just our House members who have record-long stays in DC. On Friday, Dianne Feinstein became the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history after crossing the 30-year milestone. At 89, Feinstein has stayed in office so long that even the Bay Area is now wondering whether it’s a good thing, with calls for her to retire over concerns her mental faculties have deteriorated.

Congressman Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, who shocked local Democrats by ousting eight-term Bay Area incumbent Mike Honda back in 2016, experienced full force what it’s like to fight against the Bay Area political establishment.

“Every endorsement was against me, from now-President Biden, to Speaker Pelosi, to every member of Congress,” said Khanna, who is facing a perennial Republican candidate — computer engineer Ritesh Tandon — whom he beat by 43 points in 2020.  “A lot of people were saying don’t run, it was disrespectful to run…. there was a sense that this was somehow not being a team player.”

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, stayed out of it at the time. But she pointed out that Khanna would now rely on the very same political establishment that attacked him in 2016 to defend him from a future challenger.

“Frankly, he would do the same thing [as Honda] and ask the party to defend him,” said Eshoo, who with 15 terms under her belt is the second-longest serving Bay Area representative. “When you are challenging an incumbent, you have to expect that, otherwise you are a political novice.”

While the challenge to find viable challengers exists in many parts of the country, the Bay Area has a particular issue: the Republican party poses virtually no threat to Democratic incumbents. Only 14% of voters are registered Republicans in our seven counties. In fact, there is no Republican challenger in three of the 12 Bay Area races this year. Republicans have not held a congressional seat in the Bay Area since Tom Campbell left the House in 2000 to launch an unsuccessful Senate challenge against Feinstein.

Campbell, a law and economics professor at Chapman University in Orange County, says that Republicans began to lose control in the region after the national party pivoted in the 1990s to emphasize conservative positions on social issues, such as abortion, gay rights and immigration, which were anathema to the region’s socially liberal identity.

“Many times, I would begin a [debate] answer by saying ‘Well, that’s the national party, not me,’” he said.

What’s just as rare in the Bay Area as an upstart like Khanna upsetting a same-party incumbent like Honda, is when incumbents say they are ready to retire. This year, incredibly, there are two: San Mateo Rep. Jackie Speier and Stockton Rep. Jerry McNerney are both retiring after eight terms. They are the first vacancies in the Bay Area delegation in six years, when Sam Farr gave up his Central Coast seat after more than 20 years, making way for Jimmy Panetta whose father Leon Panetta held the seat for 18 years before Farr.

So, here, longevity begets even longer tenures.

“All the things that were supposed to cure all this, we did them,” said veteran Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, referring to how the state tasked a panel of citizens, not politicians, with the job of drawing congressional districts and created the state’s open primary system that sends the top two vote-getters regardless of party to the general election.

And yet, the trend persists.

In many parts of the country, politicians complain of having to perpetually run for office. While that can force them to spend more time in their districts, tending to the needs of constituents, in today’s political climate it also can drive candidates to feel beholden to party bosses, especially as the GOP fractures.

So does it matter if our incumbent representatives can sit comfortably in office, sailing to easy 50-point wins year after year without even needing to campaign?

Khanna says it matters a lot — and it needs to change. Young challengers often have a better grounding in issues of particular interest to young voters, he argues, ranging from student loan forgiveness to tech reform to tackling climate change.

“Democracy depends on renewal,” said Khanna, who was co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

Eshoo sees it differently. She says that constituents benefit from having long-serving members, who have the experience, expertise, and power to get things done in Congress.

“Someone is half my age, so they’re twice as capable?” she asked rhetorically. “In the Congress, seniority is empowering. The manifestations of that power, together with the experience, really cannot be diminished.”

That experience in crisis was on display in the January 6 hearings with behind-the-scenes footage of Pelosi front and center calling the governor of Virginia to send in the National Guard to quash the rioters overtaking the Capitol. And Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a San Jose Democrat first elected in 1994, has played a key role in some of the U.S. government’s most critical moments of the last half century, from her work as a law student helping the House Judiciary Committee draft impeachment charges of President Richard Nixon to her service as a manager in President Trump’s first impeachment trial and as a member of the House’s Jan. 6 committee.

How exactly the Bay Area has become so immune from competition is a matter of debate.

UC Merced political science professor Jessica Trounstine, whose work focuses on the impact of incumbency in large American cities, said that the lack of competitiveness in the Bay Area is explainable in part by the unparalleled exodus of lower-income people from the region.

Though gentrification has impacted major metros throughout the country, none have been as heavily impacted as the Bay Area.

That means that incumbent House members have an easier time crafting popular economic policies, since they don’t have to appeal to voters across a wide range of incomes, and thus have an easier time winning re-election.

“It’s not just abortion,” she said. “Anytime a politician can create even a small coalition, it amplifies their presence.”

Campbell says that another reason that California House members generally fail to leave office is that there is no room for advancement. California has 52 House members, but, like other states, just 2 senators. That imbalance leaves House members with few options but to seek re-election until retirement or launch long-shot presidential runs, as Dublin Rep. Eric Swalwell attempted in 2020. This year, Khanna has sparked rumors he’s testing the presidential waters by employing consultants in early primary states.

Click here to read the full article in the Mercury News

The Attorney General’s Taxpayer-Funded Political Advertising

We hate to pick on Attorney General Rob Bonta two weeks in a row, but he’s really given us no choice. Last week we chronicled his hypocrisy on data privacy by posturing as a champion on that issue while negligently allowing his Department of Justice to release sensitive information on Californians who hold carry concealed weapons permits.

What spurred today’s critique was an article in the Sacramento Bee with the headline, “Why is California’s Attorney General spending taxpayer money to send you emails?” First, a hat tip to the Sacramento Bee – typically no friend of conservatives – and its reporter Ryan Sabalow.

The article reports that two months before the June primary election, millions of California voters received an email from Bonta’s Department of Justice with the subject line, “I want to hear from you.” The message was from an official email account and said, “As Attorney General, protecting California and its people is my highest priority” and “your opinion truly matters to me.”

Those receiving the email might have wondered what it was all about. After all, it is unusual to receive an unsolicited email from a state agency unless you’ve opted in to remain informed on a particular topic.

But it’s really no mystery at all. Prior to the primary election, Bonta was serving as the appointed, but unelected, Attorney General. No doubt that his name ID wasn’t very high, and he was willing to do anything possible to elevate his profile. That’s one reason he directed his staff – shortly after his appointment – to include his smiling visage on these email solicitations to as many as 7 million voters.

The Bee article, citing several sources, accurately notes that what Bonta did was technically legal, even if ethically questionable. Indeed, the question of the extent to which elected officials or government agencies expend taxpayer dollars for political advocacy or “self-promotion” is one that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association gets a lot. In fact, our Public Integrity Project was formed precisely to monitor and to litigate when necessary illegal expenditures of public funds for illegal activity.

Fortunately, HJTA has had a string of successes in the courtroom including an action against the County of Los Angeles for producing a slick television ad advocating the passage of a sales tax to address homelessness. That action resulted in a $1.3 million fine against the county. Other successful legal actions include a suit against California’s then-Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, for spending an unauthorized $35 million contract with a politically connected public relations firm that referred to itself as “Team Biden” on its own website, ostensibly for nonpartisan “voter outreach” and public education.

The bad news is that there is a very high bar to prove illegality when it comes to public expenditures for non-election-related public relations campaigns. Rarely will an elected official or government entity be so foolish to use taxpayer funds for ads that say “Vote for Me” or “Vote for Measure X.”

But just because “outreach” communications, such as those emails sent by Bonta, may be technically legal, that doesn’t mean that they are ethically defensible. The attorney general is responsible for enforcing the law against other Californians. It looks pretty bad for him to skirt the law himself.

Click here to read the full article at the OC Register

Trump’s Political Vulnerabilities Mount

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — Stunning new revelations about former President Trump’s fight to overturn the 2020 election have exposed growing political vulnerabilities just as he eyes another presidential bid.

A former White House aide last week described Trump as an unhinged leader with no regard for the safety of elected officials in either party as he clung to power on Jan. 6, 2021. The testimony from the congressional panel investigating the Capitol attack provided a road map for prosecutors to potentially charge Trump with a crime, some legal experts say.

Republican voters — and Trump’s would-be rivals in the 2024 presidential race — took notice.

Here in Iowa, the state expected to host the first presidential nominating contest in roughly 18 months, several voters signaled Thursday that they were open to another presidential candidate even if Trump were to run again. Nationally, some conservative media outlets issued scathing rebukes of the former president, and aides for multiple GOP presidential prospects indicated, publicly and privately, that they felt increasingly emboldened to challenge Trump in 2024 after the explosive new testimony.

Nikki Haley, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, drew roughly 350 conservative activists to a congressional fundraising barbecue on Thursday in Sioux County, where Trump won 82% of the vote in 2020.

There was ample evidence of Trump fatigue. Interviews with a dozen attendees revealed strong interest in a 2024 alternative, even if Trump is on the ballot.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find people in this area who support the idea that people aren’t looking for someone else,” said Dave Van Wyk, a transportation company owner. “To presume that conservative America is 100% behind Donald Trump is simply not the case.”

Former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson on Tuesday offered previously unknown details about the extent of Trump’s rage in his final weeks of office, his awareness that some supporters had brought weapons to the city on Jan. 6 and his ambivalence as rioters later laid siege to the Capitol.

Upset at the size of the crowd at his “Stop the Steal” rally — many supporters avoided entering because they were armed and didn’t want to go through metal detectors — Trump said words to the effect of, “I don’t care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,” according to Hutchinson. She recalled hearing about a separate incident after the rally in which Trump tried to grab at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle to go to the Capitol to join his supporters.

That detail has caused some pushback. The agent who was driving the vehicle and another official were reportedly prepared to testify under oath that Trump never lunged for the wheel.

But the renewed concern was evident.

The conservative Washington Examiner’s editorial board said Hutchinson’s testimony “ought to ring the death knell” for Trump’s political career. “Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.”

The often Trump-friendly New York Post blasted the headline “Tyrant Trump.” And the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Just when it seems as if Donald Trump’s behavior after his 2020 loss couldn’t possibly look worse, a new piece of wild testimony arrives.”

To be sure, conservatives have shared serious concerns about Trump repeatedly in recent years. And in every case, the former president has emerged largely unscathed, sometimes stronger. He has been caught on video bragging about sexual assault; he instigated a violent attack on the Capitol; and he has been impeached twice.

Trump is sitting on campaign funds that exceed $101 million and remains deeply popular with many Republican voters. Lest there be any question, Republican candidates in states including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia have been battling one another this midterm season for his support.

“The American people remain hungry for his leadership,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich said, citing Trump’s strong endorsement record and fundraising success. “And as another witch hunt is blowing up in the faces of Democrats, President Trump is in a stronger position now than at any time before.”

But even before last week’s revelations, a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 48% of U.S. adults say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Views on Trump’s criminal liability break down predictably along party lines, with 86% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans saying Trump should be charged. Still, the fact that nearly half the country believes he should be prosecuted is a remarkable position for the former president, pointing to the difficulties he could face if he makes another run at the White House.

Trump reported raising nearly $9 million in March and April combined. Figures for May and June were not yet available, but aides to the former president say his fundraising has remained strong.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, eyeing a presidential bid in 2024, says he was hearing concerns about Trump from donors and voters alike before last week’s testimony, which adds to the “cumulative weight” of the former president’s political shortcomings.

“People are concerned that we could lose the election in ’24 and want to make sure that we don’t nominate someone who would be seriously flawed,” Christie said.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is also considering a 2024 run, said he considers Trump beatable in a GOP primary even if Republican voters aren’t paying close attention to the congressional hearings, as he suspects.

“His approval among Republican primary voters has already been somewhat diminished,” Hogan said. “Trump was the least popular president in American history until Joe Biden.”

Aides for other Republican presidential prospects said privately that Trump may still be the overwhelming favorite to win the next GOP presidential nomination, but they believe his standing with Republican voters has been in steady decline. There was a broad sense — or at least a hope — that Hutchinson’s testimony would accelerate that decline among voters and donors in a way that would open opportunities for others.

Marc Short, a senior advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, another likely 2024 presidential contender, was blunt when asked about Trump’s political strength.

“Republican activists believed Donald Trump was the only candidate who could beat Hillary,” Short said. “Now the dynamic is reversed. He is the only one who has lost to Joe Biden.”

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who serves on the Jan. 6 commission and has not ruled out a 2024 presidential bid, cast Trump as a direct threat to American democracy in a Wednesday night speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

“Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution. We must choose,” she said.

Haley, who has said she would not seek the 2024 GOP nomination if Trump ran, declined to say Thursday whether the testimony has given her reason to rethink that plan.

Instead, she sounded an upbeat note.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Money Wars: Special Interests Spend Big In California Primary

If you haven’t noticed, your mail carrier certainly has: Election season has arrived in California and with it, the regular flood of political ads from unions, corporations and other special interest groups hoping to influence your vote.

Though contributions made directly to political candidates are capped by state law, no such limits apply to “independent expenditure” committees — so long as those outside influences are, in fact, independent and don’t coordinate with the campaigns they’re trying to help. 

With early voting already underway and just two weeks to go before the June 7 primary, millions of dollars of help is now inundating California, showing up in races up and down the ballot. Perhaps you’ve driven past a curious bobble-headed billboard, had your mailbox stuffed with mailers sponsored by innocuous-sounding neighborhood groups or been puzzled by campaign ads that seem to be promoting the wrong candidate

That’s all the handwork of what California election watchers refer to simply as “I.E.”

Though independent political spending is still dwarfed in California by old-fashioned direct contributions to candidates, it can play an outsized role in competitive elections, said Ann Ravel, who has served as the top campaign finance watchdog for both the state of California and the federal government. As an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for state Senate in one of 2020’s most fiercely competitive legislative races, she knows from first-hand experience. 

“When you see it in person, it’s a lot different than when you see it as a regulator,” said Ravel, whose South Bay race against fellow Democrat Dave Cortese became a $6.2 million proxy battle between organized labor groups, housing interests and tech companies including Uber and Lyft. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, now I have to go to all these meetings with all these people and suck up to them?’” 

Unlike relatively small individual contributions, six-figure spending by a single interest group in a close race can be difficult for a candidate to ignore, she said. “You have to be able to compete…I think that’s the problem.”

Another common feature of independent expenditure committees, said Claremont McKenna College political science professor Jack Pitney, is that they most often play the role of bad cop, attacking candidates they want to knock off. 

“It provides a certain degree of cover to the candidate who benefits,” he said. “They can’t be accused of going negative.”

Even for seasoned politicos and election reporters, the rivers of cash can be complicated to track — and sometimes even convoluted to make sense of. For the fascinated, outraged or perplexed voter, consider this your user’s guide. 

Shades of blue

Accounting and financial oversight doesn’t always inflame political passions, but the race to become California’s next controller is shaping up to be among the most competitive statewide races. With five well-financed candidates — four of them Democrats — and no clear front-runner, it’s a remarkably open race. Just in terms of money raised by the campaigns, themselves, it’s the highest-dollar statewide race. 

The conventional wisdom is that Lanhee Chen, the lone Republican, will snag one of the two spots for the November ballot. That leaves the four Democrats fighting for the second spot.  

Enter JobsPAC, an IE committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce. 

“The race for a spot in the general election is a jump ball between the four major Democratic candidates — each start with limited name ID and no statewide bully pulpit for communications,” reads a strategic memo produced by the committee earlier this month. 

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters