Voter ID laws passed in Seven states – but failed in California

November 6, 2026 By James V. Lacy 1 Comment

The failure of the campaign to pass Proposition 39 in light of widespread national successes deserves some focus

Initiative measures to require photo identification or proof of citizenship appeared on the ballots of at least 8 states in this week’s election. In 7 of those states the measures passed – Nevada, North Carolina, Arkansas, Ohio Alaska, Kansas, and Wyoming.

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And in four of those states incumbent Republican Senators lost, but the voters still managed to pass Voter ID laws.

Yet Voter ID was defeated in California, profoundly so.

It is a convenient excuse for those being called to account on Prop. 39 to blame President Trump’s unfavorability in California for the loss, or even deflect blame to Republican voters themselves for “not turning out”. These are parts of the overall reason for the loss, but ones that could have been worked around by campaign strategists (Prop. 39 advertising eventually included people saying things like “I hate Trump” and “I didn’t vote for Trump”), given the widespread support FOR Proposition 39 going back to its inception.

A UC Berkeley poll had Prop. 39 winning by 17 points last April. A poll in mid-Sept. had it losing by 13 points.    That swing against Prop. 39 was 30 points in 5 months.  In the current election results, Prop. 39 is losing even by more, by 59% No and 41% Yes. That means the swing AGAINST Prop. 39 during the campaign was 36 points! Quite remarkable, and evidencing a spectacular failure of the campaign developed and managed by Yes on 39 committees.

The failure of the Prop. 39 campaign in light of the wonderful victory of the defeat of the Proposition 40 billionaire’s tax is especially damning.

There is room for many opinions on why Prop. 39 resulted in a train wreck. But at the risk of repeating myself, blaming Trump and Republican turnout are cheap diversions from its sponsors to accepting responsibility for an inept use of campaign resources. Trump is also unpopular in the other 7 states that passed voter ID laws last Tuesday, and that did not stop them from winning.

From my perspective, the Prop. 39 campaign failed from the very beginning to separate itself from Trump and his failed Save America Act. When they were winning by 17 points in April, it would have been obvious that opponents would campaign against it as “Trump, Trump, Trump!” From the beginning, the Prop. 39 campaign failed to effectively separate itself from Trump. That was a mistake, probably made because the politicians behind the measure were fearful of angering the President. In this they were wrong. If Trump got angry about it, it would have helped Prop. 39 to win, especially with Democrat voters needed for victory. But those politicians also cared about their own standing with the White House, so they held their punches and made them too late. This was selfish of them.

Click here to read the full article at James V. Lacy’s Substack

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Xavier Becerra makes history as California’s first elected Latino governor

November 5, 2026 By Nicole Nixon 5 Comments

Veteran Democrat of anti-Trump state easily defeats Republican Steve Hilton.

  • Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general and Biden Cabinet secretary, defeated Republican Steve Hilton to become the state’s first directly elected Latino governor.
  • His victory puts him at the center of California’s clashes with the Trump administration and its entrenched housing, healthcare and cost-of-living problems.

Xavier Becerra, who grew up in a 685-square-foot house with his parents and three sisters in working-class Sacramento before ascending to Stanford University, Congress and the White House Cabinet, will become California’s first directly elected Latino governor.

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The historic victory thrusts the unassuming Democrat into the forefront of California’s scathing fight with the Trump administration over immigration enforcement, healthcare funding, environmental protections and social issues.

“I didn’t run to make history,” Becerra told supporters at his election night party in West Sacramento. “I ran to make a difference for anyone and everyone who calls California home — whether you voted for me or not.”

He paid tribute to his parents and late labor icon Dolores Huerta before stating his “straightforward” mission: “Deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.”

The Associated Press declared Becerra the winner at 8 p.m. Tuesday. He beat Republican Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator and former British political strategist backed by President Trump. Hilton conceded defeat a little before 9:15 p.m.

“We have a new governor of California,” he told about 800 supporters at his election night party in Garden Grove. “I know it’s not the one you wished for but I do wish Xavier Becerra well.”

Though the mood at his event was mostly one of defeat, Hilton stirred the crowd with a promise to help Republicans break the Democratic supermajority in the state Legislature in 2028.

“We love California and we’re going to fight for California,” he said. “The fight goes on. We have a plan.”

Becerra, 68, will take the helm with a slate of potential economic opportunity: luring back Hollywood production, drawing international visitors to the 2028 Olympic Games and responsibly growing the artificial intelligence industry.

But there are also a long list of challenges: grappling with worst-in-the-nation unemployment, solving the housing crisis, and preparing for and responding to seemingly endless natural disasters.

Becerra spent more than 25 years in Congress before he was appointed California attorney general and, later, secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration. His long resume, as he often argued during the campaign, positions him to enter the governor’s office without “training wheels.”

“It’s groundbreaking,” Anna Sampaio, a professor of ethnic studies and political science at Santa Clara University, said of Becerra’s win. “It’s particularly important in this moment when Latinos are under siege, when they’re targeted by the federal government, and you have a Latino not only being elected, but a Latino who is consistently delivering this message that he is going to stand in opposition to a Trump agenda.”

Despite his long-standing presence in California politics, the modest Becerra initially struggled to energize support for his gubernatorial campaign. When explosive sexual assault allegations pushed a front-running Democrat out of the race, Becerra, a staid and experienced candidate with a clean reputation, leaped to the top of the crowded field and finished first in the top-two June primary.

The state has had one Latino governor, Romualdo Pacheco, who assumed office in 1875 when Gov. Newton Booth stepped down after winning a U.S. Senate seat.

Becoming the first Latino directly elected to California’s highest office is a distinction Becerra was reluctant to promote on the campaign trail, preferring instead to focus on his humble roots. His father, born in Sacramento and raised in Mexico, labored on farms and construction sites; his Mexico-born mother was a clerical worker.

The largest ethnic group in California, Latinos make up more than 40% of the state’s population and roughly a third of its voters.

Though noteworthy, polling suggests Latino voters care more about results than his history-making win.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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What we’re watching today: 14 props, Congress in the balance

November 4, 2026 By Lynn La 5 Comments

Election Day is here and it’s an exciting one. Tonight we’ll start to learn which party controls Congress in the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term, whether Californians want to tax billionaires and if Democrats will continue a run that dates to 2010 of winning every statewide office.

We have reporters all over the state and we’ll be posting updates all day and night. Here are a few stories we’re watching:

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  • How is voting going? As of Monday, more than a quarter of all ballots, or 26.44%, have been returned, according to the voter data firm Political Data Inc. That’s 3 percentage points higher than the November 2022 midterm election, when 23.34% of ballots were returned a day before Election Day.
  • Will contested ballots count? The Trump administration for weeks has been trying to set aside about 20,000 California ballots, alleging that some of them went to noncitizens. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied the administration’s request to sequester the ballots. That’s a win for California officials who found flaws in the administration’s data and argued the Constitution grants to states the power to oversee elections.
  • What are Newsom’s poll watchers up to? Gov. Gavin Newsom will deploy 134 election attorneys to five congressional districts to preempt what the Democrat describes as potential election interference by federal monitors. The attorneys will be in the Sacramento area, the Central Valley, Orange County and San Diego and will stay “as long as necessary,” reported The Sacramento Bee. “We’re not screwing around, nor is (Trump),” said Newsom last week on a late-night show when he announced the plan.
  • What’s going on in the East Coast and Midwest?: House Republicans’ narrow lead could flip this election, and it could happen before Californians are done voting. Eighteen races in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and other states are considered tossups, and Democrats would need to secure 218 seats to eke out a slim majority. Flipping the Senate would be a taller order, and the party would need to nab four more seats for a majority.
  • Will there be a ‘red mirage?’: For close races in almost every major election, early returns show Republicans winning or faring better than expected. Then as more votes are tabulated, Democrats pull ahead. It happens in California too, reports CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow, like during the June Los Angeles mayoral race. But that so-called red mirage wasn’t because California Democrats were rigging the election, but rather Republicans were turning in their ballots earlier and the state, like usual, took a long time to tally votes. This election might be a little different though, as Democrats have been returning their ballots earlier both in California and in other states.

We’ll be posting live updates all day so come to CalMatters for the latest news.

One more thing, if you haven’t voted — or know someone who is still making up their mind — there’s still time to check out our voter guide.

Click here to read the full article at CalMatters

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Hilton’s magic number really is 40.82%

November 3, 2026 By James V. Lacy 1 Comment

Polls suggest he won’t finish as well as last GOP candidate for Governor.

Who will be our beloved California’s next Governor? Given the state’s persistent problems of inability to reduce homelessness, really high taxes including affordability of taxes on gas, wasteful spending on dubious transportation projects, fraud and mismanagement in the unemployment department and Medi-Cal, housing and more, after 20 years of the same party rule, we could really use a change and the facts support change. But polls tell us overwhelmingly that no change is in store for the Governor’s race. Our citizens complain about California, some flee the state, but the ones who stay fail to take action at the ballot box to change things for the better.

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I surely did not vote for Becerra, but he will be our next Governor. The opposition simply could not come together with what it needed to be unified and communicate a compelling message with a compelling candidate and I deeply regret offering this fact. In neighboring Oregon with similar problems to us, the GOP has a chance to win the Governorship despite antagonism to Trump.

Click here to read the full article at James V. Lacy’s Substack

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L.A. to decide whether to stay the course with Mayor Bass or vote for change with Raman

November 2, 2026 By David Zahniser 4 Comments
  • The battle between Bass and Raman ends Tuesday, concluding a bitter nine-month contest between two candidates who were once political allies.
  • Analysts say Bass represents the establishment, while Raman comes from a younger generation of Democrats seeking change.

It started with the February surprise.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a wonkish technocrat aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, upended the race for mayor by launching a last-minute bid to unseat incumbent Karen Bass.

Bass, politically weakened over her handling of the devastating Palisades fire, has been on the defensive ever since. Yet she has remained in the fight, promoting her accomplishments on crime and affordable housing while amplifying the missteps made by Raman during the campaign’s final weeks.

The two candidates are in a dead heat, according to the latest Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll, with a fifth of those surveyed still undecided.

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“The question that the race comes down to, especially for undecided voters, is whether to stick with an unsatisfying status quo, or take the risk with a relatively unknown quantity who could make things better or worse,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley.

The battle between Bass and Raman ends Tuesday, concluding a bitter nine-month contest between two candidates who were once political allies. Bass, 73, backed Raman during a tough reelection bid in 2024. Raman, 45, publicly endorsed Bass in January, only to renege weeks later.

Now, in the campaign’s final days, both have been telling voters in vivid detail about the other’s shortcomings, spreading their messages in hard-hitting ads and at bluntly worded news conferences.

Raman has portrayed Bass as a weak and ineffective leader, pointing to her handling of the Palisades fire, the homelessness crisis and the city’s ongoing struggle to deliver basic services. She highlighted the city’s battered streets and sidewalks, pinning the problem on poor management and bad financial choices.

“From the biggest projects to the most basic services, the hallmark of this mayor’s administration is Angelenos pay more and get less, and you get a lot of mismanagement and lies along the way,” Raman said at a news conference Thursday near the unfinished SkyLink people mover at Los Angeles International Airport, which is years behind schedule and $1.4 billion over budget.

Bass, for her part, has hammered Raman for frequently changing her positions, shifting her views on police hiring, the city’s so-called mansion tax and other issues. Every one of her 14 council colleagues, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, has lined up behind Bass, with some openly saying they don’t trust Raman.

Bass has also accused Raman of freezing out people in her own Hollywood Hills council district who disagree with her.

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times

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Jane Kim and Ben Allen squabble over state-run wildfire insurance

October 31, 2026 By Levi Sumagaysay Leave a Comment

How do you distinguish between the two Democrats running for insurance commissioner? Well, one of them wants state-backed public insurance. We have more on that, as well as details on a move campaigns are using to dodge spending limits this fall.

But we have more than election news in your inbox today. California employers scored a big win in federal court against a new state law that would limit anti-union messaging in workplaces. More on that below.

Insurance commissioner candidates Jane Kim and state Sen. Ben Allen have attacked each other over their main plans to improve California’s property insurance market: A public option and broad wildfire mitigation, respectively.

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Their latest back-and-forth is around what Kim’s plan to create a public wildfire insurer — a proposal that critics say would shift big risks to the state — might cost homeowners.

Kim recently released a policy brief that lays out how such a plan could work. Funding the program would involve having a two-part wildfire premium, collected by private insurers and diverted to the state, which would be based on each home’s wildfire risk, plus a “small, capped share that every home in the state contributes to cover the bad wildfire seasons.”

Her brief cited a proposal included in a California Earthquake Authority report that could serve as a model. It estimated that such a program would need about $25 billion for a very bad wildfire year. The program would buy reinsurance for that risk, which would cost $2 billion to $3 billion a year, or about $150 to $230 a policy. Without reinsurance, a “once-in-a-century fire” would mean a charge of $1,900 to $2,000 per policy over several years, the report said.

On social media and elsewhere, Allen’s campaign is using Kim’s brief to say her plan would cost policyholders “$230 a year added to every homeowner’s policy” and “$2,000 or more in assessments on every policyholder.”

That’s not the case, Kim told reporters this week.

  • Kim: “Either he is being intellectually disingenuous, or he doesn’t know how to read a policy brief … we were referring to a study that if we do not buy reinsurance that it would cost homeowners, on average, $2,000 more.”

CalMatters contacted Allen’s campaign about Kim’s pushback. Allen spokesperson Joe Arellano repeated his campaign’s claim.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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Sean Hannity blamed by Katie Zacharia for firing.

October 29, 2026 By Newsmax 3 Comments

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Get up to speed fast on the California election with our guide for the still undecided

October 28, 2026 By Lynn La 1 Comment

It’s time to lock in on Election Day if you haven’t already mailed in your ballot.

California voters are making some big decisions, including choosing the next leader of the state, who will serve in the U.S. House (and potentially what party controls Congress) and whether California becomes the first state to impose a billionaire tax.

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Plus we have a dizzying 14 propositions on our statewide ballots, including ones on complicated topics like environmental and healthcare spending.

On top of that, President Donald Trump and his administration have been contesting the mechanics of California elections for months. It began with an executive order that was meant to limit mail-in voting, which California uses. That effort failed in court but fueled worries that ballots would not be delivered.

Now, the administration is suing California to force elections officials to set aside up to 20,000 ballots that the feds claim could have been mailed to noncitizens. It also charged 28 immigrants with illegally voting or registering to vote. Democratic congressional leaders and allied groups have sued the administration in return.

Here’s what you need to know to get up to speed and make sure your vote counts.

How to vote

Early voting has already begun in some locations across all counties, and you can look up nearby voting centers here where you can vote in person or drop off your ballot.

You can also mail your ballot, which must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by election offices within seven days after Election Day. Officials are urging voters to mail ballots early in case there’s any post office delays.

After you submit your ballot, you can track its status here. County elections officials must begin reporting results to the secretary of state on Election night, no more than two hours after they begin counting votes. The officials have 30 days to count ballots and finalize their results to the state. The secretary of state then has 38 days to certify the results. More information about California’s vote-counting process can be found here.

California governor’s race

In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two-to-one, Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra is the likeliest to win. Unlike his opponent, Republican Steve Hilton, Becerra has remained mum during the race about specific policies he’d enact as governor.

The son of working-class Mexican immigrants, Becerra has had a long history of public service: He served a dozen terms in Congress, became California’s first Latino attorney general and went on to become the first Latino U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services.

Becerra urges voters to look at his record to see where he stands, like when he sued the first Trump administration to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program or filed a lawsuit with Texas to preserve the Affordable Care Act. He was also an early supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and universal public healthcare.

Hilton, meanwhile, hopes to be the first Republican to hold statewide office in 20 years and is endorsed by Trump. Born in the U.K. to Hungarian immigrants, Hilton doesn’t fall neatly into one singular political ideology. While working in London to refresh the British Conservative Party’s image, he pushed to slash welfare, cut government employment and privatize government services. But he’s also endorsed a higher national living wage in the U.K. and is critical of the right for oftentimes blaming China and immigration for inequality in the U.S.

He’s run a cheeky campaign while touting lofty pledges such as abolishing the California DMV, lowering gas to $3 a gallon and halving electricity bills.

The two only debated each other once, in September, in which Becerra linked Hilton repeatedly to Trump and Hilton accused Becerra of dodging California’s real problems.

For more, see where the candidates stand on climate, healthcare, artificial intelligence regulation, water management and homelessness.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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Justice Department tells Orange County to verify citizenship status of 1,754 people

October 27, 2026 By Kaitlyn Schallhorn 3 Comments

For those whose citizenship cannot be determined, the federal government requests their ballots be ‘segregated’ and not counted.

The U.S. Department of Justice told Orange County election officials on Friday it wants their help to determine the citizenship status of 1,754 people within 48 hours.

And for those whose citizenship cannot be determined, the federal government asked that election officials “segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in the letter obtained by The Orange County Register.

Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Justice Department said may belong to noncitizens.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Data shows illegal voting by people who aren’t U.S. citizens is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.

In Orange County, the letter was hand-delivered to Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen late Friday afternoon, instead of Bob Page, the county’s registrar of voters.

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Page said county counsel would inform the Justice Department that it’s the registrar’s office that maintains voter registration records and administers elections, not the county clerk-recorder.

“County counsel is evaluating the requests in the USDOJ letter,” Page said.

The letter said the federal government had identified 1,754 “likely aliens” registered to vote in Orange County, although county officials had not yet reviewed the accuracy of that list by late Friday evening. It was not immediately clear if any of these people had actually received a ballot or attempted to vote.

There are more than 1.9 million registered voters in Orange County, according to the latest voter registration statistics from the California secretary of state.

Ballots were mailed to all registered voters at the beginning of the month, and voting is well underway, with less than two weeks left until Election Day.

“I write to make unmistakably clear the legal implications of continuing to send vote-by-mail ballots to those people on the list or tabulating ballots cast by them until citizenship can be verified,” Essayli, a former Republican California Assemblymember, said in the letter.

It goes on to say that “anyone who aids, abets, counsels, induces, or procures the commission of a federal offense is equally liable. If persons knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens, they risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.”

“The Department is not asking Orange County to adjudicate immigration status; it is asking it to temporarily set aside ballots from individuals whose eligibility is credibly in question — a standard election-administration practice implemented nationwide,” Essayli said in the letter.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

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Trump administration sues California to block state from counting alleged noncitizen mail-in ballots

October 26, 2026 By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, SOPHIE AUSTIN and SAFIYAH RIDDLE 3 Comments

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The Trump administration sued California election officials Thursday, asking a judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots for next month’s midterm elections from people the federal government has identified as “likely” noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.

The lawsuit comes after the Justice Department said California officials failed to meet a 48-hour deadline to review a password-protected thumb drive that contains a list of 20,000 names. The federal government says those are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots to participate in the Nov. 3 election, although the secretary of state said the administration has provided no evidence to support that claim. The state mails ballots to all registered voters.

The lawsuit follows a letter sent earlier this week by a top Justice Department official who threatened potential legal action if California didn’t comply.

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The federal government didn’t specify where the 20,000 voters were concentrated, but the list was sent directly to Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan on Tuesday, his office confirmed in a statement. His office said the list contained names of voters throughout California, not just Los Angeles, even though Logan is the only county election official named as a defendant in the lawsuit. He doesn’t have jurisdiction over ballots outside Los Angeles County.

In a statement Thursday, Logan said his office can’t withhold ballots or refuse to count them “based solely on unverified allegations.”

Over 23 million people are registered statewide, and there are a handful of competitive congressional races in other California districts that could determine which party has control of the U.S. House for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.

Expert says lawsuit could set stage for false election claims

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a letter to the Justice Department that the federal government hasn’t provided evidence to support its allegation that 20,000 names on the state’s voter rolls are of noncitizens. She referenced an instance in which the federal government initially alleged nearly 16,000 possible noncitizens were listed on Nevada’s voter rolls, but the state determined that all the people flagged were, in fact, U.S. citizens.

She also noted that voting is already underway in the state. Weber, a Democrat, said the Justice Department was “demanding unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide.”

California’s elections are in “full compliance” with federal law, she added.

David Becker, an election law expert who heads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the Justice Department’s lawsuit “fairly frivolous.”

“If they were seeking to work in good faith to clean up the voter list that they believed had issues, they would have done this months ago in a much different fashion,” Becker said. “However, it does raise questions as to whether or not the sole purpose of this is to set the stage for false claims about elections.”

List of alleged illegal voters delivered on a thumb drive

Logan said his office received the thumb drive along with a “hand written note providing a password” to access the list of alleged noncitizens on the voter rolls. He said he did not consider the thumb drive a secure device. The secretary of state’s office said the password was written “on a sticky note.”

Click here to read the full article at AP News

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