Jun.08

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Becerra Advances to the General Election

Vote counting in California is ongoing because California allows ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted if they arrive within 7 days. In other words, voters who vote on time are not disenfranchised just because the USPS doesn't function very well. Despite ballots still coming in and still being counted, the AP has now said that Xavier Becerra (D) will advance to the general election. With 71% of the vote counted, here are the vote totals so far for the top eight candidates:

The AP can make this claim because its reporters have a good idea of how the mail-in ballots are breaking and where the remaining uncounted ones are from.

While Steve Hilton is ahead of Tom Steyer at the moment, there are enough votes outstanding—and most of them are from Democratic areas—that Steyer has a chance to make it to second place and California can have an all-Democratic general election. Currently, Hilton is ahead of Steyer by 321,415 votes with an estimated 2½ million (heavily Democratic) votes yet to be counted. It is entirely possible that Steyer could still come in second.

We are rooting for that outcome precisely because it is very unfair to the 40% of Californians who are Republicans. They are entitled to a horse in that race. The problem is the stupid top-two system. Maybe if no Republican makes it to November, Californians will see that and either go back to partisan primaries or at least Alaska's top-four system with a ranked choice general election. In Alaska, there is virtually certain to be at least one Democrat and at least one Republican on the November ballot.

If Hilton comes in second, then Becerra is at least 95% certain to be the next governor of California. If Steyer comes in second, it could go either way but will be 100% certain to be a Democrat. We don't know if Becerra believes in prayer, but if he does, we suspect he is praying real hard for Hilton now. Talk about a crazy system.

This is the most expensive gubernatorial race in history, with over $315 million spent on it. And we haven't even gotten to the general election yet. Also pretty nuts.

A similar problem (possibly no Republican on the November ballot) is brewing in Los Angeles. Here are the results so far for the top three positions. There are 15 candidates on the ballot, but #4 has only 25,104 votes. Nominally, the election is nonpartisan, but nobody believes that:

The AP has said that Bass will make it to the November ballot, so all that remains to be decided is which opponent she will face. In the first group of results announced, last Tuesday night, Pratt was ahead of Raman by 7.5 points, 29.1% to 21.6%. In every tranche of votes released thereafter, Raman gained ground, and yesterday afternoon, she pulled ahead.

It is estimated that there are 146,000 votes remaining to be counted in Los Angeles. Bass has held almost perfectly steady at around 34.7% of the vote. It's fair to guess that something like 36% of the remaining votes are for her, or for second-tier candidates. That means there are probably something like 93,000 votes for either Raman or Pratt still out there. To regain second place, Pratt would need to take roughly 52% of those outstanding votes. That is certainly doable, but it also runs entirely contrary to what's happened in the last 5 days, when Raman has claimed about two-thirds of the votes that have been announced.

Eventually, we'll know what happened, but it's going to be a few more days. In 2024, it took 10 days before even 95% of the votes were counted. California prefers accurate to fast. (V)