Super Tuesday 2024 (but downballot)
California edition
It’s Super Tuesday! And we, as a downballot-focused newsletter, don’t really care. We do care about all the non-presidential stuff, though: while the downballot primary season moves on a different schedule from the presidential nominating contests, Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas, and California hold all their primaries at once on the first Tuesday in March. This half of our preview for today covers California, where candidates of all parties appear on one primary ballot and the top two vote-getters move on to November, except in local and county races, where there is no November election if someone clears 50% in the primary.
(To our email readers: we apologize for the length of this partial preview. You may need to head to the website version to read all of California—if a San Diego City Council District 9 item is not the final item you can see, that means your email provider truncated the email. Click here for the non-California half of our preview, covering races in Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas.)
(Editor’s note on 3/14: as California results are not yet finalized, we will be adding margins once they are finalized, but where winners are clear we’ll add those in today.)
California
US Senate
Barbara Lee vs. Katie Porter vs. Adam Schiff vs. a bunch of people you don’t care about
Result: Schiff 31.7%, Garvey 31.7%, Porter 15.3%, Lee 9.9%, others 11.4% | Schiff and Garvey advance to November
Even if you’ve never read Primary School before, and don’t really follow Democratic politics, we feel confident in saying that you’re aware of this race. $90 million doesn’t get spent on an election without drawing a spotlight. Even that’s an outdated figure. We’d be surprised if it isn’t over $100 million when everything’s tabulated.
In short: Adam Schiff, a moderate former member of the Blue Dog Caucus, achieved superstardom in Democratic politics when he was given chairmanship of the impeachment effort against Trump. Irrespective of how he actually did in that job (he was fine, but a child could have done it—the outcome was preordained), it gave him MSNBC air time befitting an actual MSNBC host, and small donors responded accordingly. Schiff began the primary with a small lead over mostly progressive Rep. Katie Porter and a larger lead over very progressive Rep. Barbara Lee, and for all the theatrics of this campaign, that basic fact has remained unchanged. Schiff, however, built up a massive war chest of over $30 million, and, thanks to his corporate-friendly politics, has been aided by over $20 million in SuperPAC spending, which, collectively, has been used wisely in this contest. Pro-Schiff money has been split between ads promoting the candidate himself and ads promoting Republican Steve Garvey. The intended effect is to create a second-round contest between Schiff and Garvey (chosen more or less at random, as far as we can tell), which Schiff will win by a landslide, because this is California.
It’s a blatantly cynical project, but it’s worked, at least according to polls. Of the five polls of the contest taken since voting began, Garvey is up by an average of 5 points over Porter. It’s a disappointing outcome, especially given that Schiff is only 63, so he’ll probably be in the senate for another 30 years, given that his is, again, California. Would things have gone differently if there had been a last-minute consolidation effort? Possibly, though Schiff has recently begun getting around half the Democratic vote, so Schiff manages to get basically every Republican voter to pick Garvey, and that still probably results in a Schiff-Garvey race, which makes the math hard no matter how you look at it. Lee, who never raised much money in this race, is polling in single digits now, and as trite as it may sound, getting most of the voters planning on voting for one candidate to vote for another is quite difficult. Really, something needed to have been done earlier, but early on in the race, Lee was just barely trailing Porter in the polls. The gap between the two didn’t show up until the end of the campaign, when it was too late to make a clear case for consolidating behind Porter.
Porter, too late in our opinion, recently realized what she needed to do starting in December, and is now running ads to boost Eric Early (another Republican plucked at random), but the campaign hasn’t bumped him up above low single digits. Porter pulling off the upset and making it to the runoff would be a godsend for her, but requires a ton of late movement among Democrats, as well as strong Democratic turnout that just doesn’t appear to be happening.
CA-12 (East Bay)
Tony Daysog vs. Glenn Kaplan vs. Abdur Sikder vs. Lateefah Simon vs. Andre Todd vs. Jennifer Tran vs. Eric Wilson (vs. Republicans Ned Nuerge and Stephen Slauson)
Result: Simon 56.0%, Tran 14.7%, Daysog 11.6%, Slauson 6.3%, Kaplan 4.4%, Wilson 2.6%, Sikder 1.8%, Nuerge 1.6%, Todd 1.0% | Simon and Tran advance to November
Barbara Lee is vacating this district, potentially the most progressive in the country, and we were all set up for a wild primary between various progressives and socialists, but what happened instead was near-immediate consolidation around progressive activist and BART director Lateefah Simon, who already represents a large part of the congressional district on the BART board (the transit agency’s board is elected by district, and Simon’s overlaps substantially with CA-12.) By consolidation, we mean fucking everyone in Calfornia has endorsed her. When Barbara Lee and Gavin Newsom are both supporting the same candidate, that candidate has it made. The points of interest today are how well Simon does, and who limps into the November contest with her. Our expectations are roughly 70%, and Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce Jennifer Tran, respectively. Tran has raised the most money of any Simon competitor ($148,000) and is deeply in tune with the desires of Bay Area moderates—the very first thing on her issues page (entitled “Sensible Solutions”, naturally) is her proposal to have the federal government force cities to hire more cops.
Those other candidates are: Alameda City Councilmember Tony Daysog, whose stature as an officeholder in a major city implies a seriousness as a candidate that’s belied by his pitiful (<$20,000) fundraising and eye-bleeding website; Glenn Kaplan, who says on his actual website that he wants to “Demand Newsome [sic] call in the National Guard to quell the massive crime wave”; San Francisco State University professor Abdur Sikder; military veteran Andre Todd, who is hilariously claiming endorsements from Barbara Lee, Barack Obama, and George Bush because they they all endorsed him “as a navy officer”; and Eric Wilson, who ran for Congress in 2022 and got all of 2%.
CA-16 (South Bay)
Joby Bernstein vs. Peter Dixon vs. Rishi Kumar vs. Sam Liccardo vs. Evan Low vs. Julie Lythcott-Haims vs. Ahmed Mostafa vs. Joe Simitian vs. Greg Tanaka (vs. Republicans Peter Ohtaki and Karl Ryan)
Result: Liccardo 21.2%, Low 16.6%, Simitian 16.6%, Ohtaki 12.8%, Dixon 8.1%, Kumar 6.8%, Ryan 6.3%, Lythcott-Haims 6.2%, Mostafa 3.2%, Tanaka 1.3%, Bernstein 0.9% | Liccardo and Low advance to November
Ugh. This is why we hate Silicon Valley.
Peter Dixon is a military veteran. Additionally, he served in the military, used to be in the military, and was, for a time, in the military. Did anything else happen in his life? No one knows, and he certainly isn't talking about it. This record-breakingly bland candidate wouldn’t be going anywhere if it weren’t for the boatloads of money spent to elect him: $1.4 million of self funding, $1.3 million from With Honor/Jeff Bezos-funded SuperPAC Next Generation Veterans Fund, and another few hundred thousand from actual donors. Politically, Dixon's a moderate, and his plan appears to be that if this part of California elected Eric Swalwell, then Dixon could get elected by just copying him, and he might be right. Mostly it’s been spent on ads explaining to voters that he wants to serve, because he—and we realize we should have mentioned this before now—used to be in the military.
Sam Liccardo is the former mayor of San Jose, a pro-business type who built his career on going to war with the public employee unions. Liccardo has since built up an image as a good government urbanist type, but he shouldn’t be trusted with public employee pensions ever, and Congress obviously handles those. Somehow, he’s marginally better on Israel-Palestine than most candidates in this race.
Evan Low is the assemblymember for Silicon Valley, and, predictably, a Big Tech mouthpiece. It makes some of the other good positions he’s taken harder to accept.
Joe Simitian is the Santa Clara County Supervisor for the area, and the endorsed candidate of outgoing incumbent Anna Eshoo. At 71 years old, he’d be a fresh young face ready to spend several decades in Congress. Simitian is boring, and not in a good way. His brand of cranky suburban homeowner politics sells in this part of the state, but now that he’s being outspent, he shouldn’t be considered the frontrunner just because of Eshoo’s endorsement.
Palo Alto City Councilmember Julie Lythcott-Haims is the only even vaguely progressive candidate in this race. She’s also the only woman, which has earned her the support of EMILY’s List and may be worth something at the polls.
Also in the running are repeat candidates Greg Tanaka and Rishi Kumar, city councilmembers from Palo Alto and Saratoga, respectively. While Tanaka only ran for Congress once before, in 2022, as a crypto candidate, and lost horribly, Kumar was a regular challenger to Anna Eshoo, losing only 58%-42% in 2022. A “fiscal moderate” supportive of the right wing in Indian politics and with a history of shady campaigning practices, Kumar could make the runoff, but he would be absolutely DOA if he did.
CA-18 (San Jose and south)
Zoe Lofgren (i) vs. Luele Kifle vs. Lawrence Milan vs. Charlene Concepción Nijmeh (vs. Republican Peter Hernandez)
Result: Lofgren 51.3%, Hernandez 32.8%, Concepción Nijmeh 11.0%, Milan 2.8%, Kifle 2.1% | Lofgren and Hernandez advance to November
Zoe Lofgren is vulnerable to a primary challenge. Redistricting placed her into a substantially new district that combines Hispanic neighborhoods in San Jose with inland agricultural areas to create a Hispanic majority district. But she didn’t get a competent challenger in 2022, and this year isn’t that much different. Charlene Concepción Nijmeh, Chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, raised a bit of money and outlined a sort of progressive message, but her campaign never took off, and the final nail in that particular coffin was an endorsement-faking scandal that Concepción Nijmeh wasn’t technically responsible for, but still fell on her anyway after she refused to distance herself from the consultant who caused it.
CA-25 (Imperial County and Coachella Valley)
Raul Ruiz (i) vs. Oscar Ortiz (vs. Republicans Miguel Chapa, Ceci Truman, and Ian Weeks & independent Ryan Dean Burkett)
Result: Ruiz 45.4%, Weeks 20.5%, Truman 17.4%, Ortiz 9.9%, Chapa 4.6%, Burkett 1.1% | Ruiz and Weeks advance to November
Raul Ruiz was first elected to Congress in 2012, defeating Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack in a purple district that Republicans had largely given up on by the end of the decade. Then redistricting came around, and Ruiz traded a large chunk of Riverside County—including deep-blue Palm Springs, but also the red exurbs of the Inland Empire—for Imperial County, an overwhelmingly Hispanic rural farming county on the Mexican border. Ruiz’s district went from barely on the edge of competitive to safe even in the worst of circumstances thanks to that swap—while Imperial County’s turnout is quite low, it is very Democratic and large enough to matter despite the low turnout. Ruiz hasn’t really adapted, and Indio City Councilor Oscar Ortiz wants him to. Ortiz has run a campaign on a shoestring budget but collected support from many of his fellow elected officials across the Coachella Valley and in Imperial County. He’s probably going to get eliminated today, but with three Republicans and an independent to split the 40% of the vote that normally goes for Republicans, maybe he’ll pull off the improbable; more realistically, we’ll hope for him to do well enough that Ruiz notices and shifts left.
CA-26 (Ventura County)
Julia Brownley (i) vs. Chris Anstead (vs. Republicans Bruce Boyer and Michael Koslow)
Result: Brownley 51.4%, Koslow 33.8%, Boyer 10.7%, Anstead 4.1% | Brownley and Koslow advance to November
Who’s this guy running against Julia Brownley? Actually, for that matter, who’s Julia Brownley? Apparently, she’s been in Congress since 2013, and in elected office since 1994, but she might just be the most anonymous member of Congress. Who else would it be—John Larson? Mark Alford? Lori Trahan? Steve Deacon? We made one of those up, and you can google to find out which, but it’s not worth the effort. Also not worth the effort is this challenge to Bownley, who is basically the median Democratic House backbencher, by Agoura Hills Councilmember Chris Anstead, who appears to want to be the median Democratic House backbencher. He isn’t bothering to raise much or campaign a lot, so we can only guess he filed to run in case Brownley decided to retire at the last minute, and figured he may as well see the campaign through when she didn’t.
CA-29 (San Fernando Valley)
Angélica Dueñas vs. Luz Maria Rivas (vs. Republican Benito Bernal)
Result: Rivas 49.3%, Bernal 26.3%, Dueñas 24.4% | Rivas and Bernal advance to November
Angélica Dueñas has run for this seat in the last three elections. In 2018, she ran as a Green, and got 6% in the March primary—high for a Green, but far from making the general election. Starting in 2020, she’s run as a Democrat, and—despite having very little money to work with—put up respectable performances against Rep. Tony Cárdenas, who is now retiring. In 2020, she trailed Cárdenas 58.5%-23% in the top-two primary and lost the general election 56.6%-43.5%; in 2022, she managed a nearly identical top-two result and only a slightly worse general election performance, losing her rematch 58.5%-41.5%. Like we said, she had very little money in both of those campaigns—those results were 100% hustle from a candidate who knocked every door and showed up at every Democratic club, aided by a lazy incumbent who phoned it in. On her third try, she’s got much more money than usual, thanks to a late surge in donations, and she’s poured almost every dollar she has (about $60,000 in the first six weeks of the year) into voter-facing expenditures, mostly digital ads and mailers—and she’s still facing an opponent who’s phoning it in, but this time without the benefit of incumbency, thanks to Cárdenas’s late, surprise retirement.
Assemb. Luz Rivas is only sort of fundraising and only sort of campaigning. She’s outraised and outspent Dueñas about 2 to 1 in the home stretch, but her spending isn’t brutally efficient like Dueñas’s; she’s burning a lot on consultants, paid canvassing (which is questionably effective at best), and luxury expenses like catering and travel. When you limit it to expenditures that will actually reach voters—even including the full dollar value of the paid canvassing—Rivas’s spending edge narrows to 1.5:1. She’s an assemblywoman, so she does have built-in name recognition in a portion of the district, and she also has unified establishment support—Dueñas’s supporters are mostly limited to progressive Democratic clubs and leftist City Controller Kenneth Mejia. This district is blue enough that this could all be immaterial, and Rivas and Dueñas both advance to November as Dueñas and Cárdenas did in elections prior. However, with just one Republican (Benito Bernal) on the ballot and anemic, Republican-leaning turnout statewide, the possibility of one of the two Democrats getting boxed out is there—and Rivas is not doing enough for us to be totally sure she’s the Democrat who finishes first, especially considering that unlike Cárdenas and unlike Dueñas, thousands of this district’s voters are new to her. To be clear, the likeliest outcome is Rivas finishing first with Dueñas and Bernal fighting for second—but Rivas’s campaign is not a campaign that’s trying very hard.
CA-30 (Rich LA outskirts and suburbs)
Francesco Arreaga vs. Stephen Dunwoody vs. Mike Feuer vs. Laura Friedman vs. Sal Genovese vs. Maebe A. Girl vs. Nick Melvoin vs. Courtney Najera vs. Anthony Portantino, Jr. vs. Jirair Ratevosian vs. Ben Savage vs. Sepi Shyne (vs. Republicans Alex Balekian and Emilio Martinez & independent Josh Bocanegra)
Result: Friedman 30.1%, Balekian 17.4%, Portantino 13.3%, Feuer 12.3%, Maebe A. Girl 10.25%, Martinez 4.4%, Savage 4.0%, Melvin 2.7%, Ratevosian 1.9%, Shyne 1.4%, Najera 0.8%, Bocanegra 0.5%, Dunwoody 0.5%, Arreaga 0.3%, Genovese 0.3% | Friedman and Balekian advance to November
God, there are so many candidates here. This race has stratified into three clearly delineated tiers: the million-dollar club, the weaker fundraisers who might’ve been able to take a plucky grassroots angle had ten million dollars not flooded into this race, and the also-rans. Realistically, only the million-dollar club has a chance at advancing, so we’ll start with them.
As you might have guessed, the million-dollar club is the five candidates who have taken in more than a million dollars over the course of their campaigns: former LA City Attorney Mike Feuer, state Sen. Anthony Portantino, Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Nick Melvoin, Assemb. Laura Friedman, and Boy Meets World actor Ben Savage. Of these, Savage is easily the least viable—sure, he’s raised and spent more than Friedman, but Savage is a failed candidate for West Hollywood City Council who’s mostly self-funding his bid. This is good, because he’s also the least progressive in this tier, and hopefully he’ll eat into the vote shares of Portantino, Feuer, and Melvoin—the progressive standout of the top tier is Friedman. Melvoin is a biiiiiiiiig charter school guy—as in, the industry spent a bajillion dollars to put him on the LAUSD board because they knew he’d be a reliable vote to sell out public education to private corporations. As LA City Attorney, Feuer made his signature issue…cracking down on unlicensed marijuana shops? Melvoin and Feuer both lack labor support, which is another red flag. Portantino is just generally underwhelming and fanatically opposed to rich people in Beverly Hills ever having to see an apartment building, but with the lion’s share of labor support, the most money of anyone in the race, and a constituency larger than a congressional district, he’s the safest bet for one of the two runoff spots. Friedman is nice, normal, supported by the segment of organized labor that isn’t with Portantino, and, most of all, she’s pretty progressive across the board. It’s hard to find…really anything bad in her record, and quite easy to find the good: she has consistently supported efforts to establish a state-level single-payer system in California, she’s a big environmentalist (and not in the aesthetics-driven crank way, but in the “let’s build bike lanes and beat up the oil industry” way.) While Adam Schiff will somehow be a downgrade from Dianne Feinstein, Friedman, if she wins, will be a significant upgrade from Adam Schiff, and likely the kind of representative a deep-blue district like this deserves.
The second tier—people who might’ve had a shot had this race not become a money pit—consists of three people: West Hollywood City Councilmember Sepi Shyne, repeat CA-30 candidate Maebe A. Girl, and former Barbara Lee/State Department staffer Jirair Ratevosian. All three have broken six figures, and all three are openly queer candidates running in what’s probably the gayest district in the country. But with close to three quarters of a million dollars separating the highest-raising candidate in this tier (Shyne) from the lowest-raising in the top tier (Friedman), they’re all hopelessly outgunned.
The third tier…oh, we’ve explained eight people to you already, do you really need us to explain the candidates with $5 and a prayer?
CA-31 (San Gabriel Valley)
Bob Archuleta vs. Gil Cisneros vs. Gregory Hafif vs. Kurt Jose vs. Mary Ann Lutz vs. Susan Rubio (vs. Republicans Pedro Antonio Casas and Daniel Bocic Martinez & independents Erskine Levi and Marie Manvel)
Result: Cisneros 23.6%, Martinez 19.2%, Casas 16.9%, Rubio 15.8%, Archuleta 10.0%, Lutz 6.55%, Hafif 4.85%, Jose 1.4%, Levi 1.15%, Manvel 0.5% | Cisneros and Martinez advance to November
None of the leading candidates here are people we want to see in Congress, really. A deep blue seat should be able to produce better than this field. Alas, it did not, and we’re stuck with this set of options. There’s still one candidate who’s clearly worse than the others, at least: state Sen. Susan Rubio and her sister Blanca, an assemblywoman, are two of the most conservative Democrats in the legislature. Blanca is the self-appointed leader of the right flank of the Assembly Democratic caucus, and both Rubios have been supported to the tune of millions of dollars by business, oil, and charter school interests throughout their careers—to the point that they were central figures in a deep dive into corporate spending in California politics four years ago. We definitely don’t need Susan Rubio in Congress. Next!
Self-funding personal injury attorney Greg Hafif is probably next in terms of badness. We’re not just docking him points for self-funding (though we are also doing that)—he’s allergic to specific policy commitments and spends far too much time touting his family foundation. Like, dude, why would you want to remind people your family is so rich it has a charitable foundation?
State Sen. Bob Archuleta, Rep. Grace Napolitano’s designated successor; former Rep. Gil Cisneros, who represented a nearby swing district from 2019 to 2021; and former Monrovia mayor and Napolitano advisor Mary Ann Lutz are all normie center-left Democrats. Pick your poison: Archuleta is 78 and would be the oldest freshman House member in history, Cisneros is an ultra-wealthy self-funder whose 2020 reelection loss helped cost Democrats the House in 2022, and Lutz (like Hafif) will be hobbled by the fact that this district is mostly Hispanic. Though she carefully avoids any specifics, Lutz is the only candidate to list endorsements from explicitly progressive Democratic clubs, and she’s also backed by normally decent politicians like Laura Friedman and Connie Leyva, so if we had to pick we’d probably say her? We definitely don’t feel strongly about that choice, though. If you voted for the 78-year-old who’s only got a couple terms in him we’d get that, and if you voted for the multimillionaire ex-congressman with the ability to bury Susan Rubio in the event she joins him in November we’d also get that.
CA-32 (Malibu, Sherman Oaks, Northridge)
Brad Sherman (i) vs. Dave Abbitt vs. Christopher Ahuja vs. Douglas Smith vs. Trevor Witt (vs. Republicans James Shuster and Larry Thompson)
Result: Sherman 58.6%, Thompson 19.1%, Shuster 10.6%, Ahuja 8.1%, Smith 1.6%, Abbitt 1.1%, Witt 1.0% | Sherman and Thompson advance to November
Rep. Brad Sherman faces token opposition from a handful of Democrats, and he’s likely headed to a general election with a Republican in this very blue district.
CA-34 (Downtown LA)
Jimmy Gomez (i) vs. David Ferrell vs. David Kim (vs. Republican Calvin Lee & Peace and Freedom candidate Aaron Reveles)
Result: Gomez 51.15%, Kim 27.9%, Lee 14.1%, Reveles 4.0%, Ferrell 2.8% | Gomez and Kim advance to November
David Kim, much like Angélica Dueñas in CA-29, has been running no-budget progressive Democratic campaigns since 2020. Unlike Dueñas, he doesn’t have the privilege of a departing incumbent or a lazy opponent; instead, he has a more favorable district based in young, diverse downtown Los Angeles. Republicans are almost a rounding error here, so in all likelihood Kim is headed to his third general election with Rep. Jimmy Gomez.
SD-03 (Northeast Bay Area and wine country)
Christopher Cabaldon vs. Jackie Elward vs. Rozzana Verder-Aliga (vs. Republicans Thom Bogue and Jimih Jones)
Result: Bogue 27.8%, Cabaldon 26.6%, Verder-Aliga 20.5%, Elward 18.4%, Jones 6.6% | Bogue and Cabaldon advance to November
From left to right, we have leftist labor activist and Rohnert Park City Councilwoman Jackie Elward, Vallejo City Councilwoman Dr. Rozzana Verder-Aliga, and West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon. Organized labor splits between Elward and Verder-Aliga, while Cabaldon’s list of supporters trends more moderate and lacks labor support—and when a moderate, establishment Democrat can’t scrounge up any labor support, they are almost certainly bad news. Especially if labor is in fact spending heavily to defeat them—which is the case here—and especially especially if labor’s spending is being met and exceeded by an onslaught of corporate and charter school cash, also the case here. Elward is head and shoulders above the competition, but Cabaldon stands out for the wrong reasons as much as Elward stands out for the right ones.
SD-05 (Stockton metro)
Jerry McNerney vs. Carlos Villapudua (vs. Republican Jim Shoemaker)
Result: Shoemaker 43.9%, McNerney 33.1%, Villapudua 22.9% | Shoemaker and McNerney advance to November
Faced with the prospect of centrist-to-conservative Democratic Assemb. Carlos Villapudua getting a promotion, organized labor and consumer groups are spending big to give former U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerney a second act after his retirement from Congress in 2022. Villapudua is one of the worst Democrats in the legislature, dabbling in anti-vaccine politics and generally sucking up to corporate interests. McNerney, an unremarkable Democratic backbencher in Congress, is far superior. Republican Jim Shoemaker can count on making the general election here, so either McNerney or Villapudua will functionally win today. It’ll probably be McNerney, because his whole campaign is just the result of the Villapudua family losing a game of political musical chairs. Carlos Villapudua originally wasn’t even running for this seat. His wife, Edith, was, but her prospects looked bleak enough that the couple switched races shortly before the filing deadline. The next day, McNerney jumped into the state Senate race, and the previous state Senate frontrunner, Josh Harder staffer Rhodesia Ransom, dropped down to the Assembly—so Ransom was now facing the lesser-known Villapudua once again, and the stronger of the Villapuduas suddenly found himself up against Stockton’s just-retired former congressman.
SD-07 (East Bay, including Oakland)
Jesse Arreguín vs. Jovanka Beckles vs. Dan Kalb vs. Kathryn Lybarger vs. Sandré Swanson (vs. Republican Jeanne Solnordal)
Result: Arreguín 32.5%, Beckles 17.3%, Kalb 15.1%, Lybarger 14.6%, Swanson 11.5%, Solnordal 9.0% | Arreguín and Beckles advance to November
Given the level of over-and-done that the corresponding US House election (CA-12) is at right now, you might expect something similar here, but instead the outcome is anyone’s guess. Progressives, a coherent faction with real power in the East Bay, are supporting activist Jovanka Beckles, a socialist who previously ran for state house in 2018, and is endorsed by the DSA this year. The YIMBY/moderate alliance that exists in San Francisco isn’t as well solidified in the East Bay, but both sides of the equation are probably looking at the same candidate: Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, who is getting YIMBYs because he’s been an actual YIMBY mayor, and moderates because they’re going to want whoever is running against a progressive. Unlike most elections, that’s not the extent of the match-up, because organized labor has broken away from those candidates (aside from the pro-Arreguín building trades) and instead are making it their top priority in the state to elect to the senate the president of the California Labor Federation, Kathryn Lybarger.
With firepower like that, there’s not much room for anyone else, but Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb is forging ahead despite all odds, trying to avoid getting sucked into an ideological battle by selling himself as the experienced, can-do candidate, but that’s just not what voters have an appetite for right now. Finally, for any moderates not satisfied with merely voting to stop Beckles, ex-state Assemb. Sandré Swanson is running a “hire more cops, clear more encampments” campaign. Swanson, who represented Oakland in the Assembly from 2007-2013, attempted to run for this district in 2016, but lost the runoff by 24%.
SD-09 (Contra Costa County)
Tim Grayson vs. Marisol Rubio
Result: Grayson 60.0%, Rubio 40.0% | Grayson and Rubio advance to November
This is a beauty pageant primary between progressive Marisol Rubio and moderate Assemb. Tim Grayson, a former Republican. A beauty pageant primary is one where every candidate involved is going to advance to the next round (November, in this case). The results may be interesting or meaningful as a sign of where the race is right now, but they have no actual effect. As such, we won't be discussing any of them in depth in this preview.
SD-11 (San Francisco)
Scott Wiener (i) vs. Cynthia Cravens (vs. Republican Yvette Corkrean & independent Jing Chao Xiong)
Result: Wiener 73.0%, Corkrean 15.1%, Cravens 8.1%, Xiong 3.8% | Wiener and Corkrean advance to November
State Sen. Scott Wiener faces only token opposition from bizarro TERF Cynthia Cravens. Since it’s San Francisco and no Republican can win a general election, we genuinely hope Republican Yvette Corkrean beats out Cravens for the second-place spot.
SD-25 (Northern LA suburbs)
Sandra Armenta vs. Teddy Choi vs. Sasha Renée Pérez vs. Yvonne Yiu (vs. Republican Elizabeth Wong Ahlers)
Result: Wong Ahlers 35.7%, Pérez 32.9%, Yiu 17.5%, Armenta 9.5%, Choi 4.3% | Wong Ahlers and Pérez advance to November
Alhambra City Councilmember Sasha Renée Pérez should be the easy favorite in this contest. She was endorsed by the state party with a dominating 92% of the convention-goer vote. Perez is well-liked by the activist base partly because she represents an inoffensive ideological middle of the party. She’s not guaranteed a slot in the runoff, however, because there’s only one Republican running, which means there’s probably only one Democrat headed to November, and that Democrat might be Yvonne Yiu. Yiu is a city councilmember for Monterey Park, and, more importantly, Yiu is very rich. She’s dropped about $3 million into her own campaign and is spending it on a gutter campaign of mailers fear-mongering about the homeless because Pérez was appointed to a county commission on homelessness.
Yiu may have some significant vote bleeding to Rosemead City Councilmember Sandra Armenta, who is basically the negative stereotypes of wealthy LA suburbanites come to life. She’s incised by the loss of “local control” (read: the state’s making them let things other than single family housing get built) and is endorsed by more cop unions than we knew existed.
SD-27 (San Fernando Valley, Simi Valley, and Thousand Oaks)
Henry Stern (i) vs. Susan A. Collins (vs. Republican Lucie Volotzky)
Result: Stern 44.2%, Volotzky 38.1%, Collins 17.8% | Stern and Volotzky advance to November
Susan A. Collins is a right-wing crank running with Alex Villanueva’s support, so underwhelming state Sen. Henry Stern is both a heavy favorite and the best choice.
SD-29 (San Bernardino)
Jason O'Brien vs. Eloise Gómez Reyes (vs. Republicans Carlos Garcia and Kathleen Torres Hazelton)
Result: Reyes 45.0%, Garcia 32.0%, Torres Hazelton 13.0%, O’Brien 10.1% | Reyes and Garcia advance to November
Former Fontana school board member Jason O’Brien isn’t quite what we’d call a token or paper opponent to progressive Assemb. Eloise Gómez Reyes, but he’s close.
SD-31 (Riverside/Moreno Valley area)
Sabrina Cervantes vs. Angelo Farooq (vs. Republican Cynthia Navarro)
Result: Navarro 45.8%, Cervantes 39.4%, Farooq 14.8% | Cervantes and Navarro advance to November
Assemb. Sabrina Cervantes and Dr. Angelo Farooq are locked in a nasty and mostly policy-free contest to represent the Democratic urban core of Riverside County in the state Senate. Farooq is going harshly negative on Cervantes for trying to set up a political dynasty with her sister Clarissa (see our AD-58 item), while Cervantes is responding in kind by going after Farooq for running for office under different names and having some failed business ventures. It’s hard to find a tiebreaker between the two—until you look at all the money being spent by the California Association of Realtors and the Dart Container Corporation, a multibillion-dollar plastics conglomerate, to elect Cervantes. No thanks.
SD-35 (Compton and South LA)
Michelle Chambers vs. Lamar Lyons vs. Alex Monteiro vs. Laura Richardson vs. Albert Robles vs. Jennifer Trichelle-Marie Williams vs. Nilo Vega Michelin (vs. Republican James Spencer)
Result: Richardson 27.8%, Chambers 24.5%, Spencer 18.8%, Robles 8.5%, Monteiro 6.0%, Williams 5.4%, Michelin 4.8%, Lyons 4.1% | Richardson and Chambers advance to November
California is absolutely lousy with retired congressfreaks with nothing better to do than run for lower office. One of those is Laura Richardson (CA-37, 2007-2013). Her endorsements page is conspicuously free of former congressional colleagues, maybe because she left office under an ethical cloud after losing a nasty member-on-member race with Janice Hahn, who is now a LA County Supervisor. Lamar Lyons is a former Assembly staffer turned venture capitalist. El Camino College Trustee Nilo Vega Michelin has heterodoxmedian voter politics, supporting Medicare for All as well as tough-on-crime criminal justice policies. Hawthorne City Councilman Alex Monteiro and former Carson Mayor Albert Robles are also running somewhere towards the middle of the field. And they’re all fighting for the right to lose to Michelle Chambers, the leader in fundraising and endorsements and a former staffer to AG Rob Bonta. Since Chambers is also the only candidate whose bio and platform don’t throw up any obvious red flags, we’re fine with this. (If we had to guess, the runoff will be with Richardson.)
SD-37 (Orange County)
Josh Newman (i) vs. Gabrielle Ashbaugh vs. Leticia Correa vs. Stephanie Le vs. Alex Mohajer vs. Jacob Niles Creer vs. Jenny Suarez (vs. Republicans Steve Choi, Anthony Kuo, Crystal Miles, and Guy Selleck)
Result: Newman 30.1%, Choi 21.7%, Miles 14.0%, Selleck 10.1%, Mohajer 8.3%, Kuo 7.0%, Correa 2.7%, Le 2.0%, Ashbaugh 2.0%, Suarez 1.4%, Creer 0.7% | Newman and Choi advance to November
This race is a mess. State Sen. Josh Newman is one of the more moderate Democrats in the state Senate, but he’s also a top Republican target representing historically conservative Orange County, so perhaps his sometimes-annoying moderation makes sense—until you look at the 2020 presidential numbers, see Joe Biden won this district by 13 points, and get annoyed with Newman all over again. He has one leading primary challenger, Alex Mohajer, with some progressive support including WFP and Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, and four more—Leticia Correa, Stephanie Le, Jacob Creer, and Jenny Suarez—who were recruited to run by AFSCME Local 3299, which has a grudge against Newman for opposing a state constitutional amendment to protect the labor rights of workers in the UC system. Local 3299 is spending a non-trivial amount on each of their four recruits, plus Mohajer, as a very expensive middle finger to Newman.
AD-02 (North Coast)
Cynthia Click vs. Rusty Hicks vs. Ariel Kelley vs. Frankie Myers vs. Chris Rogers vs. Ted Williams (vs. Republican Michael Greer)
Result: Greer 27.5%, Rogers 20.6%, Hicks 18.3%, Kelley 14.6%, Myers 11.4%, Williams 6.5%, Click 1.2% | Greer and Rogers advance to November
California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks would like to be an assemblyman, and he doesn’t care how much he has to spend to get there. We can definitely write off Cynthia Click, who hasn’t reported raising any money, and can probably write off Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams, who also hasn’t reported raising any money. Hicks’s leading opponent, Healdsburg Mayor Ariel Kelley, is benefiting from a PAC funded by her sister, a hedge fund guy, and a local developer, so…eeeeh. Yurok Tribe Vice Chairman Frankie Myers has endorsements from a few politicians and a lot of other Indigenous tribal leaders, and Santa Rosa City Councilman Chris Rogers also has a fair amount of local and labor support—plus it’s not a bad sign that the California Association of Realtors feels the need to spend against him. However, this contest is clearly between Kelley and Hicks, and it’s revolving around Hicks’s recent move to the district—which might not be a big deal in a metro area where people move a lot, but on California’s rural North Coast, local roots matter.
AD-06 (Sacramento)
Emmanuel Amanfor vs. Sean Frame vs. Rosanna Herber vs. Maggy Krell vs. Carlos Marquez vs. Evan Minton vs. Paula Marie Villescaz (vs. Republicans Nikki Ellis and Preston Romero & Peace and Freedom candidate Kevin Olmar Martinez)
Result: Krell 25.5%, Ellis 14.9%, Romero 14.2%, Villescaz 13.2%, Marquez 9.0%, Herber 8.9%, Frame 6.4%, Amanfor 3.7%, Minton 2.5%, Martinez 1.7% | Krell and Ellis advance to November
There are seven Democratic candidates here, and six of them are at least somewhat serious. Union steward and former school board member Sean Frame appears to be the leftmost of the bunch, with clear commitments to single-payer healthcare and repealing the state’s ban on rent control. Sadly, he’s also one of the longer shots, though he does have several unions in his corner, including his own, the California School Employees Association. Also running in the progressive lane, but with much more financial and institutional support, is transgender activist Evan Minton, who would be the state’s first trans legislator if he wins. School board member Rosanna Herber and prosecutor Maggy Krell are both on the other end of the ideological spectrum, and their shared failure to file campaign finance reports makes it harder to judge their viability—but Krell has just about every cop union in her corner, plus Blanca Rubio, and Herber has centrist state Sen. Angelique Ashby and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg backing her campaign to force prosecutors to spend more time on retail theft and drug use (which inevitably means spending less time on violent crime.) Consultant Carlos Marquez is the charter school candidate. Somewhere in between Frame and Minton on the left, and Krell, Herber, and Marquez on the right, is normie Democrat Paula Villescaz, a local school board member who ran a thankless race against Republican state Sen. Roger Niello in 2022. She waffles on single-payer, but she gets points in our book for the fact that California’s main charter school PAC bothered spending money to attack her and not anyone else in this race. (She also has Steinberg’s support, because dual endorsements are not universally mocked in California like they are in most places.)
AD-11 (Solano County)
Lori Wilson (i) vs. Jeffrey Flack (vs. Republicans Dave Ennis & Wanda Wallis)
Result: Wilson 50.2%, Ennis 26.1%, Wallis 14.7%, Flack 9.0% | Wilson and Ennis advance to November
Lori Wilson is as close to a normal Democrat as the wealthy outer Bay area is going to produce, so of course her opponent is some policy guy who’s furious about homeless people being allowed in public, and drug use not being a felony. Thankfully, this particular suburban asshole doesn’t have a bunch of money to self-fund with, so he’s had to make do with about $5,000.
AD-13 (Stockton)
Rhodesia Ransom vs. Edith Villapudua (vs. Republican Denise Aguilar Mendez)
Result: Ransom 41.9%, Mendez 37.6%, Villapudua 20.5% | Ransom and Mendez advance to November
First, well…see our SD-05 item for context. In short, Carlos Villapudua is a conservative Democratic Assemblyman, Edith Villapudua is his wife, both her and congressional staffer Rhodesia Ransom were previously running for SD-05, now both are running for Assembly, and local Democrats of all stripes are tired of the Villapuduas’ shit in both races. (Rightly so.)
AD-14 (Berkeley and Richmond)
Buffy Wicks (i) vs. Margot Smith (vs. Republican Utkarsh Jain)
Result: Wicks 73.6%, Smith 16.7%, Jain 9.7% | Wicks and Smith advance to November
Buffy Wicks may not have been the first YIMBY politician in California, but her 2018 victory was the first sign that the Housing Wars had moved beyond San Francisco and were going to be a regular fixture of Bay Area politics for the foreseeable future. The Housing Wars may still be raging, but Wicks has won as far as her own future goes. There’s no other way to interpret her only opposition this year being a 92-year-old activist, who, to be fair, seems cool when she’s not talking about apartments being too tall and not having enough parking.
AD-15 (East Bay)
Anamarie Avila Farias vs. Karen Mitchoff vs. Monica Wilson (vs. Republican Sonia Ledo)
Result: Ledo 31.8%, Farias 30.4%, Wilson 25.5%, Mitchoff 12.3% | Farias and Ledo advance to November
Contra Costa County Board of Education Member Anamarie Farias is just sort of plugging away at a broadly boring campaign with support from local officials and some labor unions, while labor-affiliated PACs supporting Antioch City Councilmember Monica Wilson and business PACs supporting former Contra Costa County Supervisor Karen Mitchoff go nuclear on one another. (Wilson is also supported by the WFP and other progressive groups, and she carries the endorsement of the California Democratic Party.) Republican Sonia Ledo also has a good chance at punching a ticket to November; at 29% support for Donald Trump in 2020, this is what passes for a relatively Republican district in the Bay Area.
AD-17 (East San Francisco)
Matt Haney (i) vs. Otto Duke (vs. Republican Manuel Noris-Barrera)
Result: Haney 81.9%, Noris-Barrera 12.5%, Duke 5.6% | Haney and Noris-Barrera advance to November
Do you think a candidate who includes as part of his wall-of-text website a PDF of the complaint he apparently filed with the FBI against the politician he’s trying to unseat has a chance at winning? No? What if he explained that he “comes from an honorable lineage”? Still no? Okay, moving on then.
AD-19 (West San Francisco)
David Lee vs. Catherine Stefani (vs. Republicans Nadia Flamenco and Arjun Gustav Sodhani)
Result: Stefani 57.0%, Lee 29.0%, Flamenco 7.3%, Sodhani 6.7% | Stefani and Lee advance to November
This is San Francisco—there’s no way a Republican is making the runoff, so this is a beauty pageant primary between educator David Lee and San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani.
AD-23 (Silicon Valley)
Marc Berman (i) vs. Lydia Kou (vs. Republicans Allan Marson and Gus Mattammal)
Result: Berman 57.4%, Kou 20.2%, Mattammal 11.4%, Marson 11.0% | Berman and Kou advance to November
Assemb. Marc Berman is a pretty standard Democratic backbencher, but Palo Alto Mayor (and realtor) Lydia Kou is running quite explicitly on her opposition to her rich enclave ever having to build housing for a single poor person. Her signature issue as a city councilor has been trying to find ways to disobey state laws mandating affordable housing development.
AD-25 (Central San Jose)
Ash Kalra (i) vs. Lan Ngo (vs. Republican Ted Stroll)
Result: Kalra 51.5%, Stroll 26.2%, Ngo 22.3% | Kalra and Stroll advance to November
Assemb. Ash Kalra is one of the most progressive legislators in Sacramento, and while his only Democratic opponent, Lan Ngo, is clearly running to his right, she’s also clearly not going anywhere. The only question is whether she loses in March or November.
AD-26 (Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino)
Patrick Ahrens vs. Omar Din vs. Tara Sreekrishnan (vs. Republican Sophie Yan Song, Libertarian Bob Goodwyn, and independent Ashish Garg)
Result: Ahrens 34.4%, Sreekrishnan 26.9%, Song 21.9%, Din 12.1%, Goodwyn 3.0%, Garg 1.7% | Ahrens and Sreekrishnan advance to November
Today’s primary in AD-26 is going to be a winnowing process. Three Democrats are facing off in a heavily Democratic district, and only two will make the runoff. Who will be left behind? Will it be longtime staffer to outgoing Assemb. Evan Low, Patrick Ahrens? Sure, Low has endorsed Ahrens, but his campaign is coasting on being the safe choice and letting Uber run ads for him. In a young, quirky district, it can pay to stand out, and Ahrens would rather try his hand at being acceptable to everyone. Will the unlucky Democrat left behind be Sunnyvale City Councilmember Omar Din? That’s the popular opinion—he trails in fundraising and was the only Democrat left out of the labor endorsement in this race. Or, finally, will it be Santa Clara County Board of Education member Tara Sreekrishnan? As the most progressive candidate, she’s putting herself at risk in Silicon Valley, and her position was only an appointment, not the result of facing voters before.
AD-36 (Imperial County and Coachella Valley)
Joey Acuña Jr. vs. Waymond Fermon vs. Edgard Garcia vs. Tomas Oliva vs. Eric Rodriguez (vs. Republicans Jeff Gonzalez and Kalin Morse)
Result: Gonzalez 34.9%, Acuña 20.0%, Garcia 12.8%, Morse 11.3%, Fermon 7.9%, Oliva 7.5%, Rodriguez 5.6% | Gonzalez and Acuña advance to November
This is clearly Coachella Valley Unified School District Trustee Joey Acuña’s race to lose. El Centro City Councilmembers Edgard Garcia and Tomas Oliva are running, and so is Indio City Councilmember Waymond Fermon, but none of them can measure up to Acuña in endorsements, cash, or, we suspect, name recognition, because Acuña has been in elected office for quite a while and his school district spans parts of both of the district’s main counties. (There is also a sparsely-populated chunk of San Bernardino County in the district, but everyone is ignoring it because it’ll cast a few percent of the vote at most.) Acuña has also benefited from a flood of outside spending on his behalf, mostly from organized labor; a UFCW-affiliated PAC has even been kind enough to throw nearly $90,000 in attacks at Garcia, who Acuña’s backers evidently see as the most serious threat. (He is the best fundraiser of the non-Acuña candidates.)
AD-41 (Pasadena to Inland Empire)
John Harabedian vs. Jed Leano vs. Phlunté Riddle (vs. Republican Michelle Del Rosario Martinez)
Result: Martinez 39.8%, Harabedian 29.8%, 15.5% Riddle, 15.0% Leano | Martinez and Harabedian advance to November
This is a race designed to upend your expectations. The progressive (Phlunté Riddle) is a cop, the YIMBY (Jed Leano) is the mayor of a small, wealthy college town, and the moderate (John Harabedian) is…well, okay he’s a well-funded prosecutor. Some things never change. We really shouldn’t be gloss over Harabedian, who’s funded by every bad actor in California politics: landlords, gig economy PACs, Davita, the insurance industry: the gang’s all here. Unfortunately, since there’s only one Republican, that Republican is probably making the second. Therefore, once again, this round will only allow one Democrat to pass through, and it’s probably going to be Harabedian. We don’t really care whether it’s Leano or Riddle, he just needs to be stopped. Realistically, if either of them manage it, it’ll probably be Riddle, who has better fundraising and actually has some labor support. The LA suburbs just haven’t reached a point where YIMBY politics are enough by themselves to elect assemblymembers.
AD-43 (San Fernando Valley)
Walter García vs. Saul Hurtado vs. Celeste Rodriguez (vs. Republicans Victoria Garcia and Felicia Novick & independent Carmenlina Minasova)
Result: Rodriguez 43.5%, Victoria Garcia 23.5%, Walter García 17.1%, Novice 7.3%, Minasova 4.3%, Hurtado 4.3% | Rodriguez and Victoria Garcia advance to November
Celeste Rodriguez is the mayor of San Fernando, an enclave of the city of Los Angeles located in—you guessed it—the San Fernando Valley. She’s also a safe bet for the general election, where she’ll most likely be joined by career political staffer Walter García, who is at least sort of trying to posture as a progressive. (Rodriguez is not.) Saul Hurtado is barely running a campaign, and the rest of the field probably splits the GOP vote sufficient to let two Democrats head to November.
AD-44 (Glendale, Burbank, Sunland-Tujunga, Sherman Oaks)
Elen Asatryan vs. Ed Han vs. Carmenita Helligar vs. Steve Pierson vs. Adam Pryor vs. Nick Schultz (vs. Republican Tony Rodriguez and independent Adam Summer)
Result: Schultz 28.25%, Rodriguez 25.7%, Han 16.0%, Asatryan 13.3%, Pierson 7.7%, Helligar 5.6%, Summer 2.0%, Prior 1.4% | Schultz and Rodriguez advance to November
Three of the candidates for Laura Friedman’s open Assembly seat are raising and spending enough to be worth mentioning: Glendale Councilwoman Elen Asatryan, Democratic activist Steve Pierson, and Burbank Mayor Nick Schultz. Looking at them in order, Asatryan counts the Glendale police union and the lone Republican on the LA County Board of Supervisors among her supporters, so that’s an automatic no. Pierson and Schultz have split organized labor and progressive groups, though Schultz has won more of both; we’re inclined to agree with the consensus, because Schultz is better known, better funded, and more detailed on policy (though both he and Pierson take consistently progressive stances, Schultz has gone into considerably greater detail.)
AD-48 (San Gabriel Valley)
Blanca Rubio (i) vs. Brian Calderón Tabatabai (vs. Republican Dan Tran)
Result: Rubio 41.4%, Tran 39.5%, Tabatabai 19.15% | Rubio and Tran advance to November
Blanca Rubio is, like her sister Susan (see our CA-31 item), a very moderate Democrat. West Covina Mayor Brian Calderón Tabatabai is running to her left, supporting policies such as state-level single-payer healthcare and a ban on new oil drilling, and he has a very broad coalition. The progressive usual suspects are all there—WFP, Knock LA, and the like—but so is organized labor, and they’re even joined by some San Gabriel Valley establishment figures like retiring Rep. Grace Napolitano, her chosen successor state Sen. Bob Archuleta (also running against Susan), and former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. Unless one of the two Democrats fails to advance to November (certainly a possibility), this primary will mostly be useful in giving us an idea of which one is favored in November—Rubio, as the more conservative candidate, can probably afford to trail Tabatabai in March as long as Republican Dan Tran still places behind her.
AD-50 (San Bernardino area)
Robert Garcia vs. Adam Perez vs. DeJonaé Shaw
Result: Garcia 42.4%, Perez 29.3%, Shaw 28.3% | Garcia and Perez advance to November
Progressives have split in this district, which is fine because Republicans failed to field a candidate before the filing deadline (though they do have an official write-in candidate, technically.) Outgoing Assemb. Eloise Gómez Reyes, the California Legislative Progressive Caucus, the California Democratic Party, and teachers’ unions are backing school administrator Robert Garcia, while the Working Families Party and the bulk of organized labor are backing nurse and union activist DeJonaé Shaw. Shaw has far more money in her campaign account to work with, plus an independent expenditure campaign on her behalf, so she should make the runoff before Garcia does, and probably before the race’s lone moderate, Fontana Unified School District Board member Adam Perez, as well. But, I mean, good Lord are corporate PACs spending a lot to elect Perez. And of course Blanca Rubio is supporting him, too.
AD-52 (East Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock)
Jessica Caloza vs. Francisco Carrillo Jr. vs. Genesis Coronado vs. Anthony Fanara vs. David Girón vs. Carlos León vs. Sofia Quiñones vs. Ari Ruiz (vs. Republican Stephen Sills and Green Shannel Pittman)
Result: Caloza 29.8%, Carrillo 26.2%, Sills 12.85%, Girón 11.7%, Ruiz 7.4%, León 3.3%, Coronado 3.3%, Quiñones 2.65%, Pittman 1.5%, Fanara 1.3% | Caloza and Carrillo advance to runoff
Frankly, we’re a little surprised by how willing Democratic candidates are to tout their support from Republican LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, especially in the primary before Republican candidates have been eliminated. Ari Ruiz doesn’t just have Barger on his team; he’s also backed by the Rubio sisters, Jacqui Irwin, Juan Carrillo, and other notably centrist Democratic legislators. Bad signs all around, and his vague issues page doesn’t give us any reason to feel better. David Girón studiously avoids mentioning who his boss on the LA City Council was, because the fact that it was Mitch O’Farrell (prior to O’Farrell’s defeat at the hands of DSA-LA’s Hugo Soto-Martínez) undercuts his progressive rhetoric and explains why all his endorsements come from the right flank of Los Angeles Democratic politics. That leaves us with two more palatable options: Jessica Caloza, deputy chief of staff to AG Rob Bonta, who even has some noteworthy progressive endorsements like Assembs. Alex Lee, Isaac Bryan, and Tina McKinnor; and Franky Carrillo, who became a criminal justice reform advocate after his 2011 exoneration and release from prison, twenty years after his wrongful conviction for a murder he did not commit. The local DSA city councilmember, Eunisses Hernandez, is backing Carrillo; so is Exonerated Five member and New York City Council Member Yusef Salaam, who, like Carrillo, spent years in prison for a crime he did not commit before turning his eye to politics. Meanwhile, business PACs backed by Uber, Google, and Chevron are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for Caloza. Carrillo it is!
AD-53 (Ontario, Pomona)
Carlos Goytia vs. Javier Hernandez vs. Michelle Rodriguez vs. Robert Torres (vs. Republican Nick Wilson)
Result: Wilson 43.2%, Rodriguez 20.2%, Torres 16.6%, Hernandez 15.7%, Goytia 4.3% | Wilson and Rodriguez advance to November
Pomona (pop 152,000) City Councilmember Robert Torres is the favorite in today’s election. He has the state Democratic Party, and the California Federation of Labor, making him the establishment candidate. However, this isn’t an area of the state that reflexively backs the establishment, and there’s a strong progressive running. Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice director Javier Hernandez is a pro-single payer progressive who has reason to feel optimistic about this runoff since he managed to swing the endorsement of the California Federation of Labor, who—surprise—issued a rare dual endorsement between him and Torres. We don’t think it would be likely for them both to make the runoff, since there’s only one Republican and both of the other Democrats are real candidates. Michelle Rodriguez is a member of the Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST), has raised an impressive amount of money, and has police endorsements. While Torres has the state establishment, he doesn’t have the Pomona establishment, oddly enough. They went instead to Carlos Goytia, a member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District who has never run for elected office before and doesn’t want to go too deeply into what he'd do once he gets there. Ideologically, this race is Hernandez on the left, Rodriguez on the right, and both Torres and Goytia somewhere in the middle, though closer to Rodriguez than Hernandez.
AD-54 (Downtown LA, Montebello)
Mark Gonzalez vs. John Yi (vs. Republican Elaine Alaniz)
Result: Gonzalez 45.2%, Yi 34.5%, Alaniz 20.3% | Gonzalez and Yi advance to November
There may technically be a Republican running, but she’s going to get like 10% of the vote in Downtown LA. This is a beauty pageant primary between Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chair Mark Gonzalez and nonprofit executive John Yi, a progressive.
AD-57 (Downtown LA, Florence-Graham)
Greg Akili vs. Sade Elhawary vs. Efren Martinez vs. Tara Perry vs. Dulce Vasquez
Result: Martinez 32.7%, Elhawary 31.1%, Vasquez 13.4%, Akili 11.4%, Perry 11.4% | Martinez and Elhawary advance to November
One runoff spot is likely reserved for Efren Martinez, a conservative Democrat who outpaced outgoing Assemb. Reggie Jones-Sawyer in the 2020 March primary and lost to him by a respectable 15-point margin that November. Three candidates could realistically snag the other runoff spot. First, there’s YIMBY Dulce Vasquez, who could never quite decide whether she was a progressive or a centrist in her 2022 run against LA City Councilman Curren Price, and who suffers from the same problem this time around. Longtime civil rights activist Greg Akili and community organizer Sade Elhawary are vying for dominance in the progressive lane, and Elhawary, simply put, has won that fight, well outpacing Akili in fundraising and endorsements and winning over the large segment of the LA establishment that just doesn’t like Martinez. She is Martinez’s likeliest opponent.
AD-58 (Riverside)
Clarissa Cervantes vs. Ronaldo Fierro (vs. Republican Leticia Castillo)
Result: Castillo 48.5%, Cervantes 25.8%, Fierro 25.6% | Castillo and Cervantes advance to November
Clarissa Cervantes and Ronaldo Fierro are both running as liberal Democrats; the stakes here are low enough at first glance for a whole host of dual endorsements shared between the two. This election is about personal baggage—business-backed PACs are spending an enormous amount against Cervantes, highlighting her previous DUI arrests and the fact that she’s running to succeed her own sister, Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes.
AD-62 (Central LA county)
Maria Estrada vs. Jose Solache (vs. Republican Paul Jones)
Result: Solache 41.4%, Jones 34.4%, Estrada 24.2% | Solache and Jones advance to November
Maria Estrada is a perennial candidate who ran three times against Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, starting out with a respectable 9-point loss and losing each time by a larger margin. Rendon is on his way out, and with a Republican on the ballot it’s possible that only one Democrat advances to the general election—something which last happened in 2016. (A Republican was last on the primary ballot in the Democratic wave year of 2018.) That could be Estrada—a pariah in the LA political scene for her past praise of Louis Farrakhan and antisemitic comments towards a party official, but a pariah with name recognition who’s only fallen below 30% of the first-round vote once, in her initial 2018 run. More likely is an all-Democratic general election between Estrada and overwhelming establishment favorite Jose Solache, the mayor of Lakewood, or an election between Solache and Republican Paul Jones.
AD-76 (Escondido, San Marcos, northeastern San Diego)
Darshana Patel vs. Joseph Rocha (vs. Republican Kristie Bruce-Lane)
Result: Bruce-Lane 49.5%, Patel 34.1%, Rocha 16.4% | Bruce-Lane and Patel advance to November
Veteran Joseph Rocha and school board president Darshana Patel are both running as pretty generic Democrats, and as a result they’ve split endorsements down the middle—from labor, from Democratic clubs, from Democratic politicians, from nonprofits and PACs. Many of their endorsements are shared between the candidates, and both fastidiously avoid getting too specific on any issue. If there are policy stakes to this race, they aren’t at all apparent. (Both would probably be upgrades from outgoing incumbent Brian Maienschein, who was a Republican until 2019.)
AD-77 (Carlsbad, Encinitas, coastal San Diego)
Tasha Boerner (i) vs. Henny Kupferstein (vs. Republican James Browne)
Result: Boerner 56.9%, Browne 38.5%, Kupferstein 4.6% | Boerner and Browne advance to November
Autism researcher Henny Kupferstein is running a shoestring campaign, and she’ll almost certainly be eliminated from the race by Assemb. Tasha Boerner and Republican James Browne.
AD-79 (southeastern San Diego, La Mesa, El Cajon)
Colin Parent vs. LaShae Sharp-Collins vs. Racquel Vasquez
Result: Parent 39.65%, Sharp-Collins 30.3%, Vasquez 30.1% | Parent and Sharp-Collins advance to November
With no Republicans in the race and a runoff even if one candidate clears 50%, this primary doesn’t matter much. It would if Lemon Grove Mayor Racquel Vasquez was raising money or collecting endorsements, but she’s doing neither, while La Mesa City Councilor Colin Parent and professor LaShae Sharp-Collins are. (Parent appears to be the more moderate of the two; the California Democratic Party and the left wing of organized labor are backing Sharp-Collins, while building trades, police unions, and a lot of local politicians are with Parent.) Parent and Sharp-Collins should advance to November, and the margin should tell us something about which of the two is favored in November.
Los Angeles County Supervisor District 2 (Westside, Compton, Carson, Hawthorne)
Holly Mitchell vs. Clint Carlton vs. Katrina Williams vs. Daphne Denise Bradford
Result: Mitchell 68.5%, Bradford 13.2%, Carlton 11.3%, Williams 7.0% | Mitchell wins outright
Supervisor Holly Mitchell faces a collection of underfunded opponents running to her right. While there might be a base for such a challenge to Mitchell now that her district includes the affluent Westside, none of Mitchell’s opponents ever seemed to get off the ground. Clint Carlton does list an endorsement from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on his website, though.
Los Angeles County Supervisor District 4 (south and southeast LA County)
Janice Hahn (i) vs. Alex Villanueva vs. John Cruikshank
Result: Hahn 57.8%, Villanueva 28.1%, Cruikshank 14.1% | Hahn wins outright
After a humiliating blowout defeat at the hands of challenger Robert Luna in 2022, disgraced former LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is back for more. Though voters elected him in large part because he promised to be the first Democratic sheriff in over a century, Villanueva turned out to be a right-wing lunatic who feuded constantly with the press, the DA, and the Board of Supervisors, all while covering up deputy gangs and obstructing investigations into his department. The Los Angeles political scene is less than enthused at the prospect of a Villanueva comeback, and as a result, center-left Democratic incumbent Janice Hahn has a remarkably broad coalition including basically the entire Democratic Party, all of organized labor, and even the lone Republican on the Board of Supervisors, Kathryn Barger. Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank is running as the actual Republican in this race, but Villanueva’s brand of incoherent rage is more in line with what Republican voters actually want.
Los Angeles County DA
George Gascón (i) vs. Debra Archuleta vs. Jeff Chemerinsky vs. Jonathan Hatami vs. Nathan Hochman vs. Daniel Kapelovitz vs. Lloyd Masson vs. John McKinney vs. David Sherman Milton vs. Craig Mitchell vs. Maria Ramirez vs. Eric Siddall
Result: Gascón 25.2%, Hochman 15.9%, Hatami 13.2%, Archuleta 8.5%, Chemerinsky 7.9%, Ramirez 7.1%, McKinney 6.0%, Siddall 5.6%, Hilton 4.3%, Mitchell 3.0%, Masson 2.0%, Kapelovitz 1.2% | Gascón and Hochman advance to November
George Gascón was elected as a progressive reformer who promised to crack down on police brutality and chip away at mass incarceration. He’s governed as he said he would, and eleven candidates—ten of them former or current prosecutors or judges—are running against him, hoping that LA voters have moved away from the reform-oriented politics that led them to choose Gascón over incumbent DA Jackie Lacey in 2020. Many of them have money and endorsements that could propel them to a general election (police unions love Jonathan Hatami, and a lot of politicians and Democratic clubs like Jeff Chemerinsky) but Gascón’s probably hoping to draw the best-funded opponent he can—because the best-funded opponent by far is Nathan Hochman, who ran for California Attorney General in 2022 as a Republican. DA races are nonpartisan, but Hochman would test the limits of nonpartisan elections.
Los Angeles City Council District 2 (North Hollywood, Van Nuys)
Jon-Paul Bird vs. Jillian Burgos vs. Marin Ghandilyan vs. Manny Gonez vs. Sam Kbushyan vs. Rudy Melendez vs. Adrin Nazarian
Result: Nazarian 37.2%, Burgos 22.4%, Kbushyan 14.75%, Gonez 12.2%, Bird 7.1%, Melendez 3.7%, Ghandilyan 2.7% | Nazarian and Burgos advance to November
Former Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian has also done multiple stints as a staffer for outgoing Council President Paul Krekorian, and he’ll be more of the same—which, in Krekorian’s case, means a member of the city council’s moderate bloc who occasionally makes vaguely progressive noises when convenient. You know the type; you probably have a bunch of these on your city council, too. Nazarian is the frontrunner and the only candidate who we could see clearing 50%, though with such a crowded field we think that’s unlikely.
Manny Gonez is the husband of LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez, a charter school favorite who the LA teachers’ union controversially made peace with, probably saving her from a reelection loss. Charter school favorite means we don’t trust you, so, moving on!
Lobbyist Sam Kbushyan makes the right rhetorical appeals at a glance—until you look at the message he’s actually sending to voters, which are heavy on right-wing crime panic.
The choice progressives can feel comfortable with is NoHo Neighborhood Councilor Jillian Burgos, an entertainment industry professional and entrepreneur who’s running with the backing of the California Nurses Association, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, and, as she’s happy to note on her website, pretty much every one of the various progressive and leftist voter guides that tend to move a lot of late-deciding voters in LA. She has less money than the other three candidates with a shot, but she’s not broke, and she’s the only one doing a convincing job of seeming progressive in a district that generally leans that way.
Los Angeles City Council District 4 (Encino, Sherman Oaks, Hollywood Hills)
Nithya Raman (i) vs. Levon Baronian vs. Ethan Weaver
Result: Raman 50.65%, Weaver 38.6%, Baronian 10.7% | Raman wins outright
Nithya Raman is the most senior (and most conservative, relatively speaking) of the three-member socialist bloc on the LA City Council. She’s stood up to the LAPD and corporate interests across the board and opposed the corrupt, racist establishment that produced the now-infamous LA City Council tapes. For it, she was rewarded with a district drawn to oust her and a GOP-recommended challenger awash in money. That challenger, prosecutor Ethan Weaver, has won a handful of endorsements from mostly terrible local politicians, business PACs, and law enforcement unions, but most of the Los Angeles establishment has thankfully chosen to value incumbency over their disagreements with Raman. This race could go either way, or Republican Lev Baronian could force a runoff for eight more months of fun.
Los Angeles City Council District 6 (San Fernando Valley)
Imelda Padilla (i) vs. Ely De La Cruz Ayao vs. Carmenlina Minasova
Result: Padilla 78.4%, Ayao 11.8%, Minasova 9.8% | Padilla wins outright
Well, shit. Imelda Padilla is on the council’s conservative wing already, and both of her challengers, Ely De La Cruz Ayao and Carmenlina Minasova, are right-wing cranks.
Los Angeles City Council District 8 (South Los Angeles)
Marqueece Harris-Dawson (i) vs. Jahan Epps vs. Cliff Smith
Result: Harris-Dawson 78.4%, Smith 14.5%, Epps 7.1% | Harris-Dawson wins outright
Marqueece Harris-Dawson is kinda sorta progressive. He will generally side with the council’s progressive wing (which is anchored by the socialists but often expands beyond them.) He’s also a very clear favorite for another term against a long-shot challenger from the left (Cliff Smith) and from the right (Jahan Epps.)
Los Angeles City Council District 10 (Baldwin Hills, Mid City, Koreatown)
Heather Hutt (i) vs. Eddie Anderson vs. Reginald Jones-Sawyer vs. Aura Vasquez vs. Grace Yoo
Result: Hutt 37.8%, Yoo 23.1%, Anderson 19.2%, Vasquez 14.0%, Jones-Sawyer 5.9% | Hutt and Yoo advance to November
Heather Hutt was appointed by Nury Martinez in late August 2022 (a little over a month before Martinez’s early October fall from grace) to permanently fill the vacancy left behind by a different disgraced LA politician, Mark Ridley-Thomas, after his conviction on federal corruption charges. You understand why Hutt has kept her head down and tried to avoid making anyone angry—she only has the weakest vestige of incumbency, and she’d rather not remind voters how she got it, even though her appointment was uncontroversial at the time (she had previously served as a temporary caretaker in the seat.) Hutt is supported by her colleagues and some other LA politicians, but nobody seems to feel too strongly about keeping her in the seat. Progressive organizations are backing pastor and activist Eddie Anderson, who also has the LA Times in his corner. Assemb. Reggie Jones-Sawyer is termed out and seems to be running because he’s just not ready to retire from politics, but based on his record in the Assembly he’d likely vote with progressives most of the time, and his background in the labor movement has earned him a lot of labor support. Aura Vasquez’s endorsements are, in a word, confused: there’s leftist longshot mayoral candidate Gina Viola and progressive former Culver City Mayor Daniel Lee, but there’s also Blanca Rubio, so…huh. Grace Yoo, the field’s top fundraiser, is an anti-homeless shelter NIMBY activist, and she’s also the only Asian candidate in a district that includes Koreatown.
Los Angeles City Council District 14 (Downtown, Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights)
Kevin de León (i) vs. Wendy Carrillo vs. Nadine M. Diaz vs. Genny Guerrero vs. Teresa Y. Hillery vs. Ysabel Jurado vs. Miguel Santiago vs. Eduardo Vargas
Result: Jurado 24.5%, de León 23.4%, Santiago 21.25%, Carrillo 15.1%, Vargas 4.7%, Hillery 4.3%, Guerrero 4.1%, Diaz 2.6% | Jurado and de León advance to November
Kevin de León has the unmitigated gall to be running for reelection after the release of tapes in which he, then-Council President Nury Martinez, and then-Councilor Gil Cedillo, along with the president of the Los Angeles Labor Federation, Ron Herrera, used incredibly racist language regarding a colleague’s young Black child, Black people in general, Indigenous people, and a variety of other groups. Cedillo, who had already lost reelection but still had a few weeks left in office when the tapes came out, quietly exited politics on schedule, and both Martinez and Herrera resigned from their jobs under massive public pressure. de León refused, and candidates piled in to challenge him. Three have risen to the top: Assemb. Miguel Santiago, the establishment favorite backed by the LA Times, county Democrats, and organized labor; Assemb. Wendy Carrillo, a more progressive option who still won’t rock the boat too much; and DSA-LA’s Ysabel Jurado, who promises to add a fourth vote to the socialist bloc on the city council and counts a constellation of grassroots leftist organizations among her supporters (as well as some more mainstream labor unions and Democratic clubs.) We could envision any combination of de León, Santiago, Carrillo, and Jurado advancing to November.
San Jose Mayor
Matt Mahan (i) vs. Tyrone Wade
Result: Mahan 86.6%, Wade 13.4% | Mahan wins
Two years after getting elected, Matt Mahan hasn’t made any major missteps yet, while Tyrone Wade is, while not precisely a Republican, is running on “religious freedom” and “limited government”, and San Jose is basically the worst place in America for Tea Party backwash (as long as it isn’t dressed up in tech jargon), so we don’t see him getting far.
Sacramento Mayor
Steve Hansen vs. Jose Antonio Avina II vs. Flojaune “Flo” Cofer vs. Julius Engel vs. Richard Pan vs. Kevin McCarty
Result: Cofer 29.1%, McCarty 21.6%, Pan 21.4%, Hansen 21.0%, Avina 5.9%, Engel 1.0% | Cofer advances to runoff with Pan, McCarty, or Hansen
Let’s mix it up a little and list the candidates from worst to best.
Sacramento City Councilmember Steve Hansen could be Sacramento’s first gay mayor, as well as Sacramento’s first mayor to really go to war with the homeless. Backed by business interests, police unions, and ethically challenged centrist Rep. Ami Bera, Hansen leads in both fundraising and how frightening the prospect of him being mayor is.
Dr. Richard Pan, Sacramento’s state senator, did a truly commendable thing in getting vaccine mandates through the legislature pre-COVID, and protections for vaccine providers through post-COVID. He saved lives. Unfortunately, this position has other focuses, judging Pan holistically as a legislator reveals a man who was quite often friendly to business interests and played a key role in blocking single payer healthcare bills from advancing. His public safety platform is uncomfortably Hansen-esque, and he would hire another 100 cops if he got the chance.
Assemb. Kevin McCarty (not to be confused with unemployed Central Valley resident Kevin McCarthy) is about as good as you can normally ask for from a big city mayor. He began his career in the city council, where he was known for opposing public financing of the Sacramento Kings stadium. In the Assembly, he compiled a solid voting record, and now, running for mayor, he’s close with organized labor and wants to invest in non-police emergency responses (even if he doesn’t want to pare the police back at all) and safe camping sites while the city works on reducing the homeless population Ieven if he still supports encampment sweeps)
Epidemiologist Flo Cofer is underfunded, sure, but far from penniless—raising a little more than half of what the other major candidates have is enough to compete, and that’s good news, because she’s the only candidate we’re really excited about. Backed by the DSA, WFP, Our Revolution, and teachers unions, Cofer has major plans for the city, most exciting among them is establishing a public land bank to develop tens of thousands of affordable properties. In a major bout of good fortune, she was endorsed by the Sacramento Bee, unusual for a progressive candidate.
Jose Antonio Avina II and Julius Engel are minor candidates who will not receive much of the vote. In municipal races, if any candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round, they win outright without a runoff.
San Diego City Attorney
Heather Ferbert vs. Brian Maienschein
Result: Ferbert 53.15%, Maienschein 46.85% | Ferbert and Maienschein advance to November
Assemblyman Brian Maienschein is a former moderate Republican who switched parties in 2019. While Maienschein was a moderate increasingly out of step with the Trump-era GOP, he pretty clearly switched parties to save his own skin in a blue-leaning Assembly district that was only becoming more hostile to his old party, which is why it’s a little odd he’s now the clear favorite of the Democratic establishment and organized labor for a new job. Chief Deputy City Attorney Heather Ferbert is running a campaign on experience and credentialism, pointing out that Maienschein hasn’t been a practicing attorney in quite some time—but elected attorney positions like this are managerial in nature, and Maienschein is still a licensed attorney. Ferbert does have one union behind her—the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, which represents her would-be employees.
San Diego City Council District 3 (Downtown)
Stephen Whitburn (i) vs. Ellis California Jones vs. Kate Callen vs. Coleen Cusack
Result: Whitburn 52.5%, Cusack 20.9%, Callen 16.6%, Jones 9.95% | Whitburn and Cusack advance to November
Incumbent councilor Stephen Whitburn is at risk in a runoff, most likely with single-issue NIMBY candidate Kate Callen. Let’s read through her hilarious website together:
My candidacy began on a Saturday morning in 2021 when I stood with angry neighbors along North Park’s 30th Street and watched city crews paint the curbs red.
We implored our elected officials not to remove street parking along this busy corridor. We reminded them that bike lanes were originally planned for the quieter Utah Street.
But they didn’t listen to us. They never do.
You tell them, Kate. The woke mob can never take away your street parking!
Less likely to make the runoff is Coleen Cusack, a nice-seeming liberal who wants to build housing and fund social services. Most of organized labor is backing Whitburn, but Cusack does have the teachers union behind her. Ellis California Jones is a classic gadfly candidate, endorsed by the local GOP.
San Diego City Council District 4 (Southeastern)
Henry Foster III vs. Tylisa D. Suseberry vs. Chida Warren-Darby
Result: Foster 53.8%, Warren-Darby 27.3%, Suseberry 18.9% | Foster wins outright
This seat is vacant due to the election of Monica Montgomery Steppe to the county board of supervisors. Montgomery Steppe is supporting her chief of staff, Henry Foster III, as are organized labor and the liberal/progressive bloc on the city council, while Mayor Todd Gloria, Rep. Juan Vargas, and two members of the more moderate bloc are behind city staffer Chida Warren-Darby. Small business owner Tylisa Suseberry seems like the odd woman out here.
San Diego City Council District 9 (Mid-City)
Sean Elo-Rivera (i) vs. Fernando Garcia vs. Terry Hoskins
Result: Elo-Rivera 51.8%, Hoskins 30.2%, Garcia 18.0% | Elo-Rivera and Hoskins advance to November
Sean Elo-Rivera is the city council president elected by a narrow majority of progressives—a majority that included Monica Montgomery Steppe, and now depends on Henry Foster’s victory in District 4 to hold on to power. His main challenger is police union-endorsed police officer Terry Hoskins, who wants to hand control back to the moderates and reestablish “respect” on the city council.
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