California election results: Nithya Raman passes Spencer Pratt in L.A. mayor’s race

Los Angeles County Measure ER, which would enact sales tax for five years to fund county hospitals, local clinics and other health services, remains locked in a tight race.

As of Sunday night’s counting, the “no” vote was 860,873 and the “yes” vote was 849,337.

Faced with dramatic federal funding cuts, the county supervisors are putting a half-cent sales tax on the ballot. The money — a half-penny of every dollar spent in the county — would go to prop up local hospitals and clinics.

Officials say it would pull in $1 billion annually to help plug the budget holes hitting local hospitals and clinics.

Early returns showed ER headed for defeat.

Two days after Democrat Xavier Becerra secured one of the top spots in the California governor’s race, Republican Steve Hilton remains highly favored to join him on the November ballot — but as of Sunday evening has yet to clinch.

The Associated Press declared Becerra a winner Friday night, three days after the June 2 primary election. As votes have been counted throughout the weekend, a second-place finish for Hilton appears extremely likely.

Democrat Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder turned climate change activist, remains in third place in the gubernatorial vote count. Although he has gained some ground on Hilton over the weekend, the likelihood of him overtaking the Republican appears remote.

Under California’s primary system, only the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the November general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

The Associated Press called this California congressional race:

• Republican Brian Burley advances to the general election for U.S. House in California’s 42nd Congressional District.

When Nithya Raman stepped up to a podium on the night of L.A.’s mayoral primary election, she thanked her supporters for standing up to the “powerful interests” who spent millions of dollars trying to “preserve this city’s broken and unjust status quo.”

“At a time when so many people have written Los Angeles off or have lost hope in the future of this incredible city,” the democratic socialist L.A. mayoral hopeful said, “you are proof that Angelenos are hungry for change.”

The votes are still being tallied but the result of Tuesday’s top-two primary election in California seems pretty clear.

Despite an uptick in his performance, hopes for third-place finisher Tom Steyer are fading along with the number of uncounted ballots, suggesting Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton will face off in November.

The Associated Press called two more congressional race in California Saturday:

• Republican Chuong Vo advances to the general election for U.S. House in California’s 45th Congressional District.
  
• Republican Ritesh Tandon advances to the general election for U.S. House in California’s 17th Congressional District.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman cut deeper into the lead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt on Saturday, as his lead slimmed to just a single percentage point.

Pratt fell to just over 27% of the vote while Raman jumped up to slightly over 26%, according to the results from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder. Pratt now leads Raman by just 7,494 votes.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is pushing back against investigations into reports of election fraud by the U.S. attorney’s office.

“There are no details, there is no specifics, there is no specific allegation of any individualized act of voter fraud,” Bonta told MS NOW Saturday. “And every count, recount, hand count, court case and audit has shown time and time again — not just in California, but throughout this country — that there is no widespread voter fraud.”

His comments come after First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said his office “has multiple election fraud investigations underway,” in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles.

He claimed the fraud allegations are “only a figment of the imagination of Trump and others who follow that conspiracy theory.”

Proud boy expelled from Pratt’s party

Spencer Pratt’s election night party at Don Antonio’s Mexican restaurant in West Los Angeles included a few uninvited guests, and it wasn’t just members of the news media.

Democrat Xavier Becerra advancing to the November election puts him one step closer to making history.

Becerra could make history by becoming the first Latino to be elected governor — and the first to lead the state in more than 150 years. The last time a Latino held the office was in 1875, when then-Lt. Gov. Romualdo Pacheco was elevated to fill a vacancy and served for 10 months.

“California has made history. Xavier Becerra’s advancement to the general election is a defining moment both for the state, and for the millions of Latino families who have been instrumental in shaping the state’s future,” said Voto Latino Executive Director Beatriz Lopez. “As home to the nation’s largest Latino population, California will once again demonstrate the decisive power of Latino voters.”

Though Latinos make up about 40% of the state’s population and are California’s largest ethnic group, they historically have lower turnout in elections and are underrepresented in government. While Becerra often cites his upbringing as a child of working-class Mexican immigrants, he must demonstrate that he can deliver for these communities, said Christian Arana, vice president of civic power and policy at the California-based Latino Community Foundation.

“There’s a lot of excitement about the representation side,” Arana said. “You can have Latino representation, but whether or not that will actually lead to tangible outcomes for Latino communities, that’s what people want to know.”

Read more here.

Mayor Karen Bass ran the table in South Los Angeles, Spencer Pratt found strong support from his Westside base, and Nithya Raman racked up votes in Echo Park and other neighborhoods with a concentration of renters, according to a Times analysis of partial precinct-level results from this week’s primary election.

The Times analysis, based on an estimated 62% of the ballots counted so far, found that Pratt was favored in many of the same neighborhoods that voted for mayoral candidate Rick Caruso in 2022, while Raman made inroads in progressive areas dominated by Bass four years ago.

The Associated Press has made calls in three additional California races:

• Democrat Fiona Ma advances to the general election for lieutenant governor in California.
  

• Democrat Tessa Hodge advances to the general election for U.S. House in California’s 23rd Congressional District.

• Republican Joe Males advances to the general election for U.S. House in California’s 25th Congressional District.

Ron, a West L.A. resident, thinks he knows why former reality TV star and political newcomer Spencer Pratt won so much support in his run for mayor.

People are frustrated, frightened and angry about homelessness “and the crime associated with it,” Ron said in an email. He added that he voted for Mayor Karen Bass, but “almost everything Pratt said about the homeless resonated with me. … The homeless run wild here, without consequence.”

Since election night in California, a single theory of election fraud has taken root like no other among online conspiracy theorists, bot accounts, conservative influencers and people close to President Trump. It proved to be a simple misreading of the voting data.

Late on election night, an update of vote counts in the Los Angeles mayor’s race appeared on election results pages of various media outlets including the Los Angeles Times. It showed leading Democrats Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman receiving tens of thousands of new votes, and leading Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt receiving no new votes.

Veteran Democratic politician Xavier Becerra won one of the top two spots in California’s primary for governor, according to the Associated Press, a finish that puts him in a prime position to win the November general election and make history as California’s first elected Latino governor.

“The people of the great state of California, in the greatest nation on earth, have spoken — loudly and proudly,” Xavier Becerra said in a statement Friday. “We will not be bought. We will not be bullied. And we are never backing down. November, here we come.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman closed in on reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, cutting his lead to about 3 percentage points, as both vie for second place in the mayoral primary, according to the latest results released Friday.

Raman has steadily carved into Pratt’s margin over three days of election updates. She now trails him by 20,672 votes in the race to compete against Mayor Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 runoff election.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who has repeatedly criticized California’s slow ballot count, said Friday that he thinks Gov. Gavin Newsom should mobilize state resources to deliver verified election results by June 11.

By Thursday evening, 5.6 million ballots had been processed in the state, with an estimated 3.6 million ballots remaining, according to information provided by the secretary of state.

Hilton and Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra are leading the race for governor, but the election remains too close to declare them winners. Under California’s primary system, only the first and second place finishers in the primary advance to the November general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Billionaire progressive Tom Steyer trails in third place

“This shambles is absolutely shameful for our state,” Hilton said at a press conference Friday morning. “India counts over 640 million votes in a day. California cannot count less than 10 million votes in a month.”

In his remarks, Hilton blamed Democrats for turning California into a “national and international laughingstock.”

The governor’s office dismissed Hilton’s comments, saying he lacks an understanding of how California elections are conducted.

“It’s concerning that a candidate for Governor doesn’t know the Governor has nothing to do with counting ballots,” Brandon Richards, Newsom’s deputy director for rapid response, said in a statement.

Under state law, local elections officials are responsible for administering elections and counting ballots. Elections are overseen by the secretary of state, California’s top elections official.

“Governor Newsom wishes the vote count moved faster, too,” Richards said.

California’s vote count is slow because voters have many avenues to cast ballots, The Times has reported. California allows voters to cast ballots by mail up until election day — and then has to count those ballots, which can number in the millions and are subject to manual signature verification. Under state law, election officials must give voters a chance to fix signature issues, further slowing down the process.

On Wednesday, Hilton told a crowd of supporters at the California Republican Party headquarters that he was waiting for races to be called, but expects to move on to the November general election.

“[Just] looking at the numbers, we’re very confident that at this point it’s not going to be possible, certainly in my race, for two Democrats to overtake our vote,” Hilton said Wednesday.

President Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats are “cheating” to win California’s primary elections on posts on his social media platform Truth Social late Wednesday.

“Why the vote counting DELAY???,” Trump wrote.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, a Trump loyalist, said Friday morning his office “has multiple fraud investigations underway” in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles.

The November runoff for state schools superintendent will pit two school board presidents — one a union-friendly liberal and the other a Trump-aligned conservative — against each other.

Republican, Sonja Shaw finished in first place in this week’s primary with 24.5% of votes counted through June 4. Democrat Richard Barrera had 19.3%.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli on Friday morning said his office “has multiple election fraud investigations underway,” in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles.

Essayli’s remarks, posted to X, seemed to be in response to President Trump alleging in his own social media post late Wednesday that Democrats in California were “cheating” in the state’s primary election, and that there was an investigation underway in Essayli’s office.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and Republican Jennifer Hawks will advance to the November general election in the race for state treasurer.

Kounalakis, a former businesswoman, is finishing her second term as lieutenant governor of California. She was the first woman elected to the office in 2018. She launched a campaign for governor in 2023 but dropped out of the race in August to run for treasurer. She is endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and outgoing state Treasurer Fiona Ma, who is finishing her second term and is running for lieutenant governor.

Hawks is a retired businesswoman. She serves as president of Palo Alto Republican Women Federated, a women’s political club. She is endorsed by the Californian Republican Party.

The Associated Press declared Kounalakis and Hawks to be the top two winners in the primary election for state Treasurer. In California, only the candidates who finish in first and second place in the primary advance to the November general election.

The slog of tallying up votes in California continued Friday as some races hang in the ballots.

Here is where we stand:

After the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral primary, developer Rick Caruso looked to have a surprising, and sizable, lead over then-U.S. Rep. Karen Bass.

The morning after the polls closed, Caruso was ahead by 5 percentage points — 42% to Bass’ 37% — and the former Republican called the early results “a victory story.”

But that lead did not last as the vote count continued. By the time all votes were tabulated two weeks after election day, Bass had come out on top, with 43% of the vote compared with Caruso’s 36%.

Welcome to the postelection vote-count slog in California, where tight races are often impossible to call even when the initial results seem clear-cut.

The last time Angelenos sacked an incumbent city attorney in the primaries, almost 30% of them were unemployed.

That was May 2, 1933, the nadir of the Great Depression, when sprawling encampments blanketed downtown, King Kong ruled movie theaters and violent crime reached a fever pitch not seen again for nearly half a century.

There are an estimated 3.6 million ballots remaining to be counted in California’s primary election, according to information provided by the secretary of state at 6 p.m. Thursday.

These millions of untallied ballots, made up primarily of by vote-by-mail ballots, have the potential to shift the outcomes in several undecided races.

So far, around 5.6 million ballots have been processed in the state. In L.A. County, around 1.4 million ballots have been counted, while some 700,000 still need to be processed, according to the secretary of state.

Vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before election day and received by the county elections official no later than seven days after the election will be counted.

County election officials are required to provide the secretary of state with an updated tally of unprocessed ballots starting two days after election day and continuing every day until the count is complete.

Election watchdogs have urged patience for the results of this week’s primary, which includes tight races for governor and Los Angeles mayor, and they have stressed that the slow count points not to problems or fraud, but to an accurate tally.

“We allow people lots of different avenues to vote, and as a result it takes longer to count up all the votes,” said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University. “And that’s how it should be. ... It’s an argument in favor of making sure the process runs correctly — not quickly.”

The latest vote count in the California governor’s race shows Republican Steve Hilton holding steady with 27% followed by Democrats Xavier Becerra at 26% and Tom Steyer with 20%.

Los Angeles County, the state’s biggest population center, was among the counties releasing updated numbers on Thursday. The county, which has an estimated 688,000 votes left to count, will release more results Friday.

The top two vote-getters will advance to the November election.

Despite Hilton and Becerra holding on to their top positions, the race remains fluid. The Associated Press has yet to call the race.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman has narrowed the gap with reality TV personality Spencer Pratt in the race to make the Nov. 3 runoff against Mayor Karen Bass, according to the latest election update posted Thursday.

Raman remained in third place, trailing Pratt by just under six percentage points, the results showed. On Wednesday afternoon, she was about seven points behind. When county workers finished tabulating votes on election night, the gap between the two was eight percentage points.

In the race for Los Angeles mayor, incumbent Karen Bass secured a place on the November ballot. But who will challenge her is yet to be determined, as votes are still being tallied.

With 62% of the expected vote counted, reality television personality Spencer Pratt sits in second place and City Councilmember Nithya Raman trails in third. Although Pratt has declared victory, the Associated Press, which estimates the expected votes in, has not called the race.

A clearer picture is emerging of how Orange County will shape up come November.

Here’s where we stand as of Wednesday in the races for three congressional races — in the 42nd, the 45th and the 47th districts.

Read the full story here.

Well, that didn’t take long.

A day after California’s primary election, President Trump took to social media with baseless claims of election fraud — predictable, but also dangerous.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson pushed back against a claim by Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt that if he’s elected, L.A.’s homeless population would move to Seattle to take advantage of that city’s drug laws.

Pratt made the comment during an interview with ABC’s Josh Haskell, in which he claimed the city’s more than 40,000 homeless were choosing to live on the street.

Los Angeles voters were giving thumbs down to a measure that would raise the city’s hotel bed tax ahead of the 2028 Olympics, while also extending the tax to short-term rentals booked through companies like Airbnb and Expedia.

Buoyed by a new congressional map favoring their party, California Democrats eyed Tuesday’s primary elections as a critical first step toward flipping a handful of House seats and taking back power in Washington.

As of Wednesday, the results were a mixed bag — with Democratic candidates advancing to November’s general election as expected in several districts that were redrawn in their favor as a result of last year’s Proposition 50 ballot measure, but early results in another race considered critical to their majority aspirations caused unease.

The bottom line: There are still a lot of votes to count before a clear picture emerges.

Proposition 50 — which Californians passed with nearly 65% of the vote a year ago — was California Democrats’ response to Texas Republicans redrawing their state’s congressional maps in the GOP’s favor, at President Trump’s behest. It was also the only major Democratic counterpunch in the wider mid-decade redistricting brawl that has spread across the country in the last year.

Experts expect the redistricting battle to deliver a net gain of a handful or more House seats to Republicans. But Democrats could gain even more ground given Trump’s lousy approval ratings and the long history of midterm election losses for the president’s party.

Here’s the latest from Kevin Rector.

As former reality TV star Spencer Pratt and City Councilmember Nithya Raman wait for the vote tally to see who advances to the November election, let’s take a look at what polling says about potential match-ups against Mayor Karen Bass.

In a showdown between Bass and Pratt, the incumbent mayor was ahead, 47% to 29%, among the city’s registered voters, according to the poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by The Times.

In a race between Raman and Bass, the city councilmember was ahead 32% to 28%, with 15% undecided and 25% choosing neither or saying they would not vote, the poll found.

The UC Berkeley poll was conducted online in late May and has a margin of error of around 3% in either direction.

A day after the polls closed, there were still 85 races with uncertain outcomes.

The Times is tracking updates for all races in which no candidate received a strong majority.

If a race has tight margins or a high expected volume of last-minute mail-in ballots, it can take days or weeks to call. The Associated Press projects winners using vote returns and other data.

To the surprise of few, President Trump has once again claimed without evidence that Democrats are somehow cheating to win California’s primary elections — writing on social media late Wednesday that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are investigating the matter.

“The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS,” Trump posted to his social media website.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles,” he wrote in a second post. “Why the vote counting DELAY???”

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles — run by Trump loyalist First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli — declined to comment Thursday morning on Trump’s claims of an investigation.

In Shasta County, the most bitterly contested race in Tuesday’s primary election was for a role once considered mundane: registrar of voters.

It featured Clint Curtis, a torchbearer of the election denialism movement who was appointed as registrar last year after saying he wanted to hand-count ballots and bragging that he had worked with Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive and prominent pro-Trump conspiracy theorist.

His opponent: former Shasta County deputy registrar Joanna Francescut, who had worked in the elections office for 17 years before Curtis fired her a few days into his new job.

READ THE FULL STORY >

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass took office four years ago with a reputation as a coalition builder — someone capable of bringing competing factions together to achieve a common goal.

On Wednesday, that goal became Bass’ reelection this fall. In a bruising primary campaign, a broad coalition of supporters assembled by the mayor helped her secure a spot in the Nov. 3 runoff, even as her top two rivals — reality TV personality Spencer Pratt and City Councilmember Nithya Raman — battled for the second spot on the ballot.

President Trump made unfounded accusations about California’s vote count in a Truth Social post.

“Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS,” he wrote, suggesting without evidence the Democrats were trying to “steal” the governor and L.A. mayor’s race from Republicans.

It is part of a pattern by the president of sowing doubt about election results that he disagrees with. He falsely claimed he won the 2020 election after voters elected Joe Biden.

California’s ballot count takes an unusually long time.

Ballots in California are accepted for up to seven days after the election if they are postmarked on or before election day, and the official count can take up to 30 days.

Voting by mail (or drop box) has become the favorite method among Californians since universal vote-by-mail was implemented in 2021: more than 80% of ballots have since come from absentee, or vote-by-mail ballots, according to the California Voter Foundation’s analysis of the last four vote counts in California. In 2022’s primary it was as high as 91%.

Democrat Rob Bonta advances to the general election for attorney general in California, the Associated Press projected.

Bonta, seeking reelection as California attorney general, centers his campaign on fighting Trump administration lawsuits while addressing the state’s affordability crisis.

Los Angeles County elections officials continue to chip away at ballots received for Tuesday’s primary election but still have hundreds of thousands left to count.

Just since election night, there have been 77,521 ballots processed countywide, L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said in a statement Wednesday evening. That brings the total election results count to nearly 1.4 million, which represents roughly 23.7% of registered voters.

As of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, county election official estimated there were 713,180 ballots left to process, broken down as such:

• Vote-by-mail ballots: 700,000
• Conditional voter registration ballots: 11,340
• Provisional ballots: 1,840

Included in the estimate of outstanding vote-by-mail ballots are ballots postmarked by election day, those received from the United States Postal Service on Wednesday, as well as those returned at official drop boxes and vote centers on election day.

The estimate is subject to change as ballots continue to be scanned, prepared and processed, according to local officials. It also does not include additional vote-by-mail ballots that were postmarked on election day and will arrive at the processing center through next Tuesday.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass made what sounded like a victory speech Tuesday night.

Councilmember Nithya Raman made what sounded almost like a concession speech.

Two Democratic candidates — Rep. Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles and community advocate Angela Gonzales-Torres — will advance to the November general election, according to the Associated Press.

The results following a tumultuous election day in which Gomez acknowledged that he is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over sexual misconduct allegations.

Gomez has denied that he broke any ethics laws, but admitted in a statement that he made “personal mistakes” that caused his family pain.

Gonzales-Torres is a Pasadena City College counselor who has the backing of the progressive Justice Democrats.

The 34th Congressional District includes downtown and several neighborhoods on the city’s Eastside.

Republican candidate Steve Hilton continues to pace the field in the race to replace Gavin Newsom as California’s governor, according to the latest election returns released Wednesday afternoon.

Democrat Xavier Becerra remained in second place, though he closed the gap slightly on his rival as more ballots were counted.

Democrat Tom Steyer continued to trail behind the pair. The top two vote-getters, regardless of political party, will advance to November’s general election.

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While Hilton and Becerra are pacing the field, neither has yet garnered enough support to officially advance, according to the Associated Press. It is unclear how many ballots remain to be tallied.

While the results of many California races were clear by Wednesday morning, officials have warned tight ones could take days or weeks to resolve. That’s because California election laws emphasize voter convenience and accessibility, meaning it takes more time to receive, verify and count ballots.

In the latest election returns Wednesday afternoon, the gap between reality TV personality Spencer Pratt and City Councilmember Nithya Raman slightly narrowed, but Pratt continues to hold a sizable advantage as the two vie for the right to challenge incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 general election.

Bass, who has already secured her position on the November ballot as she seeks reelection for a second term as L.A. mayor, saw her lead over Pratt expand in the latest results, but continued to lead the field.

A controversial citizens’ initiative in Shasta County that would dramatically reshape local elections — by requiring ballots to be hand-counted, in apparent violation of state law, among other changes — was on track to be approved, according to early results from Tuesday night’s election.

Ballots were still being tallied, but results released early Wednesday by the Shasta County registrar’s office showed that Measure B was leading.

Measure B would amend the county’s charter to require elections to be held in-person on a single day, limit voting by mail only to “the infirm, military, and U.S. citizens living overseas,” and require voters to show identification at polling places (as would a statewide ballot measure that voters will decide upon in November).

If the measure passes, both opponents and supporters expect the county to be sued over it.

Cathy Darling Allen, the former longtime Shasta County registrar and current board chair of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said Measure B violates multiple state and federal election laws.

In 2023, Darling Allen clashed with the Shasta Board of Supervisors, which voted to ditch the county’s Dominion voting machines based on unfounded fraud claims and opted to hand-count ballots (quickly prompting a new state law that banned them from doing so).

Because of California’s long, complex ballots, she reported then, a full manual tally during a presidential election year would have required the hiring of at least 1,255 temporary employees, at a cost of more than $1.6 million, to meet reporting deadlines.

The ACLU of Northern California and the League of Women Voters said in a joint statement that Measure B “plainly violates state law” and that its elimination of most voting-by-mail will disenfranchise Shasta County voters.

Richard Gallardo, a leader of the citizens’ group Save Shasta Elections, which wrote the measure and collected thousands of signatures to get it on the ballot, said in an interview that Measure B is meant to protect the local election process from fraud.

“We don’t like the state laws,” said Gallardo, who is running for election to the Board of Supervisors. “We want to enact our own local election reform. … There’s a lot in there, so, yes, we do expect the state to sue us.”

The California secretary of state’s office declined in an email to comment on whether state elections officials would challenge the measure in court.

Residents of Monterey Park voted overwhelmingly to ban data centers on election day, making the San Gabriel Valley city the first in the nation to do so by public vote.

As of Wednesday, 86% of votes were in favor of Measure NDC, the city ban, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk.

Sonja Shaw — a Trump-aligned Republican whose public profile rose as she became identified with culture-war causes, including banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports — has emerged as the leading vote-getter in the June primary for California’s superintendent of public instruction.

With all precincts at least partially reporting Wednesday, Shaw, with 24.9% of the tallied votes, was well ahead of Democrat Richard Barrera, who had 18.9% of the votes. Even with vote-counting ongoing, that lead would be difficult to surmount.

A huge, waning moon glimmered over Los Angeles on election night, a metaphor for a trend that emerged in early returns.

The city’s political establishment seemed to be on the retreat in favor of populist insurgents from both the left and the right.

President Trump has congratulated his favored Republican California gubernatorial nominee Steve Hilton, whose campaign received a boost when Trump endorsed him in April.

With 55.8% of the expected votes in, Hilton was leading with 27.8%, followed by Democrats Xavier Becerra with 25.4% and Tom Steyer with 19.6%.

Still, even if Hilton does advance to the runoff, his path to the governor’s mansion is anything but assured. While a crowded field of Democratic primary candidates split liberal voters, they will face vastly fewer options in November. California last elected a Republican governor in 2006.

Republicans appear to have over-performed in early vote counts, but for a variety of reasons, experts believe the ballots will lean more Democratic as the latest vote-by-mail ballots are counted. This could benefit Democrats and progressives in close races, but by how much remains an open question.

On election day, Trump posted on Truth Social that federal money would flow to California if Hilton is elected and suggested a Democratic governor would not get such kind treatment.

With many races still very tight and millions of ballots yet to be counted, political experts said Democrats are likely to hold — or even gain — the edge as results of the primary election come into focus.

Republicans appear to have over-performed in early vote counts, but for a variety of reasons, experts believe the ballots will lean more Democratic as the latest vote-by-mail ballots are counted. This could benefit progressives in close races, but by how much remains an open question.

Buoyed by a new congressional map favoring their party, California Democrats eyed Tuesday’s primary elections as a critical first step toward flipping a handful of House seats and taking back power in Washington.

As of Wednesday, the results were a mixed bag — with Democratic candidates advancing to November’s general election as expected in several districts that were redrawn in their favor as a result of last year’s Proposition 50 ballot measure, but early results in another race considered critical to their majority aspirations causing unease.

Even on her way out, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — 86 and retiring — held sway.

Last month, in the final stretch of the race to replace her, Pelosi endorsed Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a candidate who had until then struggled to gain traction. The move clearly had an effect, with Chan advancing out of Tuesday’s primary to the general election in November, according to the Associated Press.

After all the buildup, fear and uncertainty, the most wide-open and unpredictable California gubernatorial primary in decades appears to have ended in the most consistent and predictable of ways.

California has never elected a female governor. That won’t change in November.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass capped a bruising primary campaign by securing a spot in the Nov. 3 runoff, where she will face either reality TV personality Spencer Pratt or City Councilmember Nithya Raman.

Votes were still being counted Wednesday, but the Associated Press said that Bass had a big enough lead in Tuesday’s primary to ensure she will be on the ballot in November.

In a landmark vote, Monterey Park residents have overwhelmingly voted to ban data centers within city limits.

With the majority of ballots cast, votes to pass Measure NDC had a sizable lead over votes against, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

The ballot measure, which can only be overturned by another vote, emerged from the fight against a 247,000-square-foot center proposed in 2024 by the Australian-owned investment firm HMC StratCap for a residential area in Monterey Park.

The move comes as a wave of data center opposition sweeps the country. While numerous towns and counties across the U.S. have instituted temporary moratoria and other restrictions on the facilities, only a handful have instituted indefinite bans, and just four other towns have sent related matters to the ballot.

Supporters are hoping the vote will set a precedent for the rest of the region, where residents are fighting proposals in Vernon and City of Industry.

Why the heck does it take California so long to count ballots?

That’s a question Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, has been answering ad nauseam for years. Ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, I joined the chorus, and, well, asked her again.

“I have been giving interviews about the long vote count for a decade now,” Alexander told me with a laugh. “It’s long past time for just explaining it and time to start addressing it.”

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Los Angeles’ music industry, in recent years, has generally supported progressive causes. But as the primaries for the city’s mayoral race and California‘s governorship wrapped up Tuesday, some music executives and performers have supported and donated large amounts to Spencer Pratt, the right-leaning activist and reality TV star running for mayor.

According to data from the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, Pratt’s supporters include two members of the record industry’s most powerful family who donated the maximum amount allowed by law.

Republican Jim Desmond and Democrat Marni von Wilpert will face each other in the redrawn 48th District in November, in what will be a nationally watched contest as Democrats attempt to flip the seat.

The district is one of five that were redrawn in Democrats’ favor under last year’s Proposition 50, and it is viewed by the party as a potential key to gaining control of the House and taking back power in Washington.

Desmond, a San Diego county supervisor backed by President Trump, and von Wilpert, a San Diego city councilmember and workers’ rights attorney, overtook three other candidates who were vying for the seat following Republican Rep. Darrell Issa’s retirement. The redrawn district covers parts of San Diego and Riverside counties.

Von Wilpert fended off Democrats Ammar Campa-Najjar, a U.S. Naval reserve officer who had previously run against Issa, and Brandon Riker, a well-funded economist.

Republican state Rep. James Gallagher won a special election in the 1st District to fill the seat of late Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R), who died in January.

The Associated Press called the race for Gallagher just before midnight Tuesday.

Gallagher is now set to serve out the remainder of LaMalfa’s term, but under the state’s redrawn congressional map, a different set of voters will choose the 1st District representative in November.

In the new 1st District primary, Gallagher also advanced, according to the AP, and will face Democratic state Sen. Mike McGuire on the November ballot.

By early Wednesday morning, no calls for any candidate had been made in the governor’s race by the Associated Press, as the ballot count continued.

With about 58% of votes counted, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra continued to hold leads, with Democrat Tom Steyer in third. The top two candidates will advance to the general election.

Under California’s voting laws, ballot-counting takes time, and particularly tight races can take days to call.

State Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan will advance to the general election in the race to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

Wiener and Chan had emerged by Wednesday morning as the top two vote-getters out of a large slate of Democratic candidates vying to succeed Pelosi in the 11th Congressional District. With 50% of votes counted, Wiener led with 41.3% and Chan with 28.6% of the vote, according to the Associated Press, which called the race for both.

San Franciscans want “a new generation ready to take on the hardest issues facing our country,” Wiener said Tuesday night, declaring victory in San Francisco.

Chan, who was endorsed by Pelosi, beat out tech millionaire Saikat Chakrabati for the second spot in the general election.

“We’re going to show you what working people’s power looks like,” Chan told supporters.

Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto all but conceded that her reelection bid had failed Wednesday morning, as she lagged far behind her two well-funded challengers based on early returns.

Her incumbent colleague, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, appeared to be faring better in his bid to stay in office, holding a double-digit lead over finance executive Zach Sokoloff.

The outcome of the hotly contested race for California governor remained uncertain Wednesday morning, but Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra held leads in the large field running to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Hilton, a former conservative commentator, and Becerra, a longtime elected official who served in the Biden administration, were roughly tied as the statewide vote count continued, with Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer sitting in third place. Only two of the candidates will advance to the November general election.

Xavier Becerra walked onto the stage shortly before 10:30 p.m. to screams from supporters who gathered at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles to watch early election night returns.

Becerra, a former California attorney general and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, hugged his wife and three daughters before launching into his speech. The overarching theme: being an underdog.

He cited his upbringing as the child of hardworking immigrant parents and the first in his family to attend college. When it came to his run for governor, he was counted out, outspent by competitors and facing calls to drop out to clear a path for a Democrat to rise to the top of a crowded field, he said.

In the end, Becerra appears to have been that Democrat.

Early returns showed him slightly behind Republican Steve Hilton, with thousands of ballots left to tally.

“Like my parents, I never gave up … and thankfully neither did you,” Becerra told the crowd. “While I take nothing for granted [and] there are lots of ballots left to be counted, it appears that we are on track to advance to November.”

Becerra said he wants make sure all Californians have a brighter future, to address the housing affordability crisis by “launching a building revolution,” to improve access to affordable healthcare and to “never surrender green growth jobs of the future, to Washington politics, or international competitors.”

He also vowed to do more to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and women’s rights are protected, and to treat “public safety like a first order principle.”

“We will do all of these things, because the world today needs California’s shining example more than ever,” he said. “It’s optimism. It’s inclusion. It’s ambition and invention — that is what makes America great. Not the wealth and privilege. But one people, e pluribus unum.”

Democratic incumbent Rep. Dave Min will face off with Republican Jenny Rae Le Roux to represent California’s 47th Congressional District.

The Associated Press called the race around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Min, a former law professor at UC Irvine, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024 after a stint in the state Senate.

Le Roux, who has snagged the endorsement of several prominent Orange County Republicans, jumped into the political scene in California in 2021 when she ran to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in an unsuccessful recall effort.

The 47th District, which after redistricting now includes Irvine, Tustin, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, Lake Forest, Laguna Woods, Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo, was previously a swing seat but has become far less competitive for Republicans. The district backed Kamala Harris for president over Donald Trump by 10 percentage points in 2024.

The mood was exultant at Steve Hilton’s election party in Huntington Beach. Hilton took the stage just after 10 p.m., as early results showed him leading in the governor’s race, with Xavier Becerra in second.

“This is the first stage, but the fight really starts tomorrow,” said the former conservative commentator, who was endorsed by President Trump.

Hilton led the crowd in a chant of “Change is coming!” He spoke of himself and fellow Republican Spencer Pratt, who had a strong showing in the L.A. mayoral primary, as “a couple of outsiders who’ve never run for office before” and took on a broken system.

In each race, the top two finishers will face each other in the November general election.

“California means to America what America means to the world,” Hilton, a native of England, told the crowd — a place of hope and innovation and entrepreneurship.

“We’re gonna save the entertainment industry,” Hilton said. “We’re gonna bring Hollywood home.”

Hilton added, “We’ve got the rebel spirit. We’ve got the hustle. We’ve got the attitude. We’ve got everything we need to make California golden again.”

He said he would bring jobs back to California and cited his plan to eliminate income tax on the first $100,000 of earnings.

Around 10:20 p.m., a confident Spencer Pratt emerged from his election night party to talk with reporters on the sidewalk, soon after it was announced that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had advanced to the November general election in her bid for a second term, according to the Associated Press.

“Well, obviously God wanted five more months of me exposing all the failures of our mayor, so it’s gonna be a fun ride,” Pratt said. “I hope she’s ready.”

“We can do debates every Friday if she would like, because it actually became my most favorite thing to do,” he added.

The candidate had initially hoped to win the primary outright by securing over 50% of the vote. He was in second according to early returns Tuesday night.

Pratt stressed he is not defined by a political party. Despite a history as a registered Republican, Pratt said he has significant Democratic support — including Democratic “heavy hitters” at his election night party.

“The media likes to say, ‘Oh, he’s this,’” Pratt said, referring to his political party affiliation. “I’m not that. I’m an Angeleno who said enough is enough, and I had to step up.”

Over the next five months, Pratt said he will continue to travel across Los Angeles to hear from residents.

“I’m going to go all the way. I’m going to show everybody that I’m their mayor,” he said.

The vibe at the California Republican Party headquarters in downtown Sacramento was upbeat Tuesday evening, as party members tracked early results and huddled to watch a livestream of Steve Hilton’s election night party.

“Everybody’s kind of sitting on the edge of their seats right now, waiting for the next update, but overall we’re feeling good,” California Republican Party Chair Corrin Rankin said around 9 p.m.

In past California elections, early results would typically trend in favor of Democrats, since Republican voters generally turn their ballots later, Rankin said. Not so this time.

“This cycle, the Republicans really turned their ballots in early. They outpaced what they usually do,” she said, crediting her party’s effort in encouraging Republican turnout in the run-up to the Proposition 50 election.

“[When] you couple that with just having a slate of exciting candidates, I just think it was a perfect storm,” Rankin said.

Data show that Democrats held onto their ballots longer this year as they mulled a crowded field of candidates for governor.

Rankin was particularly pleased with Hilton’s early performance in the gubernatorial primary.

“Steve’s actually over-performing what we anticipated, so we’ll see how the rest of the night progresses, but we do expect him to do very well,” Rankin said.

Rankin said early results in the L.A. mayoral race, which as of around 9 p.m. had Democratic incumbent Karen Bass and Republican challenger Spencer Pratt in the lead, are “pretty much what we thought it was going to look like.”

Bass’s low polling as an incumbent mayor “says a lot,” Rankin said. “It says that Angelenos are not happy with her.”

Rankin said the state Republican party is focused on regaining California’s 13th Congressional District, which is held by Rep. Adam Gray. Democrats narrowly flipped the Central Valley seat in 2024.

Early results show that “Californians are looking for change, and they’re starting to look to the Republican Party,” Rankin said.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has advanced to November’s general election in her bid for a second term, according to the Associated Press.

Bass was running ahead of her two main challengers, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, according to early election returns Tuesday night.

At around 8 p.m. in the Line LA Hotel in Koreatown, Bass told her supporters that the results were “looking good so far.”

She told the crowd that her administration has laid a foundation for the future by moving homeless people indoors, fast-tracking new, affordable housing and strengthening the local economy.

“We are going to work together to make sure that this city thrives,” she said.

The first round of in-person votes that were cast Tuesday arrived at the ballot-processing center in the City of Industry around 10 p.m., in line with Los Angeles County’s projections.

L.A. County Sheriff’s cruisers rolled into the center’s parking lot with stacked boxes full of ballots in their back seats. Election workers then inspected each box before carrying them into the facility to be counted.

Some ballots coming from farther away will be transported to the center by helicopter. Sheriff’s deputies will be transporting ballots throughout the night.