CA election trends so far

California is still counting votes (1.5 million yet to go), but some noteworthy trends are becoming clearer: 

Latino voters: Although the extent is still uncertain, polls show that support for President-elect Donald Trump among Latinos has grown nationwide. In California, a CalMatters analysis found that a larger share of votes in at least nine of the state’s 12 Latino-majority counties went to Trump this year compared to 2020.

As CalMatters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu explains, the shift by Latino voters may have a lot to do with economic concerns. Mike Madrid, a longtime GOP consultant, said that Democrats have been slowly losing Latino support since 2012, and they should consider the election a “five-alarm fire.”

But some experts and California Democrats don’t view Trump’s victory as a sweeping rebuke of the party. In some of the state’s congressional toss-up races, for example, Democratic candidates appear to be outperforming Vice President Kamala Harris. Rather than voting for Republicans, they say, voters just wanted to oust incumbents. 

“What you want to call a rightward shift,” said Democrat Adam Gray, who is in a tight race for California’s 13th Congressional District, “I would call a rejection of more of the same.”

Read more about California’s Latino voters in Stella’s story.

More voters: While Harris lost to Trump overwhelmingly in the Electoral College, she has won more votes in her home state (8.4 million as of Thursday) than Barack Obama did in 2008 when he won the presidency. 

That’s largely a result, however, of more registered voters in California: 22.6 million this year, compared to 17.3 million in 2008. The state has made it easier to register and to vote in recent years; 84% of all eligible voters are registered, up from 75% in 2008.

Harris is at 59% of the vote statewide so far, compared to 61% for Obama in 2008 against Republican John McCain. In the total number of votes, she is also running slightly ahead of Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who has won the U.S. Senate race. But that’s because of those who voted for president, but skipped the U.S. Senate race.

Congressional delegation: California went into the election with 40 Democrats and 12 Republicans in the U.S. House and two Democrats in the Senate. After the millions of dollars spent and all the campaigning and ads, the party split could be almost identical. With two House races still undecIded but the Republicans leading narr0wly, there could be as many as 11 Republicans representing the state in the House as part of the narrow GOP majority. California’s two Democrats in the U.S. Senate will be in the minority.

Election results: Keep up with all the latest California results, including on the ballot propositions. And follow CalMatters coverage by signing up for 2024 election emails.

California’s Democratic leaders from Gov. Gavin Newsom on down have been publicly preparing for Trump’s second term in the Oval Office. Newsom has called a special session and Attorney General Rob Bonta is preparing more lawsuits. Trump’s nomination Thursday of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who ran for president this year and has espoused widely debunked anti-vaccination views — as health secretary is also raising blood pressure among Democrats.

• Assembly Health Chairperson Mia Bonta, an Oakland Democrat, in a statement: “Americans deserve better than someone who has only made a name for himself by spreading conspiracy theories and pushing back against some of humanity’s greatest public health achievements.”

But what do the state’s Republican leaders want?

Thursday, Assembly GOP leader James Gallagher of Chico shared a letter he sent to Trump (at Mar-a-Lago) asking for his help: “Many Californians believe your leadership can help us tackle issues that have plagued California for too long.”

Gallagher cites crime, gas prices, housing, utility costs and wildfires.

• The letter: “While Governor Gavin Newsom wants to ‘Trump-proof’ California, legislative Republicans want to partner with you to pursue real solutions. We have been fighting tirelessly to fix California, but we need your support. Californians deserve real progress, not political showdowns that ultimately cost taxpayers and distract from the urgent needs of our state and nation.”

From CalMatters higher education reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn:

Leaders of the University of California on Thursday decried the system’s antisemitic culture while discussing an October report chronicling anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli incidents at UCLA.

While scores of campuses across the country convulsed with protest over the war in Gaza, UCLA became a poster child for violence after a pro-Israeli mob attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment in late April. That and other incidents prompted the UC system to reiterate policies banning encampments on campus.

“There is a perniciousness of the antisemitism that we’ve seen on our campuses and in broader society that is not paralleled by anything else today,” said John A. Pérez, a former speaker of the California Assembly and outgoing UC Board of Regents member.

Another regent, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, said the UC must take seriously “the concerns of Jewish students for their safety as scapegoats for a war happening overseas” that “by virtue of their ethnicity or their faith, are being held responsible for things that they should not be held responsible for.”

The October report followed two others that faulted UCLA’s administration for maintaining a “consistent anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim, and Arab racism and pro-Zionist bias.” In one of those reports, the task force authors wrote that pro-Palestinian students used peaceful means to highlight the suffering in Gaza as the Israeli military waged its campaign against Hamas, the governing body of Gaza that invaded Israel last Oct. 7.

Those students “faced horrific physical and psychological violence for protesting non-violently,” the May report said. A June report criticized UCLA’s leadership for “the militarization” of UCLA.

The antisemitism report, which surveyed more than 400 students, found that almost half of the undergraduate respondents said teaching assistants “engaged in behaviors that included offensive comments, attacks, or discrimination, and the majority reported that their peers engaged in these behaviors.”

After San Francisco Unified announced it intended to close or merge nearly a dozen schools, outcry from parents, staff and the mayor pressured the district to pull back last month, and its superintendent resigned. 

But are school closures a reasonable solution to shrinking budgets and enrollment? 

As CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones reports, the number of students enrolled in the state’s K-12 public schools has dropped by 7% over the past two decades. The pandemic, lower birth dates, decreasing rates of immigration and families moving out of California all play a part in the decline.

Closing under-enrolled schools can save districts money by cutting facility and payroll costs. That frees up money for teacher raises or improving academic and extracurricular programs at existing schools.

But school closures — which disproportionately affect low-income and Black communities — are deeply disruptive to students. Instead, the California Teachers Association says, districts should consider smaller classes, push for more state funding, and partner with community organizations to use buildings. 

• David Goldberg, union president: “Closing schools is the last thing we should be doing. Schools are a safety net in so many communities. … Disrupting that is a setback that is hard to undo.” 

Read more about the debate over school closures in Carolyn’s story.