2022 California general election

[Brian]

I've started threads like this for every election since the Montrose Peace Vigil message board went online in 2008, and now with early voting already underway, I'm later than usual. The mailers are arriving daily in a steady stream -- I'll sort, count and analyze them like I've always done here by the final day to vote.  Following the money to my mailbox.

I don't know about you, but most of the candidates I support, statewide and locally, will cruise to victory. And most of the propositions I oppose appear to be losing in the polls while the measure I like the best, the state constitutional amendment for abortion rights, should be approved handily.  Perhaps there are a few races where my vote potentially might make a difference.  Yet I'm only truly anxious about whether Alex Villanueva will be defeated for re-election as Los Angeles County sheriff.

As always, I'd love to hear what others have to say about the candidates and the measures on their ballots.  Feel free to post your reply.

[Brian]

LAUSD Board of Education member Kelly Gonez

The last municipal election in Los Angeles under the original system that long preceded my birth took place in the spring of 2017.  Because city voters had approved a charter amendment to skip the 2019 elections and move all local races to the statewide primary and general election ballots in 2020, everyone who already held or just got elected to office had their terms extended by a year and a half.  My board member of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Board of Education was termed out so the seat was open.  Against that backdrop, the billionaires behind charter schools battled with the teachers union for control of the school board.

I wasn't shocked back then to see a door knocker for Kelly Gonez -- despite the rarity of canvassing in my neighborhood over the decades -- because of all the charter school money she had raised.  But I was surprised to learn that the gentleman was Kelly's father.  It was apparent after talking about her for a good while how proud he was of Kelly, that she had a good heart and was well qualified for the job.  I couldn't tell him that my loyalties were with my friends in United Teachers Los Angeles or that I was voting for her opponent.

I've watched Kelly closely over the last five and a half years.  She's proven that she's no shill for charter schools.  She became president of the board and led the district through the pandemic.  And UTLA has endorsed her for re-election.  Dad was right.

Another door knocker came here Saturday afternoon.  From what I've gathered online, he was probably sent from Local 11 of IBEW in San Fernando, which has been aiding Kelly with a get-out-the-vote operation this year.  His English was as limited as my Spanish, but when he looked down at his clipboard and held up two fingers, I answered --  "Yes!  Two votes for Kelly!" -- and he understood.  A few hours later I was driving down Haines Canyon and saw a different guy with the same brown cap and clipboard going door to door at dusk.

[Brian]

The last mailer arrived on Saturday so it's time for my traditional election day mailbox tally. I know it's wacky, but counting the mailers helps me figure out where campaign money is spent, who's paying and what they think their best arguments are. Anni and I are both registered Democrats who always vote, so our poor letter carrier delivered 67 pieces of mail for the general election.  In comparison, we got 70 mailers for the June primary and only 36 mailers for the November 2020 presidential election.  Here is this election's breakdown:

• State Senate District 20 - 4 from Menjivar, 4 from a pro-Menjivar PAC, 4 from Hertzberg, 3 from a pro-Hertzberg PAC and 3 anti-Menjivar from another PAC
• Mayor of Los Angeles - 7 from Caruso (including two anti-Bass mailers and two form letters addressed to Anni) and nothing from Bass
• Los Angeles City Attorney - 1 from Feldstein Soto and 3 anti-Gill from a real estate PAC
• Los Angeles City Controller - 1 from Koretz
• LAUSD Board of Education District 6 - 1 from Gonez and 5 pro-Gonez from three PACS (charter schools supporters, building trades and SEIU)
• L.A. Community College Districts - 1 from Hernandez and 3 slates with her, Veras, Buelna and Iino from a faculty guilds PAC
• State Measure 1 - 5 Yes from committees by Senator Portantino and Assemblymember Holden
• State Measure 26 - 2 No from the card clubs
• State Measure 27 - 1 No from the non-casino Indian tribes
• State Measure 29 - 1 No from the dialysis companies
• State Measure 30 - 3 Yes from the California Democratic Party and 2 No from the teachers' PAC
• L.A. City Measures ULA and SP - 2 Yes on ULA from SEIU and building trades and 5 No on both from California Business Roundtable and big real estate interests
• Slates - 1 from the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, 1 from Equality California and 4 from the usual outfits that sell space to candidates

I was impressed with the amount of mail I got for my open State Senate district -- and by the variety of senders -- after only getting mail from Daniel Hertzberg, the son of a state senator who's currently running for county supervisor, and the various PAC's supporting Daniel in June.  For this election, my favorite candidate Caroline Menjivar clearly has money for her own campaign and friends like a PAC funded by California Environmental Voters, Women in Power PAC and Consumer Attorneys of California providing lots of independent cash.  The one big contributor behind both the pro-Hertzberg and anti-Menjivar mailers is the California Apartment Association, just one of many big real estate interests behind both PAC's.

As in the primary, I was disappointed to get nothing in the mail about the L.A. County Sheriff election, the race that means the most to me.  Yet somehow Jeanne got six anti-Villanueva mailers back then in her neighborhood uphill from the Briggs substation.

[Brian]

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk last released results at 3:35 a.m. Wednesday, after counting the ballots cast at polling places by Tuesday. The next batch of mail in ballots will be reported on Friday. The California Secretary of State has not yet begun to compile its daily Unprocessed Ballots Report, but I heard on KNX that L.A. County still had one million ballots left to count.

Rick Caruso leads Karen Bass for mayor by 12,382 votes, 51.25 to 48.75 percent.  In June, the votes counted after election day skewed more progressive in most races, and Bass increased her lead with each reporting.  But considering the much higher turnout in the general election -- and Caruso's $13 million get out the vote operation with hundreds of door knockers -- I don't know what to expect this time.

In better news, Robert Luna has a lead of 57 to 43 percent over Sheriff Alex Villanueva, only a couple of percentage points lower than his peak before the presumably more conservative ballots cast in person were added, with a margin of more than 164,000 votes.

[Oss Rae]

If Angelinos were dumb enough to vote Caruso in, they deserve what they get (though the environment will be paying the price with even more unrelenting development).

[Brian]

I know how you feel, Oss Rae.  One of Anni's oldest friends voted for Caruso.  She sees more unhoused people than most of us -- she lives in the Adams district and takes public transportation.  Believing the fantasy that Caruso will fill 30,000 beds spaced more tightly than an army barracks, as seen on his TV ads, in his first 300 days as mayor, when only the City Council has the power, allows her to conclude that she actually did something about the problem by voting for him.

But soon none of that will matter.  I'm predicting that the race will be called for Bass next week if the current trend continues.

Nov 10, 2022 0:00:20 GMT -8 Brian said:

The next batch of mail in ballots will be reported on Friday...

On Wednesday, Rick Caruso leads Karen Bass for mayor by 12,282 votes, 51.25 to 48.75 percent.  In June, the votes counted after election day skewed more progressive in most races, and Bass increased her lead with each reporting.  But considering the much higher turnout in the general election -- and Caruso's $13 million get out the vote operation with hundreds of door knockers -- I don't know what to expect this time.

Thankfully, registrar Dean Logan changed his mind.  He reported a batch of mail in ballots on Thursday, showing Caruso's lead reduced to fewer than 2,700 votes.  Bass took the lead with Friday's count by nearly 4,400 votes.  And on Saturday, Bass increased her margin over Caruso to 9,463 votes, or 50.78 to 49.22 percent.

Those three post-election day reports will probably prove to be a representative sample of the ballots still to be verified and tallied.

[Sharon W]

Good news from Arizona and Nevada senate races too!

[Brian]

Yes, Sharon, we were dancing without music around the house on Friday night when Mark Kelly was finally declared the winner in Arizona, on Saturday for Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada -- keeping the U.S. Senate under Democratic control -- and again tonight when the Arizona governor's race was called for Katie Hobbs. I admit that I had become more emotionally invested in seeing Kari Lake defeated than I am about wanting Karen Bass to be my next mayor.

Turns out that I never should have doubted Karen's chances. She tripled her lead over Caruso to 29,271 votes with Monday's report, from 9,463 on Saturday, boosting her share to 52.15 percent.

Nobody sorts the mail in ballots by the cities where voters live, so there's no way to determine how many ballots in the countywide pile remain to be counted for the L.A. mayor's race.  The initial guess was less than a third.  Clouding the picture more is Los Angeles County's Estimated Unprocessed Ballots report to the Secretary of State on Monday -- the total of 1,006,300 is unchanged from the initial estimate last week.  The registrar is waiting for the final eligible ballots to arrive in the mail Tuesday before counting the actual ballots remaining, his practice after every election I've followed.

Until that happens, no news organization is going to declare a winner.  Not even in the sheriff's race, where Robert Luna has held a double digit percentage lead in every tally.  Now he's got 60 percent  and nearly 325,000 votes more than the incumbent, doubling his margin since last Tuesday.

[voting]

fivethirtyeight.com has good reporting on the various midterm elections

[Brian]

You must have heard that Robert Luna was declared the winner of the sheriff's race on Tuesday followed by Karen Bass as mayor on Wednesday, simultaneously by several news organizations after the day's report from the registrar. Another running tally I'd been following closely was for the 47th Congressional District in Orange County -- on Thursday, the race was called for Katie Porter by the Associated Press with her share now at 51.6 percent of the votes with 97 percent counted so far.  It was easy to speculate that Katie was hoarding the $22 million she raised up to mid-October, mostly from people like me, for a future Senate race.  Instead she spent $11 million to flood the entire L.A. media market with great pro-Katie and anti-Scott Baugh TV ads to counter the cash spent by the Congressional Republicans' PAC funded by billionaires.

My biggest disappointment this election was Rep. Mike Garcia's huge win over Christy Smith in a rematch of their 2020 races in a special election and for the full term, the latter of which Smith lost by only 333 votes.  Garcia's redrawn district replaced the more conservative Simi Valley with the more Democratic western Antelope Valley, an electorate that voted for Biden by a double digit margin.  She ran an excellent ground game then so I assumed she'd easily defeat the incumbent Garcia, despite getting no financial help this time from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  We were all wrong.  Maybe those folks living around Santa Clarita just prefer militaristic fools like Elton Gallegly and Buck McKeon, who now feel like sweet nostalgia.  Garcia leaves a fascist stain on some of my favorite parts of our big blue county.

Lastly for now, LAUSD Board of Education member Kelly Gonez has held her slim lead over grassroots sensation Marvin A. Rodriguez for ten days.  She now has 51.41 percent with a margin of 2,496 votes.