What does California have to hide? After all, if the voting process were as fair, accurate and secure as Gov. Gavin Newsom and others have claimed, why not allow federal investigators to examine it? The rest of the country is, understandably, alarmed as it watches results come in from the June 2 primary — not...
Former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican, are projected to advance to the general election for governor of California, according to Decision Desk HQ. Hilton had coalesced GOP support with the help of President Trump’s endorsement, while the Democratic field remained divided over a crowded field…
Republican candidate Steve Hilton won the second of two spots in the California Governor's Primary race on Monday evening, nearly a week after election day. The post BREAKING: Republican Candidate Steve Hilton Advances in California Governor’s Primary Race appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The California bespoke ballot process is unique in the nation and developed with a previous legal partnership between California politicians and former Attorney General Eric Holder. It has been one week since election day and there are likely many more days of ballot curation ahead. As a consequence, the republican candidate, Steve Hilton, who carries […] The post President Trump Notes California Ballot Curation Likely to Eliminate Steve Hilton appeared first on The Last Refuge.
President Donald Trump and his movement of MAGA Republicans are venting their rage online after Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt lost to two Democrats, Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman, in the Los Angeles mayoral race.Because Trump has accused all of the politicians he opposes of cheating, tracing all the way back to the 2016 Republican Iowa caucus, he naturally has accused Bass and Raman of cheating Pratt. MAGA Republicans online are taking notice."I'm at the rare intersection of: - Was rooting for Pratt - Thought he was good for the LA political conversation - Dislike California's election administration laws and policies - But understand how the process works,” posted an X user named Stephen Richer.Similarly Republican pollster Frank Luntz observed "reality TV star Spencer Pratt says he ‘will be done with trying to live in LA’ if he doesn't win the mayoral election. Yesterday, he was surpassed in the Los Angeles mayoral primary for the second run-off spot in November."Another Republican wrote going by Dr. Terry Simpson on X wrote that "I'm a Republican. Los Angeles is roughly 50% Democratic and about 10% Republican. Any candidate who wants to lead this city must win support well beyond the Republican base. Spencer Pratt didn't lose because voters didn't understand he was independent. He lost.”Other Republicans reacted with the outrage that Trump is trying to stir up, even though there is no evidence that anything illicit is occurring in the California election."A 43,000-vote swing just handed Nithya Raman the edge over Spencer Pratt in LA,” an X user who goes by jay plemons posted. “The exact size of the city's homeless population. Ballot harvesting from shelters, universal mail ballots, and late drops made it happen. Coincidence?"Similarly X user Mark Mendlovitz wrote, "The large variance of Pratt and Raman but not Bass should be setting off screaming alarm bells."Even House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested there might be fraud in California, despite the fact that he also acknowledged there is no proof. Instead he cited the absence of evidence as being in itself suspicious.“I'm not saying it's rigged,” Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday. “I'm saying it stinks to high heaven. And everybody knows that. Let's remove the appearance of impropriety. Let's have, what a concept, let's have votes on an election the day of the election. That's what many states are able to do. I think California is playing around with this.”After Raju asked Johnson if he had proof the election was improper, he admitted that “I don't — some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here. And that's a concern. We need people to believe in the integrity of our election system.”Trump, who attempted a coup after he lost the 2020 presidential election to then-Vice President Joe Biden, is reportedly falsely accusing the California election of being stolen as a preparation for denying the results of the 2026 midterms, which are also expected to swing against him.“By baselessly framing Ms. Raman’s rise as a Democratic scam, Mr. Trump extended his long-running project to erode public faith in elections — and gave an unusually clear preview of how he could greet any disappointing results for his party in November, when control of Congress is at stake,” wrote The New York Times' Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman on Monday. “He has been anything but subtle about his desire to limit the ability of Democrats to vote by mail, implying, with no evidence, that simply choosing that widely used means of casting a ballot is inherently suspect.”Swan and Haberman added, “Addressing a gathering of Republican lawmakers in March, he said the way to hold their majority was to pass a strict voter identification law cracking down on mail ballots. ‘It’ll guarantee the midterms,’ he told them, warning that failure would bring ‘big trouble.’”
Democrats avoided the worst outcome in the California governor’s race. While it will take several more days for the state’s mail-in ballots to be counted, former congressman, California attorney general, and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will finish among the top two candidates and therefore advance to the general election. What’s not yet clear is whether Republican Steve Hilton or billionaire Tom Steyer, another Democrat, will be the second candidate. With at least one Democrat in the general election, the most important governorship in the country will almost certainly stay out of Republican hands this November. Thank goodness. But Democrats shouldn’t take much comfort in avoiding a catastrophe. The political party that’s supposed to stop fascism in America is so disorganized and divided that it struggled to secure victory in a state where a clear majority of voters are left-leaning. This Democratic debacle in California makes me deeply concerned about the upcoming presidential primary and general election. For months, there was a very real possibility that only Republican candidates would make it to the general election, because the California Democratic vote would be split among a field of a myriad of candidates. Then the media and Donald Trump saved California Democrats. Journalists at the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN reported numerous accusations of sexual misconduct by then-Representative Eric Swalwell, who was one of the leading Democratic candidates. That helped the party’s voters consolidate around Becerra and Steyer. Meanwhile, Trump endorsed Hilton, a Brit and a former Fox News personality, effectively dooming Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other prominent (and more conventionally qualified) Republican. I’m glad we have investigative journalists and strong news organizations, but a well-functioning political party should be vetting candidates on its own and ensuring it doesn’t nominate alleged sexual harassers. Swalwell’s improper behavior around women wasn’t a secret in Democratic circles in Washington or California, and yet party insiders did little to prevent him from becoming one of the front-runners for a hugely important post. I don’t praise Trump very often, but I respect that he is willing to actively lead the voters in his party by urging them to back particular candidates in primaries. It would have been nice if Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and all of the California Democratic politicians who write books about their courage and wisdom had actually shown some of that by endorsing someone in the governor’s race and making sure Swalwell never became a top contender. Instead, California Democratic Party leaders seemed to go out of their way not to help voters sort through a field without a clear front-runner. Newsom’s aides leaked to reporters his misgivings about all of the candidates. When the University of Southern California tried to host a debate and include only the candidates with decent poll numbers, some Democratic state legislators blasted the process as racist because low-polling candidates of color would be excluded. As Becerra started rising in the polls, people in the Biden administration started slamming him, usually via anonymous quotes, as ineffective as HHS secretary. Who then should California Democrats vote for? These people never said. It was almost as if Democratic Party leaders were intentionally trying to create a chaotic primary. Steyer or Becerra will almost certainly be elected in November, so what’s the problem? Well, the party’s struggle to land on a candidate in California isn’t an isolated incident. The 2020 and 2024 presidential primaries illustrated the same problems. In 2020, there was a massive field of Democratic candidates. Primary voters couldn’t easily sort among them. Many Democratic groups and politicians stayed on the sidelines instead of endorsing anyone. The result was a haphazard process that selected Joe Biden, a bad choice because his age ensured Democrats would again have a presidential quandary in 2024. By mid-2023, it was obvious that a clear majority of Americans were wary of giving Biden a second term. But the party waited a full year to coordinate around sidelining Biden, leading to another haphazard process that produced a candidate (Kamala Harris) who wasn’t one of the party’s strongest politicians and didn’t have time to run a full campaign. Why can’t the Democratic Party effectively choose candidates for the most important races? For three reasons. First, there is a real and growing divide between the party’s progressive wing and its center-left—and many prominent Democrats don’t want to seem too aligned with either camp. It’s not surprising that politicians, whose job is to be popular, want to appeal to as many people as possible.
The president is using the slow count of mail ballots in California to renew his effort to cast doubt on election outcomes he doesn’t like, despite a lack of evidence of any widespread fraud.
Progressive and former reality TV star have been battling for the number two spot to face off against Karen BassNithya Raman, the progressive Los Angeles city councillor, appeared to be edging out Spencer Pratt in the LA mayoral race challenging Karen Bass as Donald Trump continues to repeat falsehoods that California elections are “rigged”.The pair have been battling for the number two spot to face off against the incumbent, who already secured enough votes to advance to a runoff in November. Pratt, a former reality TV star, held a lead over Raman for days, but as ballot processing from last week’s election continued, the city councillor has pulled ahead. Continue reading...
NBC News Chief Data Analyst Steve Kornacki tracks the latest ballot counting in California. NBC News Senior Reporter Jane Timm fact checks President Trump’s claim of election fraud in California.