We’ll be liveblogging the results as they come in. Check in for results and commentary throughout the night. Get the latest election returns directly from Debra Bowen’s office by clicking here. Check which counties have reported here (hint: LA won’t be fully reporting for several hours).
ELECTION RESULTS
Last updated at: 7:45 AM
% reporting: 99%
* – declared winner by AP or opponent conceded
CA-Gov: Republican Nomination
Poizner: 27%
Whitman: 64%*
CA-Sen: Republican Nomination
Campbell: 22
DeVore: 19
Fiorina: 56.5*
| Prop 14 | Prop 15 | Prop 16 | Prop 17 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 54.2* | Yes | 42.5 | Yes | 47.5 | Yes | 47.9 |
| No | 44 | No | 57.5* | No | 52.5* | No | 52.1* |
| LtG – Dems | LtG – Reps | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hahn | 34 | Aanestad | 30 | |
| Newsom | 55* | Maldonado | 43* |
AG – Dems
Delgadillo: 10
Harris: 33*
Kelly: 16
Lieu: 11
Nava: 10
Torrico: 15
AG – Reps
Cooley: 47*
Eastman: 34
Harman: 19
Other races will be updated in the liveblog starting right below this paragraph. Latest updates are first.
1:02: So far Props 16 and 17 are narrowly failing. With each update the margin of defeat grows slowly, but steadily. Let’s hope this trend sticks. This time I really am signing off for the night.
12:38: I’m as excited as everyone about Props 16 and 17 now trailing, but there are some cautions. Several big SoCal counties have a ways to go in their counting, and their initial numbers aren’t good:
Orange: 60-40 for Prop 16, 55% reporting
San Bernardino: 65-35 for Prop 16, 16% reporting
Riverside: 65-35 for Prop 16, 44% reporting
San Diego: 57-43 for Prop 16, 36% reporting
Then again, Santa Clara and Alameda counties have only a fraction of their votes counted, and LA is just at the halfway point. So it’s going to be a close one.
12:29 AM: Prop 17 is now trailing by about 5,000 votes. Prop 16 is losing by a steadily growing margin.
11:50: In CA-36, with about 30% reporting, Harman has a big lead over Winograd, 61.5-38.5. That’s about what Winograd got in 2006.
11:44: In some of the legislative races, Das Williams has crushed Susan Jordan in AD-35, 62-38. Wow. Stunning. In AD-28, Luis Alejo leads Janet Barnes 49-38. Santa Cruz County hasn’t reported yet, which is very good news for Alejo, since he’s the mayor of Watsonville. And in AD-53, Betsy Butler has opened up a lead on James Lau, 25-20, but only 30% precincts are in.
11:41: AP calls AG races for Kamala Harris and Steve Cooley. Chris Kelly wasted $10 million on his vanity campaign for AG. What a loser. Meanwhile, No on 16 continues to widen a small lead, and Yes on 17’s lead continues to ebb away.
11:20: I keep getting sucked back in. Prop 17 has been trending in our favor all night, and maybe once LA/Alameda/Santa Clara report, we might well see it too flip to the No column.
11:13: OK, one last update. SF finally reported, and with 99% of their precincts showing voters there rejected Prop 16 33-67, Prop 16 now clearly trails, if narrowly, in the statewide numbers. LA, Alameda and Santa Clara County still have reported only a small amount of votes, so Prop 16 might well go down. If so, it would be more than a David vs. Goliath victory – it’d be an ant taking down an elephant.
Older updates over the flip…
11:03: Given the slow pace of counting (something that could be fixed if California decided democracy was worth paying for) I’m going to turn in for the night. Pretty much everything is decided, except Prop 16. When SF, Santa Clara, and LA counties fully report, Prop 16 may well go down to defeat. Prop 15 will need huge Yes votes in those counties to pass, and there’s an outside change Prop 17 could still go down to defeat. We’ll wrap this up in the morning and deliver some assessments of what this all means. For now, buenos noches.
10:57: SF and Santa Clara County still haven’t reported. If big No on 16 vote comes from there – as we might expect – then it might well go down.
10:55: Abel Maldonado declared winner by LA Times. This should be an interesting race between Newsom and Maldonado.
10:52: Janice Hahn concedes, asks supporters to back Newsom in November. I like Janice Hahn a lot, and she could be a strong candidate in the future. But she needs to learn from this campaign. Hiring Garry South was a mistake that ruined her campaign, and I told her so back when she let him attack Newsom.
10:45: Prop 16 now dead even, with No having a 2,000 vote lead. This will go back and forth all night. It’s a remarkable achievement given that the No campaign was outspent something like 40,000 to 1 by PG&E. It would be even better if Prop 16 failed outright. Unfortunately, Prop 17 looks set to pass.
10:20: AP declares Dave Jones Democratic Insurance Commissioner nominee. Prop 16 regains narrow lead. Going to be back and forth all night.
10:14: At this point it looks like the only races where the outcome is in any doubt are Prop 16, maybe Prop 17, and the Republican Insurance Commissioner race (Mike Villines has a 52-48 lead over Brian Fitzgerald). Maybe a few state legislative races too – apparently Lau and Butler are close in AD-53.
10:07: Big batch of LA County votes just came in, and Prop 16 is now losing by about 16,000 votes. The Bay Area still has to report as well, so there is hope yet that 16 will go down. The other props look pretty much done, including Prop 15’s defeat. Ugh.
9:55: And just like that, California’s elections are completely and dramatically changed with the passage of Prop 14, which is only on the ballot because Abel Maldonado blackmailed the legislature in a moment of crisis. Prop 14 is designed to shift the Democratic Party to the right. Progressives will have to figure out how to respond, and fast.
9:42: The Boxer campaign is striking hard at Fiorina, launching FiorinaFacts.com and @Fiorina_Facts to tell the state about Carly Fiorina’s miserable record of failure.
9:35: AP calls Republican Sec of State race for Damon Dunn. It wasn’t even close. Orly Taitz got just 25% of the vote.
9:34: Prop 14 passes. The corporate effort to destroy progressive Democrats in CA now begins.
9:16: Jerry Brown speaking now in LA. LA County Sheriff Lee Baca introduced him as the man who “implemented Prop 13.” Oh great. This campaign season is gonna suck. Back to the 1970s for Jerry Brown: we need “discipline, humility, live within our means.” Brown sounds like he’s going to run as the apostle of austerity.
9:00: With 25% reporting, Das Williams has a huge lead – 67-33 – over Susan Jordan for the Democratic nomination in AD-35. Was NOT expecting that.
8:47: Larry Aceves out to a lead in Superintendent of Public Instruction race with 21.7%, Torlakson at 18.7%, Romero at 15%.
8:45: AP calls Republican Governor’s race for Whitman. Surprise, surprise.
8:41: Judging by the map from the SoS office Prop 15 is getting hammered across the state. 55% of Sacramento County is in and Prop 15 is losing 39-61. Ouch.
8:32: With 7.4% in, Harman leads Winograd 65-35. Should tighten up as night goes on.
8:13 LA County results (7%) show Prop 14 ahead 60-40, Prop 15 behind 45-54, Prop 16 ahead 57-43, Prop 17 ahead 58-42. Harris over Kelly in AG race, 23-18. Fiorina way up with 60%, Campbell 20%, DeVore 16%.
8:10: While we wait for the statewide numbers to update, OC elections show some interesting numbers from early voting. Aanestad has a 38%-33% lead over Maldonado. Damon Dunn is trouncing Orly Taitz in her home county, 71-29, which suggests Taitz is going to get crushed tonight. Oh well.
8:03: Apparently there’s some concern that Mike Gatto might not win the special election in AD-43 tonight due to low Democratic turnout. That would be a crime. Dems have a huge problem to face in mobilizing voters.
7:56: Field Poll predicts 33% turnout. Their final numbers were Whitman 51, Poizner 25 and Fiorina 37, Campbell 22, DeVore 19.
there was nothing from Alameda or SF, which makes at least the Prop. 16 picture look a lot better.
Is there any reason to think those initial 200k+ votes tilt especially conservative?
If 14 and 16 pass Im gonna puke
I wonder if that is Tea Party “distrust of all institutions” at work. Of course, the appeal of “cheap insurance” seems to be winning out.
Too bad it will be cheap for anybody but the people voting for it.
i suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise, given that the big contests are in the Republican primaries. but still. good job, Democratic Party.
I see there’s no particular consistency in how fast they get their results up vs. sending them in to the state. Some of the apparent differences in posting times are considerable. (I say apparent since it’s hard to tell exactly when a given county’s results got onto the SoS page.)
until the Boxer team puts up DemonSheep.com.
It is time to challenge the initiative process itself in federal court as unconstitutional. Article IV, Section 4, of the U. S. Constitution begins:
An initiative process is direct democracy, not representative government. This approach could also lead to Prop 8 (marriage) and Prop 11 (redistricting commission) from the previous election being struck down.
As of 10 PM, the Secretary of State site is showing more Republican votes than Democratic votes. That might not hold up, since some of the big cities seem to take forever to count their votes. But it’s not good for the propositions.
The harder the corporations push, the closer we might come to finally calling a constitutional convention.
I’ll probably be hearing soon from this guy doing a celebratory dance over Prop. 14.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Ordinary Californians keep voting for initiatives that will screw them over structurally based on nice sound bites, but won’t vote for anything that would actually change the state structurally for the better because they’re afraid of being taxed (and see also the preservation of privilege argument that Robert has made so well over time). I fear the state is in an accelerating death spiral begun back when the original Prop 13 passed.
We might as well just choose our government American-Idol-style with 900 number voting — at least then the people would be paying attention over the course of a television season, not just in 30 second spots paid for by the deepest pockets over the course of a couple months.
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns…
First time tonight it’s shown as going in defeat. The numbers from San Francisco County were finally posted.
so expect to see a significant shift in the county returns once they finish hauling those crates of ballots to woodland by bicycle.
Since Republican voters didnt have the sensibility to vote for Tom Campbell, Sen.Boxer gets re-elected.
Also I hope Mike Gatto wins, I loathe the NOM. If the NOM endorses a candidate then I look the other way. I want it to be etched to the people in the Los Angeles County Republican Party, lie in bed with the NOM and prepared to get crushed in the ballot box.
I will be happy to campaign for pro-equality Republicans such as DA Cooley.
However Congrats Sen.Boxer.
Until Prop 14 gets implemented, I am voting Gail Lightfoot so id vote for the lesser of two evils.
but the SOS site is way behind on counting Butte County.
SOS has 20.9% of precincts reporting with the county going 51.1-48.9 against 16 and 51.0-49.0 against 17, while according to the Butte County registrar’s site, 86.8% of precincts have reported, and the current total is 52.74-47.26 against 16 and 53.45-46.55 against 17.
“Progressives will have to figure out how to respond, and fast.”
oh, irony.
16 Local Electricity Providers
Yes: 1,339,030 48.6% No: 1,411,367 51.4%
17 Auto Insurance Pricing
Yes: 1,375,638 49.9% No: 1,380,991 50.1
Now let’s have both STAY under 50%.
For the first time, Prop 17 is down, by 5,000 votes!
And the Prop 16 gap continues to widen – now down by 70,000!
So we’re getting some good news tonight after all 🙂
With 56.9% of precincts overall in California having reported, Prop. 17 is now barely losing 49.6%-50.4%. (And it was losing 49.9%-50.1% just a few minutes earlier, so the trend’s definitely in our favor.) Alameda’s only got 16.3% of precincts reporting, and it’s going down with 60.1% of the vote. It’s also going down with 63% voting no in Sonoma County. In L.A. County, with 58.7% reporting, it’s now also going down with 53.1% voting no.
Closer in Santa Clara County. With 30.8% reporting, only 53.6% there are voting no.
BTW, as for Prop. 14, other than San Francisco County, where over 55% voted against it, it’s currently losing in only ONE other county in the state. Orange County. Really. 49.9% to 50.1%, with 57.4% of precincts reporting.
Prop. 16 is now losing statewide 48.5%-51.5%.
16 losing 61-39 in Fresno County.
Wouldn’t have called that one.
Larry Aceves ran a grassroots campaign, has no personal focus other than schools and understands our public schools from the inside out. His priorities are in the right place and he’s no fool in the Race for the Pennies. I’m very glad he won.
I voted for him as well. I have had it with the teachers unions and the whole issue of teacher tenure. The goal of tenure is to protect good teachers, but in California it does not. It protects ALL teachers, good and bad, allowing them to gain tenure after only two years.
And many of these teachers who should be fired are the very one’s who are partially responsible for another generation of minority children who are performing poorly in school.
The whole system needs to be turned upside down on its head, along the lines of what is taking place in LAUSD. And Larry Aceves is just the person to do this.
I will no longer vote for property tax increases in order for school systems to avoid firing the very teachers who need to be booted.