California Election Summary
What the Results Mean for California Counties
California experienced its own version of the nationwide Republican victory. Here on the West Coast, though, it’s not a question of which party is in the majority, but whether the Democrats achieve the 2/3 supermajority that would allow them to pass taxes and propose constitutional amendments to voters without any Republican votes. Republicans did as well as they could have expected, breaking the recently achieved supermajority in both the Senate and the Assembly. However, they failed to win any statewide offices.
California Senate
The Democrats lost one seat, as expected, leaving them one shy of a supermajority in the upper house. Surprisingly, all of the races where Democrats might have picked up that extra seat were not very close, and one seat that should have been very safe for the Democrat, SD 32, is running closer than expected (currently 51.8% to 48.2%).
Former county supervisor Roger Dickinson appears to have lost his same-party runoff against Richard Pan, while Jeff Stone, a Riverside County supervisor, won his same-party runoff. Current county supervisor Janet Nguyen won her Orange County race easily, as did her colleague on the board Pat Bates. Also newly elected to the Senate is Mike McGuire from the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.
California Assembly
The Republicans needed to net two seats to break the Democrats supermajority in the Assembly, and it appears that they outdid themselves, netting three seats. This is a fairly surprising outcome, as pre-election predictions varied from Republicans picking up a maximum of two to Democrats possibly picking up two additional seats. Like the California Senate, several districts saw Democrats running more weakly than expected or Republicans running more strongly than expected, including one district, AD 66, that appears to be dumping their Democratic incumbent and switching red. Whether these are a result of historically low turnout, nonpartisan voters voting more Republican than they have in the recent past, or something else is not clear.
One county supervisor, Bill Dodd of Napa County, is now a newly elected member of the Assembly. Several former county supervisors retained their Assembly seats: Brian Dahle, Frank Bigelow (a former CSAC president), Susan Bonilla, Rich Gordon (another former CSAC president), Mark Stone, and Katcho Achadjian, as well as two other former county officials who held an elected position other than supervisor, Phil Ting and Tom Daly.
Statewide Propositions
California voters approved by wide margins the two ballot measures presented by the Legislature, a $7.5 billion water bond and a constitutional amendment strengthening requirements for the state’s General Fund reserve. CSAC supported both measures. Voters also passed a measure CSAC opposed that will require misdemeanor sentences for certain drug and property crimes instead of felonies, unless the offender has a previous conviction for a violent, serious, or sex crime. Voters roundly rejected a proposition that would have dramatically increased caps medical malpractice awards, which CSAC opposed. Voters also rejected a proposal to give the state Insurance Commissioner authority to reject health insurance rate hikes and voted no on a measure to allow an off-reservation casino.
Congress
In one of the most heavily contested races in the country, Republican Doug Ose leads incumbent Democrat Ami Bera by 2.8%. In other close races, incumbent Democrat Jim Costa is 1% behind his Republican challenger, incumbent Democrat Julia Brownley is 0.4% ahead of moderate Republican challenger Jeff Gorell, and Democrat Pete Aguilar is 2% ahead in the race to replace Republican Gary Miller.
Former county supervisor and state legislator Mark DeSaulnier easily won his race for CD 11.
Neither of California’s US Senate seats was up this year.
County Supervisors
Forty new supervisors will be sworn in for 2015, out of California’s total of 296. 25 were elected yesterday, 14 in June, and one in a special election in September. Of the 84 supervisors who ran for re-election, 93% were successful. Perhaps the most notable new supervisor in national news is former state Senator Sheila Kuehl, who won her race against Bobby Shriver for an open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.