Post-it

You can’t always get what you want, but for special interests in California politics, spending $34 million sure does help. That’s the amount of unrestricted political spending that industries and unions with regular business in the capitol pumped into Legislative races across the state this year. As CalMatters reported before Election Day, the oil industry, […]

At least California vote-counters are having a good year.  With nearly 17.5 million votes already tallied, county election officials have just about wrapped up counting the ballots from November’s presidential election.  A little over two weeks out, that puts California way ahead of the norm from recent elections.  Assuming the estimates of ballots left to […]

November’s election results showed that most of California’s Democratic counties moved further away from President Donald Trump — and the bulk of its Republican counties did too. With fewer than 1 million ballots left to count, the 2020 election here was an unsurprising blowout for President-elect Joe Biden. In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton nabbed 62% of […]

Two years ago, Democratic newcomers across the state were swept into Congress atop a frothing “blue wave” of anti-Trump fervor — a result that only became apparent late in the vote count. This year’s election has been playing out a little like 2018 in reverse.  This time the Democrats led early on, only to see their […]

Buried in the mountain of yet-to-be-deciphered popular will of Californians lie the fates of too-close-to-call statewide propositions and dozens of congressional and legislative races. Patience for the final electoral tally may not come naturally to election watchers in Georgia and Pennsylvania — nor, for that matter, the president of the United States. But Californians should […]

Vertiginous blue spires on the urban coast and crimson plateaus stretching from the Central Valley to suburban SoCal — this is the presidential race for California cash, in 3D. In the map below, each ZIP code is colored according to the candidate who amassed more individual contributions from its residents. That’s blue for former Vice […]

Republican political operatives aren’t accustomed to chasing down last-minute voters this close to Election Day. But, in yet another reflection of what a strange year 2020 has been, they are. And they aren’t happy about it.  According to figures collected by the electoral information firm, Political Data Inc., a surprising 54% of the 8.4 million […]

A week before Election Day and anxiety over the postal service’s ability to ferry voters’ ballots to county election administrators on time has ratcheted up yet again. Here are the reasons the alarm bells are ringing anew: Back in May, the United States Postal Service’s top lawyer advised voters across the country to put their […]

Amid the torrent of campaign ads churning through the postal system this season, the slate mailer stands out as a perennial — and many say unseemly — California political tradition that dates back to at least the 1950s. Though new restrictions may be on the way. You’ve seen these before: A group, often with an […]

Flo Hodes is doing everything she can to avoid post-Election Day BS. A Democratic voter living in Oakland, she has watched with mounting concern President Donald Trump’s refusal to say whether he will abide by the reported election results, his continued efforts to undermine public confidence in voting by mail, and recent operational changes at […]