From Vallejo to Riverside, VotingMatters brought CalMatters’ primary voter guide to life

With nine state offices, 61 candidates for governor and redrawn U.S. House districts, deciding how to vote in California’s 2026 primary election has been an overwhelming task for many voters.

That’s why CalMatters teamed up with local partners to present nonpartisan VotingMatters events across the state, to inform voters and empower them to feel more confident in their own decisions for the primary election.

Building off of CalMatters’ voter guide, governor candidate videos and “Choose your next governor” zines, the 17 VotingMatters events in May brought together more than 600 Californians across the state. From Vallejo to Riverside, people of different backgrounds came together to the same VotingMatters table, where they shared different perspectives and engaged in civic dialogue.

In the Central Valley, VotingMatters came to bars and community colleges in Modesto, Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield. Around 100 people crowded into a room at Contentment Brewing Company in Modesto, for an event co-hosted by the newly launched Modesto Focus. With food and drink in hand, attendees played state and local politics trivia to break the ice. After watching CalMatters’s governor Q&A videos, attendees turned to each other to discuss the candidates.

In Southern California, VotingMatters came to Montecito, Camarillo, Los Angeles and Riverside. At the Montecito event co-hosted by Noozhawk, Marty Conoley, a 45-year resident of Santa Barbara, said how valuable he thought the governor candidate Q&A videos were.

“The candidate videos should be on TV at seven o’clock, uninterrupted,” he said, adding that he learned more watching CalMatters’s videos than he did watching any of the debates. He had turned off a recent TV debate after it quickly devolved into the candidates attacking each other.

“We were 6 people at our table, total strangers and we never talked politics. What we talked were issues,” said Celeste Barber, who attended the same event. “That’s what I always thought political engagement was supposed to be in this country.” Barber also attended CalMatters’ VotingMatters event in Santa Barbara, also co-hosted by Noozhawk, in 2024. 

Each event brought together people with unique backgrounds and experiences: an election worker who had worked 18-hour days on past election days, a business owner who had seen customer traffic decline due to homeless encampments outside of her store, and Fresno City College students for whom this was their first midterm election. By the end of the VotingMatters event in Camarillo, attendees who had been strangers were exchanging information to stay in touch. 

VotingMatters materials were also provided in Spanish. In Bakersfield, Merced, and Modesto, attendees took stacks of the Spanish CalMatters voter guide zine to distribute to students, friends and family.

To pull off the 17 VotingMatters events across the state for the primary season, CalMatters collaborated with around 30 local partners, including publications, nonprofits and churches. As many as six partners collaborated on a single event in Riverside, including Mindful Media Makers, who brought Panchito the puppet to interview CalMatters director of partnerships Dan Hu. Across the state, CalMatters also worked with county registrar offices, League of Women Voters chapters and the California State Library. For partners like Abridged from PBS KVIE, VotingMatters was the first event they hosted in Yolo County, where they are working to expand their coverage.

Finally, the VotingMatters event kit was shared with anyone interested in hosting their own VotingMatters event. CalMatters members in Petaluma and Long Beach hosted their own gatherings of 10+ people to go through their ballots and the CalMatters’s Voter Guide. One member event included visits from candidates running for local office. An attendee of the gathering in Long Beach said: “What a super community event—that’s the way democracy ought to work everywhere.”

VotingMatters will return for the 2026 general election. If you’d like to be notified when events are announced, sign up for our election newsletter.