After five weeks, California knows its election results. Dive in

The holidays may be coming up fast (have you finished all your gift shopping yet?) but one thing that took its time was California’s final election results. On Friday, 38 days after Election Day, Secretary of State Shirley Weber certified the results of the November election.

Some key takeaways: More than 16.1 million Californians voted, with 71% of registered voters casting ballots. And nearly 60% of all eligible voters in the state voted. Of the votes cast, roughly 81% were by mail, while 19% were in-person. (In 2020, 43% of voters nationwide cast mail-in ballots, according to the U.S. Census.)

Compared to the last presidential election, which had an especially high voter turnout, voter turnout this year fell: In 2020, more than 17.7 million Californians voted in the election between President Joe Biden and then-incumbent Donald Trump, and the turnout rates of both registered and eligible voters were about 10 percentage points higher than in 2024. 

And while there were more voters this year compared to when Trump was first elected in 2016 and both of Barack Obama’s victories in 2012 and 2008, this year saw a lower turnout rate of registered voters compared to all those three elections. That’s partly because while California added a lot more new registered voters in recent years through its automatic voter registration system, these residents may be less likely to vote regularly.

Nationally, though Trump won the presidency and nabbed the popular vote, he didn’t win by the “unprecedented and powerful mandate” that he described in his victory speech, and failed to capture the majority vote. In California, where no Republican presidential candidate has won since 1988, Vice President Kamala Harris beat Trump handily, capturing over 9.2 million votes, or 58.5%, compared to Trump’s 6 million, or 38.3%. Harris also outperformed Democrat Adam Schiff of Burbank, who received 9 million votes in his U.S. Senate race against Republican candidate Steve Garvey.

But compared to Biden, who received 11.1 million votes, or 63.5%, in 2020, Harris did not do as well. She lost vote share in all but one of the state’s 58 counties. Trump also gained a larger share of the vote in most of the state’s Latino-majority counties compared to his results in 2020.

On Tuesday, California’s 54 members of the Electoral College will gather at the state Capitol to cast their vote for Harris. The nationwide Electoral College results in Trump’s favor will then be certified by Congress on Jan. 6. 

As for the 10 ballot propositions, the anti-crime measure, Proposition 36, and Prop. 35 to make a tax on managed care health insurance plans permanent, were the most popular measures, both passing with more than 67% of the vote. Prop. 33 to expand rent control was the least popular proposal with only 40% voter approval.

Days before California’s certification, Weber said the long vote count ensures that the final results are accurate. But what’s viewed by many as a notoriously slow process — due in part to the popularity of mail-in voting — invites doubt and mistrust. Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Palo Alto Democrat and former chairperson of the Assembly Elections Committee, is introducing legislation to help counties speed up the counting process.

From CalMatters economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay:

A key part of the California Insurance Department’s plan to get companies to resume writing policies in the state is now in effect.

Insurers have long wanted the state to allow them to use catastrophe modeling — which they say will let them incorporate projected wildfire risk and losses — in setting their rates. The new regulation, which the Office of Administrative Law filed with the Secretary of State on Friday, will allow the companies to do so if they commit to writing more policies in more high-risk areas. The models are also supposed to take into account spending by property owners and communities to prevent wildfires. 

Insurance companies can start submitting catastrophe models to the department on Jan. 2. Once a model is approved, insurers can submit rate reviews based on the new regulations. The department is expecting to finalize its last new regulation, which would allow insurers to also factor their costs of reinsuring risk into their rates, by the end of this year.

Department spokesperson Michael Soller pointed to news last week that Farmers Insurance plans to start writing policies in the state again after a pause of more than a year as a sign that Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s overall plan to fix the insurance crisis is going to work. “Companies are clearly watching this,” Soller said.

But consumer advocates aren’t sold, warning of higher premiums for homeowners.

• Carmen Balber, Consumer Watchdog executive director, in a statement: “The rule will let insurance companies raise rates based on secret algorithms but not expand coverage as promised.” 

She has criticized Lara for originally promising to require insurers to cover 85% of their market share in distressed areas but then releasing a regulation that allows some companies to choose a 5% option.

Electric cars: For over 50 years, the federal Clean Air Act has included a carve-out for California to set its own stricter auto emissions standards. This exclusion, authorized by a federal waiver, has been a vital part of California’s efforts to reduce its air pollution. But on Friday the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will review whether the oil industry has the standing to try to overturn that provision. 

However, the court also rejected the industry’s broader request to look at whether it was unlawful for the Biden administration to grant California the federal waiver altogether.

The case originates from a 2019 dispute, when Trump, during his first administration, revoked a waiver that the Obama administration granted California for its 2012 zero-emission car mandate. The Biden administration reinstated the waiver in 2022, prompting oil companies and Republican-led states to sue the Environmental Protection Agency. Read more from CalMatters climate reporter Alejandro Lazo.

Delta salmon: California officials are praising a set of proposed state rules that the Newsom administration says would require water users to help restore rivers, floodplains and tidal marshes from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The plan also seeks to increase Chinook salmon populations, which have plummeted to levels so low that salmon fishing has been banned for two years in a row (and may continue this year).

But environmental groups are slamming the proposal. They argue that it allows cities and farms to draw so much water from the threatened Delta — which provides water to 30 million residents and millions of acres of farmland — that salmon runs “could potentially be extinct.” Their preferred solution to guarantee fuller rivers is one that city water managers say would result in not enough water for the state’s farmers and residents. Meanwhile, representatives of Native American tribes in California, for whom the Chinook have cultural and dietary significance, also say they have been excluded from these policy discussions.

A public hearing and vote to approve these rules by the state’s Water Resources Control Board could occur in 2025. Read more from CalMatters’ Alastair Bland.

Starting with the new year, the impact of what California lawmakers did this year will start really hitting you. 

Each year, legislators introduce about 2,000 bills, but many get shelved. This year, legislators passed about 1,200 measures, but then Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed nearly 200. Of the ones he signed, many are technical or narrow in scope. But there are some that affect lots of Californians.

Today, CalMatters starts publishing a series of stories on new laws that take effect Jan. 1. The first, from former politics intern Jenna Peterson, is about giving cannabis lounges permission to serve food and allowing more public drinking in “entertainment zones.”