What you need to know about California primary results

As the dust settles from Tuesday’s primary night, Californians are waking up to two major decisions: The next U.S. senator will either be Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff or Republican former L.A. Dodger Steve Garvey. And odds are that the state will expand its mental health and substance abuse treatment infrastructure and overhaul the way it funds mental health programs through Proposition 1.

It’s no surprise that Schiff — who has led both in the polls and in fundraising throughout the campaign — made it to the November ballot, writes CalMatters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu. In his victory speech, Schiff thanked his family, supporters, former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and others. 

During the speech, protestors interrupted Schiff by shouting “ceasefire now” and “let Gaza live” in reference to the Israeli invasion. Before exiting the stage, he acknowledged the demonstrators and reminded audience members to go “onward to victory in November.” 

• Schiff: “We are so lucky to live in a democracy where we all have the right to protest… and we want to make sure that we keep this kind of democracy.”

While Garvey was a strong second Tuesday night, the scale tips towards Schiff again for the general election. Now that Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee are out, voters in November will have a clear partisan choice in a deep-blue state where no Republican has won statewide since 2006.

During the primary campaign, Schiff and Garvey clashed on a number of issues, including the federal minimum wage, fossil fuel energy and former President Donald Trump. Though Garvey has dodged questions about whether he will vote for Trump in November, Garvey voted for him in both 2016 and 2020. Schiff, however, staked a large part of his Senate run on his experience leading the first impeachment trial against Trump in 2020.

Whoever wins will start later this year and serve alongside U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — ending California’s 30-year long streak of having at least one female senator. 

For more on the Schiff-Garvey matchup, read Stella’s story.

Meanwhile, Prop. 1 was leading by a slim margin late Tuesday night.

As CalMatters health reporter Kristen Hwang explained, the two-part ballot measure was championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and supported by law enforcement groups and major health care organizations. It includes a $6.4 billion bond to create treatment beds and permanent supportive housing. It would also reroute money from a “millionaire’s tax” and require counties to invest 30% of that money to go towards building behavioral health housing.

Before polls closed, Newsom posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Californians have the chance to “reimagine our mental healthcare system” and help unhoused people “get into the care and housing they need.” 

But critics of the measure, including disability rights advocates and individuals living with mental illness, remain worried that current mental health programs will be gutted, and that the state is making it easier to force people into involuntary confinement.

Despite the country avoiding a recession for now, why does it appear that Californians are struggling much harder economically compared to the rest of the U.S.?

To answer that question, CalMatters economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay looked at several economic indicators and found that the prices for both goods and services in California have risen slightly more than the rest of the country over the past couple of months.

Take food: Nationwide, the prices for meat, poultry, eggs and fish were unchanged from December to January. But California food banks say the cost of buying food hasn’t gone down. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, for instance, reported that the cost of eggs rose by $2.27 per dozen over the past eight months.

And while the cost of services are mostly responsible for continued inflation across the country, it’s particularly acute in California. Many residents can’t find affordable auto insurance and home insurance for those living in wildfire-prone regions. And according to real-estate company Zillow, rent in California is 38% higher than the national median.

The fact that Californian’s wages aren’t keeping up with inflation is another reason why residents are finding it hard to make ends meet. According to Sarah Bohn, economist and director of the Public Policy Institute of California Economic Policy Center, wages rose only 15% than before the pandemic.

• Bohn: “On paper, that looks amazing, like a $5-an-hour increase. But after inflation, it feels like a pay cut — I calculated that it’s like a $1.25-an-hour cut.”

To learn more about Californians’ pocketbook pain, read Levi’s story.

As part of the world’s biggest dam demolition, scientists were expecting to help salmon and other fish populations rebound in the Klamath River. But one recent release of young salmon did not go as planned, adding yet another wrinkle for those pushing for the dam removal.

In February, writes CalMatters water reporter Rachel Becker, biologists released young salmon from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s new $35 million hatchery. But nine miles downstream — traveling through river water and a tunnel out of Iron Gate dam — 830,000 salmon turned up dead. 

The official cause of death remains unclear, but the dead salmon had bulging eyeballs — a sign of gas bubble disease that occurs when fish undergo severe pressure changes. Wildlife officials believe that conditions within the Iron Gate dam’s tunnel were likely the culprit. 

• Jason Roberts, California Department of Fish and Wildlife program manager: “I feel really bad for the fish. And I feel really bad for my staff that spend all their time taking care of these fish, and for all the partners and stakeholders that are counting on us.”

Those stakeholders include California tribes and conservation groups who have been fighting for the dam removal for decades. But opponents of the project have called it “devastating” and warn that removing the dams will release sediment and other materials that’ll turn the water into a “river of death.”

No wild salmon were harmed, however, and the hatchery is still raising 3.27 million healthy chinook salmon. When it comes time to release them, officials plan to bypass the dam and transport them downriver.

Said one senior water policy analyst with the Yurok Tribe, which has a reservation that spans the lower Klamath River: “Iron Gate’s killed its last salmon.”

For more on the salmon die-off, read Rachel’s story.