Election 2020

Californians faced the naysayers and voted in historic numbers this election. CalMatters interviewed 54 of 58 county registrars and found the mail vote experiment saw few glitches, little drama and might provide a blueprint for future elections across the country.

Documents obtained by CalMatters reveal a behind-the-scenes look at a controversial no-bid contract — and a showdown between two of California's most ambitious politicians.

Sacramento voters want to create the city they envision – one with strong democratic values, and dedicated to solving problems together.

Alice Huffman was paid millions by corporate ballot measure campaigns that her historic civil rights organization endorsed, while many Black leaders took opposing positions.

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 […]

Por lo general, estoy comprometido espiritualmente en votar en persona, pero ahora soy un converso a votar por correo. Gracias, pandemia.

Usually, I’m spiritually invested in voting in person, but now I am a convert to voting by mail. Thank you, pandemic.

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 […]