There was no red wave Tuesday night, so the question of whether or not it would finally crest the Sierras became moot even before California’s polls closed.
In the statewide races, those candidates with a “D” next to their name – despite their gross incompetence, ethical ickiness, and/or obvious naked self-interest – all won rather easily.
As of this writing, Gavin Newsom got 57.7% of the vote, a comfortable number, but also a fascinating one. That’s because it is exactly the same percentage that, on average, the other, save one, state office candidates got.
Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner – their average vote was 57.7% of the electorate, with a high of 58.1% and a low of 57.2% bookending the races.
Lanhee Chen – despite being vastly more qualified than opponent Malia Cohen and actually being endorsed by major newspapers and having enough money to be competitive and running a strong campaign – cut that number by 4 points – Cohen got 53.7% – but only by 4 points. In other words, running an essentially best-case-scenario campaign netted Chen only an extra 260,000 or so votes compared to other weaker and/or poorly funded and/or no hope Republicans.
Both Alex Padilla’s Senate victory – he got 59% – and Tony Thurmond’s unconscionable re-election with 62% involved somewhat different dynamics – the federal aspect for Padilla and the hysterically theoretical non-partisan nature of the Superintendent of Public Instruction office can account for the slightly different results.
What this means is that 57.7% of Californians are, for all practical purposes, incapable of getting beyond base party identification, aggressively not paying attention, and utterly uninterested in the reality of the state.
While that is extremely encouraging for the one-party oligarchy that runs California, that does not bode well for the future of the state. In other words, the Sacramento Blob can sleep safely tonight, while 42.3% of Californians are thinking about sleeping safely in another state as soon as they can.
Now, it may still be possible – kinda sorta-ish possible – that Republicans will see gains in the statehouse, but whether or not they will be enough to end the Democrat’s super-majority in the Assembly is not yet clear.
On a positive note, at this point it seems that multiple congressional seats are still in play for Republican gains.
And on a very weird note, there is Los Angeles. Extremely troublingly – the county tossed out Sheriff Alex Villanueva, the one elected official who actually did something about the city’s homeless problem but the city still might elect developer Rick Caruso – who campaigned hard on the same issue – its mayor.
Caruso currently has about a 3 point lead over LA machine-made Karen Bass, though, as has been seen before, that may change. But while “Angelenos,” as the departing, but not to India, Eric Garcetti would say, may very well have chosen an independent, not beholden to the machine, and business-oriented mayor, it also appears they elected the certifiable, hard left, recommended by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America Kenneth Mejia.
The LA-Democratic Socialists of America had other successes Tuesday, with actual DSA member Hugo Soto-Martinez (a prime suspect in the leaking of the infamous Nury Martinez, et. al. racism tape) poised to win his city council race and its “recommended” (the DSA, for some obscure reason almost assuredly tied to the byzantine internal organizational structures of every leftist group ever, distinguishes between endorsements and recommendations) candidate Katy Young Yaroslavsky taking hers.
The other two council races saw contradictory results. On the plus side, tough-on-homelessness Traci Parks put the final dagger in outgoing Councilman Mike Bonin’s political career by defeating his pro-current homelessness situation acolyte Erin Darling.
On the flip side, Tim McOsker – such a machine creature he could have been built to spec – will take a seat on the council. Not only does McOsker ooze status quo – he’s so inside he’s practically politically agoraphobic – he is an actual real-life honest-to-God member of the homeless-industrial complex, serving on the board of Linc Housing, an organization that uses public money to build “supportive” housing for the homeless.
The sun will rise tomorrow – whether or not it has set on California forever is up in the air.
Note – the specific numbers referenced in this article may change but the main premise will not.
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For what it's worth, thought I would re-post my comment from the top story here as a possible explanation for the extremely odd Sheriff Alex Villanueva result.
"I live in L.A. County (10 million people, 88 cities, HUGE population center, largest in the country). Yesterday, after a period of heavy rain, a blaring and startling Emergency Alert was sent out to all phones by the “L.A. County Office of the National Weather Service,” I think it was in the early afternoon. It made it sound as though anyone in all of L.A. County who ventured one foot outdoors would be risking their lives, caught in a flood, sunk in mud, buried by a landslide, with boulders flying by. Sure there were SPECIFIC areas in the hills, directly underneath burn scar areas from fires a couple of years ago, where flash flooding and mudslides might occur after a period of heavy rain. And there were voluntary and some mandatory evacuations in SPECIFIC residential hill areas; e.g., Duarte, Azusa. 99% of L.A. County residents and roads, however, were NOT affected.
"To me this was clearly a dirty trick by L.A. County (probably Board of Supervisors) who wanted to depress voting for certain candidates by any means necessary. Also remember L.A. County is a significant voter bloc in CA. I think this specifically and directly hurt, and was meant to hurt, L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who now appears (inexplicably) to be losing badly, and to a lesser extent it hurt, and was meant to hurt, a larger turnout for Caruso, if one assumes most Dems had their ballots mailed in already and most Repubs were waiting to vote in person on election day.
"I could find NO coverage or commentary AT ALL of this blaring weather Emergency Alert for all of L.A. County in any day-after-election local reporting. At least it’s not showing up so far."
Voter suppression by the Democrats at its finest.
I can vouch for this because I was listening to am radio and clicked to one with that emergency sound you get on your phone and the voice was saying emergency weather alert and flooding" I Noticed it was not coming through on the phones emergency alert though, Im in BUENA PARK
57.7% !
I am not a mathematical genius but that result time and time again reflects a programmed algorithm to me. There are no coincidences and I am sure a mathematician or coder could “explain” why that keeps happening year after year!
It is hard for me to believe people living here are that detached from reality!
In L.A. County 42% of the votes have not yet been counted. These votes are likely vote-for-change Repub and Independent votes, maybe some fed-up Dems. As we are used to down here by now, and increasingly used to throughout the state, the County will get to it when they get to it, in spite of their supposedly state-of-the-art technology and bloated staff of workers. A vote count reflecting the more sensible vote is not expected until Friday (they say). They stall and stall and stall, and this allows them to backfill votes or do God only knows whatever else. As you all know.
So Gavin Newsom got 57.7% of the vote which is exactly the same percentage that, on average, that other Democrat candidates got? Facinating? Democrats have perfected the use of voter fraud and rigged voting machines to achieve the results they want?
No kidding, and last night it was 63% across the board. It all stinks to high heaven.
Our S-show here in California is going parabolic. Oh well. 30 years now of voting for people that lose.
I am glad to see at least one author at least hinting of the 1,000,000 pound Gorilla in the room. To many conservatives wring their hands over the vote and the (apparent) lack of a red tsunami and never address the voter fraud issue which is THE ISSUE OF ISSUES. NOTHING else matters until the elections are honest.
Completely agree, CW, election integrity is THE fundamental issue and it's pointless to move forward until we get that FIXED. It's been driving me crazy too that some of the discussions we hear about this seem like old-school political talk addressing party strategy and messaging for "next time" as though we're living in a world where election cheating does not exist.
Actually it's 57.7% of 25% (statewide turnout) as the other 75% of eligible voters couldn't be bothered to turn in their votes to the local library or to show up on voting day.
So the leftist blob is being successfully pushed by roughly 14.4% of eligible voters.
Sad. I won't be crying for my fellow Californians when gas goes to $12+ per gallon. They had a chance to stop it and they failed.
I thought the whole point of mail in ballots was to make it more accessible to vote! What a load of crap! They do not even have to leave their home! Also, ballot harvesting is in play as well!
Bottom line we need to rid this state of mail in ballots for every voter, it is a farce but most readers already know this.
Cali Girl, just want to remind everyone how this went down in CA. As I recall, first Gruesome issued an executive order for mail-in voting to protect us against "Covid," (as if!) and presumably it would have gone away with the removal of the "state of emergency," which we thought was coming soon but is still in place TODAY. But to prevent that from happening the legislature then passed permanent mail-in voting so we're stuck with it, at least until a miracle happens. What a scam!
Absolutely ShowandTell!
After all why would they not take advantage of a crisis????
It is all just so corrupt, how that went down! Covid19 the gift that keeps on giving.
Their brains have been hardwired to vote for anyone with a D next to their name, and to ignore all other input. They cannot be reprogrammed, and the firmware can't be updated.
The one and only thing that one can do with a 100% chance of effecting a change in one's life is to move out of CA. Everything else is a waste of time and energy. Just GTFO. You won't even want to visit anymore, 'cause it'll all be destroyed by homelessness and crime. I've heard nice things about Tennessee...even Oregon (except P-land).
The article and comments has the turgid stink of sore losers. The evidence of voter fraud on the left or the right is so negligible as to be laughable. But only one party's candidate asked a secretary of state to "find 11,780 votes" so that they could cheat and win the election and that guy wasn't a Democrat.