Voting in the California primaries, one of the most-watched elections in the country this year, closed yesterday. California’s notoriously slow vote count means that we still don't know the final results for each race, especially the gubernatorial race and many races for Congress. However, there are some takeaways from the early vote count that can be seen already.
Republicans are strong in the early vote
Many Democrats held off on voting due to a potential lockout that could have emerged if the Democratic ticket was too divided. The California primaries have a “jungle primary” system, where the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party. This means that two Republican candidates could have potentially advanced from the gubernatorial race, meaning that a Republican would become the governor of California.
This means that Democrats held off until the last minute to see if there was a consensus candidate that would pull enough Democratic votes to ensure that a lockup wouldn’t happen. This is very clear in the early vote. Although Republican Steve Hilton currently has the lead, his share will almost certainly decrease as election day votes get reported.
This is also true in the case of Spencer Pratt, a Republican who has received national attention for his run for mayor of Los Angeles. Pratt has performed well enough to advance in the early vote, but his share has been decreasing rapidly. Third-place candidate Nithya Raman now has a higher chance of advancing to the general on Kalshi.
A bad day for class-traitor progressives
Tom Steyer is currently in third place in the gubernatorial election. Steyer is a billionaire Democrat, and was considered the most progressive candidate out of the electoral slate. Steyer has had a poor performance against Javier Becerra, who currently leads the race. Becerra will likely advance to the general, and Steyer needs very favorable election day votes in order to beat out Steve Hilton, who has a sizable lead on him.
Saikat Chakrabarti is another wealthy progressive, who ran for Nancy Pelosi’s soon-to-be vacant seat in San Francisco. Saikat was squarely beaten by Scott Weiner, a progressive state senator, and Connie Chan, a state supervisor.
The night was not especially strong for progressive candidates, with Democrats largely electing the more moderate candidates in the majority of races.
The jungle primary has backfired on Democrats
Democrats are looking at a variety of potential lockups that would put two Republicans in the lead. The most egregious is in CA-6, which voted for Harris by +9 in 2024, where two Republicans currently lead due to a highly divided Democratic ticket that was split between five different candidates. CA-6 will likely have a Democrat in the top two as early votes are redder than late votes.
The most likely lockup will be in CA-40, where Democrat Esther-Kim Varet trails the second place Republican by over five points, with 52.4% of the vote counted. The ticket was divided between three different Democrats.
This is a massive electoral mistake for the Democrats, who should have put more effort into thinning out the amount of candidates competing in these jungle primaries. There might be counties that could have flipped blue that Democrats will lose due to poor electoral strategy and the egos of individual candidates.