{"id":291419,"date":"2026-04-29T12:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/291419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:26:12","slug":"california-secretary-of-state-contest-weber-faces-gop-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/291419\/","title":{"rendered":"California secretary of state contest: Weber faces GOP challenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Yue Stella Yu<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""A\"
\n\t\t\t\tCalifornia Secretary of State Shirley Weber speaks during the California Democratic State Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim on May 31, 2025. Photo by Ted Soqui for CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who made history in 2021 as the first Black person to hold the office, is seeking a second four-year term.<\/p>\n

As the incumbent and the only Democrat in the field, she will almost certainly cruise to victory in November. She faces only one serious challenger: Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner, a Republican. No Republican has won a statewide race since 2006.<\/p>\n

During her tenure, Weber has faced criticism for California\u2019s slow ballot-counting process<\/a> \u2014 so slow that projected winners of state legislative races are often sworn in before Weber\u2019s office certifies the results. Under state law, county election officials have 30 days to count ballots and conduct audits. Critics, including Wagner, say the time frame undermines voters\u2019 trust in the state\u2019s election integrity<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with CalMatters, Weber dismissed the concerns as an issue President Donald Trump drummed up to pick on California. She argued it\u2019s important to count every ballot and that most outcomes are known before she certifies the results anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the value of being fast for some folks,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me, accuracy is far more important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner criticized Weber for doing little to lobby state lawmakers to speed up the ballot count. He said he would roll back the practice of sending universal mail-in ballots to every voter, which the state made permanent during the COVID-19 pandemic, though that would require legislative approval. He said he\u2019d also support legislation to move up the deadline to certify election results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than wait 30 days, let’s make these changes that are right now causing people of all parties and no party to question: \u2018Geez, is that really a fair election?\u2019\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n

Weber, a former San Diego assemblymember, was appointed to the position by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 and later won a full term in 2022. The daughter of Arkansas sharecroppers<\/a> who fled the Jim Crow South, Weber drew on her family history and campaigned on expanding voter access and boosting voter turnout.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past five years, Weber has overseen the administration of contentious elections that drew the national spotlight, from the recall against Newsom<\/a> in 2021 to the congressional redistricting fight last November. She said she has focused on expanding voter outreach to rural corners of California and encouraging voter registration on high school and college campuses \u2014 something she said she would continue to focus on in her second term if she is re-elected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weber has been in court several times defending California election laws. She has sued local governments<\/a> for violating election law while also defending the state\u2019s election administration against legal challenges from both Democrats<\/a> and Republicans<\/a>. She most recently fended off a lawsuit by Trump\u2019s Department of Justice seeking voter registration data in California<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weber said she fought to defend Californians\u2019 voting rights. \u201cIf we were giving (voter information) away like candy, who would trust us \u2026 to protect their records?\u201d<\/p>\n

Weber has also faced criticism from advocates who say the state hasn\u2019t done enough to make voting accessible. Disability advocates sued her in 2024 \u2014 albeit unsuccessfully \u2014 over state election laws<\/a> that do not allow voters with disabilities to return their ballots electronically.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wagner, the Republican challenger, wants to present an alternative to Weber, even though he acknowledged that a GOP upset would shock even himself. But if he were elected, Wagner, who also served in the state Assembly, said he\u2019d garner enough national attention to use the office as a \u201cbully pulpit\u201d with the Democratic supermajority in the state Legislature. He said he would require voters to display ID while voting, which also would require a new law. A \u00a0GOP-backed voter ID ballot initiative<\/a> on Friday qualified for the November ballot.<\/p>\n

Wagner argued that the goal is to restore voters\u2019 trust in state elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not one of those Republicans who is going to be out there telling you that unless a Republican wins, the election got stolen,\u201d he told CalMatters. \u201cWhat I am saying is I believe folks on either side of the political aisle and in the middle question the integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters California Secretary of State Shirley Weber speaks during the California Democratic State Convention…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,35072,8352,97876],"class_list":["post-291419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-election-2026","tag-secretary-of-state","tag-votingmatters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}