![\"California](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Karen-Bass.png\")
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addresses union members during a campaign event at SEIU 721 headquarters in Los Angeles on May 30, 2026.| Scott Strazzante\/AP <\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES\u2014When California voters go to the polls on June 2, if they already haven\u2019t mailed in their votes, they\u2019ll confront butterfly ballots and contested\u2014and often bitter\u2014races for the governorship, the Los Angeles mayoralty, and congressional seats, plus dozens of bond referendums, and even two term limit initiatives in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not even counting a separate drive to put a one-year \u201cbillionaires tax\u201d up for a citizens\u2019 referendum in November.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s enough to make your head spin, which is why analysts predict a light turnout of only committed partisans from both parties, validated by the fact that, as of the end of May, only 13% of the requested mailed-out ballots had been mailed back in. That\u2019s a lower percentage than in prior mid-term elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of us have been holding onto our ballots,\u201d until the very end of the campaign, says veteran San Diego activist Janice Rothstein. They\u2019re hoping to see a trend for a particular progressive candidate.<\/p>\n
Which hasn\u2019t stopped either record spending in the Golden State, led by Democratic gubernatorial hopeful multimillionaire progressive Tom Steyer, or bitter rhetoric, especially from Los Angeles Republican mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt. Listen to \u201creality\u201d television show host Pratt on Fox and Friends, and you\u2019ll think you\u2019re hearing Donald Trump\u2019s nasty blame of Democrats for every problem.<\/p>\n
Here, then, is the California primary chaos, starting with the ballots themselves:<\/p>\n
The butterfly ballot and the Governor\u2019s race<\/p>\n
To get an idea of the confusion, the California Secretary of State certified 61 people for the gubernatorial race, but later reports said the secretary\u2019s office cut it to ten. The analysts point out that all 61 may still be on the ballot. News coverage concentrated on the top ten\u2014six Democrats, two other well-known Democrats who dropped out, and two Republicans. The rest are independents and minor-party candidates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
California\u2019s other unusual feature is that the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November 3 general election. That worries Democrats in deep-blue California.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They feared the six current active Democrats\u2014veteran officeholder Xavier Becerra, progressive multimillionaire Tom Steyer, former Rep. Katie Porter, former Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan\u2013could so split the Democratic electorate that Republicans Fox News commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco would finish one-two.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Xavier-Becerra-519x346.webp\")
California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra shakes hands with supporters during a campaign event in West Hollywood Calif., Thursday, May 28, 2026.| Jae C. Hong\/AP<\/p>\n
That may not occur. Two notable Democrats left the race: Former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out and quit Congress after credible sexual assault allegations surfaced. Former State Controller Betty Yee\u2019s grass-roots campaign couldn\u2019t overcome the need for massive money. She withdrew and endorsed Steyer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hilton has pulled ahead among likely GOP voters, who make up about a fourth of the total electorate. The final opinion poll, from Emerson College and the California Institute of Politics, finished May 30, gives Becerra 27.5%, Steyer 22.3%, Hilton 21%, Blanco 11.5%, and Mahan and Porter 5% each. The rest of the voters go for other candidates or are undecided.\u00a0<\/p>\n
News reports and analysts report that the 61 are split into two columns, with Becerra atop one column of 31 and Steyer near the bottom of the other, which has 30. Past studies show that in a low-information, high-turnout election, ballot position, especially on top, matters. This election may well be the opposite, analysts told People\u2019s World.<\/p>\n
That also makes group endorsements and GOTV efforts especially important. Studies show voters are more likely to pay attention to backers who are trusted sources of information. For the Democrats, that\u2019s organized labor. The state party is in disarray.<\/p>\n
The California AFL-CIO has stayed neutral. California\u2019s Service Employees endorsed Swalwell, but pulled its endorsement when the sexual abuse allegations surfaced. Teamsters Joint Councils 7 (Northern California) and 42 (Southern California) endorsed Porter. AFSCME Local 3299 endorsed Steyer.<\/p>\n
The California Nurses Association\/National Nurses United endorsed Steyer. So did the California Teachers Association\/AFT and the California Education Association\/NEA. The Progressive Democrats of America supported Yee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the others, Villaraigosa\u2019s campaign has failed to get off the ground, despite what was a strong base\u2014but apparently isn\u2019t any more\u2014among Latino voters in Los Angeles. He\u2019s been strongly linked to that community for a quarter of a century. Mahan has been painted as a captive of corporate interests for taking campaign finance money from Chevron and other business lobbies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Swalwell\u2019s withdrawal saw the bulk of his support shift over to Becerra, who, as a \u201csafe\u201d candidate of the party elite, barely finished first at the Democratic state convention, ahead of Yee. Thurmond, the sole African-American in the race, is a low-key candidate drowned out in the verbal wars.<\/p>\n
Longtime Latino activist and organizer Rosalio Munoz reports that Becerra has a deep and long-lasting well of support among Latinos in Los Angeles County, the state\u2019s most populous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It goes all the way back to when Becerra joined grape boycott marches and similar pro-worker actions as a young rising lawmaker, and when he campaigned strongly against GOP Gov. Pete Wilson\u2019s anti-Latino and anti-immigrant Prop 187. That proved to be a turning point in state politics. It energized the Latino electorate, whose votes have converted California over subsequent years from being purple to the current deep blue.<\/p>\n
While other candidates call Becerra the middle-of-the-road or the \u201csafe\u201d candidate, \u201cI know he can be influenced to take the union side,\u201d as he has in the past, Munoz adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One Munoz example: \u201cThe Olympics,\u201d which Los Angeles will help host in 2028, \u201cwill be run by corporations,\u201d and Becerra defied them by working for Unite HERE Local 11\u2019s successful campaign to raise the minimum wage for hospitality workers\u2019 pay to $30\/hour by the time the games roll around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most of those hospitality workers are people of color, and L.A. is 45% Hispanic.<\/p>\n
The candidates are trying to differentiate themselves on issues. Becerra stresses his record as state Attorney General in fighting right-wing GOP President Donald Trump\u2019s regime. Steyer strongly supports Medicare for All\u2014a top cause of National Nurses United and other unions\u2014while Becerra, on his campaign website, calls for strengthening the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n
And Munoz notes Steyer was the sole gubernatorial hopeful so far to criticize California\u2019s mid-term congressional redistricting push. More than 60% of state voters approved it in a referendum. It\u2019s expected to yield at least five more Democratic-held congressional seats, offsetting deep-red Texas\u2019s elimination\u2014at Trump\u2019s demand\u2014of five Democratic seats there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Porter refuses corporate PAC money. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who has never held elected office, has spent $200 million of his own money on the campaign. He says doing so makes him independent of those wealthy interests. He was also the only candidate from either party to support the billionaires\u2019 tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the other candidates jumped on Steyer\u2019s hedge fund\u2019s investments, 14-15 years ago, in a big private prison firm. \u201cHe\u2019s renounced it,\u201d says Janice Rothstein, the San Diego activist.<\/p>\n
In the nation\u2019s second-largest city, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has a fight on her hands. Veteran analyst Richard Green says wealthy Republicans in the San Fernando Valley and the city\u2019s West Side are providing the bulk of the money for right-wing talk show host Spencer Pratt. His rhetoric blaming Democrats for virtually every ill besetting the city and the country makes Donald Trump look mild.<\/p>\n
And L.A. unions are virtually unanimous in backing Bass, who has emphasized housing, education funding, and combating the city\u2019s homelessness problem, among other issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest opinion polls show Bass with 26% of the vote, Democratic Socialist City Councilmember Nithya Raman with 25%, and Pratt with 20%. There are 13 other candidates in the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the ground game may be all-important, Rothstein reports\u2014and that\u2019s where Bass has the edge. Los Angeles County unions have a nationwide reputation for successfully mobilizing members and voters.<\/p>\n
Bass touts reductions in crime and homelessness and reordering city priorities, as well as her union support. But analyst Green says last year\u2019s Palisades fire \u201ccontinues to haunt her.\u201d Bass must answer why the worst-ever blaze overwhelmed the Los Angeles Fire Department so quickly,\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump endorsed Pratt two months ago in a one-sentence statement.\u00a0 Five days before the primary, term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) endorsed Bass. But that\u2019s all. Will Newsom have coattails? Unlikely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work Karen Bass is doing in Los Angeles is making our entire state stronger, with an 18% decline in homelessness while it grew nationally, historic drops in violent crime, boosting film production in LA, and protecting our communities against ICE. She has my full support for reelection,\u201d Newsom said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have deep respect for Mayor Bass,\u201d Raman, who is running to Bass\u2019s left, adds. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked closely together on my biggest priorities and her biggest priorities, and there\u2019s significant alignment there. But over the last few months in particular, I\u2019ve really begun to feel like unless we have some big changes in how we do things in Los Angeles, that the things we count on are not going to function anymore.\u201d But her own party, the DSA, is staying neutral.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pratt, a talk show host, is nasty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people I\u2019m surging with are the people having to step over the drug addicts and step into human poop to get their $20 matcha,\u201d he told the right-wing network\u2019s Fox and Friends show earlier this year. \u201cThose are the people that I\u2019m surging the moms across Los Angeles who have to use their strollers around fentanyl, needles, and naked drug-addict zombies with machetes that maybe will chop a limb off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPratt is way out of his league and putting up AI (artificial intelligence) slop in his ads,\u201d Green notes. And the Bass campaign team said, \u201cSpencer is just mad that his supporters are just AI cartoons and we have real Angelenos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upheaval in the U.S. House delegation<\/p>\n
The new California congressional districts set off pitched battles all over the state, according to both the analysts and the Progressive Democrats of America. At least five GOP seats were drawn to switch to the Democrats. Swalwell resigned. Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco retired from her ultra-Democratic district.<\/p>\n
And activist, anti-war, and pro-Medicare-for-All Sacramento City Councilwoman Mai Vang is challenging 18-year incumbent Doris Matsui for her seat. It\u2019s a generational battle. Matsui, 81, succeeded her husband, who held the seat for 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a generational fight as well as one of different priorities. Matsui survived a Utah internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, and says the current ICE roundups, sweeps, deportations, and camps of migrants remind her of that. Vang, 41, one of 16 children from a Hmong refugee family from Laos, is also an advocate for communities of color and founded GOTV organizations.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also a passionate advocate of programs Trump has cut, such as food stamps. Her family needed them to survive when she was young. And the Salvation Army provided other needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most-interesting seats\u201d in Northern California are CD3\u201d\u2014a Sacramento-based seat\u2014\u201cand the Pelosi seat,\u201d says Green. There, the Progressive Democrats and Pelosi are supporting city supervisor (councilmember) Connie Chan.\u00a0 She faces millionaire\u00a0 Robert Weiner, who\u2019s made housing his big issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cProgressives know her (Chan) to be an across-the-board progressive, and there haven\u2019t been as many of those from California as there used to be,\u201d says Alan Minsky, a Californian and national chair of the Progressive Democrats of America, whose goal is to take over the party from within and push it in a progressive direction and away from corporate interests.<\/p>\n
Chan \u201cis backed by all of the left and labor organizations\u201d and has supported a cease-fire in Gaza, says POA\u2019s San Francisco co-chair, Dr. Haemin Cho. \u201cMy people\u201d in San Francisco\u2019s Chinatown \u201ccannot afford health care or child care or to put food on the table,\u201d says Chan in a video announcing her run.<\/p>\n
Analyst Green predicts Pelosi\u2019s endorsement will swing great weight in the district.<\/p>\n
A third candidate in that race is Saikat Chakrabarti, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s former chief of staff, who left that job after alienating the rest of the staff and on the outs with her. Left unsaid were the times AOC and Pelosi didn\u2019t see eye-to-eye either, especially when Pelosi said\u2014on national TV\u2014that she pigeonholed Medicare For All because voting for it would have cost House seats.<\/p>\n
Physician Ami Bera (D) holds a second Sacramento-based seat, which, however, stretches all the way to Lake Tahoe on the Nevada border. Chris Bennett, a 2013 West Point graduate and military veteran, who told PDA he became \u201cradicalized\u201d by both listening to Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and by the war in Iraq, is challenging Bera.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did we go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than paying for health care?\u201d says the youthful Bennett, who served in Korea. \u201cI preferred his positions. It was like crossing the Rubicon\u2026We have very, very terrible policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A notable GOP incumbent among the five districts switched to Democratic tilts is David Valadao, one of the last two Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. His 22nd district was totally redrawn, and he won the seat in 2024 by less than 2%. \u201cIt\u2019s a winnable seat because the district has been moved to the left\u201d by the redistricting, says PDA national chair Minsky.<\/p>\n
Richard Green, Janice Rothstein, and Rosalio Munoz contributed material for this story.<\/p>\n
We hope you appreciated this article. At\u00a0People\u2019s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading\u00a0People\u2019s World\u00a0and the stories we bring you, please\u00a0support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCONTRIBUTOR<\/p>\n
![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/200x262shearon.jul10-200x200.jpg\")
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