{"id":347590,"date":"2026-06-05T04:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T04:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347590\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T04:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T04:59:22","slug":"president-trump-slams-california-elections-alleges-cheating-in-governor-and-la-mayor-races-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347590\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump slams California elections, alleges \u2018cheating\u2019 in governor and LA mayor races \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump<\/a> railed against California elections in a series of posts, alleging \u201cbig cheating\u201d without citing evidence.<\/p>\n

Trump, long a critic of California\u2019s elections and mail ballots, accused Democrats of \u201ctrying to steal\u201d gubernatorial and L.A. mayoral elections.<\/p>\n

Republican and Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton<\/a> holds a lead in the race for governor, with Democrats Xavier Becerra<\/a> and Tom Steyer<\/a> still battling it out for that coveted second spot<\/a> to make the general election runoff.<\/p>\n

Over in the L.A. mayoral race<\/a>, reality television personality Spencer Pratt<\/a> was in second place behind incumbent Karen Bass<\/a>, a former longtime Democratic member of Congress, according to the latest, unofficial results. But progressive Councilmember Nithya Raman<\/a> was getting closer to that No. 2 spot<\/a>, the latest returns show, as more ballots are received and counted.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS,\u201d Trump posted to Truth Social<\/a> late Wednesday, June 3.<\/p>\n

And later Thursday morning, the president said<\/a>: \u201cLook what\u2019s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another post<\/a>, Trump alleged the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in L.A. is investigating California elections. When reached Thursday morning, a spokesperson for the office declined to comment on the president\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

\"InIn a series of late night posts to Truth Social, President Trump alleged California elections are rigged because the later vote counties are leaning more Democratic, cutting into Steve Hilton\u2019s lead for governor and Spencer Pratt\u2019s chance to make the LA mayoral runoff election. (Photos by AP)<\/p>\n

Later ballots tend to be more Democratic leaning, especially since the state\u2019s Democrats waited to vote this year<\/a> in case a frontrunner would emerge among the bevy of candidates in the governor\u2019s race. And Republicans tend to vote earlier and in person on Election Day.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s office responded to Trump\u2019s claims with its own social media post<\/a>: \u201cTrump is lying about California again \u2014 time to take the phone away from grandpa and put him to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to cite specific examples of the alleged cheating, a White House spokesperson simply referred to the president\u2019s social media posts, without providing further evidence.<\/p>\n

In California, every registered voter is mailed a ballot, and they have multiple ways to cast them: in person, at drop boxes or through the mail. Ballots returned via the U.S. Postal Service are still counted so long as they are postmarked<\/a> on or before Election Day, June 2, and arrive at the county elections office within seven days.<\/p>\n

And as Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page has said, it\u2019s not so much that vote counting takes a long time, it\u2019s the process, set by state law, which gives voters time to fix a signature challenge on mailed ballot envelopes. This year, that deadline is 5 p.m. on June 24 \u2014 and that means county elections officials cannot certify local results until June 26.<\/p>\n

The California secretary of state has until July 10 to certify the results of this election.<\/p>\n

And, in fact, Orange County is counting ballots even quicker than before it adopted the current system with vote centers and electronic rosters, Page said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom four to nine days after Election Day in every statewide election since 2020, the votes from at least 95% of accepted ballots in OC are reported,\u201d Page said in a post on LinkedIn<\/a> on Wednesday. \u201cDuring the 2025 Statewide Special Election, we posted the results from 98.8% of accepted ballots within four days.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the 2018 general election, before moving to this system, results from at least 95% of accepted ballots weren\u2019t posted until 18 days after the election because of the number of provisional ballots to process, he said.<\/p>\n

Trump has often falsely claimed his 2020 election loss<\/a> was the result of cheating. And he is also a big critic of California and how the Democratic-leaning state conducts its elections.<\/p>\n

In November, when voters overwhelmingly approved a congressional redistricting plan, Trump\u00a0alleged the election system was \u201crigged,\u201d<\/a> without citing any evidence.<\/p>\n

He also suggested last year withholding future federal aid<\/a> for the recovery of California\u2019s most devastating wildfires until the state establishes a voter ID law.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, claims of widespread fraud in California\u2019s elections have not been substantiated<\/a>, and Republican leaders in the state have\u00a0encouraged their party\u2019s voters<\/a>\u00a0to vote by mail\u00a0and vote early<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump, in April, endorsed Hilton in the race for governor<\/a>, choosing to back the former Fox News personality over Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who has given his wholehearted and open support for the president in a blue state where the president is especially unpopular.<\/p>\n

And ahead of the June 2 election, Trump said<\/a> he\u2019d like to see Pratt \u201cdo well\u201d in the mayoral contest.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Hilton did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.<\/p>\n

A representative for Pratt pointed to a post on X<\/a> the mayoral candidate made earlier in the day:<\/p>\n

\u201cGod always wins.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump railed against California elections in a series of posts, alleging \u201cbig cheating\u201d without citing evidence.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1400,7,9,8,400,536,204,92191,100,13,136],"class_list":["post-347590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-governor-race","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347590","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=347590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}