The Secretary of State will certify the election results on Friday, July 15. One week to go! There are still unprocessed ballots in some counties and you can see the latest numbers here.
While we wait for the final, final data, let’s update what we do know. Last week, we thought we might have two competitive races, but the close race for second place in the Insurance Commissioner race is over. Democrat Assemblymember Marc Levine conceded to Republican Cybersecurity Equipment Manufacturer Robert Howell. The two candidates for second place had watched the numbers ping-pong for weeks, but the latest results have Howell leading by nearly 7,000 votes. Howell will face incumbent Democrat Ricardo Lara in November.
With the IC race finally decided, it is fairly safe to say that only one statewide candidate race will be interesting: Controller. As Calpeek has previously discussed, Republican Lanhee Chen will try to give Democrat Malia Cohen a challenge despite the fact that a Republican has not won statewide office since 2006.
All the other statewide candidate races are expected to be won by the Democrat incumbent. We would not be surprised to see eight incumbent officeholders spend a lot of time on vacation this election cycle.
That leaves political observers watching local races and state propositions for something interesting. For more information on state propositions, which have now been certified and given numbers, read the Calpeek peek in this week’s newsletter.