By admin 
California voters cast ballots in eight statewide races and elections for Congress and California’s Assembly and Senate on Tuesday. Though results from the 2026 primaries in California will continue to trickle in over the coming days, some of the ballots are set for the November general elections.
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As of Tuesday evening, about half of the ballots in the state had been counted, according to the Associated Press.
When all the votes are tabulated, the real lesson from Tuesday’s primary will be what direction voters in California want the Democratic Party to take, said Dan Schnur, a politics and communications professor at UC Berkeley and USC.
“California has established itself as the anti-Trump resistance, so Democratic voters’ choice could give an early indicator of what to look for in November and in 2028,” he said. “Do Dems want a bomb thrower, or a traditional presence?”
Here are the top takeaways from Tuesday’s primary.
Three governor candidates vying for top two spots
Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra maintained leads as early votes came in Tuesday evening, with 26% and 27% of the votes, respectively, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
Democrat Tom Steyer, who has billed himself as the progressive candidate in the race, was trailing with 20% of the votes as of late Tuesday evening. Because of the state’s notoriously slow vote counting process, the outcome of the primary will likely not be officially certified for weeks.
The top two candidates in the primary will move on to the general election in November. Although millions more ballots still need to be counted, polls conducted before Tuesday consistently put Becerra in the lead.
If the race is between Hilton and Becerra, the GOP candidate will face a steep climb to get to the governor’s mansion in deep-blue California.
If Steyer advances to the general election, however, Schnur said, California voters will have to decide if they want a more populist leader or a more traditional leader in Becerra.
Establishment v. populist Democrats
The tension between Becerra, an establishment figure, and Steyer, a progressive populist, is also cropping up in several of the congressional races.
This was the case in the capital region where Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, is defending her seat from progressive Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang. Vang has called for generational change in her bid to unseat Matsui, who has been in Congress since 2005.
As of late Tuesday evening, Matsui and Vang earned 32% and 25% of the votes respectively.
Schnur noted this tension between establishment and populist Democrats was also present in District 22 where Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains is facing off against college professor Randy Villegas in a fight to unseat Republican Rep. David Valadao.
Bains, a moderate Democrat, is backed by labor groups and party leaders, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Meanwhile, Villegas has built grassroots support in the Central Valley district with a more progressive policy platform.
As of Tuesday evening, Villegas had earned 30% of the votes and Bains had earned 26% of the votes. Whichever of these candidates earns the most support will likely face Valadao, who was leading the primary race with 44% of the votes, in November.
Kiley appears to secure spot in general election
Last November, California voters approved Proposition 50, redrawing the state’s congressional maps to give Democrats more seats in Congress as a response to President Donald Trump encouraging Republican-led states to redistrict.
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One of the districts reshaped by Prop. 50 is currently held by Rep. Kevin Kiley. A former Republican, Kiley opted to run as an independent in District 6, which represents Sacramento suburbs, to improve his chances of remaining in Congress.
As of late Tuesday evening, Kiley was leading the primary race with 25% of the votes. Richard Pan, a Democrat and former state Senator, and Michael Stansfield, a Republican, both had 22% of the tallied votes as of Tuesday evening, though Pan had a slight lead.
Northern California voters participated in two elections — one special and one primary — for District 1, which was previously held by Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who died unexpectedly earlier this year. In the special election, voters will send James Gallagher, a Republican leader in the state Assembly, to serve the remainder of LaMalfa’s term.
In the primary election for District 1, a different subset of voters are choosing who will be on the ballot in the general election. The Northern California district was redrawn as a result of Prop. 50. In that race, Gallagher leads with 47% of the votes, according to early results. In the general election, he will likely face Democrat Mike McGuire, who recently served as the Senate President pro Tempore, and had earned 38% of the votes in the primary as of late Tuesday.
Statewide incumbents move on to general election
Aside from the governor’s race, Californians voted in seven other statewide primary elections for constitutional officers.
In four of those races, there was no incumbent candidate and the results from those elections were still too close to call as of late Tuesday evening.
- In the primary for lieutenant governor, Democrat Fiona Ma, Republican Gloria Romero and Democrat Josh Fryday were ahead in the race with 20.2%, 19.5% and 14.1%, respectively.
- In the primary for treasurer, Democrat Eleni Kounalakis, Republican Jennifer Hawks and Democrat Anna Caballero were leading the race with 36%, 27% and 15%, respectively.
- In the primary for insurance commissioner, Democrats Jane Kim and Ben Allen, and Republican Stacy Korsgaden held the leads with 24%, 20% and 17%, respectively.
- In the primary for superintendent of public instruction, which is a nonpartisan election, Sonja Shaw, Richard Barrera and Wendy Castaneda Leal held 25%, 20% and 10%, respectively.
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego, said that despite voters’ anti-incumbent sentiments, name recognition was still helpful for some of these statewide candidates.
“In the open statewide races, where there’s someone who’s been a statewide-office holder in another race, those candidates are doing well,” Kousser said.
He pointed to Ma, the current state treasurer, who was leading the race for lieutenant governor and Kounalakis, the current lieutenant governor, who was leading the race for state treasurer, according to early returns.
Meanwhile, the statewide incumbents were all leading their respective primaries according to early election results.
- Dr. Shirley Weber, California’s Secretary of State, will face Republican Donald Wagner in the general election, according to the Associated Press.
- Attorney General Rob Bonta will run against Republican Michael Gates in the general election, according to the Associated Press.
- State Controller Malia Cohen, a Democrat, and Republican Herb Morgan are likely to face off in November. Cohen and Morgan had received 54% and 42% of the votes as of Tuesday evening.
Early results indicate opposition to contentious Davis housing development
Measure V asked Davis voters to approve a resolution allowing the Village Farms development to move forward. The project would include over 400 units, a mix of affordable homes and units offering down payment assistance.
As of late Tuesday evening, early results showed that 53% of voters opposed the measure, though more ballots need to be counted.
If approved, the development would also allocate space for parks, a preschool and a fire station. Some residents have raised concerns about the development’s impact on traffic congestion and whether the proposal will actually result in affordable housing.
The measure had support of the Davis City Council and the Davis Joint Unified School District board. Several committees funded by developers and real estate agents raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the measure.
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A former Davis planning commissioner organized the campaign against Measure V.