Tipsheet

It's Election Night...and Nate Silver's Tweet About California's Elections Is Spot-on

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  June 02, 2026 8:00 PM

We have a bunch of races happening tonight. From New Jersey to California, it’s Election Night to decide who will be running in the various gubernatorial, Senate, mayoral, and congressional races. 

The Garden State will discover which candidate will face the absent Rep. Tom Kean, Jr., who has been out for weeks, seeking treatment at a center where photography is not allowed. He’s this cycle’s most vulnerable Republican. South Dakota’s Republican gubernatorial primary could go to a runoff. In Iowa, we’ll find out who will be vying for Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat, as she decided not to run for re-election. 


Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) is retiring, so whoever wins the Republican primary here will likely be the favorite in the general election. Democrats hope they can take this one, though we’ve heard that before. California is the big enchilada tonight, with the gubernatorial race, numerous congressional contests, and the fight for Los Angeles’ mayor’s office. Yet, the bluest state won’t be called tonight. We know this because it takes the equivalent of a Pluto solar year to count all the ballots there. You know it’s bad when Nate Silver, of all people, finds the Golden State’s ballot-counting duration to be “insane.” Decision Desk had a lengthy rundown of the races in that state tonight:

California is “the granddaddy of them all” on June 2, to borrow a phrase used to describe the Pasadena-based Rose Bowl. A bevy of races are on the Golden State docket, six of which we will cover here. Remember that most California primaries use the top-two system, in which all candidates run together regardless of party, all voters can participate regardless of party registration, and the top-two vote-getters advance. Also, in part because California mostly votes by mail, the state also takes a long time to count — it could be days or weeks before we know some outcomes.

The most-watched contest is California’s top-two primary for governor. Earlier in 2026, the crowded field of Democratic candidates raised the possibility that Democratic voters would split across so many options that GOP candidates would grab first and second — a “lockout” guaranteeing a Republican win in November. Then Trump endorsed Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, which helped consolidate more GOP voters behind him. And then Rep. Eric Swalwell, the leading Democratic aspirant, dropped out following a series of sexual misconduct allegations.

Now the primary looks likely to advance some combination of two candidates from among the three leading names. That would mean either Hilton plus one Democrat, or both of the main Democratic candidates: former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire and 2020 presidential candidate. In Decision Desk HQ’s polling average, Becerra and Hilton are each at about 23-24%, while Steyer is in third with 19%. The next-closest contender is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other principal GOP candidate, with 11%.

That Steyer is not easily advancing illustrates that money is not the be-all, end-all for campaign success. As of May 29, Steyer had spent or reserved campaign ads worth $201 million, according to AdImpact. Almost all of this spending has come from Steyer’s own pocket. Yet Steyer’s progressive pitch — the billionaire has called himself a “class traitor” — has not quite ensured his advancement on June 2.

Meanwhile, Becerra looked like an also-ran before Swalwell withdrew. But in the vacuum that followed, voters and some interest groups turned to his familiar face. Becerra spent almost all of the past 35 years in political office, most recently in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. His appeal has outrun the ad spending supporting him — $24 million, a far cry from what Steyer has doled out. Becerra could become the first Latino elected as California governor. (Romualdo Pacheco briefly served as governor for 10 months in 1875, but was not elected to that position.)

Note that the gubernatorial primary’s volatility could significantly influence California’s vote count trend in the days following the primary. Looking at returned ballot figures by party, it’s evident that many Democrats held off on casting their ballots until the last minute. That means later-counted votes will be disproportionately Democratic, producing a “red mirage” in which early-counted votes will be more Republican than the final tally. As more votes are counted, Democratic candidates will gain to varying degrees. That might allow Becerra and Steyer to both eventually surpass Hilton, and makes it possible that Democrats will avoid lockouts in races in which the early tallies show two Republicans advancing.

Moving on, voters in Los Angeles will also vote for mayor on Tuesday. In what is technically a nonpartisan election, a candidate can win outright in the primary by garnering majority support. But such an outcome looks extremely unlikely. In Decision Desk HQ’s average, incumbent Karen Bass leads with 26%, followed by reality TV personality Spencer Pratt at 18%, and Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman at 16%. Bass and Raman are Democrats, while Pratt is a Republican.

Any incumbent polling as poorly as Bass clearly has problems. Most conspicuously, she drew criticism for her preparation and response to the wildfires that hammered the city in January 2025. That event sparked Pratt’s candidacy, as the fires destroyed his home. Pratt’s rise has been punctuated by a number of viral AI-generated ads promoting his candidacy. These include a Star Wars-themed clip of Pratt fighting a lightsaber battle against Bass dressed like Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Raman’s democratic socialist candidacy has drawn support from Bass’s left.

Despite her unpopularity, Bass looks most likely to advance out of the primary. In deep-blue Los Angeles, she hopes to be joined by Pratt, whose candidacy has caught fire with conservative media but who, as a Republican, would be a huge underdog one-on-one against a Democrat. Tellingly, the Bass-allied Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has run an ad ostensibly attacking Pratt as too conservative. But the ad really aims to better consolidate Republican support around Pratt, thereby increasing the likelihood that Bass faces Pratt instead of Raman in November.



And after all that, we should know who won these races in the year 2150. 

It's not new either. During the 2024 primaries, even lefty reporters were noting how ridiculous it is that California can't count their ballots in a timely manner.