For Clients & Friends of The Gualco Group, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE – “In the days and months and years to come, all eyes will look West” CA Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on leading “The Resistance” to the Trump Administration
- Newsom Claims “The Resistance” Leadership
- Moderates Mark California Election Gains
- Latino Voters Shift Populist, Pundits Say
- California (“State of Limbo”) Still Counting Ballots – 1.8 Million Remain
- Harris Leads Large Dem Field for CA Governor 2026
- Air Board Hikes Carbon Standard, But Legislators Protest
The Gualco Group’s Capital News & Notes (CN&N) curates California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique client service.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOV. 15, 2024
Newsom Claims “The Resistance” Leadership
Wall Street Journal excerpt
In the aftermath of another Donald Trump victory, no Democrat more swiftly charged to the defense of left-leaning policies than California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Within two days of the election, Newsom positioned himself at the forefront of the opposition, calling for state lawmakers to convene an emergency special session “to safeguard California values” in the face of an incoming Trump administration.
Hours later, state Attorney General Rob Bonta seconded the notion, speaking beneath the Golden Gate Bridge about California’s role as a fortress for the resistance.
“In the days and months and years to come, all eyes will look west,” Bonta said.
Will they, though? This is a tricky time for California liberals to anoint themselves the standard-bearers for a national party still licking its wounds from an election that saw most of the nation shift to the right.
Not even California was immune. Progressives from Oakland to Los Angeles lost high-profile seats last Tuesday, when voters also overwhelmingly approved a tough-on-crime ballot measure that Newsom opposed.
Republicans, including governors in Texas and Florida, have long tried to portray California as an example of how not to run a state, but Trump successfully doubled down on the rhetoric.
He soundly defeated Kamala Harris in the swing states after depicting her political home of California as the manifestation of liberal policies gone awry on immigration, homelessness and crime.
The state even became a Trump rallying cry: “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California.”
If California is damaged, even temporarily, as a launchpad for national political aspirations, that complicates the path for Newsom, who is considered to be a presidential contender in 2028.
“That’s the rub,” said Andrew Acosta, a Democratic consultant in the state. “One would have a hard time as a national political consultant saying that someone from California could run and win the presidency after what we just saw happen.”
In many ways this should be Newsom’s moment. During Trump’s first term, the telegenic governor was a leading White House antagonist. Harris’s loss creates an opening just as Newsom will be term-limited in 2026.
Partisan Democrats will demand Newsom take on Trump, but that might not be a viable route to the White House.
“There’s a good case to be made that he’s the embodiment of the Democratic Party that just got shellacked,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant in California. “Particularly the California brand I think continues to take a beating, but I don’t know if he has any other path.”
During Trump’s first term, Newsom forged a working relationship with the president on select issues, notably breaking Democratic ranks in 2020 to commend Trump’s assistance during the pandemic.
Yet, California launched more than 120 lawsuits challenging actions taken by Trump’s administration.
Trump, meanwhile, has unleashed hundreds of salvos at the state. At a recent rally in Southern California, he mocked Newsom as “Gavin New-scum” and threatened to withhold federal funding to fight wildfires if the governor didn’t side with farmers in a water-rights dispute. Trump said that “in the first day” of his presidency he would end California’s regulations banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars and trucks by 2035.
“I liken it to pro-wrestling where they get in the ring and they do their dance and each of their fans roar in approval,” Stutzman said of Trump and Newsom.
Trump is in a stronger position this time. He is winning a higher percentage of votes in California, 38% compared with 34% in 2020, though there are still 2.6 million ballots to count.
Californians passed a ballot measure to increase penalties for shoplifting and drug possession with 69% in favor even as Newsom and other Democratic leaders opposed it.
The shift hit local races. George Gascón, a leader in the progressive-prosecutor movement, was trounced by a tough-on-crime candidate for district attorney in Los Angeles County.
In the Bay Area, the progressive mayor of Oakland and district attorney of Alameda County were recalled. And San Francisco elected a new mayor: Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie, a moderate Democrat who said he would deliver “clean and safe streets.”
While California is still decidedly blue, conservatives feel more emboldened by the results, said San Francisco Republican Party Chairman John Dennis.
“If you walked down a main thoroughfare in San Francisco wearing a MAGA hat a few years ago, it’d be dangerous,” Dennis said. “If you did it now, you’d get a lot of people honking at you in support.”
Citing the “extraordinary circumstances” of Trump’s victory, Newsom is calling for a special session in early December to provide additional funding for legal battles against Trump. Newsom has raised alarms about a potential rollback of clean-energy rules, mass deportations, limited access to abortion medication and the withholding of disaster aid “for political retribution.” The governor traveled to Washington this week and met with President Biden on Tuesday, a person familiar with the meeting said.
Newsom’s approach has some support: “We learned a lot about former President Trump in his first term—he’s petty, vindictive, and will do what it takes to get his way no matter how dangerous the policy may be,” California Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire said in a statement.
Counters California Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli: “We just had an election, I think we should give space for Trump to govern,” he said. “The left has just gone overboard.”
Newsom’s stance contrasts with that of Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has remained quieter than some other Democratic governors since the election. Shapiro made the shortlist of possible Harris running mates and has been discussed as a 2028 presidential prospect.
Immigration looms as perhaps the most explosive battleground. In 2022, there were an estimated 1.8 million immigrants lacking legal status in California, the most of any U.S. state, according to the Pew Research Center.
Moderates Mark California “Big Deal” Election Gains
CalMatters
Several decades ago, when Republicans had rough parity with Democrats as they dueled over California’s presidential electoral votes and other offices high and low, GOP strategists counted on what they called “the fishhook.”
The elongated shank of the Republican-heavy territory consisted of the interior counties from the Oregon border to Mexico, and its hook were the conservative coastal counties of San Diego and Orange.
The GOP could count on lopsided majorities in fishhook counties to offset heavy Democratic returns in the San Francisco Bay Area. With Los Angeles County, home to a quarter of the state’s population, breaking almost even, Republicans often prevailed.
That parity vanished in the late 1990s for a variety of reasons, and since then Democrats have been dominant from the presidential level downward.
However, last week’s election moved the state’s ideological needle a little to the right, and even generated an echo of the fishhook days.
Ten counties that had voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 shifted to Donald Trump this year. The map of those results, showing fairly solid support for Trump in interior California, resembles the old fishhook minus San Diego County, which opted for Vice President Kamala Harris. With some votes still being counted, Harris is running about five percentage points behind Biden’s vote in 2020 and Trump about four points higher.
While there is a multitude of factors being cited for Harris’s loss nationally, there is consensus that one is angst about the inflation of living costs over the last four years, something that Californians have certainly experienced, particularly in housing. A recent report from the Legislature’s fiscal advisor, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, says that living costs have risen nearly 20% since January 2020, driven by a 41.5% jump in housing and utility costs.
In a separate report, the analyst’s office reported that monthly payments for a “mid-tier” home in California, including mortgage, taxes and insurance, have increased 75% in the last four years to $5,500. Payments for lower-priced homes have jumped even more, surging 80% to $3,400 a month.
California’s presidential vote, however, was only one indication of a slight drift to the right. It was also visible in voting on statewide ballot measures, most notably for Proposition 36, which toughens penalties for some crimes, and against expansion of rent control (Proposition 33) and making it easier to pass local bonds (Proposition 5).
While Democrats maintained their lopsided majorities in the Legislature, there is some evidence of gains by moderate, pro-business Democrats vis-à-vis union-supported progressives.
Brian Brennan, executive director of the 21st Century Alliance, which advocates for centrist policies, cited the election of moderate Democrats in five open Assembly districts, replacing pro-union progressives.
“Five Assembly seats out of 80 is a big deal,” Brennan said. “Shifting five seats each cycle over a few cycles adds up to the change California needs.”
Other indications of California voters’ more conservative outlook are the ouster of two district attorneys identified with the left-leaning penal reform movement in two solidly Democratic counties: George Gascón in Los Angeles and Pamela Price in Alameda.
California Latino Voters Shift Populist, Pundits Say
CalMatters
Most — if not all — of California’s 12 Latino-majority counties gave a larger share of their vote to Trump compared to 2020, and counties with a higher share of Latino population swung further toward Trump, according to a CalMatters analysis of state voting data. Trump also expanded his vote share in most other counties in California.
But does that signal a rightward shift among Latinos and a departure from the Democratic Party in California?
The answer is complicated. But almost all polls reached the same conclusion: Latino support has grown for Trump.
A mix of factors contributed to the apparent shift: Inflation blamed on an unpopular administration, concern over border security, resistance to Democrats’ messaging on cultural issues and Harris’ lack of appeal, according to pollsters, experts, political consultants and a dozen Latinos in the Central Valley who spoke to CalMatters.
How much other Republicans gained from the growing support for Trump remains to be seen. Nationwide, Democrats won four of the five battleground U.S. Senate seats and declared victory on abortion rights ballot measures in Arizona, Missouri and Nevada.
In California, with 88% of the estimated vote counted, Trump has received slightly fewer votes than Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey. And in some counties within the state’s toss-up congressional districts, Democratic candidates appear to be outperforming Harris.
Mike Madrid, a longtime GOP consultant with an expertise in Latino politics, called this election a “five-alarm fire” for Democrats, who he said have gradually lost support among Latino voters since 2012.
He pointed to a pair of Pew Research Center surveys, which suggested Latino support for the Democratic presidential candidate dropped from 71% for Obama in 2012 to 59% for Biden in 2020.
In California, a majority of Latinos have firmly supported Democrats after former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson championed Proposition 187, which was approved by voters in 1994 to deny benefits to undocumented immigrants but was blocked by the courts. But that support could erode as cost of living increases, alienating working-class residents, many of whom are Latinos, Madrid said.
“I think this is a pivotal moment. I think it’s as significant as the Prop. 187 moment in 1994, except it was a wake-up call for Republicans,” Madrid said.
California Democrats are “clearly in danger of losing Latino support long term” due to “bad branding” that lasted for more than a decade, Madrid said.
But, he added, “there’s very little evidence that suggests Latinos are becoming more conservative. There’s a lot suggesting they are becoming more populist.”
Michael Gomez Daly, a senior strategist with the progressive California Donor Table, said he’s unsure how best to counter the backlash Democrats faced from voters hurt by inflation, stressing that voters may remember Trump with “rose-colored glasses.”
However, he said, Trump proved “inspiring” among Latino voters even with his “problematic” rhetoric.
Living in the toss-up 41st Congressional District where GOP Rep. Ken Calvert narrowly defeated Democrat Will Rollins, Gomez Daly said he saw conservative YouTube ads targeting young men all the time.
“I think Democrats need to recognize the economic situation that much of inland California is facing and speak to those problems and give hope to people,” he said. “I think that was lacking.”
The economy is top of mind among Latino voters, as well as among voters overall, as polls have consistently shown throughout the 2024 campaign. Latino and Black Americans are the most likely to feel the pinch of high inflation compared to the overall population, according to a 2022 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Latinos in California make up 40% of the state’s population but more than half of poor Californians, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California last year. The poverty rate among Latinos rose to 16.9% in fall 2023 compared to 13.5% in fall 2021, the analysis shows.
While it’s too early to draw firm conclusions from the election, the takeaway for Democrats is that they must be better at reaching Latino voters, something both major parties have done poorly in California, political consultants say.
MORE:
California (“State of Limbo”) Still Counting Ballots – 1.8 Million Remain
Politico’s California Playbook
Election Day was over a week ago, but California still had approximately 1.8 million ballots left to count as of Thursday morning, Secretary of State Shirley Weber told reporters during a press conference yesterday.
If the Golden State’s uncounted voters were their own state — we’ll call it the State of Limbo — it would be more populous than 12 other U.S. states: Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Harris Leads Large Dem Field for CA Governor 2026
LA Times & UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies
If Vice President Kamala Harris were to run for governor in California in 2026, she would have a major advantage over the crowded field of candidates vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, new polling shows.
The latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that if Harris enters California’s crowded 2026 gubernatorial race, nearly half of voters would be very or somewhat likely to support her.
Harris would have stronger support overall from Democrats, who have a nearly 2-1 voter registration advantage over Republicans. About 72% of Democrats said they would be very likely or somewhat likely to consider Harris for governor, compared with 8% of Republicans and 38% of voters with no party preference.
“Nearly all voters in this state have an opinion of her, and that’s really the big advantage that she brings to an early poll,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “None of the other candidates are as well known to the voting public.”
Still, the poll suggests that Californians could be less supportive of Harris running for governor compared with her run for president this year. Forty-six percent of likely voters were somewhat (13%) or very (33%) likely to support her for governor in 2026, the poll found. As of Tuesday, Harris had won 59% of the presidential race votes counted in California.
The poll is the first to gauge how California feels about Harris running for governor. Harris has not said publicly what she plans to do after President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, and a Harris representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Harris has a home in Brentwood and enjoyed a successful career in California politics for nearly two decades as she rose from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general and then to the U.S. Senate. Several years ago, she opened a campaign account to raise money to run for governor, but public filings show she shut it in 2018.
Harris would join a field of more than a dozen candidates who have either entered the race to succeed Newsom or are weighing whether to launch a campaign. Newsom is serving his second term and cannot run again.
Separate from the poll’s questions about Harris, California voters were asked to choose their first and second favorites from a long list of candidates who have entered the governor’s race and potential candidates.
Voter opinions about Harris cannot be compared with those about the other candidates because voters were not asked to pick between them, DiCamillo said. Including her in a head-to-head matchup with other candidates felt premature, DiCamillo said, because she was still running for president when the poll was conducted.
More than half of registered voters say they don’t have a preference among the candidates. Among those who do, their favorites haven’t yet entered the race.
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who has not said whether she will run, would lead the pack as the first or second choice of 13% of voters, the poll found. Two Republicans said to be weighing campaigns, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and state Sen. Brian Dahle, who ran against Newsom in 2022, were the first or second choice of 12% and 11% of registered voters, respectively.
Porter, who is leaving the House of Representatives in January, has been in the mix of potential gubernatorial candidates since she lost her bid for the U.S. Senate in March. When asked last weekend by Fox 11’s Elex Michaelson whether she will run, she said she is “still thinking.”
Two Democrats who have launched campaigns each have 7% support: Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former Los Angeles Mayor Antoino Villaraigosa. So does Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has not said whether he will run. Republican commentator Steve Hilton, also said to be weighing a bid, would be the first or second choice of 6% of voters.
Some candidates already in the race, including State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, state Sen. Toni Atkins and former state Controller Betty Yee, had support from fewer than 5% of registered voters.
The same was true for several politicians who have not announced campaigns, including state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has said he’s “seriously considering” running; developer Rick Caruso, who lost the Los Angeles mayor’s race in 2022; and Republican Lanhee Chen, who lost the election for state controller in 2022.
It’s an “impressive list” of candidates, DiCamillo said, but the large share of California voters with no opinion about any of them (52%) underscores how little most voters know about the race — and what an advantage Harris would have because of her name recognition.
“Most voters in California do not pay attention to what’s going on in state politics,” DiCamillo said. “That’s why you need huge amounts of campaign resources to make yourself known to them.”
The poll found that Porter would be an early leader among the state’s registered Democrats, as well as among Asian American, white and female voters. Having support of women is an advantage, DiCamillo said, because the majority of registered Democrats in California are women.
Latino voters slightly favor two Democrats — Villaraigosa and Becerra — as well as Bianco. That Latinos are favoring both Republicans and Democrats, DiCamillo said, mirrors the rightward shift that he tracked in polling about President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey, both of whom did “better among Latinos than we have seen historically.”
“The Latino vote now seems more in play than in past elections,” DiCamillo said.
The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish from Oct. 22 to 29 among 4,838 registered voters in California. The margin of error is about 2 percentage points.
Paywall access:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-11-13/poll-california-governor-race-2026
Air Board Hikes Carbon Standard, But Legislators Protest
NY Times
California air quality regulators have tightened carbon standards in an attempt to further cut emissions from fuels in the state’s transportation system.
Several members of the California Air Resources Board, a powerful body that can influence global policies, called the rule changes a critical step on climate amid an expected rollback of federal environmental efforts under President-elect Donald J. Trump.
But the complex regulations, which were approved at the end of a marathon meeting on Friday, have spurred political fights this year between various groups. State lawmakers from both parties have criticized the changes for their potential to hike California’s gas prices, which are already among the highest in the nation.
The new restrictions have also triggered a dispute among environmental groups, researchers and industry officials over whether the California program disproportionately benefits the biofuels sector.
Here’s what to know about the changes.
California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard is a statewide, market-based program that requires significant cuts in the carbon emissions produced by transportation fuels. This includes the emissions associated with their production, conveyance and use by consumers. The transportation sector on the whole accounts for about half of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
To comply, fuel producers must either reduce emissions in their own operations or buy credits from companies that sell fuels considered to be low in carbon. Such fuels include electricity for electric vehicles and renewable diesel, a biofuel that is chemically equivalent to petroleum diesel but derived from renewable biological sources such as plant oils and animal fats.
Fuel producers were previously required, by 2030, to cut carbon emissions over their fuel’s life cycle 20 percent below 2010 levels. In a 12-2 vote at the end of a 12-hour meeting, the regulators tightened these standards, raising the 2030 target to 30 percent and adding a 2045 target of a 90 percent reduction.
“It’s improving on what has been an incredibly successful program,” said Liane Randolph, the board chairwoman.
The updates also included additional funding for zero-emission vehicle charging and new sustainability requirements for renewable fuels.
A key point of tension is the concern that the changes could significantly raise gas prices. Oil companies already pass about 8 to 10 cents per gallon onto consumers as a result of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program, according to the agency.
Last September, the agency estimated that an earlier version of the proposal could have hiked gas prices by 47 cents per gallon starting next year and could have potentially added $1.80 per gallon by 2040. However, officials have said that the estimates did not take into account many important factors that affect gas prices and also did not reflect the changes that ultimately passed.
“We have a lot of data and analysis that we have published that makes it very clear that it is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate exactly how a program like this affects retail gas prices,” Ms. Randolph said.
Ms. Randolph added that the program would create competition in the transportation sector, which would give consumers more choice about the fuels they want to spend money on. It would also keep transportation costs lower overall for consumers, she said.
Danny Cullenward, a climate economist with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, released an analysis of the amendments that found that they could increase gas prices by as much as $0.85 per gallon by 2030 and nearly $1.50 per gallon by 2035. Mr. Cullenward said he wrote the report as an independent academic project; he is also a member of a state advisory committee that prohibits him from having financial conflicts of interest with companies that participate in California’s carbon market.
“We are talking about a program that is politically radioactive,” he said.
Mr. Cullenward added that the agency’s decision not to release an estimate of gas price impacts before the final vote last week could reduce trust in state regulators and hinder California’s ability to approve further climate-related changes in the future.
Members on both sides of the aisle in California’s state assembly have warned that higher gas prices could hurt their constituents. Nearly 13,000 residents signed a petition led by Republicans in the State Senate that urged regulators to postpone the vote on the amendments.
State Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a moderate Democrat, said that many of her constituents in the Central Valley were lower-income and relied heavily on their vehicles for transportation.
“At a time when people are already struggling to make ends meet, this is a slap in the face,” Ms. Hurtado said.
The Western States Petroleum Association has also warned that the changes could increase costs. “At the end of the day, the consumers will be the ones who are impacted most,” said Jodie Muller, the group’s chief operating officer.
The California Air Resources Board estimates that the program has eliminated 320 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline and diesel since it began in 2011, an amount equivalent to roughly 85 percent of the state’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.
The agency is projecting that its tighter restrictions will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 558 million metric tons between 2025 and 2045 — equivalent to about one and a half times the state’s annual emissions.
Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, said the changes would “absolutely” make a significant dent in reducing transportation emissions by nudging people away from gasoline and providing incentives to move toward all-electric alternatives.
California also has tried to reduce fossil-fuel use through consumer product restrictions. The state this year banned the sale of new gas-powered lawn mowers and blowers. The state also has required that all new cars sold produce zero emissions starting in 2035, a policy that was championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Some researchers and environmental groups have raised concerns about the program’s focus on biofuels.
Some climate scientists have said that the program does not adequately take into account all of the emissions associated with the production of biofuels, such as underestimating those from deforestation in other parts of the world that supports agriculture used to make them.
Adrian Martinez, a deputy managing attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental law organization, said that the program had been a “biofuel boondoggle” in which a majority of the program’s financial incentives had gone toward biofuels instead of electrification.
“We’re not asking for perfection,” he said. “There was plenty of opportunity to do more, and they didn’t take it.”
Ms. Randolph said that the board had directed staff in 2025 to further review the climate impact of biofuels to better understand if there were any changes that would be necessary.
With the board’s approval, the changes will now be reviewed by the state’s Office of Administrative Law. The board expects the changes to take effect in the spring of 2025, according to Ms. Randolph.
Since the Low Carbon Fuel Standard is a California state program, the federal government has no authority over the changes, Ms. Randolph said.
Dean Florez, a former State Senate majority leader and one of two board members who voted against the changes, wrote in a statement that the public beforehand had “little opportunity for recourse or input.”
The leader of the State Senate, Mike McGuire, seemed to suggest in a statement that the Legislature could still intervene.
“Any new regulations must be open and transparent, which is why we’re analyzing their actions and will do so in earnest come January when the Legislature convenes,” he said.