What “California Results” Means Right Now
What Voters Decided in the Governor’s Race
Xavier Becerra ran as a Democrat and former U.S. secretary of health and human services under President Biden. According to exa.ai, he defeated Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host endorsed by President Trump, by 64.2% to 35.8%, a margin of 2,292,699 votes (5,186,216 to 2,893,517), with 61% of the expected vote counted as of November 4, 2026. CBS News reports that Becerra will be California’s first Latino governor since Romualdo Pacheco in 1875, replacing termed-out Governor Gavin Newsom.
Democrats swept the other statewide constitutional offices, according to KQED. Fiona Ma was elected lieutenant governor, Shirley Weber secretary of state, Rob Bonta attorney general, Malia Cohen controller and Eleni Kounalakis treasurer, each with roughly 64–65% of the vote. In the two less partisan statewide contests, Jane Kim led Ben Allen for insurance commissioner at 51.9%, and Richard Barrera led the superintendent of public instruction race at 57.1%, per KQED.
The Los Angeles mayoral contest remains too close to call, with ABC7 and The New York Times reporting Nithya Raman at 51.1% (405,193 votes) against incumbent Karen Bass at 48.9% (379,069 votes) with roughly 67% of expected votes counted. Because California counts mail ballots over an extended period, the gap can still move as later ballots are processed. Neither outlet has projected a winner, so the race stays the main unresolved headline on the state’s results pages.
Proposition 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on wealth above $1 billion, and the count is leaning No at roughly 44% yes to 55% no, according to ABC7 News and KQED. Two further measures, Propositions 41 and 42, are funded by opponents of Prop 40 and could nullify its results if it were to pass, CBS News reports. That pairing is part of why the measure is still being watched even as the trend points toward rejection.
Voters approved a group of bond and tax measures, CBS News and KQED report. Proposition 1 authorizes $11.25 billion in housing bonds, Proposition 2 concerns the Rainy Day Fund, Proposition 37 covers homebuyer bonds and Proposition 38 covers immunology bonds. Proposition 3 makes a high-income tax permanent at about 59% yes, which supporters estimate would raise $5 billion to $15 billion a year; that range is an estimate rather than a fixed figure.
Proposition 39 would have required government-issued ID for in-person voting and the last four digits of an ID number on mail-in ballots, and it was rejected at roughly 41% yes to 59% no, according to CBS News. NBC had earlier described the race as still too early to call when the yes side stood at 41.2% with 61.4% counted. Fourteen propositions in total appeared on the statewide ballot, which is part of why the results page is so long and slow to settle.
In California’s 34th Congressional District, Democrat Angela Gonzales-Torres, who describes herself as a democratic socialist, was elected with about 59%, unseating Representative Jimmy Gomez, who was under a misconduct investigation, per CBS News. Gomez had represented the district, which covers parts of Los Angeles. The result is one of the clearest down-ballot turnovers in the state and a reason the district’s name keeps appearing in search trends.
In the 1st Congressional District, Democratic state Senator Mike McGuire defeated Republican Representative James Gallagher, CBS News projects. ABC7 News reports that Democrat Derek Tran was reelected in the 45th District, while in the 11th District Scott Wiener was leading and Connie Chan had conceded. Each of these contests follows the same reporting pattern: a projected winner is named once the remaining mail ballots can no longer change the margin.
In Oakland, incumbent mayor Barbara Lee was easily reelected with about 85% of the vote, according to The New York Times. Separately, a Bay Area regional transit measure passed, adding a half-cent sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and one cent in San Francisco from April 2027, raising roughly $1 billion a year for 14 years. The transit tax is one of the few regional measures with a clear start date attached to it.
California accepts mail ballots that arrive after Election Day if they are postmarked in time, and counties have until the 13th day after the election to report votes, with some exceptions, according to The New York Times. That extended window is why the Los Angeles mayor’s race and the Prop 39 and Prop 40 numbers can shift for days after polls close. A count described as incomplete is not a disputed count; it reflects ballots still being verified and tabulated.
Percentage figures on a results page are a snapshot of the ballots counted so far, not a final outcome, so a candidate ahead at 61% of the expected vote can still lose. Percentages reported by different outlets can also differ because they update at different times of the evening and count different batches of ballots. The practical takeaway is to check the source’s timestamp and the share of the expected vote before treating any number as settled.
News organizations make projections using their own models, vote-count feeds and historical patterns, and they announce calls at different moments rather than simultaneously. That is why one outlet may describe a race as too close to call while another has already named a winner, as happened with Proposition 39. When the sources disagree, the safest reading is the more cautious of the two until the count closes.
A projection is an outlet’s judgment that the remaining ballots cannot change the result; certification is the official step in which county and state officials finalize the count. California’s governor-elect and other statewide winners still go through the certification and transition process before taking office. Nothing on a results page is legally final until that official step is complete.
Across the statewide offices reported by KQED, Democrats won every contest, generally in the mid-60s percentage range. The two exceptions with narrower margins were the insurance commissioner race and the superintendent of public instruction race, which are formally nonpartisan contests. The pattern is consistent enough that the main uncertainty in California’s results now sits in local races and the closest propositions rather than at the top of the ticket.
The genuinely unresolved items are the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Proposition 40 and the tail end of Proposition 39, plus any county-level contests that were close. Everything else discussed above has a projected winner, whether at the statewide level or in the congressional races. If you are following one race only, the useful habit is to watch that race’s share of expected votes rather than the statewide summary page.
The counties’ deadline for reporting votes is the 13th day after the election, with some exceptions, so the biggest remaining shifts should come before that point, The New York Times reports. Between now and then, expect updated mail-ballot batches in Los Angeles County and any late-arriving ballots to move the mayor’s race and the tight proposition tallies.
California runs elections at the county level, so results are compiled from 58 county reporting systems rather than one central feed, which is why statewide and local numbers update at different speeds. Statewide offices and propositions appear on every ballot, while congressional districts and city races appear only where they apply. That structure explains why a search for “California results” returns a mix of state, district and city pages.
Every figure here comes from a news organization’s live count and reflects the ballots processed at the time it was published, not the final certified result. Estimates such as the $5 billion to $15 billion annual range for Proposition 3 are projections made by supporters and should be read as estimates. For any decision that depends on these outcomes, wait for the official certified count rather than relying on a live dashboard.
