A Post-Mortem of the 2024 Election (PODCAST)
Capitol Weekly's STAFF: "On Thursday, November 7, 2024, Capitol Weekly and the UC Student and Policy Center presented A Post-Mortem of the 2024 Election.
We gathered a score of experts for a timely and informative review of the November 5 election, providing analysis, opinions and insight. What happened inside the campaigns? Why? What happens next? Nearly two dozen California insiders will discuss the results of the election and provide a look-ahead at what it means for 2025."
What Daniel Lurie’s win means for S.F.: ‘Shock to our political system’
The Chronicle's J.D. MORRIS: "Over and over in his winning San Francisco mayoral campaign, Daniel Lurie repeated a simple message: Political insiders had made a mess of the city and so voters needed to entrust him, an outsider, to clean it up.
Now, after unseating six-year incumbent London Breed, Lurie, a nonprofit founder and Levi Strauss heir, begins the not-so-simple part. He must seek to implement his ambitious list of plans for addressing the city's complex challenges, while also protecting the city against potential broadsides by the new president."
Here we go again: California prepares to battle Trump over environmental policies
CALMatters's STAFF: "We’ve been here before. Even the players are the same.
When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, his favorite sparring partner was California. The state’s ambitious environmental policies often clashed with the president’s promise to “drill, baby drill for oil” and rein in California’s regulations."
California props: Here are results from every county
The Chronicle's CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "California voters had a litany of propositions to decide on this year, with 10 state propositions placed on the November ballot for their consideration.
Some of those propositions passed with strong statewide support, while others have proven more divisive, with California's more liberal regions like the Bay Area and Los Angeles standing out against much of the rest of the state. The maps below show how much support each state proposition has received in each of California's 58 counties, as of Wednesday morning."
The California Legislature set a record for women in office and could see historic gender parity
CALMatters's SAMEEA KAMAL: "California’s state Senate will be at least 50% women for the first time in history and, depending on a few undecided races, the state Legislature overall could reach gender parity for the first time.
“What is a milestone like gender parity for, if not a moment like this?” said Susannah Delano, executive director of Close the Gap California, an advocacy group to elect progressive women, referring to potential policies from the incoming Trump administration. “State legislatures have and will continue to be the front line for many of those impacted to contest harmful policies and protect lives at risk.”"
California’s most anti-immigrant law passed 30 years ago. Do Latinos care about it today?
Sacramento Bee's MATHEW MIRANDA: "In the summer of 1993, Heidy Sarabia and her family left Mexico City in search of the American Dream. By the next year, that dream was nearly shattered as the family settled in Sacramento.
The family arrived in California when residents, struggling with economic turmoil and demographic shifts, came to believe immigrants like Sarabia were the cause. That fear led to the passage of Proposition 187, an initiative to bar undocumented immigrants from accessing state services including public education and health care."
Trump vs. Harris preliminary results: Whom did your neighborhood vote for?
LAT's KOKO NAKAJIMA, PHI DO: "Former President Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for the White House on Wednesday. While Harris won all of California’s 54 electoral college votes, a closer look at precinct results reveals regions where Trump easily won the majority as well as competitive areas where no party had a stronghold.
Explore the precinct results from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties and see how your neighborhood voted."
Why Latino men voted for Trump: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’
LAT's RACHEL URANGA, BRITTNY MEJIA: "Tomas Garcia and Maria Viesca-Garcia toasted the presidential win with an old fashioned and a martini inside the opulent, 64-story Trump International Hotel Las Vegas as the sun shone the day after a historic presidential election.
Around the hotel bar, people donned “Make America Great Again” hats and one woman wore a red shirt with the numbers “45” and “47” printed above a flag. Garcia and his wife, from San Antonio, voted for Trump in 2016, again in 2020 and in this election."
How did LGBT Americans vote in election? Exit poll finds significant shift from 2020
Sacramento Bee's BRENDAN RASCIUS: "In the 2024 election, President-elect Donald Trump made inroads with multiple demographics that traditionally vote for Democrats, including young and Latino voters.
But, LGBT voters were not one of them, exit polls suggest."
For transgender Americans, Trump’s win after a campaign targeting them is terrifying
LAT's KEVIN RECTOR: "Avery Poznanski was excited for a new chapter.
The nonbinary transgender senior at UCLA had decided last month, after years of personal discovery and long discussions with their family and doctors, to start testosterone therapy. The first few weeks felt exciting, fulfilling."
With Jurado victory, L.A.’s audio leak scandal takes down another Latino politician
LAT's DAVID ZAHNISER, DAKOTA SMITH: "In the secretly recorded conversation that upended his political career, Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León kept returning to a familiar theme: preserving and expanding Latino political power.
De León was captured on the recording saying he wanted to make sure his Eastside district “remains Latino” even after he’s gone. He bemoaned the lack of political clout wielded by Latinos in L.A., especially when compared with the Black community."
S.F.’s Prop K is too close to call. And it has some parts of the city in a panic
The Chronicle's KO LYN CHEANG: "Yuki Deng is worried after Tuesday’s election results rolled in showing San Francisco voters are leaning toward approving a plan to close a two-mile stretch of the Great Highway to cars.
The Sunset resident, who said she drives on the highway at least weekly to get her two teenagers to activities and elderly parents to appointments, said a permanent closure would make traffic on the westside even worse. The prospect exhausts her."
Fluoride in water: A San Francisco judge has already ruled on removing it
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "Opponents of adding fluoride to drinking water, where it can protect teeth but may also pose a threat to the mental health of newborn children, scored a recent victory in a San Francisco federal court. Now they may have gained a pair of unlikely allies — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President-elect Donald Trump.
Speaking at a rally Oct. 28, at Madison Square Garden in New York, Trump said that if elected, he would give Kennedy — the late New York senator’s son, who ran as an independent presidential candidate before endorsing Trump — broad power over federal health policy."
Staggering devastation as fire levels hillside neighborhoods, destroying more than 130 structures
LAT's CLARA HARTER, NOAH HAGGERTY, NOAH GOLDBERG: "Residents in the foothills above Camarillo are grappling with scenes of utter destruction after the Mountain fire flattened scores of homes.
More than 130 structures were lost, the majority of them houses, when flames swept through the area, and more than 80 others were damaged."
Advanced recycling: the key to California’s energy sustainability (OP-ED)
JULIAN CANETE in Capitol Weekly: "California is a model of energy innovation and sustainability. With one of the country’s most robust energy transition plans and an unwavering commitment to creating a cleaner future, it is why it is so disappointing to see the state of California’s recent lawsuit against ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling efforts. The filing is based on an incorrect interpretation of the industry’s work in California and threatens to undermine our recycling and climate progress.
Advanced recycling remains critical to helping California reach its sustainability goals. By expanding our advanced recycling program, our state has the opportunity to reduce plastic waste and greenhouse gas emissions, creating a second life for plastics that would otherwise be discarded and left to sit in a landfill. Advanced recycling complements traditional recycling methods, allowing for the breakdown of more kinds of plastic, converting them back into molecules needed to make new products to create a second life for single-use plastics that are vital for groups such as California’s agricultural and farming, healthcare, and aviation industries."
Gavin Newsom says the Biden-Harris years have meant huge job increases. Is he right?
Sacramento Bee's DAVID LIGHTMAN, GILLIAN BRASSIL: "You’re much better off today than you were before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office. At least, that’s Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pitch this week as Election Day approaches.
Newsom cites lots of number to back up his claims. We checked with several independent sources — the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which compiles economic data; the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the International Monetary Fund, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Bureau of Investigation —to fact check his assertions about where voters stand going into Election Day Tuesday."
Railyard stadium, entertainment deal in works. How will Sacramento incentivize development?
Sacramento Bee's ANNIKA MERRILEES: "Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg will present the city council next week with a deal to develop a soccer stadium and entertainment district at the railyard, the product of years of efforts by officials and, recently, months of intense negotiations.
For the public, the proposal represents movement on an expansive and long-awaited project that could extend the city’s urban core. The 240-acre railyard district has been largely undeveloped since railroad operations moved out in the 1990s, and the prospect of building out the area with housing, entertainment and even a Major League Soccer franchise have been discussed for years. But financing remained a monumental hurdle."
After Trump’s win, next LAPD chief faces questions about immigration enforcement
LAT's LIBOR JANY: "The clashes that longtime immigration advocate Martha Arevalo had with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department under Jim McDonnell were years ago — but still fresh in her mind after this week’s election.
Under McDonnell, who was sheriff during Donald Trump’s first term as president, the department allowed federal immigration authorities to operate freely, targeting people for deportation in the nation’s largest jail system."
One issue Trump and Newsom agree on? California homelessness
CALMatters's MARISA KENDALL: "When President-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House in January, he will become a key figure in California’s homelessness crisis, holding the federal purse strings and setting policy at the national level..
So what will this change of power mean for the state as it tries to move its nearly 186,000 homeless residents — the most in the nation — indoors?"
California is planning to ban gas-powered cars. Will Trump stop that and other state climate policies?
The Chronicle's KURTIS ALEXANDER: "California’s nation-leading fight against climate change is threatened, once again, with the election of Donald Trump, perhaps most so by undercutting the state’s push for cleaner vehicles.
The Newsom administration has laid out an ambitious plan to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 as well as continue trimming the planet-warming emissions of trucks, boats and trains. The transportation sector accounts for nearly half of the climate pollution spewed in California."
