One week before the election, here is where California actually stands, with no spin. We go through the governor's race, the Los Angeles mayor's race, Prop 39 (voter ID and citizenship verification) and Prop 40 (the one-time billionaire tax).
The governor's race isn't close, so we look at the better question: how much ground the Republican nominee gains for future candidates, and why election night won't answer it. Prop 40 can win a majority of votes and still be cancelled, because Props 41 and 42 are written to override it. We read the Legislative Analyst's numbers against the $100 billion headline, and what Meta's SEC filing says about the tax. Prop 39 is called voter ID, but most of the change falls on mail ballots, and a federal lawsuit over 20,000 ballots is moving through the courts as we record. In Los Angeles, one voter in three hasn't picked a mayor.
We don't recommend how to vote. We tell you what the documents say, what each side wants you to believe, and what we don't know yet.
Sources: https://lao.ca.gov/ballot/2026/prop40-110326.pdf https://lao.ca.gov/ballot/2026/prop39-110326.pdf https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001326801/000162828026066710/meta-20261021.htm https://laist.com/brief/news/politics/9th-circuit-questions-doj-demand-to-set-aside-20-000-california-mail-ballots
Phil's book on California political dysfunction, The Gilded State: www.thegildedstate.com