The early results in the California gubernatorial race and Los Angeles mayoral race in the state’s Tuesday primaries show that anti-Israel views have not yet become mainstream for California Democrats, experts told JNS.
The top two vote-getters in California races advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation in the state’s open primary system. In Los Angeles city elections, a candidate can win outright with a majority vote.
With 58% of the vote counted in the gubernatorial race, Steve Hilton, a Republican and former Fox News host, is in first place at almost 1.39 million votes (27.8%), and Xavier Becerra, a Democrat and former U.S. secretary of health and human services, is second at almost 1.27 million votes (25.4%), according to the Associated Press.
Tom Steyer, a businessman, is in third place at almost 980,000 votes (19.6%).
Steyer has denounced the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as a “dark money organization that should have no place in our politics.”
With 63% of the vote counted in the Los Angeles mayoral race, Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, advances with almost 173,000 votes (34.8%), according to the AP.
Spencer Pratt, a former reality television star and Republican, is in second place with more than 151,000 votes (30.4%), and Nithya Raman, a Los Angeles city councilwoman, is in third at almost 111,000 votes (22.3%).
Raman appeared on anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker’s May 15 show and agreed with some anti-Israel statements.
Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and director of the university’s Center for Demographics and Policy, told JNS that even though the results are still early, it seems likely Becerra and Hilton will face off in the general election for governor and Bass and Pratt will advance to the general election in the Los Angeles mayoral race.
“The gap is too big for Raman and Steyer,” Kotkin said. “Raman losing is great news, because she was another Mamdani, and Steyer surrounded himself with Mamdani people to run his campaign.”
Kotkin thinks that the results suggest that “whatever disease that led New York to elect Mamdani has not spread quite as badly here,” as Becerra, Hilton, Bass and Pratt are not going to be “campaigning against Israel and playing footsie with the antisemites.”
“This coming of powerful anti-Israel and often anti-Jewish sentiment has not yet made it into the mainstream in California, which is good news,” Kotkin told JNS.
The Democratic Majority for Israel has been involved in races in California’s 22nd and 48th Congressional Districts, supporting Jasmeet Bains, a member of the California State Assembly, and Marni von Wilpert, a member of the San Diego City Council.
In the 48th district, which is Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) seat, von Wilpert is in second place at more than 20,000 votes (19.5%), with 58% of the vote counted, according to the AP.
Jim Desmond, a Republican member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, leads with almost 44,000 votes (41.6%). Ammar Campa-Najjar, the grandson of a founding member of Fatah who is running as a Democrat, is in a distant third at almost 10,000 votes (9.6%).
Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), the incumbent, won the 22nd district in the Central Valley with more than 18,200 votes (44.5%), per the AP, with 56% of the vote counted.
Bains came in third place with more than 10,500 votes (25.7%), behind fellow Democrat Randy Villegas, a member of the Visalia Unified School District Board of Education whom Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has endorsed, at more than 12,200 votes (29.8%).
Jared Sclar, a Democratic political consultant in San Diego, previously told JNS that the races are a “real-time test of where the Democratic coalition is heading on Israel, but the results will cut in more than one direction, and that split is the story.”
He said that the 11th Congressional District, represented by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was a race to watch closely.
In the 11th, with 50% of the vote counted, Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator, clinched a spot in the general election, garnering more than 44,500 votes (41.3%), according to the AP.
He had resigned from his position as co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus in January after he said that Israel is guilty of “genocide” in Gaza.
Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors whom Pelosi endorsed, is in second place at almost 31,000 votes (28.6%).
Saikat Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), is in third place at more than 16,000 votes (14.9%). Both Chan and Chakrabarti have also accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza.
The results in the congressional races as well as the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral races thus far show that “the anti-Israel, anti-AIPAC lane did not get the breakout night it wanted out of California,” Sclar told JNS on Tuesday evening.
“The energy is real, and it is not going away, but it is not yet winning primaries here,” he said.
“In CA-48, the candidate who built his closing message around a pro-Israel PAC spending against him got buried, while the candidate that money supported is the top Democrat,” he said. “Steyer, the one who went after AIPAC, is sitting third in the governor’s race.”
Sclar added that “Wiener, who took fire from the left on Israel, is on top in the bluest seat in the country.”
“Money, plus a disciplined message, is beating grievance about the money,” he said.
