$15 billion California school bond championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom behind in early returns

The $15 billion school bond measure Gov. Gavin Newsom championed was trailing with just 44 percent of the vote in Wednesday election returns.

Votes will continue to come in over the next few days, and full results likely won’t be available for weeks.

Fortunes could change for the measure, especially because early votes tend to skew conservative. Dan Newman, a political strategist working for Newsom on the measure, said he expects there are still millions of ballots to be counted, disproportionately from progressive voters who are inclined to vote for more school funding.

Newman said he doesn’t know if the measure will ultimately succeed.

“I remain hopeful that schools will get the health and safety upgrade that kids and teachers deserve,” he said. “But it will be extremely close.”

The measure, which appeared as “Proposition 13” on California ballots, needs to secure a majority of the vote to win. Newman said some voters might have been confused and related it to the famous 1978 property tax measure with the same name that a separate November ballot measure campaign is trying to alter.

On Wednesday, Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, who wrote the legislation that placed the school bond measure on the ballot, announced a new bill to retire the Proposition 13 name for future measures.

“We need to retire this ballot number to ensure voters are not misled,” the Long Beach Democrat said in a written statement. “Despite this number having no relation to the content of the school facilities bond, many voters mistakenly believed the ballot measure made changes to the ‘Proposition 13’ originally passed in 1978 which dealt with property taxes.”

Newsom raised more than $10 million to support this year’s Proposition 13, and traveled the state campaigning for it in recent days.

Supporters say schools need the bond funding to repair aging buildings. The measure would provide $9 billion for preschool through high school and $2 billion each for the University of California, California State University and community colleges.

The Legislature voted overwhelmingly to place it on the ballot, although some Republican lawmakers criticized the concept of using bonds, which will require interest payments.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projects the measure would cost the state $26 billion over 35 years.

The Secretary of State’s campaign finance website did not list groups raising money in opposition to the measure as of Wednesday. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has reported spending $250,000 on statewide radio ads urging voters to reject it, said Jon Coupal, the group’s president.

Coupal said the vote totals Wednesday make him “cautiously optimistic” that the measure will fail.

“These numbers are clearly going to change... but I think the margin is healthy,” he said. “It would take kind of a miracle for them to pull this off.”

Newsom cast his ballot in support of the measure Tuesday morning at a vote center near the Capitol. Speaking to reporters afterward, he described the school bond as “critical for the future of our public schools.”

“This one’s an important one for our state, an important one for our kids,” he said.

In Sacramento, local school bonds were showing mixed results in early returns. As of the end of counting Wednesday morning, Measure H had 58 percent of the vote. A separate measure for community college funding in the Sacramento area, Measure E, had 51.7 percent approval. Both need 55 percent to pass.

This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 11:21 PM.