Early primary voting for Democrats sluggish, Republicans up slightly over 2022
Some 16% of registered voters have cast early ballots as of Monday, the day before California will elect a successor to outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom.
About 3.6 million voters out of 23.1 million statewide have returned their ballots, according to Political Data, an election firm run by election data scientist Paul Mitchell. Mitchell was the architect behind Proposition 50, last year’s successful ballot initiative to redraw California’s congressional districts. Some 1.6 million Democrats have returned ballots, making up 45% of returns, versus 1.2 million for Republicans (33%) and 743,352 independents (11%).
The majority of ballot returnees in deep blue California skew white elderly, and Democratic, though they have not been quite as enthusiastic as compared to the previous 2022 primary cycle. Only about 16% of Democrats have returned a ballot so far, compared to 20% at this time in the 2022 primary. Conversely, Republican turnout has ticked up slightly, from 20% in 2022 to 21% this year.
Mitchell attributed the higher rate of return among Republicans to two competing theories. One is that they have a simpler matchup between two major conservative candidates, Fox News pundit Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. The other is that Republicans’ antipathy towards vote-by-mail is waning.
“They’ve been told dating back to 2000, ‘you can’t do that,’” Mitchell said. “But now people are seeing, well nothing bad is happening.”
Youth turnout has also been low, with 364,845 of 6.2 million registered voters between 18 and 34 returning a ballot, or 6%. That could be bad news for Democratic challenger Tom Steyer, a progressive San Francisco climate advocate who has run on a platform promising to upend the status quo.
The two top vote getters regardless of party affiliation will advance from Tuesday’s primary to the general election in November, a system known as the “jungle primary.”
For months, Democrats publicly fretted that the fractured field of candidates could lead to a Republican-on-Republican runoff, locking the party out of the governor’s mansion for the first time in two decades.
Newsom, who repeatedly declined to endorse a successor, told reporters last month he was having private conversations with party leaders to prepare for an emergency scenario and prevent a Republican lockout.
Those fears have subsided in recent weeks as polls showed Xavier Becerra, a former Democratic attorney general, surging after the collapse of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign and his resignation from office following sexual misconduct allegations.
A Cal Poly Pomona poll published Monday put Steyer in third behind Hilton, who promises a right-wing political shakeup in line with President Donald Trump, who endorsed him.
