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The Republican caucus in California’s Legislature is growing more diverse as Latino and Asian American candidates apparently flipped three Democrat-held seats, including unseating an incumbent Democrat senator for the first time in a presidential election since 1980.

When new legislators are sworn in next week, Democrats will still control a supermajority in the Legislature. But the three flipped seats have Republicans hopeful that California’s reputation as a liberal enclave state may be shifting. They point to Latino and Black voters helping send Donald Trump to the White House for a second term. 

“As Californians grow increasingly frustrated with the failures of Democrat leadership, they are shifting toward Republican solutions,” Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones said in a statement. “Senate Republicans are not only growing in numbers but also diversity.” 

The Republican caucus is on pace to have at least 50% nonwhite members for the first time, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database. As it stands, based on unofficial results, 13 of the 27 legislative Republicans are not white. The caucus could become more than half nonwhite, depending on the outcome of two pending special elections in solidly Republican districts. Two Asian American Republicans, Sen. Janet Nguyen and Assemblymember Vince Fong, won election for other offices earlier this month, leaving their seats vacant.

Jones’ statement noted that six of the Senate’s 10 Republicans are women and three of the women are Latino.

Jones sent out his statement Monday, the same day Orange County Democrat Sen. Josh Newman conceded his seat to Republican Steven Choi, a Korean-American former Assemblymember. It was the first time since 1980 that Republicans ousted an incumbent Democratic senator in a presidential election.

The other two flipped seats were in the Assembly. In California’s Latino-majority Imperial and Coachella valleys, Republican Jeff Gonzalez beat a Democrat to win in the 35th Assembly District where Democrats had a 14-point registration advantage and the population is 70% Latino. 

And in the state’s closest legislative race, Republican Leticia Castillo had a 600-vote lead on Tuesday over Clarissa Cervantes for an Inland Empire seat vacated by Cervantes’ sister, Sabrina Cervantes, a fellow Democrat who won a state Senate seat. The Associated Press has not officially called the race, but Castillo declared victory Tuesday night.

If the results hold, it will be an impressive victory for Castillo. Thanks to her sister, Cervantes had substantially more name recognition than Castillo in her sister’s former district. Cervantes also raised more than $1 million for her campaign compared to Castillo’s $78,000.

Democratic leaders, however, say the results are hardly a groundswell or a referendum against their party, which continues to hold every statewide elected office along with the supermajority in the Legislature. They note that aside from Newman, none of the dozens of other Democratic incumbents up for reelection this year lost.

“In a challenging year for Democrats nationwide, our members fought and won some extremely competitive races,” Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said in a statement. “It is clear that Democrats have maintained our supermajority and the caucus has maintained its historic diversity and strength.”

California Democrats also appear to have flipped three Republican-held Congressional seats.

Experts such as election analyst Paul Mitchell said it’s also worth keeping in mind that the party that lost nationally in a presidential election almost always surges back in the midterms. If that happens in 2026, he said Republicans could see the legislative gains they made this election vanish.

Will Republicans regain power in California? 

Nonetheless, experts say Democrats would be wise not to brush off Republican victories as anomalies, and they expect California’s GOP to continue to make inroads with non white voters, even if Republicans have a long way to go to retake political power in California.

“It’s not like (the Legislature is) crossing over to being majority Republican, or even close to it,” Mitchell said. “They’re probably not going to do that in our lifetimes. But if you’re a Latino Republican, and you can capture votes from Latino voters as a complement to a maybe diminishing Republican base … then that’s a powerful combo.”

Part of the change is that Republican-dominated districts are becoming more diverse, reflecting California’s population as a whole. Whites make up just 35% of California’s 39 million residents.

And there are other signs that a shift may be occurring.

Christian Grose, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, said surveys of non white voters in urban areas of California still show they are solidly Democratic. But in rural or suburban areas, he said there’s been a shift toward the Republican Party from nonwhite voters, particularly men and people without college degrees, that could have a noticeable impact on future elections.

“In California, the winning strategy for a Republican in these districts would be to run candidates who are ethnically diverse and represent their communities,” he said. “But the coalition for the Republicans is actually probably a white-voter majority in many of these districts like the Central Valley, plus some Latino voters.”

Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican consultant with expertise in Latino politics, took it further. He has called the election a “five-alarm fire” for Democrats. He sees the election as a sign that the racial-identity politics that defined the previous generation’s political affiliations are fading away. 

“The idea that race and ethnicity are cornerstones of our political beliefs will become an outmoded concept,” Madrid said. “It was definitive for the past generation, and now it will be a relic of the past. … The bigger issue here that the Democratic Party has to understand is there’s a class problem, and that … a multiracial, (multi)ethnic working class is emerging in the country.”

For their part, legislative Republicans say California’s voters – of all races – made a clear statement during the election that they were fed up with Democratic policies. They rejected progressive ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage, allow cities to block rent increases and to prohibit unpaid inmate labor. And they resoundingly approved a ballot initiative to impose harsher sentences for crimes, despite Gov. Gavin Newsom and progressive leaders opposing it.  

But fresh off his victory in the Imperial and Coachella valleys, incoming Republican Assemblymember Gonzalez believes his victory mostly came down to the state’s high costs.

He said his district is close enough to the Arizona border that it’s easy for voters to see that gas is cheaper on the other side of the state line. Voters, he said, are smart enough to realize that Democratic policies are what makes California more expensive.

“California has become unaffordable for not only the Latino, but the average person,” Gonzalez said.

Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, a Republican from Rancho Santa Margarita, said the election proved that Latinos like her “feel unseen and unheard by the current majority in the state.”

She said it’s no coincidence that Gov. Newsom has been touring majority Latino counties since the election, touting his economic policies.

“I think he sees the writing on the wall and he realizes, ‘California, this is a new dawn,’ ” she said. “This is a new chapter in California history and California politics, and he’s wanting to get in good graces. However, we’ve all had to deal with the fallout of his administration and the extreme policies, and so I don’t think people are buying it.”

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California has a notoriously slow ballot counting process — one that Kim Alexander describes as “a pig in the python.”

“This giant wad of ballots that all arrive at once, that all have to move through the process, and you can’t speed it up,” said Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. “You have to do every single step, otherwise you lose the integrity of the process.”

To help voters understand and trust that process, Alexander’s group launched a tracker this election that is monitoring the vote count in California’s close contests between Election Day and certification of county results.

Dubbed the Close Count Transparency Project, the tracker — which debuted as a pilot program in 2022 — provides daily updates on the results of 11 competitive U.S. House races and seven state legislative races, as well as the statewide vote count status. The tool tracks candidates’ vote share, votes counted and the number of unprocessed ballots in each county the districts cover. 

As of late Tuesday, an estimated 570,500 ballots statewide were yet to be counted, according to the Secretary of State’s office. More than 126,000 ballots needed to be “cured” — they had been rejected for missing or mismatched signatures and voters have time to submit a form to verify their signatures. 

A total of eight key contests remained uncalled by the Associated Press as of late Tuesday, including two congressional races, five legislative races and one statewide ballot measure. (CalMatters and other news outlets use AP to declare winners while the vote count is ongoing.)

By making the vote count more transparent, the close contest tracker aims to inoculate against unfounded conspiracy theories about election fraud in California, Alexander said. 

Some prominent conservatives, including GOP U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, are spreading unproven claims that Democrats are “stealing” the 45th Congressional District race in Southern California, where Democrat Derek Tran is leading by a razor-thin margin over Republican Rep. Michelle Steel after trailing her for days. 

“We wanted to create a record of where the vote count stood each day, so that if someone came along later and said, ‘Something hinky is going on here,’ there would be a reliable source of information people could turn to to see how the vote count evolved over time,” Alexander said.

The tracker also comes as frustration about the lengthy process grows in California. State Assemblymember Joe Patterson, a Rocklin Republican, called the procedure “dumb” on social media, arguing that winners of state legislative races will be sworn in Dec. 2, before the results are certified by the Secretary of State. The lengthy process “sows distrust” in the state’s election system, he told KCRA. 

The state Assembly and Senate already held a joint freshman orientation last week for incoming lawmakers, while the five legislative races remain too close to call, Assembly Republicans spokesperson Jim Stanley confirmed to CalMatters. 

“It’s a real problem for incoming lawmakers if they miss out on that,” Alexander said.

Why it takes so long to count — and how to speed it up

While voters and campaigns want to see results sooner, it is particularly challenging in California, Alexander said. 

The state is home to more than 22 million registered voters, according to the state Secretary of State’s office. As of Tuesday afternoon, a total of 15 million ballots had been counted — a number bigger than the populations of 46 other states, Census data shows. 

California has also made it easier for voters to cast their ballots in recent years. A 2021 law made universal vote-by-mail permanent in California, meaning every registered voter receives a mail-in ballot roughly a month before Election Day and the ballots are counted as long as they arrive at county elections offices within seven days after Election Day. In the March primary, almost 90% of all voters voted by mail, according to the Secretary of State.

The widespread use of vote-by-mail slows down the vote count, Alexander said, because they take longer to process. 

“We have to open the envelopes, we have to verify the signature, and all of those things before we can actually accept that ballot,” said Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a press conference last week. 

Additionally, election officials have to first complete counting mail-in ballots before they move onto ballots cast by voters who register the same day they voted to make sure no voter votes twice, said Jesse Salinas, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and clerk-recorder in Yolo County. The number of same-day registered voters has grown over the years, further slowing down the vote count, he said.

But the slow vote count is also because races are closer than more than a decade ago, Alexander said. The state’s independent redistricting commission drew more competitive districts after the 2020 Census, she said, and the top-two primary process was designed to boost candidates who could appeal to a broader range of voters in the general election. 

Between 2002 and 2010, before voters approved the independent redistricting commission, there was an average of one or two close congressional races per general election, Alexander said. But following the 2011 redistricting and the 2012 adoption of the top-two primary, there was an average of five close contests per election cycle, she said.

“People would be less patient with our long vote count if we had more decisive victories, but we don’t,” she said.

Still, county election officials could benefit from more staffing and funding for better equipment, Alexander said. Kern County, for example, has acquired high-speed ballot scanners to tabulate votes faster, she said. As of Tuesday, Kern had processed nearly 280,000 ballots and had only about 8,500 to go. 

The state could also benefit from spending big on voter outreach, urging voters to mail in their ballots sooner, which would help county officials pre-process more ballots and reduce the workload post-election, Alexander said. 

But more importantly, she said, the state should allow voters to opt out of vote-by-mail if they want, although she acknowledged that under current law, voters have the option to cast the ballot they received in the mail in person instead. 

“A lot of people don’t want to vote by mail, and then you are stuck with this ballot, and that confuses voters,” she said.

CalMatters reporter Sameea Kamal contributed to this story. 

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MERCED – At first, Marlyn Huesgew Mendoza registered as a Democrat. In 2020, she re-registered as a Republican and voted for Donald Trump for president, as she did this election.

The reason is simple: It was in 2018 — when he was in office — that her family was finally able to buy a house in Merced. The same year, the Trump administration approved her Guatemalan mother’s citizenship application — one that had been rejected under President Barack Obama, she said. The approval letter had Trump’s signature on it. 

“She’s like: ‘Look who adopted me,’” said Huesgew Mendoza, a 25-year-old graduate from University of California Merced and an administrative assistant at the Merced County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. 

“Once he came in and it was just so easy for us, I was like, ‘Huh, he might not be as scary as people may think.’”

Most — if not all — of California’s 12 Latino-majority counties gave a larger share of their vote to Trump compared to 2020, and counties with a higher share of Latino population swung further toward Trump, according to a CalMatters analysis of state voting data. Trump also expanded his vote share in most other counties in California. 

But does that signal a rightward shift among Latinos and a departure from the Democratic Party in California? 

The answer is complicated. 

Absent conclusive demographic data on votes cast in this election, pollsters disagree over how much their surveys show Latinos shifting toward Trump. The AP VoteCast, which surveyed more than 120,000 voters nationwide in English and Spanish, shows 55% of Latino respondents supported Vice President Kamala Harris, while 43% backed Trump. In 2020, Joe Biden won 63% of the vote among Latino respondents versus Trump’s 35%.

But almost all polls reached the same conclusion: Latino support has grown for Trump. 

A mix of factors contributed to the apparent shift: Inflation blamed on an unpopular administration, concern over border security, resistance to Democrats’ messaging on cultural issues and Harris’ lack of appeal, according to pollsters, experts, political consultants and a dozen Latinos in the Central Valley who spoke to CalMatters.

How much other Republicans gained from the growing support for Trump remains to be seen. Nationwide, Democrats won four of the five battleground U.S. Senate seats and declared victory on abortion rights ballot measures in Arizona, Missouri and Nevada. 

In California, with 88% of the estimated vote counted, Trump has received slightly fewer votes than Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey. And in some counties within the state’s toss-up congressional districts, Democratic candidates appear to be outperforming Harris. In Merced County, which falls entirely into the 13th Congressional District, Democrat Adam Gray has received 5 percentage points more of the vote than Harris, with nearly 80% of the votes counted.  

For Gray, who is narrowly trailing Republican Rep. John Duarte, this election does not reflect voters flocking toward Republicans.

“What you want to call a rightward shift, I would call a rejection of more of the same. Voters are saying … ‘We want you guys to change,’” he told CalMatters. “I think people want to see us get back to the basics, and if I’m elected to Congress, I’m going to do just that.”

But Mike Madrid, a longtime GOP consultant with an expertise in Latino politics, called this election a “five-alarm fire” for Democrats, who he said have gradually lost support among Latino voters since 2012. He pointed to a pair of Pew Research Center surveys, which suggested Latino support for the Democratic presidential candidate dropped from 71% for Obama in 2012 to 59% for Biden in 2020.

In California, a majority of Latinos have firmly supported Democrats after former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson championed Proposition 187, which was approved by voters in 1994 to deny benefits to undocumented immigrants but was blocked by the courts. But that support could erode as cost of living increases, alienating working-class residents, many of whom are Latinos, Madrid said. 

“I think this is a pivotal moment. I think it’s as significant as the Prop. 187 moment in 1994, except it was a wake-up call for Republicans,” Madrid said.

But some experts warned it may be too early to tell if the past three presidential elections are a referendum on the Democratic Party, given that Democrats have won toss-up statewide races in battleground states and have won every statewide race in California since 2006. 

This election is an outlier, with Biden withdrawing from the race and passing the torch to Harris so late in the campaign, said Roberto Suro, a professor of journalism and public policy at the University of Southern California.

“You’ve got to put an asterisk on this election, or actually, multiple asterisks. Trump as a candidate is a giant asterisk,” Suro said. “Trying to say we are seeing any kind of permanent realignment is a mistake.”

‘The bottom line is money’

Huesgew Mendoza isn’t alone in believing that her life changed for the better after Trump took office in 2017. 

Sandra Izaguirre, a 34-year-old in-home caretaker from Lancaster in Los Angeles County, said she supported Obama in 2008, but not in 2012. Then a first-time mother working at a fast food restaurant, Izaguirre needed health care. Obamacare required bigger businesses to provide full-time employees health benefits or pay a fee, so Izaguirre said her employer just cut her hours to disqualify her.

“I wasn’t improving. If anything, I was hurting more,” she said. “I just wanted a change already.”

That drove her to vote for Trump in 2016. A year later, Izaguirre said, she was able to buy her first home. 

But because she couldn’t work as an in-home caregiver during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said she almost defaulted on her house but was saved by a federal mortgage relief program approved on Trump’s watch. The economic downturn, mixed with the state’s failure to stop unemployment benefits fraud, was “a recipe for disaster,” she said.

Even economic concerns, however, weren’t enough to drive Izaguirre to the polls this November. But that’s not because she didn’t support Trump: She said her vote for him in deep-blue California would not have made a difference anyway. 

But the economy is top of mind among Latino voters, as well as among voters overall, as polls have consistently shown throughout the 2024 campaign. Latino and Black Americans are the most likely to feel the pinch of high inflation compared to the overall population, according to a 2022 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

Latinos in California make up 40% of the state’s population but more than half of poor Californians, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California last year. The poverty rate among Latinos rose to 16.9% in fall 2023 compared to 13.5% in fall 2021, the analysis shows. 

It’s a pain felt by Annissa Fragoso, a Merced insurance agent who voted for Harris this year. As a business owner, she said, she’s “struggling a lot with the insurance industry” and growing frustrated with state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, a Democrat.

“The Latinos in the past were registered and supportive of the Democratic Party, but it has not been very supportive of us,” she said. 

Fragoso, who lost in the March primary for the Merced County Board of Supervisors, said she spoke to a lot of Latino voters who saw Trump as an agent of change on the economy.

“The bottom line is money,” she said.

Adrian Jurado, a painter in Los Banos who said he never registered to vote since he believed he couldn’t make a difference, said that ever since the pandemic, there were fewer painting jobs because people weren’t willing to spend anymore. But when Trump was in office, he said, the economy seemed better.

“I’ve never had it like this,” he said. “It used to be that you could put a little bit away. I wasn’t able to put nothing away.”

While consumer prices have climbed by 20% over the past four years, average wage gains actually outpaced inflation, according to an analysis by the NBC News. But that does not match people’s perception, as expenses keep rising, the analysis says. Many voters frustrated with the economy embraced Trump, even as economists warn that Trump’s proposed tariffs could hike prices even further nationwide as well as in California.

But voters may be punishing incumbents rather than voting for Republicans, said Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, research director at the Latino Policy & Politics Institute of UCLA. 

“You get reminded of those high prices every single day because you are buying something every single day,” he said. “High inflation was a global phenomenon. It was not unique to the United States. But who happened to be in power when it happened? It was Biden and Harris.”

Julián Castro, CEO of the Latino Community Foundation, said Trump’s win resembles the victories of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2000: All three campaigned against a Democratic administration that “faced headwinds,” he said. 

“In 1980, the economy was similar to 2024, at least in people’s minds,” Castro said. “In 2000, after eight years of Democratic governance, there was a pent-up demand for a change.”

But even though they are frustrated at the economy under the Biden administration, most Latinos who spoke to CalMatters said it doesn’t mean they will continue to vote Republican.

“I’ll just see how it goes in the (next) four years,” Izaguirre said. 

‘That’s not me’

Trump has promised to conduct the largest deportation in American history, targeting immigrants in the country illegally, with or without criminal records. 

But Izaguirre, as well as other Latino Trump supporters who spoke to CalMatters, said they do not want undocumented immigrants who have been working in the country for years to be deported. The majority of them supported providing legal status for those immigrants — a policy Democrats have championed. 

Trump’s victory has terrified some migrants at the border and undocumented immigrants in California. 

“I feel worried because I don’t know what the future will be for us people who don’t have documents, and we work here,” an undocumented immigrant in Delano told CalMatters in Spanish. CalMatters is not naming him due to his concern for his safety. 

But others said Trump’s mass deportation plan would not touch them. 

“He said he was going to deport people who have a bad record. That’s not me. I don’t have a bad record,” said a farmworker in Stanislaus County who spoke to CalMatters on the condition of anonymity and who said she came to the country by paying off a “coyote” — a term for smugglers — 20 years ago. 

Huesgew Mendoza likened Trump’s mass deportation to yelling fire in the theater. “It just sounds too scary, too major,” she said. 

And Aaron Barajas, 46, who voted for Trump this year in his first presidential election, slammed policies that would “rip people apart from their family,” arguing those who are already established in the United States should be allowed to obtain legal documents. But he distinguished between those who are already living here and those who wish to come in, arguing Trump merely wants to “bring people into our country, but do it the right way.”

It appears Trump’s rhetoric on immigration has not deterred Latinos from voting for him, unlike the assumption Democrats have made following the passage of Prop. 187, Suro said. 

“The hypothesis was that, when confronted with threats to the immigrant population and xenophobic rhetoric and harsh exclusionary measures toward immigrants … you would alienate Latinos,” he said. “Trump has very vividly disproven that.”

That’s in part because of “scapegoating” by Trump and his allies, who targeted migrants “physically at the border” for mass deportation, Castro said. “They cleaved the recent arrivals from people who have been here for a long time, and that’s why I think you hear people express confidence that he doesn’t mean them.”

Another factor could be the rapidly changing demographics among Latinos in California, as more young, U.S.-born Latinos become eligible to vote, experts say.

“Overall, fewer Latinos are as close as they used to be to the immigrant experience,” said Mindy Romero, founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC. “How close you are to the immigrant experience can directly affect how you view policy on internal (immigration efforts) versus border (immigration).”

The anti-immigrant sentiment could even be appealing to some Latino voters who are “fueled by a deep desire to assimilate or to be seen as belonging to a larger American culture and to differentiate themselves from those who are seen as outsiders,” said Dominguez-Villegas at UCLA. 

A referendum on Democrats?

While it’s too early to draw firm conclusions from the election, the takeaway for Democrats is that they must be better at reaching Latino voters, something both major parties have done poorly in California, political consultants say.

California Democrats are “clearly in danger of losing Latino support long term” due to “bad branding” that lasted for more than a decade, Madrid said.

But, he added, “there’s very little evidence that suggests Latinos are becoming more conservative. There’s a lot suggesting they are becoming more populist.”

Michael Gomez Daly, a senior strategist with the progressive California Donor Table, said he’s unsure how best to counter the backlash Democrats faced from voters hurt by inflation, stressing that voters may remember Trump with “rose-colored glasses.” 

However, he said, Trump proved “inspiring” among Latino voters even with his “problematic” rhetoric. Living in the toss-up 41st Congressional District where GOP Rep. Ken Calvert narrowly defeated Democrat Will Rollins, Gomez Daly said he saw conservative YouTube ads targeting young men all the time. 

“I think Democrats need to recognize the economic situation that much of inland California is facing and speak to those problems and give hope to people,” he said. “I think that was lacking.”

CalMatters’ data reporter Jeremia Kimelman contributed to this story.

Update: On Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press declared incumbent Rep. Ken Calvert the winner of the U.S. House race for California’s 41st Congressional District.

Three Democratic candidates who mounted high-profile challenges to Republican lawmakers in the Inland Empire fell behind as election results rolled out, with about three-quarters of ballots counted as of Tuesday.

Rep. Ken Calvert, a Republican who has represented parts of Riverside County for more than three decades, was leading challenger Will Rollins in a rematch of their 2022 race for California’s 41st Congressional District. The Associated Press hasn’t called the race yet, but Calvert claimed victory on his social media accounts Monday, thanking Riverside County voters who have “once again placed their trust in me.”

Rollins wasn’t giving up. There could still be at least 80,000 votes left to count between mail ballots and conditional ballots, he said in a statement Monday, declaring the race “too close to call.” 

The Rollins campaign cited discrepancies in the total number of ballots the Riverside County Registrar of Voters has reportedly received by mail. There are more than 40,000 unprocessed ballots from the district, more than 35,000 uncounted ballots and more than 11,000 conditional ballots, his campaign estimated.

The 41st District also has the highest number of “uncured” ballots — those with small technical errors — of any competitive congressional race in California. Rollins argues the remaining ballots could still move the needle on the race.

“Our campaign is following the election results extremely closely, with eyes and ears at the Registrar of Voters every single day,” Rollins said. 

His challenge to Calvert was one of a handful of swing races that could decide which party controls the House of Representatives. But Republicans are well on their way to taking both the House and Senate, along with the White House, regardless of final results in the Inland Empire.

Palm Springs Councilmember Lisa Middleton conceded her race for California’s new 19th Senate District to incumbent State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh. The candidates were statistically tied when polls closed last week, but Ochoa Bogh’s lead widened in the following days to more than 7 points Tuesday.

“I congratulate my opponent Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh,” Middleton said in a statement. “I wish her success and promise cooperation in representing the people of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. … We have lost a race. We remain steadfast to our values. I will continue to work with all who are committed to freedom, fairness, and opportunity for all.”

And Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis inched ahead of Palm Springs City Councilmember Christy Holstege by a fraction of a point in the race for the 47th state Assembly District, reversing her slight lead. That race, divided by just a few hundred votes, is still listed as a close contest on the Secretary of State’s website.

The state Senate and Assembly races won’t change the political equation in California’s legislature, where Democrats still hold a supermajority.

However, all three races dampen their supporters’ hopes of increasing LGBTQ representation in California. Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is gay. Middleton is a former state administrator, and hoped to become the first transgender lawmaker in California if elected. Holstege, a civil rights attorney, identifies as bisexual.

None of them made sexual or gender identity a centerpiece of their campaigns, instead focusing on issues such as infrastructure, the environment and public safety. But LGBTQ leaders in the Coachella Valley, which is part of all three districts, said they’re bracing for rollbacks of civil rights including attacks on same-sex marriage and transgender protections under a second Trump administration, the Desert Sun reported. 

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Google’s payments to influence state government surged to almost $11 million from July through September, nearly 90 times more than the same period last year, making it the highest-spending lobbyist employer in California in the third quarter.

Its lobbying blitz came as the tech giant engaged in a fierce battle at the state Capitol during the final months of the legislative session over whether it would have to pay news outlets for publishing their content.

Google’s lobbying expenses never previously topped $1.3 million in a single quarter, according to state records, and are typically far less. During the first two quarters of 2024, Google spent on average of about $261,000 on lobbying — 41 times less than its $10.7 million bombardment this summer.

The company did not respond to questions about its lobbying, which last quarter was ahead of more typical titans of influence in Sacramento, including the Western States Petroleum Association, the California Business Roundtable and the California Hospital Association.

During that period, which included the end of the legislative session in August and the governor’s bill signing period in September, Google reached the conclusion of a contentious two-year battle over journalism funding.

The search behemoth could have been on the hook for tens of millions of dollars or more annually under Assembly Bill 886, a proposal to require major tech platforms such as Google to either pay a fee or negotiate with California news outlets for using their work. Introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, the measure passed the Assembly last year before Wicks shelved it to negotiate directly with the industry.

Instead, in August, she announced a deal for Google to provide $55 million over the next five years for a new fund for local newsrooms and $70 million for an artificial intelligence accelerator. Under the deal, the state will also kick in $70 million over five years for the newsroom fund, while Google will continue $10 million in existing annual grants that the company had threatened to pull if the bill passed.

“That agreement was an escape clause for Google,” said state Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat who was pursuing another proposal, approved by the Senate in June, that he estimates would have raised $500 million a year for California news outlets by charging major tech platforms a mitigation fee.

Google had to ramp up its lobbying this summer to offset renewed momentum for the journalism funding bills and secure a deal with more favorable terms, said Glazer, who did not support the final agreement. “Their spending was a reflection of the cheaper alternative.”

Wicks, who did not respond to an interview request, has previously called the deal the best of what was possible.

The millions of dollars spent to push Google’s point of view was largely funneled through two other organizations, according to its lobbying disclosure report: The tech giant paid $7 million to the Computer and Communications Industry Association and $2.75 million to the California Taxpayers Association during the third quarter. The groups ran advertisements on television and social media opposing the Wicks and Glazer bills.

Both organizations have previously lobbied state officials, but the summer payments from Google resulted in budgets hundreds of times greater than in the spring. Their spending in the third quarter was directed almost entirely to hiring Washington, D.C.-based advertising firms, according to their disclosure reports.

Google’s record lobbying payments last quarter far exceeded other major tech companies that would have been forced to pay up under the Wicks and Glazer journalism funding proposals.

Amazon spent more than $918,000 during the third quarter, its largest lobbying quarter on record and triple the amount in the same period last year. Meta, which threatened to remove news posts from its Facebook and Instagram platforms if it had to pay for them, spent nearly $366,000.

Google didn’t just pour money into persuading lawmakers. It also contributed a small fortune to the campaigns of 40 elected officials on a single day, campaign finance disclosures show. On Sept. 13, two weeks after the Legislature adjourned, the company cut checks totaling $107,500 to 39 legislators, including Wicks, plus Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis — more than a third of the $301,800 that Google contributed to state campaigns since last January.

Google’s financial disclosure for the third quarter mentions lobbying the Legislature on more than 30 bills, as well the governor’s office and several state agencies, without providing a breakdown of its spending.

Another priority this summer was Senate Bill 1047, which would have required testing large-scale AI models to determine whether they harm society. Big tech players, including Google, vocally opposed the regulation and it was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September. 

But Sen. Scott Wiener, the San Francisco Democrat who carried the measure, said Google’s lobbying appeared to be more focused on the journalism funding legislation. While the company was a leading voice against his AI testing bill, he said, its efforts there seemed to be directed outside of the Capitol.

“It was not a tidal wave of activity,” Wiener said. “It was much more online and on social media.”

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In 30 years in America, Alejandro Gamez took any job he could as an undocumented worker — at fast food restaurants, factories and car washes and driving trucks, even when conditions were poor. 

“I had no status,” he said. “I had no options.”

But after speaking up in 2017 about unpaid wages at an Inglewood car wash, his fortunes changed. As part of a state investigation into that employer’s labor practices, Gamez this year became eligible for four years of protection from deportation — and a temporary work permit that seemed to open doors overnight. The 51-year-old Hawthorne resident said he can apply for better, stable jobs that pay more and provide benefits. He now has a union-represented position in a college kitchen and a Social Security number to build his credit.

“It changed my life,” he said in Spanish. “It is giving me many job opportunities, to be better financially and to give a better life to my family.”

His opportunities are thanks to a recent federal program that grants temporary legal status to workers involved in certain labor investigations. With some of the nation’s strictest workplace laws but widespread concerns of employer retaliation, California has issued more than 200 requests to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, asking it to grant legal status to workers who report violations. 

But just months after Gamez got his reprieve, the program may be on the chopping block: President-elect Donald Trump and his advisors have vowed mass deportations, a return to workplace immigration raids and the repeal of similar temporary protection programs. 

Gamez’s attorney, Yvonne Medrano, said she’s expecting the program to be axed soon after Trump takes office Jan. 20. Her firm, the Los Angeles-based Bet Tzedek Legal Services, is no longer pursuing new cases under the program after representing workers seeking protections in 15 different workplace investigations.

“Removing this protection will return workers to a time when they fear deportation for asking for minimum wage, their paychecks or any other protections they have,” Medrano said.

Other immigration attorneys in California had already stopped filing new applications before Election Day. They said they expect Homeland Security to honor the four-year reprieves that the department has already granted, but are uncertain what happens next. 

“This is a discretionary program,” said Jessie Hahn, senior counsel for labor and employment policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group. “We are not anticipating that if Trump were elected he would continue the program.” 

A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about his intentions for the program.

It has created another group of immigrants who have been granted temporary permission to be in the United States as the chances of a federal immigration overhaul have grown ever slimmer — making their prospects heavily dependent on the see-saw of each presidential administration. 

The program, one of several Biden administration efforts to boost the enforcement of labor laws, aims to give state investigators easier access to witnesses who may otherwise fear reprisal for making workplace complaints. 

It’s similar to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that gave work permits and temporary deportation protections to immigrants who had been brought to the U.S. without authorization as children. About 500,000 residents have that form of legal status, but the program has stopped granting new applications after challenges in the federal courts. Trump tried to rescind the program in his last term; Stephen Miller, a close Trump advisor, said he will do so again, the New York Times has reported.

Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement is much narrower — 7,700 workers have benefitted since January 2023. Anyone who’s not a U.S. citizen can apply if they can prove they were working for an employer under investigation. First, a state or federal labor agency must submit a letter to Homeland Security saying they need the cooperation of worker witnesses in each investigation. 

Those granted deferred action are shielded from deportation and allowed to work legally for four years, but there is no path toward permanent residency. Some recipients see it as a way to earn money legally and get better-paying jobs outside the underground economy. Others said it gives them time — and a much quicker path to a work permit — as their other immigration-related cases wind their way through the federal bureaucracy.

Immigration attorneys and advocates say while some applicants are seeking reprieves from active deportation cases, most have been living and working without papers undetected, meaning they’ve come forward to federal immigration authorities for the first time. 

It’s not clear how many of those workers are in California. A Homeland Security spokesperson would not release state-by-state figures, citing “ongoing investigations.”

But California is an eager participant in the program; Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration says it was the first state to file a letter supporting worker protections. The state is home to nearly 1.5 million workers who are undocumented immigrants, making up more than 7% of the workforce. 

Such workers are a frequent focus of the state’s labor investigations, and labor advocates say undocumented workers routinely fear both losing their jobs and being reported to immigration authorities for complaining about workplace violations. 

“This fear can prevent them from fully cooperating with labor enforcement agencies in reporting and corroborating violations of the law,” Daniel Lopez, spokesperson for the state Labor Commissioner’s Office, said in a statement. “Ultimately, fewer protections undermine workers and impact responsible employers.”

In the past two years, the office, which investigates wage theft, has sent letters supporting deportation protections in 136 workplace investigations covering potentially hundreds of workers. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health has sent at least 12 letters. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which oversees farmworkers’ rights, has sent 10, and the Civil Rights Department, which investigates workplace discrimination complaints, has sent 60, spokespersons said.

The state has even paid to help immigrants get work permits. Last year, Newsom announced $4.5 million to pay for free legal services to help farmworkers who are involved in labor investigations apply for deferred action. The money, allocated through mid-2026, has so far helped screen more than 500 workers for eligibility and 175 apply for the program. 

There are as many as 800,000 seasonal and year-round farmworkers in California; at least half are believed to be undocumented.

“Agricultural regions have very limited access to immigration legal services,” said Jason Montiel, spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, which administers the grant to five legal aid groups statewide. “Providing farmworkers direct access to immigration legal services when their labor rights are violated increases the likelihood that they will file labor claims and collaborate with labor agencies.”

Newsom’s spokespersons did not respond to an inquiry about what will happen with the state grant program if federal rules change.

Nicole Gorney, a supervising attorney with VIDAS Legal Services, which is receiving a state grant, said that she has 12 farmworker clients waiting to be granted deferred action. She had hoped the state would expand the program to include workers in other industries. 

“There are still a lot of workers out there who may qualify but really don’t want to come out of the shadows,” she said the morning after the election.

Gamez’ deferred action was granted in connection with retaliation claims he and his coworkers filed against Century Car Wash in 2018. That year, they had also filed wage theft claims with the state Labor Commissioner’s Office. According to state records, they told the office their managers made them show up earlier and leave later than the businesses’ opening hours, but their time-sheets didn’t match all the hours they worked. The car wash’s co-owners denied the claims, and told the state the time-sheets were accurate. 

After demanding payment from his managers, Gamez said he was fired, and told to leave in front of customers. According to state records, he and his coworkers won the wage claims in 2021; a state hearing officer ruled Gamez was owed more than $20,000. But the state is still investigating claims the workers were fired and questioned about their immigration status in retaliation for speaking up. Last year at Gamez’ attorney’s request, the Labor Commissioner’s Office sent a letter to Homeland Security to request deportation protection for the workers. 

“The ongoing investigation … is being conducted by our Retaliation Complaint Investigation unit and requires worker cooperation and testimony,” Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower wrote in the letter. 

Reached by phone, one of Century Car Wash’s owners deferred to the co-owner, who did not respond to a request for comment. 

Gamez said his deferred action status kept him calm last week as many immigrants feared for their futures under a second Trump administration. 

Others who received the protection remain afraid. 

Alejandra Montoya came to the United States five years ago fleeing “problems in the family,” she said, and found work in the Central Valley’s fields. She had a degree in business administration in her native Mexico, and said she never intended to be an undocumented immigrant. But she had a son, and stayed to raise him in Bakersfield. 

Montoya said she enjoys farm work, despite the hard days on her hands and knees picking and bunching carrots for $3.05 per box. On a good day, when the field conditions are forgiving, she can take home $150 or more, she said. 

Working for a contractor hired by Grimmway Farms, she said she kept her head down, until one day last September when a coworker, Rosa Sanchez, was struck by a truck and killed in the field next to hers. Montoya said workers had raised concerns about that driver and she believed the accident was preventable. Some of the workers were told to keep working around Sanchez’ body, she said. Stunned, and now knowing what else to do, she did. 

It was “traumatic,” she said through a translator. “Inhumane.”

In March, the state’s workplace safety agency issued more than $65,000 of citations against Grimmway, the contractor Esparza Enterprises and another contractor that employed the driver, alleging serious safety violations for allowing employees to work “in close proximity to a Commercial Truck being driven in an unsafe manner,” according to files obtained through a public records request. Federal and state records show the driver was backing up when the truck struck Sanchez.

The company and its contractors have contested the citations. Esparza did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Grimmway spokesperson Dana Brennan wrote the company has strict policies prohibiting retaliation against employees or contractors’ employees who report issues at work. 

“We have a confidential, anonymous, bilingual hotline where employees can report ethical concerns,” Brennan wrote. “As we have since we first learned of this tragic accident, we are committed to working with authorities throughout their investigation and extend our deepest sympathies to Ms. Sanchez’s family and her co-workers on this grievous loss.”

As a potential witness to the accident, Montoya applied for deferred action with the help of the United Farm Workers, and has since become more active with the organization, encouraging coworkers to apply and speaking at a union convention in September. 

The day after the election, she said she’s both relieved she got her work permit this year and fearful that she’s given her information to federal immigration authorities. In the fields, most of the workers were talking about Trump’s victory, “about what will happen with us now.”

“It protects us from deportation,” she said of the program. “Even so, the fear exists … Whenever he wants, he can take it away.”

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In a setback to California’s historic reparations effort, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have ended forced labor in prisons and jails. Proposition 6 garnered support from Democratic party leaders, labor unions and dozens of advocacy groups who viewed their efforts as part of a national movement to end a racist legacy and abolish slavery. 

The measure would have amended the state’s constitution to repeal language that allows involuntary servitude as a form of criminal punishment, making work assignments voluntary and allowing incarcerated people to prioritize their rehabilitation.

“While it’s disappointing that our measure to remove slavery from California’s constitution was not approved by the voters, this setback does not end the fight,” wrote Democratic Assemblymember Lori Wilson from Suisun City in a statement on Friday morning. “Together, we will continue pushing forward to ensure that our state’s constitution reflects the values of equality and freedom that all Californians deserve.” 

California mandates tens of thousands of incarcerated people to work at jobs – many of which they do not choose — ranging from packaging nuts to doing dishes, to making license plates, sanitizer and furniture for less than 74 cents an hour, according to legislative summaries of prison work. 

If a person does not complete their work, regardless of illness, injury or bereavement, they face punishment, such as disciplinary infractions, which can lead to losing privileges including visits from family members. Prop. 6 would have prohibited the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from disciplining incarcerated people who refuse a work assignment.

California has a history of enslavement and racially discriminatory policies despite the fact that it entered the union as a free state, as detailed by the California’s Reparations Task Force. The measure was sponsored by Wilson and recommended by the Reparations Task Force as a step toward upholding human rights and addressing systemic injustices that have harmed Black Californians.

“At what point, California, will you see us?” said Dr. Cheryl Grills, a psychology professor at Loyola Marymount University and member of the Reparations Task Force. “How much did (voters) understand the context of over 200 years of forced labor put on Black people? And where’s the humanity and compassion for the pain and suffering of the people whose ancestors endured that, and whose current generations are living with the legacy of that?” 

Did ballot language imperil Prop. 6?

A similar attempt to ban forced prison labor failed in 2022. At the time, the California Department of Finance opposed the proposal, noting that it had the potential to drive up prison spending by $1.5 billion annually to provide minimum wage to incarcerated workers. This time, lawmakers adjusted what became Prop. 6 to clarify that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation would have set wages for voluntary work assignments in state prisons. 

Lawmakers and advocates pursued a constitutional amendment as a way to “guarantee that (California) does not repeat enslavement, just wrapped up in a different outfit,” Grills said. 

It faced no funded opposition, and as election results showed the measure trailing, Prop. 6 supporters and independent political experts said the language might have confused voters.

The California Attorney General’s Office writes ballot language and summaries, and the word “slavery” did not appear on the California ballot. Instead, the language read, “Eliminates Constitutional Provision Allowing Involuntary Servitude for Incarcerated Persons. Legislative Constitutional Amendment.”

“When I saw the words ‘involuntary servitude,’ I thought, ‘This might take some explaining for the voters,’” said Mark Baldassare, survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California.  “We know that when people are unsure or uncertain, the default is to vote ‘no.’”

In Nevada this election, a measure similar to Prop. 6 passed with 60% voter approval. Voters there saw ballot language that referenced slavery. 

The Nevada measure read, “Shall the Ordinance of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove language authorizing the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment?”

“If Prop. 6 had slavery in the ballot title summary, it would have passed – just like in Nevada,” said J Vasquez, a formerly incarcerated organizer for the advocacy group Communities United for Restorative Youth. “People couldn’t make the connection between current working prison conditions and slavery.”

Assemblymember Wilson also pointed to the Prop. 6 ballot language in her a statement on the measure’s failure. 

“The Prop. 6 campaign believes that using clearer language, like other states have done, could have provided voters with the historical context and moral imperative behind Proposition 6. This experience has underscored the importance of framing and education, and we’re taking these insights into account as we plan the path forward,” she wrote in her statement.

A Prop. 6 victory would have put California behind a growing number of states, including Oregon, Utah and Alabama, that recently removed language sanctioning involuntary servitude from their constitutions. Now, involuntary servitude remains embedded in 15 state constitutions.  

“California got it wrong,” Vasquez said. “And now, we’re going to keep seeing the same old revolving door of people getting out and going right back in. Shame on us for not doing what we could to build safer communities.”

‘A highway for exploitation’

Proponents of Prop. 6 say California’s constitutional provision has created “a highway for exploitation” that hampers an incarcerated person’s ability to participate in rehabilitation.  

“A lot of the programs that are vital to rehabilitation are held at the same time as the majority of the forced work assignments,” said Lawrence Cox, regional advocacy and organizing associate at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. 

That tension effectively makes rehabilitation a secondary priority and hinders an incarcerated person’s ability to prepare for release, the measure’s supporters said. 

Roughly 40% of people released from state prisons were convicted of new crimes within three years, according to the state’s most recent report on recidivism. 

“Accountability is not going in there and pushing a broom all day,” Vasquez said. “It’s about someone working on themselves so when they come back to the community, we all benefit.”

Findings from a report earlier this year by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation “point to lower recidivism rates for those who earned credits from participation and completion of rehabilitative programming.”

“Nothing about prison slavery is good for rehabilitation and rehabilitation is what’s good for public safety,” said Carmen Cox, director of government affairs at ACLU California Action. “I genuinely believe that Californians don’t want to fund slavery. We will immediately begin the education campaign. People do not understand what it looks like to be an incarcerated worker and how that impacts folks outside.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called newly elected state lawmakers to work as soon as they’re sworn in on Dec. 2 for a special session to “safeguard California values” as the state prepares — again — to be a liberal antagonist to the upcoming Trump administration. 

In other words: Gear up for lawsuits. 

In a proclamation declaring the special session, Newsom said he wants the Legislature to approve funding for the Department of Justice and other state agencies to “immediately file affirmative litigation.”

Legislative sources said the special session is intended to be narrowly focused on providing legal resources to the attorney general’s office — perhaps as much as $100 million — to fight the Trump administration. The goal is to appropriate the money before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, though given how many new members are joining the Legislature, they may not be ready to act until early January.

As priorities for California’s opposition, Newsom listed civil and reproductive rights, climate change, Trump’s threats to withhold disaster relief dollars and the potential repeal of deportation protections for immigrants who were brought to the country without authorization as children.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond.”

It appears that Trump won’t sit idle either. A day after Newsom’s announcement, the president-elect posted on his Truth Social account that “Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California” and “stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again.’”

Trump suggested he would go after “INSANE POLICY DECISIONS,” such as how California distributes its water and the higher mileage requirements for vehicles sold here, and demand voter identification in future elections, providing an early map for likely clashes between the state and his administration.

The Democratic leaders and budget committee chairpersons in both houses of the Legislature are on board with the special session, expressing support for Newsom’s proclamation, but no detailed proposal has yet been introduced. The special session would start Dec. 2 when the new Legislature convenes, though lawmakers wouldn’t necessarily pass any bills immediately. 

“We learned a lot about former President Trump in his first term — he’s petty, vindictive, and will do what it takes to get his way no matter how dangerous the policy may be,” Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Santa Rosa Democrat, said in a statement. “California has come too far and accomplished too much to simply surrender and accept his dystopian vision for America.” 

Republican lawmakers quickly denounced the governor’s order as divisive political theater that does nothing to address the real problems facing Californians and merely boosts what many interpret as Newsom’s own future presidential aspirations.

Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher called the session a “shameless political stunt.” “The only ‘problem’ it will solve is Gavin Newsom’s insecurity that not enough people are paying attention to him,” he said in a statement. “There will not be a single policy implemented in this special session that couldn’t be addressed when the Legislature reconvenes in January.”

But Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat who leads the Assembly Budget Committee, said the state needs to move quickly to be ready if the Trump administration follows through on threats to withhold federal funding from California or other policies attacking the state.

“In litigation, speed matters and preparation matters,” he told CalMatters. “This is an important idea.”

Gabriel — an attorney who, before running for office, represented immigrants who sued the Trump administration over its move to end a program shielding them from deportation — said many legislators also feel a personal duty to address the fear and anxiety they are hearing from their constituents about the outcome of the election.

“They can tell you they want you to focus on everyday, kitchen table issues that matter to working families and at the same time, fight back,” he said. “We’re going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Attorney General Rob Bonta told CalMatters last week that his office is already writing legal briefs in preparation for lawsuits against possible Republican attempts to ban abortion nationwide, overturn California’s commitment to zero-emission vehicles and repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for immigrants.

During the last Trump administration, California sued the federal government more than 100 times over its regulations. Most of those lawsuits were successful.

“We bring cases when we believe we will win,” Bonta said at a press conference Thursday. “We will be asking for sufficient resources to fight back against the attacks that we expect from the Trump administration.” 

This is the third special session that Newsom has called since October 2022. The two previous ones focused on gas prices and the oil industry, including one that just wrapped up last month.

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California immigrant advocates and state officials are bracing for what they describe as the likely massive impact of a second Trump presidency on border policies — vowing to fight his plans in court even as they remain uncertain which will make it from the campaign trail to reality.

Trump has pledged to conduct the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history on Jan. 20 when he takes office; threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico if it doesn’t stop the northbound flow of migrants and fentanyl; and described plans to use the military as part of his crackdown, contemplating deploying the National Guard to aid in deportations if necessary.

“We’re going to have to seal up those borders, and we’re going to have to let people come into our country,” said the president-elect during his acceptance remarks Tuesday. “We want people to come back in, but we have to, we have to let them come back in, but they have to come in legally.”

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued challenges to immigration restrictions during Trump’s first term, said “Many of the policies Trump is advocating and promising, like use of the military, are illegal and we are prepared to challenge them.” An ACLU “roadmap” on Trump’s reelection described plans to push legislators to block deportations and make cuts to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention operations. It also envisioned “a civil rights firewall” to protect immigrants and litigation against deportations.

Other organizations have promised to join the fight. 

“We believe Trump when he promises to enact disastrous policies that aim to tear families apart, destabilize communities, and weaken our economy,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, CEO and president of Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center. 

“But the U.S. Constitution didn’t disappear overnight. We will use all the tools we have to protect and defend the rights of all immigrants and asylum seekers,” she added. 

Those planning to fight Trump’s border policy face the strategic challenge of not knowing if or when each of his myriad border-related proposals will be implemented or how feasible and legal they will turn out to be.

But immigrant advocates said the impact from his election will likely be massive. California is home to more immigrants than any other state in the nation,about 10.6 million people, as well as the most unauthorized immigrants, according to 2022 numbers compiled by the Pew Research Center. Immigrants make up more than a fourth of the state’s population, and nearly half of all children in California have at least one immigrant parent. 

“If Donald Trump is successful with deportations, no state will be more impacted from a fiscal perspective, from an economic perspective,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing last week.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta told CalMatters that his office is prepared to fight, spending the months leading up to the election developing legal strategies.  

“The best way to protect California, its values, the rights of our people, is to be prepared so we won’t be flat-footed,” Bonta said days before the election. Bonta’s comments indicate that the state, which sued more than 100 times over Trump’s policies in his first term, will again be a thorn in the president’s side.

Those waiting in Tijuana to cross legally into the United States through CBP One, the federal government’s phone app, worried on Wednesday that their opportunity to seek asylum had already slipped away. 

“Sadness,” is what Emir Mesa said she felt when she heard of Trump’s pending victory.  The 45-year-old mother and new grandmother from Michoacán said she fled her hometown because of extreme violence there. 

“We do not want to enter as illegals,” she said. “That’s why we are here in Tijuana waiting to enter properly, not to be smuggled.” She held her 15-day-old grandchild as she described how her family has been waiting six months at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 migrant shelter, located a stone’s throw from the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Trump has said he plans to discontinue the Biden administration’s use of CBP One, through which migrants can apply for asylum in the U.S. But it remains unclear what will happen to people who have already spent months in Mexico on the waiting list for their initial asylum screening appointment. 

Impact on U.S. citizens

Trump’s border policies may also have significant impacts on all Californians by disrupting trade and expanding surveillance.

His administration would have to extend the border surveillance apparatus already in place to carry out deportations on the scale he has planned, experts said. Federal authorities have used everything from camera towers to drones to ground sensors and thermal imaging to detect migrants in recent years.

“Given the indiscriminate nature of mass surveillance, it is possible that U.S. citizens and others permanently in the country will also be caught in its web,” said Petra Molnar, a Harvard faculty associate, lawyer and author of the book “The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

Trump’s plans for the border also seem poised to reverberate across regional economies and in Mexico. 

On Monday, Trump said he plans to impose tariffs on Mexico if the country doesn’t stop the northbound flow of migrants and fentanyl. Local business leaders scoffed as they recalled the damage to the border region’s economy during Trump’s first term. The peso slumped to a two-year low. 

“It’s important to remember that we aren’t just trading with Mexico, we’re producing together,” said San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Jerry Sanders, a Republican and former mayor of the border city.  “At the end of the day, this would be a tax on U.S. customers and would likely set off a domino effect of other countries imposing retaliatory measures to protect their own interests.”

A massive deportation campaign clearly would impact California’s economy. 

Over half of all California workers are immigrants or children of immigrants, and collectively, the state’s undocumented residents paid nearly $8.5 billion in taxes in 2022, playing a key role in stimulating the state’s economy, according to the California Budget & Policy Center and data estimates from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

As debate raged this summer over whether President Joe Biden should abandon his re-election bid, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stock soared.

The California Democrat became a fixture on the national political stage as he stood behind Biden to the bitter end — a boost in profile, long cultivated by Newsom, that made him a serious prospect in conversations about who Democrats could select as a replacement nominee.

That possibility was cut short when the party quickly consolidated behind Vice President Kamala Harris after Biden dropped out of the race in July. And though her loss to former President Donald Trump this week does reopen a path for Newsom to seek the presidency in 2028, he emerges from the wreckage in a considerably weakened state.

While deeper analysis remains to be done about why the national electorate broadly shifted to the right in this election, Democrats are likely to be skeptical that another culture warrior from California represents their best chance of rebuilding the party after voters rejected Harris, who came out of the same San Francisco political circles as Newsom.

Matt Rodriguez, a Democratic consultant who worked on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Dick Gephardt and Bill Bradley, said a Newsom campaign would be stuck with a challenging message: “If you didn’t love the first movie, you’re gonna love the sequel.”

“Being from California is a bit of a millstone around people’s necks and that will make Democrats skittish,” Rodriguez said.

Newsom, who steadfastly denies any interest in the White House even as he appears to lay the groundwork for a future campaign, released a statement this afternoon, right after Harris delivered her concession speech.

“Though this is not the outcome we wanted, our fight for freedom and opportunity endures,” he said. “California will seek to work with the incoming president — but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law.”

Newsom won’t be leaving the spotlight anytime soon. With two years remaining in his governorship, he is poised to return to the resister-in-chief that he was during Trump’s first term — a move that could boost his appeal to loyal Democrats even beyond California’s borders.

“What else is there? If you’re a Democrat today, you’re wiping your tears away,” said Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta. “They’re not going to roll over and say, ‘Well, I guess I need to give Donald Trump a chance.’”

Whether the relevance that comes with being Trump’s foil translates into votes outside of the most devoted MSNBC viewers is far less certain.

Once the fog of this election lifts, Democrats face a reckoning over the message that will carry them forward, especially as they continue to lose ground with traditionally Democratic working class and nonwhite voters. The party found itself in this position in 1988, after a third straight presidential election loss, and ascended again with Bill Clinton by co-opting conservative messaging on crime and the economy.

If the argument to pivot to the center wins out, then a staunch liberal like Newsom — whose gubernatorial record includes a moratorium on the death penalty and an executive order phasing out the sale of gas-powered cars — could be seen as too big of a risk for Democratic primary voters.

“There will be a lot of soul searching,” Acosta said. “The California baggage does become problematic.”

Republicans would be only too happy to pounce in a general election. Trump routinely made California a punching bag in his campaign, and his closing argument against Harris focused as much on painting her as too extreme on issues such as transgender rights as it did on the economic concerns that were top of mind for voters.

Jennifer Jacobs, a Republican consultant who worked across the country this year to elect Trump and GOP candidates, said voters everywhere are tired of the politics and governance that California has come to represent: high gas prices and housing costs, widespread homelessness and retail theft, mass illegal immigration.

A Los Angeles Times poll in February found that half of American adults believe California is in decline, and nearly half of Republicans said California was not American.

“We just had an entire nation say we don’t want to be like California,” said Jacobs, a San Diego native who like many other residents of the state is planning to move to Las Vegas in the coming months.

Newsom himself has struggled with declining job approval among California voters, who appeared to further repudiate the governor this week when they overwhelmingly passed a tough-on-crime measure that he vocally opposed and maneuvered to remove from the ballot.

“He is California,” Jacobs said. “I hope he runs for president. It will be the biggest trouncing you’ve ever seen.”

Of course, the next election is four years away. There’s still plenty of time for the mood to change, especially if another messy Trump administration turns off voters and pushes them back toward Democrats, further upending assumptions about their priorities.

After Mitt Romney lost in 2012, unable to dent President Obama’s multiracial coalition, Republicans concluded that the party needed to be more inclusive to minority groups and take on comprehensive immigration reform to win the White House. Trump’s success trashed that theory.

“We have to see where this plays out over the course of Trump’s presidency and what’s the space that the opposition party fills,” Rodriguez said.

For Newsom, however, destiny may be set. Completely reinventing himself over the next few years from anti-Trump hero to, say, economic populist is a tall order that would would require disappointing allies and slaughtering sacred cows of California politics.

It’s not impossible, but his chances of becoming president probably depend more on the frame of mind the electorate is in several years from now than anything Newsom says or does in the meantime.

“Voters are going to have to be open to him,” Rodriguez said. “There isn’t much he can do to change that.”