The Brief

L.A., you have a big choice to make this year. Mayor Karen Bass is running for a second term in office, and there's a long list of others — including City Councilmember Nithya Raman, former reality star Spencer Pratt, community organizer Rae Huang and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller — lined up to run against her.

The election is June 2. If any one candidate for mayor gets more than 50% of the vote, they'll win the election outright. If nobody meets that threshold, the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff Nov. 3.

LAist and The LA Local are preparing to ask the candidates questions that will shape our voter guides closer to the June election. We want to make sure we're asking the right ones.

So tell us: What are the issues and questions you want the mayoral candidates to address?

Share your thoughts in the survey below.

California schools dodged a steep revenue cut on Tuesday as voters permanently extended an income tax on the wealthy.

Prop. 3, put forth by the state’s largest teachers union, won with 59% of the vote compared to 41% against. The measure makes permanent an income tax on the wealthy to fund K-12 schools and other services. Originally passed in 2012, the tax was renewed in 2016 and was slated to expire in 2031.

Supporters of the measure were thrilled Tuesday night.

“California voters reaffirmed the importance of sustaining investment in public education,” said Debra Schade, president of the California School Boards Association and a school board member in Solana Beach, near San Diego. “California students deserve this.”

Since it first passed, the tax has generated between $5 billion and $15 billion a year, up to 15% of schools’ overall revenue. If the tax hadn't been renewed, schools would lose that money beginning in 2031 and likely have to make deep budget cuts.

The California Teachers Association has made an aggressive push to pass the measure, spending nearly $60 million on advertising and sending members to knock on more than 200,000 doors around the state. Union president David Goldberg called the measure “vital” to protect schools and teachers’ jobs.

Goldberg said on Tuesday night he was happy, but not surprised, the measure won.

“On a nuts-and-bolts level, this means we’ll have secure funding for schools and students won’t have to be afraid their educator will be laid off,” Goldberg said. “On a deeper level, it shows that the people of California are willing to take a risk and support public education.”

The tax applies to individuals who earn more than $371,000 a year or couples who earn more than $743,000. With the passage of Prop. 3, those earners would continue paying an income tax rate of 12.3%, one of the highest rates in the country.

A bait-and-switch?

The state can’t indefinitely pile taxes on wealthy residents, opponents of Prop. 3 have said. Those residents, about 200 of whom might also face a one-time 5% tax if Prop. 40 passes, would only relocate to lower-tax states, leaving a big dent in state tax revenues.

Opponents also argue that the tax was intended to be a Band-Aid to get schools through the Great Recession, and making it permanent amounts to a bait-and-switch. Opponents also questioned whether the tax is still necessary, considering declining enrollment and increased government spending on schools the past few years.

Once the tax is collected, the money flows into the state’s complex Prop. 98 school funding formula, which guarantees 40% of state revenues go to schools. Of that money, 89% goes to K-12 schools and 11% goes to community colleges. Any extra money generated by the tax goes toward a rainy day fund.

Rising costs, declining enrollment

California funds schools based on how many students show up for class each day, a number that’s been declining for about a decade as families leave for less expensive states, immigration declines and families have fewer children.

At the same time, schools have faced skyrocketing insurance costs and expensive repairs on aging buildings, among other expenses. Although the state has boosted school funding the past few years, school administrators say the money hasn’t kept up with rising expenses.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts and Councilmember Gloria Gray are prepared for a runoff, each said after the first set of results came in for the city’s mayoral race Tuesday night.

Early results showed Gray with 34.51% and Butts with 29.88%, though counting will continue over coming days. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, Inglewood will hold a runoff.

Butts sat down to address supporters just after 9:30 p.m. at his election night watch party on Market Street.

He said that with more votes being counted, the election is far from over — but he’s ready for a possible showdown between himself and Gray, the leading challenger.

“If it is a runoff between myself and Ms. Gray, we’re going to crush her,” he said.

At her campaign headquarters on Crenshaw Boulevard, Gray told a crowd “it’s not done until it’s over.”

“But when you see the numbers,” she said, “we have a great chance because the mayor is very vulnerable.”

A possible runoff comes as Butts has led Inglewood for 15 years, presiding over what he has described as a renaissance that has brought world-class stadiums and venues to the city, which previously faced a financial crisis. Yet some question whether that development is actually helping longtime residents and business owners, and whether Butts and other city officials are being transparent in their decision-making.

This election season has been marked by big money from the stadiums — who gave Gray a $25,000 donation and whose relationship with Butts has soured — and a billboard company that’s working with the city. Most recently, an Inglewood High School student filed a claim alleging that Butts inappropriately touched her, which Butts has denied and said is part of the “political warfare” he’s facing.

Whoever ultimately wins the office will lead the city when the Olympics come to town in 2028 and will be responsible for reconstructing the city’s tattered financial relationship with SoFi Stadium. 

Butts said that Inglewood’s stadiums have spent the election season trying to take control of the city and pointed to the combined millions they’ve spent on ballot measure campaigns and the mayor’s race.

“They are so condescending. They’ve come to believe of us that all they have to do is drop six pieces of mail on your doorstep and you’ll vote against yourself,” he said.

Butts’ own campaign has pulled in support from billboard companies and developers.

Patsy Nimmers, an Inglewood resident and supporter of Butts, said it’s still too early to tell how the race will shake out. She said some voters are worried about change, but that she believes Butts has done a terrific job guiding the city.

“Nobody has done what Mayor Butts has done,” she said.

Meanwhile, Gray’s supporters cheered and clapped as she arrived at campaign headquarters, sharing the early results with her.

“You’re on your way,” one woman told her.

The post Inglewood mayor and the leading challenger say they’re ready for a runoff appeared first on LA Local.

Midterms coverage: Live results | What to know | Stories around the country
All the signs were pointing in Democrats' direction heading into election night.

But nothing indicated quite this level of a romp.

Democrats won the House and the Senate, and while that outcome was always a possibility, the depth and breadth of the Democratic victories were jaw-dropping.

Tuesday night was a reminder that the pendulum of American politics continues to swing, and politics is never permanent.

Here are six takeaways about what happened, why it happened and what it all means going forward:

1. President Trump wanted this election to be about him. It was, and that hurt Republicans

President Trump leaves after speaking at a midterm election campaign rally at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa on Oct. 22.

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President Donald Trump's unpopularity has been a glaring warning sign for the Republican Party heading into election night. Since the Iran war, Trump's approval ratings slid from 48% to as low as 36% in an average of the polls.

A whopping 62% of voters in this election disapproved of his job as president, according to the voter poll commissioned by the broadcast networks and the Associated Press, which mixes pre-Election Day polling of early voters and Election Day exit polls.

Three-quarters of voters said they are either angry or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. A plurality said the economy was the most important issue, and two-thirds said Trump's policies have made economic conditions worse.

In addition to the economy, corruption rose as an issue in the last several months. The voter poll showed that 62% said Trump prioritizes his own interests more than the country's.

For all of the things that will be written about this election, the bottom line is that Trump waged the kind of war he said he wouldn't get into — one that is dragging on, raising gas prices and piling on people who were already feeling the pinch — and now he is paying the price.

If Trump was supposed to be the kingmaker in the 2028 Republican presidential primary, think again. These midterms will have heavy reverberations for the presidential election. It will likely mean more GOP candidates will enter the race, and they will be more likely to present a wider view of what the direction of the party could be — rather than simply trying to carry the Trump torch.

2. Republicans tried to insulate themselves with redistricting, but it didn't work

The fundamentals of this election seemed to mirror the 2006 midterms amid the Iraq War — the last time the Democrats won back both the House and Senate. Democratic gains in this election, though, were seen as possibly being limited by structural disadvantages — primarily through Republican efforts to tilt the playing by redistricting.

Trump strongly encouraged conservative-led states to redistrict over the last year, hoping to gain more Republican seats in the House — but that backfired, particularly in south Texas. There was always the possibility that incidentally weakening safe districts could make them competitive. Now that that's happened, it's a true cautionary tale of the "dummymander."

3. Latinos are a true swing group in America now

The reason Texas Republicans' efforts to gerrymander didn't pay off is because Latinos did not vote in this election the way they did in the 2024 presidential election.

In 2024, Trump only lost the group by 5 points. It moved toward Trump at the time, in large measure because they were upset with inflation and believed Trump would bring down prices.

Not only did that not happen over the last two years, Trump also angered many in the community because of aggressive deportation tactics that targeted more than just hardened criminals, as Trump promised.

In a real indictment of the Trump deportation policies, roughly 60% of respondents in the voter poll said they disapproved of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Sixty-eight percent of Hispanics disapproved of how ICE is handling its job.

To be clear, Latinos are not a monolith. Latinos in South Florida have different backgrounds and priorities than those in South Texas or those in California or New York. But the fact that the largest-growing group in the country swung strongly away from the president and Republicans makes them very important electorally — a true swing group in the country that is underrepresented at the polls and has a lot of power.

4. Are Texas and other red states in play for Democrats, or was this election a giant asterisk?

Texas Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico speaks during a midterm election night event at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin on Tuesday.

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Democrats won in a lot of red states. That is important for the party heading into the 2028 presidential election. To have a real chance at expanding the presidential map, they need to figure out how to appeal to red-state and rural voters. They showed in this election they can do that, but they won't have Trump as their rocket fuel in this next presidential election.

The Lone Star State, for example, has been a majority-minority state for a while, and that demography had previously given Democrats false hope. So is Texas the new Georgia, or will it revert to its conservative roots?

The breadth of Democratic victories in Texas in this midterm is undeniable. They won up and down the ballot — Democrat James Talarico won by roughly 12 points, or 1.1 million votes, the first time Texas is sending a Democrat to the Senate since 1988; incoming Gov. Gina Hinojosa won by 7 percentage points, or almost 700,000 votes; they flipped two congressional districts, both of which were won by Trump in 2024 by at least 14 points; they won lieutenant governor; attorney general; railroad commissioner and more.

As they say in Texas, they beat 'em like a rented mule. But are Democrats renting power in the state or is it something bigger? There is going to be a lot of money spent in 2028 to see if the blue gains in Texas are more permanent. And a lot is on the line, because Texas has 40 electoral votes, and putting it in play legitimately for Democrats would reshape the electoral map in a way that would only be rivaled by the earthquake of a shift that was California going for Democrats starting in 1992. (Yes, California used to be a reliably Republican state, going for the GOP in all but one election between 1952 and 1988.)

By the way, a bonus lesson from this election is that money isn't everything. Republicans spent more than $413 million on the Texas Senate race — and lost.

5. The results of this year's elections don't mean the country is enamored with the Democratic Party

Voters cast their ballots in the Kern County Elections Office in Bakersfield, Calif., on Tuesday.

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Democrats have the opportunity to show they can authentically represent their states and try to hold onto these inroads they made in lots of red states and districts.

They were handed the keys to Congress, and people are going to expect results. New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the once majority leader who may want to be in the job again, victoriously promised overnight that "relief is on the way."

But how? Even if Democrats have serious policy ideas to help fix economic problems in the country, they can't wave a magic wand. They won't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and they are unlikely to have an eager negotiating partner in congressional Republicans or Trump. Just before midnight on election night, Trump put out an image on his social media platform of a big red hat with the word "VETO" on it.

So Democrats are in danger of overpromising and underdelivering, which has become all too common in politics, and leads to voters becoming jaded. Democrats have to be careful with their messaging and how they govern. There will undoubtedly be more investigations and oversight of the Trump administration. But how far will they go? Another Trump impeachment attempt, for example, could be politically fraught.

No doubt, the GOP was soundly rejected Tuesday night, but Democrats aren't much better liked. The voter poll showed Republicans underwater with a 41% favorable and 59% unfavorable rating. Democrats were 47%-53%. Democrats had lower approval ratings earlier in Trump's second term, mostly because of disaffected Democrats. They rallied together to win in these midterms, but fissures on the left are simmering below the surface and are about to become far more apparent in the 2028 presidential Democratic primaries.

6. The polls got the direction right. If anything, they underestimated Democratic support

For a decade, polls have underestimated Republican support. In these elections, that was not the case. In fact, in some places they underestimated Democratic support.

For example, the national generic congressional ballot — the question of who people would vote for if the election was held the day of the poll — favored Democrats by about 8 percentage points. The voter poll looks like it turned out to be at least +18.

It's important to understand that it's hard to poll when the country has been going through as significant a political realignment as it has been in the Trump era.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The state of California has agreed to accept $1.4 billion in federal funding to bring broadband internet access to 270,000 people while simultaneously challenging conditions attached to the funding.

Those conditions would stop the state from enforcing broadband laws that reduce costs and guarantee equal access for internet destinations.

California is the last state to accept money from a broadband program created in 2021 as part of an infrastructure bill passed during the Biden administration.

Under terms updated by the Trump administration one year ago, states that accept funding from the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program must stop enforcing net neutrality rules, which ensure equal connection speeds for every app and website, as well as any rules that influence broadband internet costs. California enjoys the strongest net neutrality laws in the nation.

In recent weeks, digital access advocates argued that if the state accepts the money without meaningfully challenging the terms, it could endanger communities reliant on internet access for emergency services and raise costs for low-income Californians who receive internet subsidies. Through 2040, accepting the terms could cost Californians up to $16 billion, according to an estimate from open internet advocacy group Public Knowledge.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it is both taking the federal money and maintaining its access rules. In a written statement shared with CalMatters, Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for the governor, said that “Connecting these communities is the goal, and so is protecting them. California's laws, including our net neutrality protections, still stand."

The president of the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency chosen by Newsom to administer the program, provided the federal agency that administers the program with both a signed notice that California will accept the funding and a letter that calls the terms vague and outside of the commission’s legal authority. The letter sent Monday also acknowledges that the state will not distribute program funding to companies like Comcast, Pacific Bell, SpaceX, and Verizon until disagreements about the terms are resolved.

“The CPUC cannot be bound by any terms or conditions that are unconstitutional or not authorized by law and it expressly does not waive or concede any arguments or challenges concerning the legality, interpretation, or applicability of any term or condition,” wrote CPUC president John Reynolds in the letter.

Stephen Yusko, a spokesperson for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the Department of Commerce, responded to the letter today by saying that the terms and conditions of the award constitute the entire agreement between his agency and the utilities commission.

“No part of the letter outlining CPUC’s concerns is incorporated into or made part of the award,” he said in a statement provided to CalMatters.

Last month, a group of law professors who work on issues related to internet freedom and access urged the utilities commission and governor’s office not to accept the money without challenging the terms in court. Stanford University professor Barbara van Schewick told CalMatters that “only a court, or NTIA agreeing in writing, can take [the access terms] out of California’s award, and neither has happened.”

But she said she’s happy to see the letter makes clear that the state will not sign agreements with companies getting the federal broadband funding until the utilities commission and federal government resolve their disagreement over the terms. It also preserves a strong legal argument that the utilities commission lacks the authority to prevent other state entities from enforcing the law.

“The real test comes the first time a BEAD provider blocks a competitor’s app, throttles firefighters, or walks away from a price commitment,” she told CalMatters. “If the state enforces its laws when that happens, the letter will have protected Californians.”

She added: “If the state looks the other way, [the terms] will have worked exactly as the providers intended, without a single court ever ruling on it.”

Phil Grosse is a member of the California Democratic Party Rural Caucus. In recent weeks, Grosse and dozens of community leaders along the Russian River in Sonoma County urged the governor to challenge the broadband funding terms in court before accepting the money. He believes the terms would end phone service guarantees and backup battery power for cellular towers, endangering the lives of rural Californians.

“We can’t accept the money without all kinds of poisoned pills attached to it, and I’m glad the CPUC acknowledged that, and that they are bound to follow state laws and regulations,” he said, adding that he anticipates the whole ordeal will end up in court. “I’m hopeful the Trump administration will see the wisdom in the CPUC’s letter but I’m rather doubtful.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.