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With temperatures forecasted in the 90's for Long Beach, race officials have bumped up the start time for Sunday's races.
Start time: Marathoners, set your clocks a half an hour earlier - this Sunday's Wheelchair Marathon and Half Marathon will start at 5:25 a.m. and the 26.2 Marathon begins at 5:30.
Other races: On Saturday, the Aquarium of the Pacific 5k run/walk will start at it's scheduled time, 7:00 a.m.
This Sunday’s 40th Long Beach Marathon and other races on that day will have an earlier start time due to forecasted temperatures in the 90s. As of Wednesday, however, the Oct. 5th Aquarium of the Pacific 5K run/walk will start at it’s regular time.
To stay safe while running the marathon, here are some tips from race officials:
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The race for California’s second-highest political office features a competitive slate of Democratic candidates, from Treasurer Fiona Ma to Newsom administration official Josh Fryday and the former mayor of Stockton.
Why now: Some elected offices are pit stops. California’s lieutenant governor is one of them. Voting ends on Tuesday and voters are choosing between an unusually competitive roster of candidates for the No. 2 job in the state, an office few aspire to without one key disclaimer: It’s a step on their way to another job in politics.
Why it matters: The lieutenant governor wields little power beyond stepping in when the governor leaves the state. But it’s been used as a slingshot to the governor’s office before, by Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Gov. Gray Davis, and seeking the office is often a signal that its officeholder has higher political ambitions.
Read on... for more on the race for lieutenant governor.
Some elected offices are pit stops. California’s lieutenant governor is one of them.
Voting ends on Tuesday and voters are choosing between an unusually competitive roster of candidates for the No. 2 job in the state, an office few aspire to without one key disclaimer: It’s a step on their way to another job in politics.
The lieutenant governor wields little power beyond stepping in when the governor leaves the state. But it’s been used as a slingshot to the governor’s office before, by Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Gov. Gray Davis, and seeking the office is often a signal that its officeholder has higher political ambitions.
State Treasurer Fiona Ma, Newsom administration official Josh Fryday and former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs are the leading Democratic candidates in a top-two primary that will send two candidates on to the November general election. Fryday, who heads volunteer programs for the state, has amassed the biggest treasure chest — nearly $4 million — and is backed by teachers unions and the governor.
Ma, a longtime politician with deep roots in San Francisco, has endorsements from influential labor unions and has raised about $2.8 million. But her run for the second-highest statewide office is shadowed by 2021 sexual harassment allegations that Tubbs supporters have latched onto. Ma has called the allegation “frivolous”, but the state paid $350,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by one of her former employees.
Tubbs was among the first to announce his campaign in 2024. Once a progressive star, he rose to political stardom 10 years ago as a young big city mayor who piloted a guaranteed income program in Stockton. Ousted by a Republican newcomer, his political career seemed to fade and he went on to lead Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, an advocacy organization. It’s his first crack at public office since then, and he’s garnered support from progressive Democrats and the powerful union SEIU California.
Longtime state lawmaker Gloria Romero is the leading Republican. Romero spent 12 years representing east Los Angeles in the state Legislature as a Democrat. She switched parties in 2024.
The major Democratic candidates have struggled to set themselves apart on policy. Because the lieutenant governor sits on all three college governing boards, each has claimed they would work to make universities build more housing and lower tuition costs. This has included practical solutions from directing Federal Student Aid applicants to food assistance program CalFresh, to more far-fetched ones such as free tuition for in-demand programs such as nursing.
The lieutenant governor also sits on the commission responsible for millions of acres of public land. Fryday thinks identifying more undeveloped land to build student housing on will help lower tuition costs.
Ma wants Cal State universities, which rely heavily on state funding, to find other revenue sources through partnerships with private companies.
At an April candidate debate in Los Angeles, Tubbs said he supports freezing tuition but did not elaborate on how he would make up the loss in revenue.
Romero seeks greater transparency about faculty, salaries and housing allowances and would push for more student representation on the UC Board of Regents.
To set themselves apart, the Democrats have leaned on their distinct backgrounds. Fryday has made clean energy a core part of his campaign as a former executive of a clean energy organization started by billionaire gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer. Ma has framed the job as another bulwark against the Trump administration. Tubbs, who works as an unpaid economic adviser to Newsom, has focused on affordability and cutting tuition for low-income families.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
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A San Diego school board leader and veteran state lawmakers are running for California state superintendent. Two of them will advance to the November election.
Why now: A quiet primary race for state superintendent of public instruction is winding down Tuesday, with no clear front-runner emerging from a wide field of well-qualified candidates for California’s top schools job.
Why it matters: Ten candidates — including several legislative veterans — are vying for the opportunity to oversee the state’s 10,000 public K-12 schools during a tumultuous time. Schools are grappling with AI in the classroom, budget uncertainty, declining enrollment, lackluster test scores and other challenges.
Read on... for more on the race for state superintendent of public instruction.
A quiet primary race for state superintendent of public instruction is winding down Tuesday, with no clear front-runner emerging from a wide field of well-qualified candidates for California’s top schools job.
Ten candidates — including several legislative veterans — are vying for the opportunity to oversee the state’s 10,000 public K-12 schools during a tumultuous time. Schools are grappling with AI in the classroom, budget uncertainty, declining enrollment, lackluster test scores and other challenges.
The job itself is also up in the air. Gov. Gavin Newsom in January proposed an overhaul of California’s school governance structure, with far fewer duties for the superintendent. Instead, the State Board of Education, an 11-member body appointed by the governor, and a newly appointed education commissioner would hold most of the decision-making power. The superintendent would act as more of a policy advocate.
The shift would streamline a cumbersome and often opaque bureaucracy, adding transparency and accountability, Newsom said. It would also align California with most other states. Candidates for the superintendent position blasted the proposal, saying it takes away power from voters and concentrates too much control with the governor’s office.
Newsom and the current superintendent, Tony Thurmond, are both termed out this year.
The race for superintendent — at times, in previous election cycles, one of the most expensive and contentious races on the ballot — has been unusually quiet this year. In the most recent poll, conducted in April, no candidate garnered more than 10% of voters’ support, and 32% of voters were undecided. As of last week, no candidate had raised more than a few hundred thousand dollars. That’s in contrast to the 2018 superintendent race between Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, a former charter school executive, which generated more than $50 million in donations.
But there have been a few surprises in the race. The California Teachers Association and its historic nemesis, the California Charter Schools Association, endorsed the same candidate: Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member who was little known outside San Diego until this year. Both groups cited his accomplishments on the school board and his commitment to public education.
The dual endorsement shows how much has changed in education debates. For the past two decades, charter schools have been the No. 1 division in the superintendent’s race, generating millions in campaign donations from both sides. This year the subject has barely been mentioned, probably because charter school enrollment appears to have plateaued and both types of schools are now dealing with the same issues.
Another surprise has been the popularity of Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board. Shaw made headlines in 2023 when she took on Thurmond over the privacy rights of transgender students, and has made anti-LGBTQ policies the focus of her campaign. In the April poll, she was tied with Barrera.
Other top candidates include: Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, former head of the Assembly education committee; Josh Newman, former head of the Senate education committee; Anthony Rendon, former speaker of the Assembly and a longtime early education program administrator; Nichelle Henderson, a Los Angeles Community College District board member, and Ainye Long, a teacher in San Francisco Unified.
The nonpartisan position pays $210,460 a year.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
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Have you lost your insurance or seen your premiums rise? The commissioner regulates the nation’s biggest insurance market and faces a complex set of issues as wildfire risk grows.
Why now: Californians finish voting Tuesday for who they think can best tackle one of the toughest jobs in the state: insurance commissioner. The commissioner is responsible for regulating the nation’s largest property insurance market that includes home and auto, plus health, pet, ride-hailing and life insurance, as well as workers’ compensation.
Why it matters: But the hot topic in the past few years as wildfire risk has increased has been home and fire insurance. The next commissioner will face many challenges that include trying to balance property insurance availability with affordability. Some insurance companies that had stopped renewing policies or writing new ones in the past few years are now taking advantage of new regulations that allow them to use new tools in setting their rates. This generally means premiums will rise as the Insurance Department, headed by the commissioner, is likely to keep approving increases in homeowners’ insurance premiums.
Read on... for more on the insurance commissioner race.
Californians finish voting Tuesday for who they think can best tackle one of the toughest jobs in the state: insurance commissioner.
The commissioner is responsible for regulating the nation’s largest property insurance market that includes home and auto, plus health, pet, ride-hailing and life insurance, as well as workers’ compensation.
But the hot topic in the past few years as wildfire risk has increased has been home and fire insurance. The next commissioner will face many challenges that include trying to balance property insurance availability with affordability. Some insurance companies that had stopped renewing policies or writing new ones in the past few years are now taking advantage of new regulations that allow them to use new tools in setting their rates. This generally means premiums will rise as the Insurance Department, headed by the commissioner, is likely to keep approving increases in homeowners’ insurance premiums.
The new commissioner will also have to deal with the aftermath of last year’s Los Angeles County fires. Insurance-claim delays and denials are a key part of the slow pace of rebuilding and recovery. State Farm, California’s largest individual insurer, and the FAIR Plan, the state-mandated fire insurance provider of last resort, are both facing lawsuits from homeowners and legal action from the insurance department over their handling of claims from those fires.
The leading Democratic candidates are state Sen. Ben Allen, who will be termed out of the Legislature; Jane Kim, head of the California Working Families Party who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; Patrick Wolff, a financial analyst who has never held public office; and Steven Bradford, the former state senator and assemblymember. Neither of the leading Republican candidates has held statewide public office, either: Stacy Korsgaden, a longtime insurance agent, and Merritt Farren, an attorney who lost his home in the Palisades fire last year.
The candidates CalMatters interviewed mostly agreed on the problems that need to be tackled but proposed different solutions. A few of them have called for increased financial involvement by the state: Kim wants to establish a state authority for wildfires and floods funded by a portion of policyholders’ premiums. Farren wants to create a state reinsurance authority funded by a fee insurers charge their policyholders, something both Kim and Allen have expressed interest in. Bradford said he would study a public-private partnership to help keep insurers writing policies in California.
Consumer advocacy groups and former insurance commissioners say the job is complicated and involves a “brutal balancing act” that takes into account the needs of homeowners, business owners, landlords and renters while keeping insurance companies confident that the rates they’re charging match the growing risk of wildfires in the state.
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, the Democratic congressman whose district includes much of Contra Costa and Solano counties, was the state’s first insurance commissioner and held the position two different times. He told CalMatters that the commissioner job is “complex, hard, detailed work.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
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Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton led in polls in the final days of the California governor election. Results are expected to begin coming in tonight.
Why now: California voters will advance two candidates for governor to the November election in the most unsettled gubernatorial race in recent memory, concluding a long and winding primary campaign in which Democrats struggled to pick a new leader for the nation’s most populous blue state.
Why it matters: The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement.
Read on... for more on governor's race.
California voters will advance two candidates for governor to the November election in the most unsettled gubernatorial race in recent memory, concluding a long and winding primary campaign in which Democrats struggled to pick a new leader for the nation’s most populous blue state.
The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement.
We'll get our first results shortly after the polls close at 8 p.m. tonight.
In L.A. County, the first batch of results released includes vote by mail ballots received before June 2, followed by early votes cast at vote centers before the primary election day, then votes cast in-person on Election Day.
Democratic former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who has promised to fight Trump and freeze insurance and utility rates, is the leading Democrat in opinion polls and is favored by much of the state’s Democratic establishment. He appeared in contention to secure one of the top two spots for November heading into Election Day.
Republican Steve Hilton, a Donald Trump-endorsed former Fox News host who has vowed to cut income taxes and slash environmental regulations, was polling in second place ahead of Election Day, having consolidated support from many of the state’s conservatives.
But billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, a progressive Democrat who has self-funded his campaign to the tune of $213 million, was still fighting for one of the top spots. A series of polls released in the final days of the race showed Becerra in the lead with roughly a quarter of likely voters’ support, and Steyer and Hilton locked in a tight battle for second.
Votes could take days or weeks to tally. Pollsters and strategists noted that lingering Democratic uncertainty led some voters to wait so they could back whoever appears to be ahead.
“Those polls could become self-fulfilling,” said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic strategist whose company tracks ballot return data.
The race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will leave office at the end of the year due to term limits, is the marquee contest on the ballot Tuesday. The seat is considered a shoo-in in November for Democrats, who have nearly twice as many registered voters as Republicans, and holds national importance for the Democratic Party’s pushback to the Trump administration.
It’s also been one of the most unusually open races in recent state history.
In contrast to decades of California politics dominated by movie stars, family dynasties and larger-than-life personalities, none of the most recognizable Democratic names jumped into the race.
That led to a crowded field on the left, briefly causing liberals to panic that Hilton and a fellow Republican, the bombastic Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, could each garner more votes than any Democrat, locking the party out of the general election. The state Democratic Party began a public pressure campaign asking lower-polling candidates to drop out. Nearly all stayed in the race.
But when Democratic then-Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out over multiple sexual assault allegations, Becerra was the clear beneficiary, raking in many of Swalwell’s donors and supporters. He’s been surging ever since, successfully dodging criticism of his record. Steyer, who spent $200 million boosting his name recognition through campaign ads, consolidated much of the party’s left flank. Former Rep. Katie Porter, a progressive dogged by allegations about her temperament, fell behind. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a moderate backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, rose from single digits in the polls, but not enough.
Trump’s endorsement of Hilton quickly helped him pull away from Bianco, making it unlikely both Republicans would come in first and second. If Hilton advances to the November election, he faces long odds of being elected against a Democrat.
Both he and Steyer have spent the final weeks of the campaign portraying Becerra as a symbol of the status quo and themselves as agents of systemic change amid multiple state crises, with affordability dominating the race.
For Hilton, that would mean ending 16 years of “one-party rule” under Democrats, slashing spending and reversing many liberal policies such as greenhouse gas reduction mandates, the progressive tax system and parts of the social safety net.
“After 16 years of everything being in one direction, that’s left a lot of people dissatisfied,” he said last week. “Anybody who wants change or balance in our politics, the only choice is for me.”
His name recognition as a former Fox host helped him start the race with a fan base. Nancy LeVesque, a retired salesperson from Roseville, already admired him and said he was an easy choice as she dropped off her ballot at a Placer County vote center on Monday. She liked that he would bring an outsider’s perspective to the governor’s office and a change for those leaving California because of its liberal politics.
“We have lost so many good people,” to other states, she said.
Steyer styled himself as a populist “class traitor” who would force lower costs for Californians by taking on monied special interests like investor-owned utilities, the real estate industry and health insurance corporations. He made a litany of progressive promises on climate change, single-payer health care and raising taxes on the wealthy.
Undecided voter Tina Varnado attended a rally last week for Steyer hosted by her union, which represents home health aides. The South Sacramento resident is a full-time caretaker for her elderly mother and her adult daughter who had open-heart surgery. Between her mother’s social security checks and her pay as her daughter’s health aide, “we do have to spend everything we have every single month” to stay afloat, she said.
“Everything he touched on really touched home for me,” she said after hearing Steyer speak. “If we can lower prices, maybe we can start putting money down on a home for my future.”
Becerra has emphasized his long experience in government, including his lawsuits against the first Trump administration and his time as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary during the pandemic.
That appealed to Evan Cragin, of the California Young Democrats, which endorsed Becerra weeks before his sudden surge. Cragin said he wants the next governor to have government experience to push back on federal “abuses” from the Trump administration.
“Secretary Becerra has done that before,” Cragin said.
Surrounded by supporters at the offices of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California on Monday, Becerra dismissed his opponents’ promises, pointing to past accomplishments including passing the Affordable Care Act and defending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program.
“You can have all these great inflated promises,” he said. “Getting things done is not easy.”
Ryan Sabalow contributed reporting.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
