The Brief

Orange County is still tallying votes, but overall, the results are clear — O.C. is more purple (purple-er?) than ever. LAist talked to political scientists and analyzed trends to come up with five big takeaways from the November election results in this political middle-ground. Here goes:

O.C. is the purplest of purple

In some of the biggest races, ballots are nearly evenly split between the Democrat and Republican candidate. It appears some voters also "split tickets." For example, as of last count, a slim majority wanted Democrat Kamala Harris to represent them in the White House and Republican Steve Garvey to rep the state in the Senate. Garvey has also gotten more votes than President-elect Donald Trump.

This kind of ticket-splitting, among other factors, makes O.C. one the purplest counties in the U.S., said Jon Gould, the dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Gould said O.C., with its shifting demographics, and especially its large population of non-white, college-educated voters, is a glimpse of where the nation is headed.

“What you're seeing here that I think we will all be looking at is a harbinger for the future of the rest of America,” he said.

Little Saigon upset?

The congressional district that includes the largest Vietnamese diaspora community outside of Vietnam could have its first Vietnamese American representative — and a Democrat, at that. Derek Tran has been steadily widening his still-miniscule lead against Republican incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel.

As of Saturday night, Tran was ahead by 545 votes. The lead is especially notable because O.C.’s Vietnamese community has, until recently, been considered reliably Republican, and because Steel won against her previous Democratic challenger, in 2022, by more than 10,000 votes.

If Tran’s lead holds, it could be an indication that Asian American voters in O.C. are moving toward the political center or even left, Gould said. Several other factors could be at play in Tran’s lead, Gould said, including that Tran is Vietnamese American (Steel is Korean American) and has roots in the community — his parents, like most of their generation in Little Saigon, fled the Communist regime and settled in O.C.

Political consultant Mike Madrid noted that Tran is getting a large percentage of votes even in some previously “hardcore” GOP strongholds in Little Saigon. “That's, like, crazy,” he said.

Madrid said it shows that ethnicity and corresponding political leanings are not static.

“Ethnicity changes generationally,” he said.

Non-U.S. citizen voting bombed in Santa Ana

Among the closest watched ballot initiatives in O.C. was Measure DD, which would have allowed non-U.S. citizens in Santa Ana to vote in city elections. Had it passed, Santa Ana would have become the first city in California to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in its municipal elections. (Non-U.S. citizens in San Francisco and Oakland can vote in school board elections.)

It was, in part, a test case of the Santa Ana City Council’s increasingly liberal agenda, and of Latino voters’ willingness to extend voting rights to their non-citizen neighbors (the city’s population is nearly 80% Latino/Latina, according to census data).

The measure was defeated, with nearly 60% of the votes. Madrid said the results were simultaneously “jaw-dropping” and not all that surprising.

“Latino voter attitudes on immigration are profoundly, profoundly different than they were a generation ago,” he said.

Whereas previous generations of Latino voters were made up of many more foreign-born, naturalized citizens, today, most Latino voters in O.C. were born in the U.S. and have different concerns. “They're not animated at all by the immigration issue, they're residents,” he said.

Local tax hikes won big

All of the school bonds and the majority of local tax hikes on the November ballot passed with comfortable margins. Gould said the results show the county today is a far cry from the tax-allergic Republican stronghold of old.

“Orange County is not the county you all think it is,” he said, sounding a bit exasperated. Plus, he said approving of taxes at the local level is different than at the state or federal level.

“These are things that matter to people in their day-to-day lives here in the county and it shows that people are willing to spend money to improve the quality of life where they live,” he said.

Madrid called O.C.’s anti-tax reputation “a relic of Reagan country, of Orange County in the 80s,” he said. Plus, he noted, President-elect Donald Trump “ran on the largest tariff, meaning tax, increase in the history of the country,” referring to Trump’s promise to tax Chinese imports. “And he won overwhelmingly with Republicans,” Madrid said. “So the idea that Republicans won't vote for taxes … those days are gone.”

Republicans solidified their grip on Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach voters appear to have ousted three incumbents in favor of a staunchly conservative slate of newcomers. Candidates Chad Williams, Butch Twining, and Don Kennedy — self-dubbed the “HB3” — will replace the city council’s left-leaning, minority block: Dan Kalmick, Natalie Moser and Rhonda Bolton.

They’ll join the four-person council majority that, since elected in 2022, has banned flying the Pride flag on city property, restricted children’s access to library books about puberty, voted to require ID at the polls, and repeatedly clashed with the state over housing law.

Republicans make up 41% of registered voters in the city.

Huntington Beach is the largest city in O.C. that doesn’t have district elections, meaning members are elected through citywide votes (a practice the city is getting sued for in an effort to force it to switch to district elections). This election, voters had the option of choosing three out of eight candidates.

The crowded field meant there were multiple ways to “split” the vote — which is when usually smaller or similar candidates draw support away from major ones, making it more challenging to win. At last count, the “HB3” members had a little over half of total votes combined. Williams had the highest percentage at 19.33%.

This is the city’s first major election since the council significantly upped the campaign contribution limit in local races — from $620 to now $5,500 for individual donors. Huntington Beach already had a conservative majority on the council, but now it looks like it’ll be full-steam ahead on what Madrid described as “culture war” issues. You’ll likely see less, if any, split council votes.

Apart from housing and voter access, there’s also the yet-to-start parent-guardian review board for children’s library books (with a related lawsuit there), and another challenge to the state’s lawprohibiting schools from requiring teachers to disclose a kids’ gender identity to their parents.

If you’re a California homeowner and you’ve been feeling chilly this winter, there are plenty of reasons to go get a heat pump.

An all-electric, energy-efficient alternative to gas-burning furnaces, heat pumps are widely seen as the climate-friendly home heater of choice.

They can do double-duty as both home heaters and AC-units and are pretty good at maintaining a constant temperature inside a home without the blast-then-cool-off cycle typical of a furnace.

What about a guaranteed lower monthly utility bill? Not in California.

Call it California’s heat pump conundrum.

On the one hand, California has hyperambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to curb the worst effects of a changing climate. Most experts see the electrification of buildings — swapping furnaces, water heaters, stoves and ovens that run on burning fossil fuel with appliances plugged into California’s increasingly green electrical grid — as a necessary step toward meeting those goals.

California has built one of the most aggressive heat pump strategies in the country. The state aims to install six million heat pumps in homes by 2030. Lawmakers are also moving this year to boost heat pump adoption – proposing to streamline permitting, and make it easier to electrify homes.

On the other hand, California’s residential electricity prices are among the highest in the country — expensive even compared to its also pricey natural gas. That makes heat pumps a tough sell to many Californians.

A new Harvard University study maps exactly where that reality bites – and tries to explain why some places are more heat-pump friendly than others.

The public is “overwhelmed with these sorts of plans now for decarbonization: ‘This by 2030,’ ‘this by 2050,’” said Roxana Shafiee, an environmental science policy researcher at Harvard University. “But then you scratch the surface a bit more and you look at things like electricity prices.”

Reaching those goals amid such high prices is a tough circle to square, said Shafiee.

By looking at residential energy costs, usage and winter temperatures in every county in the United States, Shafiee and Harvard environmental science professor Daniel Schrag found in a recent paper that typical households living across the American South and the Pacific Northwest would likely see lower utility bills by making the switch to a heat pump.

Average homes in northern midwestern states, in contrast, would see their bills increase. That’s partly because heat pumps work by extracting heat from outdoor air, compressing it, and piping it indoors, a thermal magic trick that’s harder to perform in places with subzero winters. It’s also thanks to the region’s relatively cheap gas.

Then there’s California: A surprisingly mixed bag.

Though the state’s temperate coast is ideal for heat pump adoption, high residential electricity prices can make swapping a gas furnace for a heat pump a pricey proposition. That’s especially true in counties where homes tend to be larger, winters are colder or electricity is costly. .

Quentin Gee, a manager at the California Energy Commission, said the advantage of heat pumps comes down to thermodynamics. Unlike a gas furnace, which burns fuel to create heat, a heat pump compresses and expands a refrigerant, like a refrigerator in reverse. That moves heat from outside into a home — allowing it to deliver several units of heat for every unit of electricity it uses.

Even in PG&E territory, where electricity rates may be some of the highest in the U.S., Gee said that efficiency can allow heat pumps to compete with — and in some cases beat — gas on operating costs, depending on local rates and home characteristics.

In lower-cost municipal utility regions such as Sacramento’s SMUD, he said heat pumps can be a clear financial win.

“Gas prices have also gone up over time as well — so both are tricky when it comes to heat pumps versus, say, a gas furnace,” Gee said.

Between 2001 and 2024, average retail gas prices have gone up by 80% in California, according to federal data. Retail electricity rates, padded out with wildfire prevention costs and state-manded social programs, have increased by twice as much.

Even in parts of California where the average home isn’t likely to save with a heat pump, there are plenty of exceptions. Smaller, well-insulated homes can often stay warm with minimal output from a heat pump.

For some homeowners, solar panels have helped bridge the gap. Doug King, a green building consultant in San Jose, installed his first heat pump in 2021 alongside a new rooftop solar system; those panels more or less covered the monthly cost of running the heat pump. A second unit installed last year has pushed his bills higher. "But that's fine, I don't mind," he said. "I was willing to pay a bit of a premium for using electricity over gas anyway."

Homes that already use old-fashioned electrical baseboard or space heaters are guaranteed to save on monthly costs by switching since that entails swapping an inefficient electrical heating system that uses a ton of energy (“basically like heating your home with a toaster,” said Shafiee) for heat pumps that use up to 60% less.

But for all of California’s reputation as a climate champion, most of its homes don’t rely on electric heat. Nearly two-thirds use natural gas, well above the national average of 51%.

That isn’t surprising, said Lucas Davis, a UC Berkeley energy economist.

Looking at 70 years of home heating data across the country, Davis’ research has found that the best predictor of whether a household uses electricity to stay cozy in the winter is the price of energy.

“To this day, where do we see that electric heating is the most common? Throughout the southeast,” said Davis. “What do we know about the southeast? Cheap electricity.”

The consequences of costly electricity extend well beyond any individual household’s ambitions for a heat pump or its utility bill. Using fossil fuels to heat up water, warm indoor air and cook food inside homes and businesses was responsible for 13% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Gas-powered cars and trucks used for private use make up another 16%.

Focusing on upfront costs

Heat pumps are a 19th century invention and started popping up regularly in American homes in the 1960s, but you would be forgiven for thinking they’re a new technology.

Spurred on by concerns over climate change and policies meant to address it, heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces each year since 2021, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, a clean-energy research nonprofit. Demand saw a particularly sharp spike after 2022 thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-era law that threw rebates and tax credits at homeowners.

Installation costs can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars, which is why most federal and state policies promoting heat pump adoption have focused on defraying them. In California, the push runs through multiple agencies:

• The California Energy Commission tightens building codes that steer new construction toward all-electric homes. 
• The Public Utilities Commission sets rate rules and oversees utility rebate programs. 
• Utilities offer rebates and special rate plans. 
• State and federal dollars have reduced upfront costs, especially for lower-income households.

This year state lawmakers are considering bills to speed up the local permitting process for heat pumps and to require gas utilities to offer homeowners cash to electrify their homes in lieu of replacing an old gas line.

Even as the federal supports subsided with President Trump’s return to the White House, installation costs are “pretty competitively priced with traditional units, especially since in most cases, you are installing two appliances for the price of one,” said Madison Vander Klay, a California policy advocate for the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a national nonprofit which represents appliance manufacturers and utilities.

That may not be the case for all homeowners.

Many homes need new wiring, larger breakers or a full panel replacement, and some require upgrades to the service connection to the grid, said Matthew Freedman of The Utility Reform Network. Costs rise quickly when homeowners electrify more than just heating, he said.

Customers often underestimate how complex and costly that electrical work can be, he said, another uncertainty on top of the potential for long-term rate savings.

Installation costs aside, month-to-month electricity costs remain an obstacle.

Last year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report warning that California’s residential electricity rates are among the highest in the country — nearly double the national average — and rising much faster than inflation.

The report, authored by LAO analyst Helen Kerstein, cautioned that those high rates could undermine the state’s climate strategy by discouraging households from switching to electric cars and appliances like heat pumps from gas-powered ones.

“If I'm a consumer, I'm going to be thinking about — not just, ‘is this good for the environment?’ That's certainly one consideration, but also, ‘is this something I can afford?” Kerstein said. “Unless folks are saving money on the operating cost, it often doesn't pencil out.”

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

Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner, pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges stemming from the deaths of his parents in their Brentwood home.

Reiner, 32, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and special-circumstance allegations — multiple murders and use of a deadly weapon — that make him eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.

Reiner is being held without bail.

Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene is representing him after high profile defense attorney Alan Jackson abruptly dropped out of the case in January, citing circumstances beyond his control.

It's not yet clear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in Reiner's case or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has not yet announced a decision, but has said he will consider input from the Reiner family on the issue.

“We take the process in which the death penalty should be sought extremely seriously,” Hochman said after the arraignment. “It goes through a very rigorous process.”

It is common for prosecutors to weigh information from many sources before making a decision about whether to pursue capital punishment.

“We will be looking at all aggravating and mitigating circumstances and we have invited defense counsel to present to us both in writing and orally in a meeting any arguments they would like to make in consideration of going forward or not going forward with the death penalty,” Hochman said.

Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in their bedroom Dec. 14 from what the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office described as multiple sharp-force injuries.

Nick Reiner was arrested the same day near the University of Southern California, according to police.

Authorities have not identified a possible motive.

Nick Reiner has been open about his struggles with addition, mental health and stays in rehabilitation centers. In 2015, he co-wrote a film about a family struggling with a child’s addiction, which his father directed.

At the time of the killings, Reiner was living in a guest house on his parent’s property.

Reiner's next Superior Court hearing is set for April 29.

Fewer congressional contests are expected to be competitive this fall, compared with past election cycles, and experts say the extraordinary mid-decade redistricting efforts initiated by President Trump are largely to blame.

Fewer competitive seats means the overwhelming majority — more than 90% — of congressional races will pretty much be decided during primary elections, which see far fewer voters participate than general elections.

"Right now, we only rate 18 out of 435 races as toss ups, which means that less than 5% of Americans will truly be deciding who's in control of the House," David Wasserman, senior elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, told NPR.

This disparity in the voting power of Americans in congressional races has been a worsening problem for several election cycles.

Unite America Institute, which tracks what it refers to as the "primary problem" and advocates for election reforms, calculated that in 2024, just 7% voters elected 87% of U.S. House races.

Voters have self-sorted themselves geographically, and technology in recent years has allowed lawmakers to more effectively carve up congressional districts that give one party an advantage over another.

Nick Troiano, executive director of Unite America, said the mid-decade redistricting prompted by Trump last year has further reduced the number of competitive seats. His organization says 32 states currently don't have a single competitive congressional race.

"The primary problem is bad and getting worse," he told NPR. "We are about to enter a midterm election season that will be the least competitive of our lifetimes, which means that we will have, no matter who wins in November, the least accountable Congress of our lifetime."

Last year, Trump asked Texas lawmakers to redraw the state's congressional map to create five more seats that could favor Republicans in 2026. Democratic leaders in California responded, putting forward a successful ballot measure to circumvent the state's independent redistricting commission and create five more favorable seats for Democrats.

Lawmakers in other states, including North Carolina and Missouri, crafted new maps as well, and Florida and Virginia are among the states that may join them.

But so far, Wasserman said the redrawing of congressional boundaries ahead of this year's elections hasn't led to any "pronounced advantage" for either Republicans or Democrats.

"Instead, what it's done is it's eviscerated the competitive range of districts in which Americans have a real say over who controls Congress in November," he said.

Wasserman explained that even if one were to include races that Cook rates as "leaning" toward one party or another, that would only be 36 seats.

"That's still less than 10% of the House," he said. "By comparison, at this point in Trump's first term, we had 48 races that were competitive between the two parties."

Wasserman said new district lines in California and Texas are driving most of this.

"Whereas we used to have a robust number of Republicans from California and Democrats from Texas and Florida, today blue states' delegations are becoming bluer, red states' delegations are becoming redder," he said. "And there are fewer opportunities for bipartisan dialogue."

Primary voters tend to be more ideologically extreme than the general public

Troiano said there are some serious democratic issues raised by the fact that so few voters will have so much power to decide what party will control Congress.

For one, he says, primary voters are not representative of the broader American electorate. According to an analysis from his group, primary voters tend to be older, whiter, wealthier, more educated and more ideologically extreme than the general public.

"And so when you look at an old, white, wealthy Congress that is ideologically polarizing, can't get anything done, they reflect exactly who sent them there," Troiano said.

There have been some efforts in recent years to open up primaries to independent voters — which is the fastest-growing part of the U.S. electorate. New Mexico, for instance, now allows non-affiliated and independent voters to participate in party primaries. However, Louisiana and West Virginia recently went the other way, restricting some primaries to just registered party members. Currently, 17 states have either completely closed or partially closed primaries.

And in 2024, there were several ballot measures before voters in states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon that would have created nonpartisan primaries. But those statewide efforts failed across the board.

Unite America advocates for nonpartisan primaries or the inclusion of independent voters in party primaries for a slew of reasons, but one of their biggest arguments is that they allow more voters to take part in the most determinative elections.

And that's especially important, Troiano said, as more states whittle down the number of competitive seats.

"So if you think dysfunction and division is bad right now in Washington," he said, "it's going to get worse in the next congressional session because of the lack of competition in this year's elections."

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GUADALAJARA, Mexico — School was canceled in several Mexican states and local and foreign governments alike warned their citizens to stay inside, as widespread violence erupted following the army's killing of the powerful leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho" was the boss of one of the fastest-growing criminal networks in Mexico, notorious for trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine to the United States and staging brazen attacks against government officials who challenged it.

He was killed during a shoot-out in his home state of Jalisco as the Mexican military attempted to capture him. Cartel members responded with violence across the country, blocking roads and setting fire to vehicles.

President Claudia Sheinbaum urged calm and authorities announced late Sunday they had cleared most of the more than 250 cartel roadblocks across 20 states. The White House confirmed that the U.S. provided intelligence support to the operation to capture the cartel leader and applauded Mexico's army for taking down a man who was one of the most wanted criminals in both countries.

Mexico hoped the death of the world's biggest fentanyl traffickers would ease Trump administration pressure to do more against the cartels, but many remained hunkered down and on edge as they waited to see the powerful cartel's reaction.

Many fear more violence

Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and Mexico's second-largest city, was almost completely shut down on Sunday as fearful residents stayed home.

Passengers arriving to the city's international airport Sunday night were told it was operating with limited personnel because of the burst of violence.

Jacinta Murcia, a 64-year-old nutrition products vendor, was among those nervously walking late Sunday night through the airport, where earlier in the day travelers sprinted and ducked behind chairs fearing violence. Most flights into the city were suspended on Sunday.

Murcia anxiously scrolled through news stories on social media showing the face of "El Mencho" and sent messages to her children, who were tracking her location as she tried to travel across the city to her house after dark.

"My plan today leaving the airport is to see if there are any taxis, but I'm scared of everything. That there are blockades, that there's a curfew, that something could happen," she said. "I'm all alone."

Authorities in Jalisco, Michoacan and Guanajuato reported at least 14 other people killed Sunday, including seven National Guard troops.

Videos circulating on social media showed tourists in Puerto Vallarta walking on the beach with smoke rising in the distance.

In another part of the airport a group of elderly Mexicans gathered, discussing how to get home.

"We better all go together," one said. "Go with God."

A blow against a cartel could be a diplomatic coup

David Mora, Mexico analyst for International Crisis Group, said the capture and outburst of violence marks a point of inflection in Sheinbaum's push to crack down on cartels and relieve U.S. pressures.

U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded Mexico do more to fight the smuggling of the often-deadly drug fentanyl, threatening to impose more tariffs or take unilateral military action if the country does not show results.

There were early signs that Mexico's efforts were well received by the United States.

U.S. Amb. Ron Johnson recognized the success of the Mexican armed forces and their sacrifice in a statement late Sunday. He added that "under the leadership of President Trump and President Sheinbaum, bilateral cooperation has reached unprecedented levels."

But it may also pave the way for more violence as rival criminal groups take advantage of the blow dealt to the CJNG, Mora said.

"This might be a moment in which those other groups see that the cartel is weakened and want to seize the opportunity for them to expand control and to gain control over Cartel Jalisco in those states," he said.

"Ever since President Sheinbaum has been in power, the army has been way more confrontational, combative against criminal groups in Mexico," Mora said. "This is signaling to the U.S. that if we keep cooperating, sharing intelligence, Mexico can do it, we don't need U.S. troops on Mexican soil."

'El Mencho' was a major target

Oseguera Cervantes, who was wounded in the operation to capture him Sunday in Tapalpa, Jalisco, about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara, died while being flown to Mexico City, the Defense Department said in a statement.

During the operation, troops came under fire and killed four people at the location. Three more people, including Oseguera Cervantes, were wounded and later died, the statement said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said via X that the U.S. government provided intelligence support for the operation. "'El Mencho' was a top target for the Mexican and United States government as one of the top traffickers of fentanyl into our homeland," she wrote. She commended Mexico's military for its work.

The U.S. State Department had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of El Mencho. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is one of the most powerful and fastest growing criminal organizations in Mexico and began operating around 2009.

In February 2025, the Trump administration designated the cartel as a foreign terrorist organization.

Sheinbaum has criticized the "kingpin" strategy of previous administrations that took out cartel leaders, only to trigger explosions of violence as cartels fractured. While she has remained popular in Mexico, security is a persistent concern and since U.S. President Donald Trump took office a year ago, she has been under tremendous pressure to show results against drug trafficking.

The Jalisco cartel has been one of the most aggressive cartels in its attacks on the military — including on helicopters — and is a pioneer in launching explosives from drones and installing mines. In 2020, it carried out a spectacular assassination attempt with grenades and high-powered rifles in the heart of Mexico City against the then head of the capital's police force and now federal security secretary.
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