By Will Weissert, Darlene Superville | The Associated Press
Published July 23, 2026 3:42 PM
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to honor the 2025 World Series champions Los Angeles Dodgers in the Rose Garden of the White House.
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson
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AP
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Topline:
President Donald Trump feted Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House on Thursday, calling the team “one of the great brands anywhere in the world” during a Rose Garden event celebrating its second title in as many years.
Back to back visits: Trump said the Dodgers edging the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 last fall capped “a hell of a series.” He indicated he was surprised to learn that the Dodgers had never before won consecutive titles but also mused about a third in a row. “I’m thrilled to say welcome back to the White House,” he said. “And maybe I’ll see you again next year.” The president saluted the team in the East Room in April 2025 to mark their 2024 World Series championship over the New York Yankees.
Long-standing tradition: Championship baseball teams have been coming to the White House since 1869, when President Ulysses S. Grant hosted the Cincinnati Red Stockings. They were the first fully professional team to visit the White House and went undefeated that season, though the World Series wasn’t established in its modern form until 1903. Sports teams’ visits to the Trump White House have sometimes been a source of controversy. In 2018, the president rescinded an invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles after many players suggested they might skip such a trip.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump feted Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House on Thursday, calling the team “one of the great brands anywhere in the world” during a Rose Garden event celebrating its second title in as many years.
Trump said the Dodgers edging the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 last fall capped “a hell of a series.” He indicated he was surprised to learn that the Dodgers had never before won consecutive titles but also mused about a third in a row.
“I’m thrilled to say welcome back to the White House,” he said. “And maybe I’ll see you again next year.”
The president saluted the team in the East Room in April 2025 to mark their 2024 World Series championship over the New York Yankees. He said before the latest event that he was most excited about meeting Ohtani, whom he compared at length to the legendary Babe Ruth — even saying the Dodgers star was arguably the best hitter and pitcher in baseball.
“It’s truly a great — when you talk about a brand — it’s one of the great brands anywhere in the world,” Trump said of the Dodgers. He spoke in front of a table with two World Series trophies and a Trump 47 jersey, which the team presented to him.
The Dodgers also gave Trump what looked like a replica of a World Series ring. That prompted Trump to exclaim: “Wow. Do I have to report this? I don’t want to report this” before slipping the ring into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
Trump says Iran war has kept him from following baseball closely
Those in the crowd wore blue Dodgers caps to guard against bright overhead sun, and the band played a jazzy instrumental version of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” before Trump took the stage.
Trump described last year’s World Series’ epic Game 3 during which the Dodgers won 6-5 in 18 innings. Trump said he stayed up until around 3 a.m. to watch, noting that “it was a long one, but it was amazing.”
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Los Angeles Dodgers Shohei Ohtani.
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“I thought it was a game that you were going to lose about four or five times, and you ended up winning,” he said, adding, “Luck is OK, too, right?” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts agreed: “Luck is OK.”
“But with talent you get a lot of luck,” Trump continued.
The president said he spoke briefly with Roberts before the event and learned that his team currently has the best record in baseball, noting, “I’ve been a little busy with Iran and some other things.”
That was his only reference during the event to fighting in the Middle East, which has escalated on both sides in recent days.
Roberts also spoke briefly, saying, “We’re going for a three-peat.”
Championship baseball teams have been coming to the White House since 1869, when President Ulysses S. Grant hosted the Cincinnati Red Stockings. They were the first fully professional team to visit the White House and went undefeated that season, though the World Series wasn’t established in its modern form until 1903.
Sports teams’ visits to the Trump White House have sometimes been a source of controversy. In 2018, the president rescinded an invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles after many players suggested they might skip such a trip.
Dodgers star right fielder Mookie Betts wasn’t at Thursday’s Rose Garden event, though he did make the 2025 visit. He said he prefers to spend the team’s scheduled days off with his family.
The Dodgers originally considered coming to the White House this past April during a series with the Washington Nationals, but a crowded early season schedule didn’t permit that. Instead, they’re in the nation’s capital during the off-day between a just-completed series against the Philadelphia Phillies and Friday’s opener against the New York Mets in Queens.
The White House has changed since the Dodgers’ last visit
Over the past year, Trump has revamped the Rose Garden and added a patio area reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. At Thursday’s event for the Dodgers, he referenced the “ Walk of Fame ” installed on the colonnade, which features plaques of past presidents along with partisan insults against Joe Biden and other Democrats.
“I could put some of the great Dodgers on the wall,” Trump joked, “but I figured maybe it’s more appropriate that we put the presidents.”
Trump, a baseball fan and New York native, has for years been closely associated with the Yankees, whose late, longtime owner George Steinbrenner was a close friend. Trump referenced Steinbrenner on Thursday, saying, “He would do anything to win” before telling the Dodgers’ team owners, “But you’re doing the same thing.”
The president isn’t always so complimentary of teams, though. During a rally in Georgia on Wednesday, he praised the ownership of the local Atlanta Braves and slammed the Mets for their sky-high payroll and losing record.
Trump was joined on stage during that event by former Braves manager Brian Snitker, and Mike Plant, president and CEO of the Braves Development Company.
”You know, the Mets have the highest salary in baseball, and they lose all the time,” Trump said then. "And I’m like, maybe we can steal this guy.”
“There are teams like that, where they never go down,” Trump said. “Then you have other teams — ‘We’re rebuilding.’ They’ve been rebuilding for years. I don’t want to mention teams ’cause I know all the owners. They’re all friends of mine.”
Aaron Schrank
has been on the ground, reporting on homelessness and other issues in L.A. for more than a decade.
Published November 2, 2026 7:00 PM
The Skid Row Care Campus is L.A. County's main homeless services hub.
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Topline:
L.A. County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at its Skid Row Care Campus in August and has ended its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, the nonprofit that ran harm reduction there, effective Tuesday.
Why it matters: The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment. The pause comes amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row.
Why now: The county says the temporary pause stems “in part” from concerns raised by community stakeholders and local businesses.
What’s next: Homeless Health Care Los Angeles is laying off 134 workers. New providers have rehired many of them, the county says.
Los Angeles County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at the county’s flagship services hub in Skid Row in August, and has now terminated the contract of the nonprofit that ran harm reduction programs there, the Department of Health Services told LAist.
The pause — which county officials said is temporary — began in August, “in part due to concerns that community stakeholders and local businesses raised to County leadership,” according to a statement provided to LAist by Thomas Lynch, a spokesperson for the county’s Department of Health Services.
The changes come amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row and mounting pressure from the Trump administration and neighboring businesses on L.A. programs that distribute drug paraphernalia. Critics argue the programs enable drug addiction and contribute to crime in the area.
The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment.
In late August, the county Department of Public Health identified a cluster of HIV cases among people who live in and around Skid Row. As of Sunday, 15 people had been linked to it, 11 of them women, according to Becky Schlikerman, a spokesperson for that department.
In a statement, Schlikerman said both substance use and sexual transmission are being investigated as possible factors, and that the department is working with street medicine teams and harm reduction groups to expand HIV testing and prevention in the area.
“There is an active HIV outbreak in Skid Row, so reducing safe injection supplies to people who use drugs in this moment seems particularly dangerous,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, distinguished professor of population and public health sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
The Skid Row Care Campus still distributes naloxone — the opioid overdose reversal drug — wound care supplies and safe sex supplies, Lynch said, but “distribution of syringes and pipes is currently on pause.”
He also said they have not set a date for syringe services to resume, that the pause applies only at the campus, and that staff are referring people to syringe programs elsewhere.
The state lists 24 authorized syringe services programs in L.A. County, according to the California Department of Public Health. Two are based in or next to Skid Row.
Harm reduction services are provided across much of L.A. County, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction in Skid Row, in September of 2021.
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Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
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Provider layoffs
The county has also terminated its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles effective Tuesday, county officials said. The county announced the change in an Aug. 28 statement, the same month the syringe and pipe pause began.
Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, one of L.A.’s best-known harm reduction providers, notified the state in September that it would permanently lay off 134 workers — including 117 employees at the Skid Row Care Campus — effective Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to state Employment Development Department records.
“Right now, HHCLA is being forced to say goodbye to some deeply valued staff and reduce services that some of LA’s most marginalized rely on every day,” the nonprofit wrote in an Instagram post in late September.
In the same post, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles said its jobs program for people in Skid Row “no longer exists.” The nonprofit said the program offered “real income, real pathways forward for people too often shut out of opportunity.”
The county is bringing in nonprofits St. Joseph Center and LA Community Health Project instead, officials said. Meanwhile, Social Model Recovery Systems will expand its existing services and Wesley Health Centers will continue providing healthcare on site.
In statements provided to LAist, L.A. County's health services and homelessness departments described the shake-up as “contractor changes” made as part of an effort to “strengthen operations.” Officials are updating campus protocols, “strengthening on-site safety” and expanding substance use treatment and healthcare, according to those statements.
County officials said they are committed to a transition that avoids disruption for people using the campus.
“Providers are hiring from within the Skid Row community and have worked hard to retain staff who were working for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles,” Lynch told LAist.
Those providers have hired more than 80 people so far, and nearly 90% previously worked for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, according to the department.
Representatives for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles did not respond to repeated requests for interview or comment.
The nonprofit has worked in Skid Row since the 1980s and ran the campus’s harm reduction and overdose response programs. It celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.
A group of Skid Row community members and laid-off campus workers calling itself the Skid Row Coalition for Community Safety has launched a campaign saying L.A. County is “playing politics with people’s lives.”
“Supervisor Hilda Solis and LA County chose to cowardly abandon the recommendations of public health experts and the Skid Row community,” the group said in a statement on its website.
County Supervisor Hilda Solis, who represents the area and authored the 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan, told LAist in a statement that the decision to end Homeless Health Care Los Angeles’ contract was made jointly by the county’s health services and homelessness departments.
“Some services have been paused to allow the incoming provider to onboard staff and establish operations,” Solis said. “This is a necessary part of coordinating the transition.”
“I am proud of the Skid Row Action Plan and its commitment to expanding low-barrier services, health care, and pathways to housing,” Solis’ statement continued. “That commitment remains unchanged.”
Solis completes her final term next month and is on Tuesday’s ballot running for California’s 38th Congressional District, which covers parts of eastern Los Angeles and Orange counties but not Skid Row.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis. Solis represents Skid Row and authored a 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan.
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Criticism of the campus
The Skid Row Care Campus opened in spring 2025. County officials call it the first community-designed homeless services hub in the nation.
The campus logs more than 2,700 visits a day, a count that includes repeat visitors, according to the county. It costs about $26 million a year to operate. Funding is secured through June 2027. The budget for the following fiscal year has not been finalized.
The campus in the heart of Skid Row drew scrutiny this year. In May, Fox 11 aired a segment featuring Estela Lopez, executive director of the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District, who called the campus a “meth mansion.” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told the TV station she was concerned about problems at the campus.
LAPD responded 693 times to the two blocks around it between January and late May, and recorded four homicides there in the first four months of 2026, according to LAPD figures first reported by Fox 11.
On Oct. 8, federal agents and LAPD officers carried out a drug sweep dubbed “Operation Save Skid Row,” centered about a block from the campus. Federal prosecutors charged 28 people and arrested 23, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to stop funding “so-called ‘harm reduction’” efforts. In April, federal health officials barred grantees from using federal money for pipes and drug test strips, on top of a longstanding ban on federal funds for syringes.
L.A. County officials have not said whether federal policy played a role in the pause. The campus is funded through opioid settlement money, Medi-Cal managed care plans, the state and the county — not federal grants, according to officials.
County officials and employees have credited harm reduction programs with helping drive down overdose deaths, which fell 6% in 2025 — the third straight annual decline — according to the county Department of Public Health.
A person walks past an encampment of unhoused people in the Skid Row community. Skid Row is home to thousands of people who are either experiencing homelessness on the streets or living in shelters.
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Harm reduction’s track record
Harm reduction programs including needle and syringe exchanges started in L.A. more than three decades ago in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. L.A. County declared a local public health emergency in 2000 to authorize syringe exchange under a new state law, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.
People who use fentanyl in L.A. have increasingly shifted from injecting it to smoking it, according to a 2025 study co-authored by Bluthenthal, with USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
Bluthenthal called the recent syringe and pipe distribution pause at the Skid Row Care Campus “obviously a setback.”
“Harm reduction programs, through providing social and material support, have been one of the most consistent pathways to treatment for people who are currently using illicitly purchased drugs,” he said.
In a statement on the pause, officials at L.A. County’s Department of Health Services said people who receive syringe services are three times more likely to reduce or stop using drugs and five times more likely to enter substance use treatment.
John Raphling, an organizer with the Los Angeles Community Action Network based in Skid Row, said his group is “extremely concerned that the county is cutting these services” and that Skid Row residents “were not at all consulted.”
“Harm reduction services, like those provided by Homeless Health Care, help save lives, prevent the spread of disease, and allow people to survive and work through their recovery,” Raphling said.
Some Skid Row residents see it differently — including Don Garza, who has lived in the neighborhood for 27 years and resides in a single-room-occupancy building there.
“It’s not helping anyone,” Garza told LAist. “It exponentially accelerates the overdose deaths.”
“The part of harm reduction that we still need is the overdose prevention, but without the pipes and the needles,” Garza said. “We still need the Narcan because Skid Row is not going anywhere, and people are still gonna OD, and they're gonna die.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a last-minute request from the Department of Justice to wade into its unprecedented feud with California over the state's voter rolls.
What happened: The court denied taking up the Justice Department's appeal today, just hours after it was filed. Election Day is tomorrow.
Why now: The appeal was the department's latest foray into state election administration, which a federal judge referred to last week as "a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials."
About the claims: The DOJ says it has identified 20,000 "likely" noncitizens on California's voter roll whose ballots should not be counted until their citizenship can be verified. Over the weekend, data scientists at University of California Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project were granted access to the DOJ's list through a court order in another lawsuit and found that 42% of the names on the list do not appear on California's current voter roll. That analysis also found naturalized citizens on the DOJ's list.
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a last-minute request from the Department of Justice to wade into its unprecedented feud with California over the state's voter rolls.
The court denied taking up the Justice Department's appeal on Monday evening, just hours after it was filed. Election Day is Tuesday.
The appeal was the department's latest foray into state election administration, which a federal judge referred to last week as "a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials."
After that judge, David Carter, a Clinton appointee, and a divided 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected the DOJ's request to order California to set aside and stop processing the ballots of thousands of people, the DOJ sought injunctive relief from the high court.
The DOJ says it has identified 20,000 "likely" noncitizens on California's voter roll whose ballots should not be counted until their citizenship can be verified.
Courts so far have sided with California and Los Angeles County's arguments that the federal government's list is unreliable, and that creating a novel system to segregate ballots while voting is already underway is infeasible.
"[T]here is a material risk that granting the United States its requested relief would result in disenfranchisement and could jeopardize the County's entire election," 9th Circuit Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, wrote in their Friday decision rejecting the Justice Department's emergency request.
The two judges cited longstanding legal precedent, known as the Purcell principle, that election rules should not be altered on the eve of an election, as well as the fact that the Constitution gives states authority to run elections. The opinion also cited the National Voter Registration Act, which bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.
The panel's third judge, Patrick Bumatay, also a Trump appointee, dissented.
The actual number of ballots in dispute is likely much smaller than 20,000, since county election officials have found that many of the people on DOJ's list did not have active voter registrations and were not mailed ballots.
Over the weekend, data scientists at University of California Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project were granted access to the DOJ's list through a court order in another lawsuit and found that 42% of the names on the list do not appear on California's current voter roll. That analysis also found naturalized citizens on the DOJ's list.
The Supreme Court's refusal to intervene comes as the Justice Department has been escalating its feud with California election officials.
In recent weeks, the Department of Justice has sent subpoenas to election officials in California, and reminded officials that they could be criminally prosecuted for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots.
A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday barring the Trump administration from threatening, intimidating or coercing election officials to demand they stop processing the ballots of registered voters that the federal government alleges are ineligible to vote. The federal government has appealed the order.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County on Aug. 21, 2026
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Allen J. Schaben
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
If Rep. Mike Levin’s proposal moves forward, the spent nuclear fuel stashed on the beach at San Onofre will be stored and processed at one of several potential campuses in other states. Levin, a Democratic congress member representing parts of San Diego and Orange County, discussed his plan from a point above the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station last week.
Why it matters: Levin is pushing to create facilities called Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses in communities that want to recycle some of the spent fuel and store remaining waste, in exchange for economic development opportunities. The Department of Energy said the campuses could “attract significant investment, expand domestic manufacturing, and create thousands of new high-paying jobs in their respective regions.” Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho have stepped up as potential hosts for the facilities. Finland and Canada have embarked on similar efforts to locate nuclear waste facilities, with the consent and collaboration of local communities, according to a report by Levin’s office. Finland expects to permanently dispose of nuclear waste as soon as next year.
The backstory: San Onofre ceased operating in 2013, after a newly installed steam generator failed, leaving the plant inoperable. Officials began decommissioning the plant in 2020. Since then, 700 million tons of building material have been hauled away from the site, and the spent fuel rods were moved from cooling pools to dry storage on the beach, Levin said. But there isn’t a permanent repository for the spent nuclear fuel, following backlash to an earlier proposal to store the waste.
If Rep. Mike Levin’s proposal moves forward, the spent nuclear fuel stashed on the beach at San Onofre will be stored and processed at one of several potential campuses in other states.
Levin, a Democratic congress member representing parts of San Diego and Orange County, discussed his plan from a point above the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station last week.
“Since I've been in Congress, getting this spent nuclear fuel off our coast has been one of my top priorities,” Levin said, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the steel and concrete canisters housing nuclear fuel rods. “I have been in this fight for eight years, fighting the status quo of inaction on spent nuclear fuel.”
He’s pushing to create facilities called Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses in communities that want to recycle some of the spent fuel and store remaining waste, in exchange for economic development opportunities.
The Department of Energy said the campuses could “attract significant investment, expand domestic manufacturing, and create thousands of new high-paying jobs in their respective regions.” Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho have stepped up as potential hosts for the facilities.
Finland and Canada have embarked on similar efforts to locate nuclear waste facilities, with the consent and collaboration of local communities, according to a report by Levin’s office. Finland expects to permanently dispose of nuclear waste as soon as next year.
Levin said similar U.S. sites could begin operation by the late 2030s, and he’s pushing to make the San Onofre plant a priority for nuclear waste removal and storage.
San Onofre ceased operating in 2013, after a newly installed steam generator failed, leaving the plant inoperable. Officials began decommissioning the plant in 2020.
Since then, 700 million tons of building material have been hauled away from the site, and the spent fuel rods were moved from cooling pools to dry storage on the beach, Levin said.
But there isn’t a permanent repository for the spent nuclear fuel, following backlash to an earlier proposal to store the waste.
“The federal government still hasn't done what it pledged to do all the way back in 1998, and so communities like ours have been left holding the fuel,” Levin said.
The federal government previously designated the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada as the permanent storage site for nuclear waste. But former president Barack Obama cancelled that plan in 2010, following fierce opposition from environmentalists, local groups and tribes.
Without a permanent storage repository, spent nuclear fuel has remained on site at San Onofre, where its location on the coast, near earthquake faults and next to Camp Pendleton make the waste vulnerable to natural disaster or national security threats.
To address those risks, Levin introduced the Spent Fuel Prioritization Act with co-authors including Rep. Darrell Issa, a San Diego Republican, and Rep.Young Kim, an Orange County Republican. It would move nuclear sites with high seismic hazards, large populations and national security risk, such as San Onofre, up the list for fuel removal and storage. The bill is waiting for consideration in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to Levin’s 2026 report on San Onofre.
Another challenge concerns transport of spent nuclear fuel. Levin said next year a specially designed train called the Atlas Railcar System will complete testing and move the first spent fuel rods from Virginia to Idaho. The Atlas is a 12-axle railcar equipped with sensors and monitoring systems, which can transport nearly half a million pounds of spent nuclear fuel, according to the Department of Energy. It took ten years and cost $33 million dollars to build.
Levin has also introduced bills to create a nuclear waste administration, to require nuclear waste canisters to last 100 years instead of the current 40 years, and to increase public engagement and improve safety inspection at decommissioning power plants.
“I will not declare victory on this until the last canister has left San Onofre,” he said.
Work is underway to tally votes for the midterm election at the Orange County Registrar of Voters Facility. Turnout is trending higher than the June primary across the state.
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Topline:
Voter turnout is tracking higher across the state than at this point in the June primary, which is typical for elections.
In L.A. County, the tallied votes as of Sunday add up to about 24% of registered voters.
In Orange County, the current tallies represent about 32% of registered voters.
About the results: No results will be released until after the polls close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. The first tallies will be vote-by-mail ballots, followed by early in-person voting.'
Read on ... for more about the vote counting process.
Election officials in both Los Angeles and Orange counties report the early vote is trending higher than the last midterm election in 2022 — on trend with expectations across the U.S.
Nationally, Democrats have outpaced Republicans returning early ballots by more than 10 points, according to tracking by the University of Florida Election Lab.
Here's what you should know about the local vote totals currently released:
In Los Angeles County, about 24% of registered voters had cast ballot as of Monday.
In Orange County, the current tally represents about 35% of registered voters.
Keep in mind that Nov. 10 will be the final day for votes postmarked by Nov. 3 to arrive at county elections offices, so the total number of votes cast won't be known until then.
How vote counts will be released
L.A. County vote tallies
In L.A. County, updates on the counting are expected to continue through Nov. 26.
Election night: After polls close at 8 p.m., expect updates every 15 minutes or so through the early morning hours Wednesday.
Nov. 4, 5 and 6: Updates post at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Nov. 7 on: Updates post daily between 4 and 5 p.m.
The county must certify results by Dec. 3.
Orange County vote tallies
In Orange County, updates on the counting are expected to continue through Nov. 26.
Election night: After the polls close at 8 p.m., expect the release of vote-by-mail ballots at 8:05 p.m., followed by the first in-person tallies at 9:30 p.m. Additional updates through every 30 minutes or so through the evening.
Post election night: Expect updated counts around 5 p.m. daily.
The county must certify results by Dec. 3.
I thought it was election night?
That hasn't been true in quite some time. It takes a while to get results because after the initial tallies on election night, there are still many, many votes to count, and more mail-in ballots are usually arriving.
Here’s what we know so far.
L.A. County turnout
Los Angeles County has more than 5.9 million registered voters. As of Monday, Nov. 2:
More than 1.42 million ballots have been processed.
90% voted by mail.
10% voted in person.
What's next:
We'll know more on election night — and in the following days — about how many ballots remain to be counted.
Political Data Inc. is tracking ballot returns across California and in some high-profile races.
As of Monday, Nov. 2, statewide turnout is 25%. Note: That is already higher than this time in the primary. Democrats outnumber Republicans statewide by almost double, and have returned more ballots so far (3 million compared to 1.6 million — representing 29% and 28% of each party's registered voters.
Why Election Day has turned into ballot-counting month
Because of the increasing use of vote-by-mail ballots, the tally has gotten longer, according to the California Voter Foundation. In an analysis, the organization found:
In November 2004, more than 80% of votes were counted within two days of Election Day, with 32.6% voting by mail.
In June 2022, about 50% of ballots were counted within two days of Election Day, with more than 90% of people voting by mail.
In November 2024, 66% of votes were counted within the first two days of Election Day, with 81% of the vote by mail.
In June 2026, 61% of votes were counted within the first two days of Election Day, with 89% of the vote by mail.
A closer look at ballot counting times in California, where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.
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Election officials must physically open mail-in ballots and verify signatures.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, recently wrote about the ripple effect of turning in mail-in ballots by hand or in drop boxes on Election Day. She wrote, for our partner newsroom CalMatters:
"We turn in ballots in envelopes on Election Day that take time and care to process and cannot be processed until after Election Day. Processing these ballots — which account for as much as a quarter of all ballots cast — creates a bottleneck I like to call 'the pig in the python effect.' It prevents counties from doing other tasks they need to do to certify the results."
That said, counting has been speeding up considerably. According to Alexander's organization, the overall share of ballots counted within seven days of the election jumped from 72% in 2022 to 93% in the June primary. L.A. County is moving to around-the-clock counting this cycle, in a move election officials say will help increase voter confidence in the results.
