Live Commentary
1:48pm Tuesday As this thread has dropped to fourth on the main page, I’m going to discontinue coverage. I wrote about California and Makerfield for The Conversation today.
10:23am Monday After trailing the right-wing Pratt by 30.0-20.3 on election night in the race for the second runoff position for LA Mayor, the left-wing Raman now leads Pratt by 27.1-26.7 with 83% in. Given the way late counting is behaving, Raman is virtually certain to make the runoff. Incumbent Bass has secured the first runoff position with 34.7%.
10:51am Sunday With 78% now in for LA mayor, it’s 34.8% Bass, 27.3% Pratt and 26.2% Raman. Raman is likely to pass Pratt and win the second runoff spot.
12:22pm With 68% counted statewide in California, Dem Becerra has overtaken Rep Hilton for first place in the gubernatorial primary, by 26.8% to 26.4% with 21.1% for Dem Steyer and 10.8% for Rep Hilton. Hilton had led by over two points. Steyer still has a chance to make the runoff instead of Hilton.
For Los Angeles Mayor, with 71% in, incumbent Bass has 35.0%, right-wing challenger Pratt 28.2% and left-wing challenger Raman 24.9%. Raman has been winning late batches by enough that she’s now the favourite to finish second and make the runoff.
In the special election for California’s first, with 71% in, Rep Gallagher has 61.1% and will be elected without a runoff. Two Dems combined have 37.1%, with the overall 62.1-37.1 Rep margin (25.0 points) matching Trump’s 2024 margin. The Rep margin will probably drop as more votes are counted.
9:39am Saturday With 66% now in for California’s sixth, Dem Pan takes the lead for the second runoff place from Rep Stansfield. Vote shares are now 25.4% for Rep turned ind Kiley, 22.8% Pan and 21.2% Stansfield, with Dems having the remaining votes. Given the trend in late counting, Pan is now virtually certain to make the runoff, and will be heavily favoured to win the November general election in this seat that was gerrymandered to favour Dems.
9:56am Friday In the UK, a new Survation poll of Makerfield gives Andy Burnham a 49-39 lead over Reform, with 8% for Restore and 1-2% for the Greens, Lib Dems and Tories. Burnham’s lead is up from 43-40 in the mid-May Survation poll.
10:38am Thursday Dems could have a problem in California’s sixth, which was gerrymandered to favour Dems. With 48% in, Rep turned ind Kiley leads with 26.8%, followed by Rep Stansfield with 22.2%. The rest of the field is all Dems, but the leading Dem Pan has 21.2%, which means he will miss the runoff if the current result holds. The two counties that have the large majority of votes in this seat won’t report new votes until Saturday AEST.
3:18pm The California results now are unlikely to change until we get a large amount of late counting. So I’ll adjourn this live blog for now.
2:50pm Dems may miss an opportunity to gain the 40th federal district. Two Rep incumbents were drawn into this one district by gerrymandering. With 46% in, Rep Calvert has 35.5%, Rep Kim 20.4%. The remaining vote is nearly all Dems, but the lead Dem has 16.4%. On current counting, this will be a Rep vs Rep general election.
2:26pm For Los Angeles mayor, with 47% in, incumbent Karen Bass has 36.6%, right-wing challenger Spencer Pratt 30.0% and left-wing challenger Nithya Raman 20.3%. Even if Raman beats Pratt on late counting, Bass should win the general easily.
2:16pm For California governor, with nearly all counties reporting and 47% counted overall, it’s 26.7% Rep Hilton, 25.9% Dem Becerra, 19.7% Dem Steyer and 11.2% Rep Bianco. Steyer needs a big shift from late counting to make the top two, otherwise it will be Becerra vs Hilton in the general.
2:03pm In California 1, with 47% in (results from all counties in this district), Rep Gallagher has 61.3%. Reps overall lead Dems here by 62.5-36.6. On current counting, that’s a small swing to Reps from the 2024 pres election here, but Dems may perform better on post-election day counting.
1:31pm In the California 1 special, with 36% in, Rep Gallagher has 59.6% and is likely to win an overall majority avoiding a runoff in two months.
1:28pm Los Angeles county has reported. With 31% overall in, 27.0% Becerra, 25.6% Hilton, 20.2% Steyer and 9.8% Bianco. The top two qualify for the November general election.
1:23pm With 17% in, 28.9% Hilton, 25.0% Becerra, 18.2% Steyer and 11.7% for Rep Bianco. Nothing yet from Los Angeles.
1:14pm With an estimated 6% in for California governor, Rep Hilton leads with 27.7%, followed by Dems Becerra at 24.5% and Steyer at 17.3%. Urban centres are not yet included.
11:07am Early mail votes will be released soon after polls close in California at 1pm. Votes cast on election day will report later today, but that will only take the California count to about half complete. The New York Times suggests it will take ten days for the count to be 95% complete.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
Polls close at 1pm AEST today for California’s jungle primary. At a jungle primary all candidates compete together, and the top two, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.
The main interest will be the California gubernatorial primary. In April it was plausible that Republicans Hilton and Bianco could both advance. But Democrats Becerra and Steyer have both surged in the polls. The Fiftyplusone aggregate has Hilton at 22.2%, Becerra 21.6%, Steyer 19.4% and Bianco well behind with 11.6%. At least one Democrat will advance, avoiding a strongly Democratic state having an all-Republican gubernatorial general election.
Other contests in California will use the same system. If two Democrats or two Republicans advance to the runoff in a competitive seat, that’s a disaster for the opposite party. The first round of a special election in California’s first federal seat will also be today, with a runoff on August 4 if nobody wins a majority, after the Republican incumbent died in January.
At the 2024 presidential election, California’s first voted for Donald Trump by 61.1-36.1 over Kamala Harris, a 24.9-point margin. This seat has been gerrymandered to favour Democrats, with the new lines giving Harris a 12.2-point margin, but these lines won’t apply to the special election. Two Republicans and two Democrats are standing, with Republican Gallagher likely to dominate the Republican vote and win an outright majority.
Republicans currently hold a 218-212 majority in the House of Representatives with four other vacancies. The jungle primary for Democrat Swalwell’s California 14 is on June 16 with a runoff if needed on August 18 after Swalwell resigned in April. A jungle primary will occur in Georgia 13 on July 28 with a runoff if needed on August 25 after the Democratic incumbent died in April.
I wrote for The Conversation on May 15 about two recent court decisions that will result in the federal House map for the 2026 midterm elections favouring Republicans. On April 30, the US Supreme Court allowed southern states to axe their Black seats and on May 8 the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a Democratic 10-1 gerrymander of Virginia’s 11 House seats, despite this gerrymander passing at a referendum.
As a result of these decisions, Democrats need to win the House popular vote by at least four points to have a good chance to win a House majority at November’s midterm elections. In Nate Silver’s aggregate of generic ballot polls, Democrats lead Republicans by 48.6-41.6, a 7.0-point margin. That’s the biggest lead for Democrats this cycle. Trump’s net approval in Silver’s aggregate has improved slightly to -19.0 from a low of -20.2 on May 19.
Democrats need four gains to control the Senate. On national polling, North Carolina and Maine should be gains while other Republican-held states need at least a double-digit Democratic margin to fall. Controversial Democratic and Republican nominees in Maine and Texas respectively could make Maine harder for Democrats and Texas easier.
UK: Can Andy Burnham win the Makerfield by-election?
After dire results for Labour at the May 7 Welsh and Scottish parliamentary elections and English local elections, there has been renewed pressure on PM Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is seen as the most likely challenger to Starmer, but he needs a seat in the House of Commons first.
On May 14, Labour MP Josh Simons resigned Makerfield to allow Burnham to become an MP if he wins the June 18 by-election. Starmer didn’t attempt to block Burnham, unlike for the February Gorton and Denton by-election. At the 2024 general election, Labour defeated the populist right Reform in Makerfield by 45.2-31.8 with 10.9% for the Conservatives, 6.8% Liberal Democrats and 4.4% Greens. But at the May local elections, Reform won 50% in the eight wards within Makerfield.
A small-sample Survation poll of Makerfield in mid-May gave Burnham a 43-40 lead over Reform, with 7% for Restore (another populist right party), 4% Lib Dems, 3% Greens and 2% Conservatives. In the Election Maps UK aggregate of national polls, Reform leads with 27.7%, followed by Labour at 19.3%, the Conservatives 18.1%, the Greens 14.0%, the Lib Dems 12.3% and Restore 2.9%. The Greens have slid from a high of 15.9% in early April.
Please note that this thread relates to US and UK politics — the open thread for general discussion is here.
I have a friend in San Francisco.
As well as the state wide and federal offices for the House (it’s an off year for the senate) he has votes for
State Senatecmember.
State House member.
A Judge
Member of the board of education
4 Ballot measures
There are no Board of Supervisor elections where he is but there are 2 in other parts of the city.
A friend in LA tells me he has even more things to vote for.
All will be counted electronically and provisional results available in hours.
Yet there are still parts of the state (looking at you Shasta County) who think hand counting is better even though it’s against state law they are still voting on a ballot measure to introduce it as well as one day elections and the virtual elimination of mail in voting.
Every time there is a Jungle Primary I get “Jungle Boogie” in my head.
LA Mayor race is interesting as it is pitting current mayor Karen Bass of the establishment side of the Democrats against Nithya Raman of the Los Angeles Democratic Socialists of America and Spencer Pratt, a reality TV “star” who seems to be backed by Republican aligned people. The last poll had them each on about 25% of vote. It had looked like the first two would be the two finalists until recently and either of them is likely to win against Pratt.
Josh Turek has won the Democratic Primary for Senate in Iowa. He is a member of the HoR and a former wheelchair basketballer. He was the establishment candidate against the more left Zach Wahls.
That Republican Fox News guy Hilton is leading with by 30000 votes with 47% votes counted.
In CD40(California )house jungle primary, 2 Republicans are leading in first 2 positions.
UK – Makerfield by-election
At this moment in time, Andy Burnham is the red hot favourite.
It’s a volatile political atmosphere atm, and that could all change on a dime, but right now I can see him getting >50%. Yet any other candidate and Labour would definitely lose easily to Reform even with Restore Britain taking e.g. 10% of the vote.
If Reform/Restore Britain don’t manage to turn it around with a better narrative than currently (so many errors strategically IMHO), or if they’re not secretly running much more of a blinder of a campaign than can be told via media from 200 miles away, then who’s splitting who’s votes will be shown to have been irrelevant.
But if it does end up a close race, then differential turnout could be massive.
I’m guessing these series of results haven’t been the best for the Dems in – of all places – California.
* LA Mayor Bass (Dem) has copped an 8% whack from 2022 (although she’ll go higher at the run-off)
* As for the gerrymandered district CD6, we’ve got two GOP aligned candidates coming in the Top 2.
Was there some sort of stuff up when they re-drew the boundaries to supposedly favour a Dem?
It doesn’t look like any of these results are particularly flash for the Dems.
Ven says:
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 2:00 pm
In CD40(California )house jungle primary, 2 Republicans are leading in first 2 positions.
===========
That wasn’t a surprise though as I believe the district was gerrymandered in favour of the GOP.
Nadia, we need to wait for all results before drawing conclusions on how well or badly the Dems did. Currently, only 56% has been counted statewide. I’ve seen comments that the late mail is likely to be much better for Dems than what’s been counted so far.
Fair enough. I tend to be a bit of a gloom merchant.
Just feels a bit that the Dems have come off the boil in 2026, compared to 2025.
@nadia – as Adrian says, lets wait for more counting.
Regardless, even if the Democrats lose, it’s because the Republicans got the tactics right, more than a lesson about the national mood.
In a jungle primary, the Republicans did they right thing. They ran two candidates, one of who pretended to be an independent.
The democrats got more votes (even on early counting), getting 51% to the R 49%.
Running 5 candidates in a jungle primary is a bad idea.
Democrats should have held a pre-primary to determine 1 or 2 candidates to run in the primary.
“2:26pm For Los Angeles mayor, with 47% in, incumbent Karen Bass has 36.6%, right-wing challenger Spencer Pratt 30.0% and left-wing challenger Nithya Raman 20.3%. Even if Raman beats Pratt on late counting, Bass should win the general easily.”
The left might not turn out for Bass. Pratt might win general!
Gerrymandering does not mean, as many mistakenly believe, rigging boundaries so your side wins districts by large safe margins. It means rigging boundaries so your side wins many seats by small margins while the other side has massive wins in fewer districts.
And so it can come unstuck by a small swing against you in the right places leading to a clatter of falling seats.
From these results, does it seem like the Republicans have done better than the polls and media have said about how badly they republicans are on the nose?
“Democrats should have held a pre-primary to determine 1 or 2 candidates to run in the primary.”
And how would this be organised (and paid for)?
At present the State AKA taxpayers pay for these primary and general elections.
Any pre primary primary would need to be administered by someone and paid for by someone. I don’t see any agreement for the government to fund pre primary primaries.
Any shortlisting by party officials would cause other issues.
That in some elections jungle primaries leads to two candidates from the same party being on the ballot is just part of the system.
Steelydan says:
Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 11:24 pm
From these results, does it seem like the Republicans have done better than the polls and media have said about how badly they republicans are on the nose?
************
Impossible to tell as there are still a considerable number of ballots to be counted and at present there is no data on where these ballots are from.
And it’s a fact that many of the republican leaning areas are smaller so are quicker to report fuller numbers so distort the current figures (which shouldn’t be called results because they haven’t been certified)
Later today (Thursday) Counties are required to report the number of outstanding ballots they have to count and these numbers will be reported by the CA Secretary of State on the elections website.
But San Francisco is reporting it has 122k left to count of which 116k are vote by mail.
This is approx the same number as ballots already counted. And will likely lean heavily DEM.
Los Angels will have considerably more votes left to count but I can’t see actual numbers yet
And right on cue, Chump says it’s rigged.
Easy fix to some of this, ranked choice voting
In California, a Latino is already a Senator. Another could become the Governor and African-American woman is LA Mayor but could be re-elected as Mayor.
@Chris C – The Republican Party followed some process to have agree which two candidates would run, and agree on which of the two was going to quit the party to run as an independent.
Have all 5 announce their candidacy, wait for public opinion polling, and then make an offer they can’t refuse to the people running 3rd, 4th and 5th to sit down. Free
Burnham will win Makerfield fairly easily, not just because most voters there want Starmer gone and know Burnham can do that, but because the recycled Farage candidate (from 2024) is an ugly misogynist. He’s alienated most of half of the electorate by calling women who have an abortion “cowards”.
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/reform-candidate-for-makerfield-by-election-calls-abortion-cowardly-murder
https://dp.electionresults.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status
At the time of posting there are an estimated 3.6 million unprocessed ballots in California
700k of which are in Los Angeles.
In MAGA prone Shasta County the election for a county clerk (who runs elections) and a ballot initiative on how elections are run is getting interesting.
The current clerk appointed by the board of supervisors and has a MAGA election denier history is losing by 15 points, however the ballot initiative that actually includes several illegal requirements and will be struck down soon enough is actually in the lead by 8%.
Go figure as these are from the same cohort of counted ballots.
CNN
Poll numbers of US politics
https://share.google/n1inYekUfVIJz8i7X
With 60% in, 27.2% Hilton, 26.0% Becerra, 20.2% Steyer
Steelydan:
“From these results, does it seem like the Republicans have done better than the polls and media have said about how badly they republicans are on the nose?”
Being a “jungle primary” there were multiple candidates from both parties, but particularly so on the Democrat side. This resulted in a lot of fragmentation of the Dem / left / progressive vote, making the GOP candidates appear to have done better. eg: Steve Hilton leading the governor race over two Democrats. This will go to a runoff election between Hilton (R) and Becerra (D). Unfortunately the fragmentation has resulted in a couple of districts where the dilution was so great that the general election will be a GOP v GOP contest (the Dems shut themselves out by spreading the vote too thin). However, when the general election happens in November the Governor’s race and almost every other district will be Dem v. GOP, and the previously fragmented left vote will coalesce around the Dem candidates.
California is a Dem stronghold, and will remain so after November.
Why can’t California count?
The Golden State needs to bring its vote counting into the 21st century.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-cant-california-count
Ven says:
Friday, June 5, 2026 at 6:35 pm
With 60% in, 27.2% Hilton, 26.0% Becerra, 20.2% Steyer
*******
And the Friday night (US) count now shows that Becerra is in the lead.
3 million unprocessed votes and that will likely change again. Still half a million to count in LA for example.
Associated Press
Xavier Becerra advances to general election in race for California governor
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/5/800050965/stateandlocal/xavier-becerra-advances-to-general-election-in-race-for-california-governor/
“. . .because the recycled Farage candidate (from 2024) is an ugly misogynist.”
He’s not ugly, and I seriously doubt he’s a misogynist. He’s a working-class guy (ex-Veteran and NHS worker) who’s not as clever as higher class people at hiding his comments. To which it should be added they weren’t ‘his’ comments, but he was foolish enough to add his ‘endorsement’, which was before he was in politics and for which he expresses regret albeit
Although crude, this is the usual MSM hit job on anybody more right-wing than left-wing (!).
Still, Rob Kenyon is not a formidable candidate and – from my distance – it looks like Reform aren’t playing the right campaign to beat Andy Burnham (tackling him head-on, agreeing with him that this is a ‘turning point’ by-election and raising the stakes generally, but by highlighting that ‘nice Mr Burnham’ will have at least as bad policies as Keir Starmer for Makerfield/the UK and is as much of a flip-flopper – and further that because Andy is ‘nicer’ than Starmer he might succeed in his ‘bankrupt’ policies more than Labour under Starmer so he’s a big threat. . . etc.).
Or – the short version – they should be making it ‘Reform vs. Labour’ and far less of ‘local Rob’ vs. ‘local Andy’.
Andy Burnham has been polishing his political chops and media skills his entire career, never having had a real job outside of politics – and he’s good at retail politics. Even in traditionally Labour-friendly territory like Manchester, you don’t win re-election as the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester with c. 2/3 of the vote in the year 2024 (yes Labour were still in opposition which helped, but they were far from popular and got sub-50% in Greater Manchester at the corresponding General Election).
If Burnham somehow loses Makerfield from this position of strength, it would be truly remarkable for British politics.
idk who Reform should have chosen who’d have been better than Rob Kenyon – who did on the face of it, do very well for Reform at the last GE (one of their top 10 results I believe) and had just been elected as councillor last month – AND still a local candidate.
Matt Goodwin’s views would be far more acceptable in Makerfield than Gorton & Denton (hint: he’s not a fan of the ‘Islam invasion’), but his local connection would be tenuous at best. This understandably would have ruled him out. With hindsight (now knowing the reports of Rob Kenyon’s past social media activities that were made such a big thing of), Goodwin would probably have done better even without the clear local connection. He would have been excellent at dismantling Burnham’s positions and setting things out clearly with the media and in debates. Although much more middle class than much of Makerfield/Reform’s typical support, those people don’t tend to be too snobby about who’s speaking up for them if they like that they finally feel ‘heard’.
There’s a lot of brewing, very deep, dissatisfaction amongst the lower classes in the UK that they’ve been betrayed by a proper Brexit not being implemented – and now more and more talk of rejoining the EU, either by the front door or the back.
And immigration is now a far, far more mainstream issue than it was in 2016. Back then, Leave beat Remain largely due to the ‘Take back control’ desire although immigration obviously was a key factor for many.
@BT Says
He is a misogynist. By his own words and not just by liking someone else’s social media posts.
As to veteran he never served as a fully enlisted soldier. He was a volunteer in the territorial army and never saw combat.
He’s not even been a plumber for all that long either.
This isn’t about being anti working class but about scrutiny of someone who wants to sit in Parliament and legislate and debate issues.
Reform needs to improve its candidate vetting.
I still can’t get over they selected a dead woman as their candidate for Mayor of Croydon.
It wasn’t like she died days before the selection meeting and didn’t know. She’d been dead for six months.
“Survation poll of Makerfield gives Andy Burnham a 49-39 lead over Reform, with 8% for Restore and 1-2% for the Greens, Lib Dems and Tories. Burnham’s lead is up from 43-40 in the mid-May Survation poll.”
Burnham can be very chipper with this poll.
Any silver lining for Reform might be that the first poll was before the negative coverage on Rob Kenyon and the second poll entirely afterwards. In spite of that, and Labour throwing the kitchen sink and then some at this campaign, Burnham has not completely run away with it.
Furthermore, any Restore Britain supporters who were in any doubt as to their party’s chances before will reluctantly conclude – to the extent that they follow opinion polls – that Rebecca Shepherd doesn’t have any chance. That doesn’t mean they will automatically switch tactically to Reform, as they are quite Puritan in what they believe and there’s bad blood between the two parties, but some will switch.
There’s 2 (main) possibilities from here:
1. The ‘Vote Andy to change Labour’ bandwagon is relentless and the trend carries Burnham downhill all the way with 55%+ of the vote (and an easy route into 10 Downing Street).
2. Rob Kenyon’s VI was at a low point in this poll due to negative reaction to the reports about him. Reform’s campaign is also quietly good. Support from ‘natural supporters’ that was a bit more in the middle and/or has some liking for Andy Burnham, drifts back to Reform.
If 1 above, then Reform are ‘toast’ regardless of unknown factors.
If 2 above, then Labour are still favourites but Reform have just a chance based on a) Differential turnout; and, to a lesser extent*, on b) what Restore Britain supporters do. (*I think their vote share will hold up, but Reform still have a chance in spite of that.)
There’s also the possibility that the Survation polls have been inaccurate – constituency polling is not easy, especially for by-elections – but FWIW I think they’re probably reasonably on the money. They’re very plausible.
What exactly are the differences between Reform and Restore, anyway? Are there some big policy differences between the two parties, or is it more a personality clash / anti-Farage thing on Restore’s part?
Restore Britain are less compromising and, in addition to the personality clash, they still talk a lot more about immigration and, in particular, deportation, which they see as a point of difference. They consider reform under Nigel Farage to have watered down a lot of their original positions as they’ve been edging closer to getting into government and heading towards the direction of what they call the uniparties, i.e., the old Lab-Lib-Con parties.
It’s an interesting mix because Rupert Lowe states himself and Restore Britain to be the true conservatives, and that other parties have just moved away to the left, whereas Reform has picked up a lot more ex-Labour votes, and some of their leading spokespeople are especially scathing about Conservatives, perhaps rightly seeing them as a threat from a political point of view. That’s why you hear them talk a lot about the Boriswave of immigration), and Zia Yusuf only ever says terrible things about the Conservatives – more than he does about Labour, even though ideologically he is closer to the Conservative Party.
Allegedly, it will take one of the two party leaders to “move on” before unity between them could be achieved, which is what the majority of Reform supporters actually want – and probably a good chunk of Restore Britain’s as well, but they do feel sore about Nigel Farage and how he treated Rupert Lowe.
Thanks, BT.