Early Election Night Leads for California GOP Candidates May Not Hold, Experts Warn

Southern California voters should brace for a familiar pattern this election season: early results favoring Republican candidates that gradually shift toward Democrats as California’s famously slow vote count drags on for days or even weeks.

This pattern, commonly called a “red mirage” or “blue shift,” isn’t evidence of fraud or vote manipulation, despite repeated claims to the contrary from President Donald Trump and his allies. Rather, election experts say it’s simply a byproduct of how and when different voters tend to cast ballots, combined with California’s lengthy ballot-counting timeline.

The phenomenon has drawn renewed attention as the Trump administration ramps up scrutiny of California’s election systems, setting the stage for potential disputes over results in races up and down the ballot, including contests that could help decide which party controls Congress.

A pattern with history

The term gained widespread recognition following the 2020 presidential election, when early returns showed Trump ahead in several battleground states before Joe Biden pulled ahead as mail ballots were tallied. Trump’s unfounded claims that the election was stolen — claims that courts and investigators have thoroughly debunked — helped fuel the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

California has experienced similar shifts in its own elections. In 2018, four Republican congressional candidates held apparent leads on election night only to lose once all ballots were counted. More recently, in this June’s Los Angeles mayoral primary, Republican former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt appeared to be outperforming progressive City Council member Nithya Raman in initial returns. Raman ultimately overtook him and advanced to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the general election.

That reversal prompted Trump to label the results “rigged,” with some of his supporters alleging Democratic foul play — accusations that election officials and nonpartisan experts say have no basis in fact.

The math behind the mirage

Context matters here. California is home to roughly 23 million registered voters — more people than live in the 16 least populous U.S. states combined. Los Angeles County alone has nearly 6 million registered voters, making it the largest county in the nation.

And while Democrats dominate statewide, California actually has a substantial number of Republican voters. In fact, Los Angeles County cast more raw votes for Trump in 2020 than any other county in America, despite Biden winning there by a wide margin.

The key to understanding the mirage lies in voting habits. In the June mayoral primary, Republican voters in Los Angeles tended to return their ballots earlier than Democrats did. With a crowded, competitive field of Democratic candidates running for governor on the same ballot, many liberal voters reportedly held onto their ballots longer, weighing their options before mailing them in.

The result: Republican votes made up a larger share of the earliest returns, creating a temporary illusion of GOP strength that faded as more Democratic ballots were processed. Election officials expect similar dynamics could play out in competitive races across the state this cycle — meaning the rest of the country may again be left waiting on California to settle control of Congress.

Why California counts so slowly

There’s no sugarcoating it — California’s vote-counting process is one of the slowest in the nation, and that extended timeline creates fertile ground for distrust.

“It is undermining voter confidence. It’s opening the door to election mis- and disinformation,” said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, during a briefing last week. “It’s leading to threats and criticism of our election staff… and it shortens the time required for an orderly transition of power.”

Several factors contribute to the delay. Since the pandemic, California has mailed ballots to every registered voter, and mail ballots simply take longer to process than those cast in person. Many voters also wait until Election Day itself to return them.

The state further allows a seven-day grace period for mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and still count. California also offers the nation’s longest window for voters to “cure” ballot issues — such as mismatched signatures — giving voters until the day before Thanksgiving this year to fix any problems, according to Alexander.

Counties are only required to count ballots for a minimum of six hours daily and aren’t obligated to work weekends or holidays. Many go beyond that minimum, Alexander noted, but staffing levels, overtime budgets and available workspace — all shaped by local funding — determine how quickly any given county can move.

State lawmakers have taken some steps to accelerate the process, including allocating $29 million this year to help counties purchase additional ballot-counting equipment and hire more staff. Even so, Alexander cautioned that some tight races may remain unresolved for weeks, since counties have up to 30 days to formally certify results.

Ben Gips, with the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, which works to counter authoritarian threats, said voters should resist efforts to weaponize these delays to cast doubt on an election system that is functioning properly — just slowly.

“These delays really can add fuel to that strategy, and it can make it much easier to do that deception,” Gips said.

Original source: CalMatters