pamela federman

@pfed.bsky.social

[Anthony Emerson❤️🌲🦞🇾🇪🌹 @AnthonyMEmerson]

This is a bigger scandal than anything that’s been reported about Graham Platner btw

[George Proust @GeorgeProust]

16 bases were destroyed in 2 days.

Trump's team hid that information for 9 weeks.

Most Americans still don't know this basic fact.

[Zachary Donnini @ZacharyDonnini]

CA Governor’s Race: Where things stand

At this point, I view Steve Hilton to be clearly favored.

The cleanest way to frame the race is this: if VoteHub’s current turnout estimates are right, and if late mail in every county keeps breaking the way it has so far, Steyer would win the remaining ballots by 4.2 points. This would still leave Hilton winning by 2.0 points, with a roughly 192,000-vote margin. Steyer needs to win the remaining trail by 11.1 points to catch him.

There are reasons to think the trail could keep improving for Steyer. In major counties with at least 20,000 mail ballots counted, his day-to-day improvement against Hilton has generally moved left:

Los Angeles: +13.3, +15.3, +18.7
San Diego: +13.2, +16.7
Orange: +10.0, +11.4, +8.4
San Bernardino: +5.7, +2.7
Riverside: -1.2, +4.7, +2.2
Santa Clara: +13.8, +15.0, +16.0
San Francisco: +15.2, +19.2
Solano: +9.5, +10.0, +10.2
San Mateo: +14.7, +15.2

So yes, the trail is generally getting better for Steyer. But it is not getting better fast enough in the major counties to make it easy to believe the remaining vote will be 7 points bluer than what we have seen over the last few days.

Our current fairway estimate does assume some continued leftward movement. Even then, Steyer wins the rest of the trail by about 6.7 points, which would still leave Hilton ahead by 1.4 points.

So how did Steyer get into this position?

He is doing well in the trail San Diego, Los Angeles County, and the Bay Area. But he is struggling almost everywhere else. The biggest weakness for Democrats, including Steyer, has been in the Central Valley and Inland Empire.

That was somewhat expected in the early vote, given that these are heavily Hispanic areas where Biden performed well in 2020 but where Democrats slipped in 2024. But the late-mail trail has also been weaker than Democrats needed, and when it has improved, much of the gain has gone to Becerra rather than Steyer.

Steyer is getting what he needed from his strongest regions, with the Bay Area and Los Angeles moving even further in his direction. But he is not getting enough from Hispanic-heavy areas, which means the big urban counties would have to shift unrealistically far left to make up the gap.

The completed or nearly completed counties are also not especially encouraging for Democrats. Republicans are at 36.3% in Solano, which is almost fully reported, compared to Trump’s 33.7% there in 2020. In Kings, Republicans are at 59.7%, compared to Trump’s 54.9% in 2020.

That is limited data, but it suggests California may not be on track to match Biden-era Democratic margins across much of the state. It is hard to see Democrats matching Biden’s numbers in places like Kern if they are running closer to Harris in Kings.

That said, primaries can produce weird turnout effects. Democrats really need the more white, liberal parts of the state, which Solano and Kings are not, to show extremely strong late Democratic turnout.

For Steyer, that means tomorrow’s numbers likely need to move meaningfully left: Los Angeles above 20, Orange closer to 15, Santa Clara around 18, and similar improvements elsewhere.

Why does Steyer still have a chance?

Because California late mail can be volatile, and the remaining vote in the biggest urban counties with more White liberals could still get substantially bluer.

Turnout isn't certain. Steyer would love some eventual turnout in blue areas to be higher than my estimates right now, but it isn't likely.

But the core issue remains: Steyer is not doing well enough in the trail outside places like San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, and Los Angeles. And we have a couple completed counties coming in where it doesn't look great for Dems. He still has a path, but it is narrow, and Hilton remains clearly favored.

One note on turnout estimates: Giving it a glance, VoteHub’s current estimate is a mix of DDHQ and the AP. We are closer to DDHQ in assuming roughly 40,000–50,000 more outstanding Alameda ballots than AP, while we are closer to AP on total expected turnout, at about 9.56 million statewide.

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@WCK604 @TheChadReinhard @ZacharyDonnini A few states have moved toward ID-number matching instead: Georgia, Texas, and Virginia changed their laws since 2020 to require an ID number or the last four digits of the SSN on the envelope, while North Carolina and Arkansas require a copy of photo ID inside the envelope.

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@WCK604 @TheChadReinhard @ZacharyDonnini The National Conference of State Legislatures (a nonpartisan legislative research body —) counts 32 states that conduct signature verification on returned absentee/mail ballots. That’s nearly 2/3 of the states.

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@WCK604 @TheChadReinhard @ZacharyDonnini A lot of votes are never tallied because they fail signature validation. Nearly all of the rejected ballots were probably legitimate votes. If you want to complain about something that where this process fails.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

Trump promised not to “touch” Medicaid.

Now he is cutting it by $1 trillion and taking health care away from patients with cancer, AIDS and other life-threatening diseases to pay for tax breaks to the top 1% and his wealthy campaign contributors.

Unimaginable cruelty.

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@W10insider1 @GarrettHerrin You don’t know what you’re talking about. What takes so long is verifying every signature. A human being compares the signature on each ballot with the voter’s signature on his voter registration card. A time-consuming process that ensures the integrity of the vote.

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@TheChadReinhard @ZacharyDonnini You don’t know what you’re talking about. What takes so long is verifying every signature. A human being compares the signature on each ballot with the voter’s signature on his voter registration card. A time-consuming process that ensures the integrity of the vote.

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@MathewKheyfets @ZacharyDonnini Quite the opposite. What takes so long is verifying every signature. A human being compares the signature on the mailed or dropbox’d ballot witg the voter’s signature on his voter registration card. A time-consuming process but totally worth it because we have virtually no fraud.

[Hey, Dave! @davegreenidge57]

In less than 18 months, MAGA has managed to bring back measles. They defunded the Ebola monitoring program that likely resulted in an what is an emergent pandemic. Now, they’ve allowed the food supply to be contaminated by a deadly parasite not seen in the U.S. since 1966.

[Jerome Adams @JeromeAdamsMD]

The claim that we must slash U.S. childhood vaccinations to "align with peer nations" rests on a false premise. A STAT analysis shows the old U.S. schedule wasn't the extreme outlier officials claimed. And the new pared-down version (now protecting against just 11 diseases) actually covers fewer diseases than all but one of the 20 so-called peer countries cited as justification for the cuts. 🤯👇🏽https://t.co/NxXtFBCPTG

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@W10insider1 @GarrettHerrin Substitute “democracy” for “criminal” and you are spot on

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@jeffmac94 @VoteHub Liar

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@IlyaSomin Normal!

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@Bioutt736 @jrl_josh Voters. Many of us didn’t vote by mail until election day or the day before because we were waiting for the last-minute polls. Cal values the participation of every citizen in our democracy and wants to make voting is easy but safe. The safeguards are among the best in the nation

[pamela federman @pfed00]

@manbeerpool @VoteHub Paranoid nonsense

[The Green Dragon Tavern @greendragonhq]

Family wealth generated while holding office.

We are not angry enough about this.

[ProPublica @propublica]

New: Babies who don’t get the vitamin K shot are 81 times more likely to develop severe bleeding. In many cases, oxygen can’t reach their brains and blood pools around their skulls. Yet driven by misinformation, more parents are refusing the injection. https://t.co/CdX5i3SKZN

[Neil Stone @DrNeilStone]

Myocarditis after Covid vaccine

5 per million

Myocarditis after Covid infection

150 per million