California 2020 Election Results

Ballot Measures, March 3, 2020

California voters decided 1 statewide ballot measure on March 3, 2020.

Ballot measures

General Election, November 3, 2020

California held its general election on November 3, 2020, deciding 100 legislative seats. No chamber changed party control.

Highlights

• Democrats kept their two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers and added to the one in the Senate, while the night's biggest swings came on the ballot measures, where voters sided with business against laws the Legislature had passed.
• Both Senate pickups came at the expense of Orange County-area Republican incumbents. Josh Newman (D) beat Ling Ling Chang (R) by about 3 points in Senate District 29, reclaiming the seat he had lost in a 2018 recall over his vote for the state gas tax. In Senate District 37, Dave Min (D) unseated John Moorlach (R) by about 2 points, the kind of ticket-splitting that also elected Republican Michelle Steel to Congress.
• Republicans' one gain was settled in the March primary. Five Democrats split the vote in the top-two primary for Assembly District 38, so both candidates who advanced were Republicans, and Suzette Valladares (R) beat Lucie Volotzky (R) for the Democratic-held seat.
• Overall, 3 seats changed hands, and Chang and Moorlach were the only incumbents to lose. Outside groups concentrated their legislative spending on about 15 candidates, most of whom won. Beyond the flips, 2 races finished inside two points, with an incumbent holding on in each: Cottie Petrie-Norris (D) in Assembly District 74 over Diane Dixon (R) and Scott Wilk (R) in Senate District 21 over Kipp Mueller (D).
• Voters passed 5 of 12 propositions and rejected the other 7:
  • Proposition 22 kept app-based drivers classified as independent contractors after the companies spent more than $200 million, the most on any measure in state history.
  • By rejecting Proposition 25, voters overturned the Legislature's law replacing cash bail with risk assessments.
  • Progressive measures failed: Proposition 15 (market-value taxes on commercial property), Proposition 16 (repealing the affirmative-action ban), Proposition 21 (rent control), and Proposition 18 (primary voting at 17). Prop 15 lost in what a leading opponent called the most favorable political climate its backers could have asked for.
  • Voters approved Proposition 17 (voting rights for people on parole), Proposition 19 (property-tax transfers), Proposition 24 (consumer privacy), and Proposition 14 (stem cell bonds), and rejected Proposition 20 (tougher sentencing) and Proposition 23 (dialysis clinics).

Legislature

• Assembly (80 seats): 60 D, 18 R, 2 other or vacant before the election, 60 D, 19 R, 1 other or vacant after; control stayed with Democrats.
• Senate (40 seats): 29 D, 11 R before the election, 31 D, 9 R after; control stayed with Democrats.

Legislative races

Ballot measures