- My SAT and ACT scores were below average.

I never go to class.

I got a speeding ticket last week and I leave the toilet seat up after I pee.

- Vote for me.

- Two more years.

- Honestly, compared to the general discourse, like that might endear him to some people.

- Totally.

And also, okay, they're dunking on him.

He - Won.

- Y didn't run any of this in a mailer.

Like it's like that's on you.

- Hey everyone, from KQED in San Francisco, this is Political Breakdown.

I'm Scott Shaefer.

Today on The Breakdown, a tsunami of anti-Proposition 40 ads sank the so-called billionaire tax.

One of the takeaways from a campaign that divided Democrats and their allies in organized labor and underscored the growing power of tech money in our elections.

Plus, is the era of voter vitriol in the Bay Area over as incumbents and their ballot measures get solid votes of approval.

Joining me are my KQED colleagues from the politics desk, Marisa Lagos and Guy Marzorati.

Hey you two.

- Hey, - Hey.

- Well, let's begin with a little bit of news.

The election, of course, statewide and nationally was devastating for Republicans and we've seen one head role today.

Corinne Rankin, the chair of the Republican Party in California is stepping down, might be replaced from a, by a Republican from Orange County who actually lost his reelection bid, Tony Strickland.

What, this is not a job that you'd really want, I would think, given the state of the Republican party.

What does success even look like?

- I mean, this has been, what, a 20-year slide for Republicans in this state where we have just seen over and over again Democrats outperform them.

And you know, looking at the numbers now, I think we're in a spot where Democrats could have some 97 out of 120 legislative seats.

I mean, it is a, a, you know, a shellacking as President Obama termed it back in the day.

Look, I think that in some ways, to your point, the head of the California Republican Party is in a very unenviable situation.

You know, Corinne's predecessor, Jessica Milan Patterson, I think came to the job with a lot of ideas and, you know, energy.

I don't think Corinne came in quite as sort of bullish about what they could do.

But yeah, it doesn't look good.

And, and it's, and it's getting worse by the day.

I mean, you have a, an election where two legislative leaders on the Republican side might lose their own seats.

- I mean, our friends at Politico did a great rundown this morning of just some great quotes, Republicans laying out the task ahead.

I think Carl de Mile called it the job being the captain of the Titanic going forward.

One thing it points to, and one thing that I didn't hear any of those Republicans say is, this is about Trump.

The party celebrated wins in California in 2024 in which they were really riding a national wave towards Trump, and they suffered in this election when the national wave went against Trump.

Some of these assembly seats, there's very little that candidates are doing on a state assembly level to distinguish themselves.

You are really subject to whatever the national wins are.

And in 2024, Republicans in California won assembly seats that Trump had lost by 20 points in 2020.

Well, now they're losing assembly seats that Trump had won by 20 points.

So there, in a wave like this, you're like the sea turtle.

The fins are in, you're in the shell, and you're kind of just floating with the tide.

- Well, and some of these races too, it almost seems like just having a D or an R, that was it.

That's all voters needed to know.

I mean, there's an assembly race in the Central Valley, the Assembly Republican leader.

- Hipolito watch.

- So tell us about this 28-year-old Hipolito Cerros.

- Yeah.

I mean, we talked about it a little bit last week.

This is one we're watching because he had run a campaign against Ali Macedo, the Republican leader in the state assembly without spending a dollar.

And he's now leading in that race.

- I had to request to follow him on Twitter because his profile's locked.

- His profile's locked in probably because some of his old tweets have been resurfacing.

- Maybe that's a new development.

- And Republicans have been mocking some of them.

Look, he was a young guy.

He said some kind of wild stuff on Twitter.

Nothing I've seen is like - Not even that wild.

- I mean, - Come on compared to some of the samples.

- Yeah, - Go ahead.

I don't even do a dramatic reading.

My SAT and ACT scores were below average.

I never go to class.

I got a speeding ticket last week and I leave the toilet seat up after I pee.

- Vote for me.

- Two more - Years.

- Honestly, compared to the general discourse, that might endear him to some people.

- Totally.

And also, okay, they're dunking on him.

He won.

You didn't run any of this in a mailer.

It's like that's on you.You're saying this guy's so unqualified or whatever, but he's beating the Republican leader.

- Let me ask you this, Scott.

Do you think that Republicans would have a better chance if they were more willing to unsort of hinge themselves to national Republicans?

Because I think in some of these districts, there are a lot of people who would like to hear a more conservative message, fiscally especially, and there's a lot to attack Democrats.

- Absolutely.

I mean, the demise of Republicans in California predates Trump by decades.

So you can't blame him for everything.

I mean, they haven't won a statewide election since 2006.

But if you look at David Valadeo in the Central Valley, a district right next to this one we were just talking about, the assembly district, Guy, you ran some numbers.

It looks like he lost by the biggest margin to Randy Viegas, a young guy from the Tulare school board.

He lost by the largest margin of - Who had posted that, but that's an incredible stat.

- Yeah.

And so you have to think that Hipolito Cerros maybe benefited because that overlap.

So some of the momentum maybe that he got also accrued his advantage.

But to your question, I just don't know.

I mean, California and nationally, but especially in California, I don't know how you rebrand the Republican Party at this point because the history is so deep, the animosity is so bad.

But I agree with you.

I mean, there is definitely a market for fiscal responsibility.

Maybe moderate Democrats in Sacramento kind of take that - Position.

- I mean, - Look at something like the voter ID measure, which in the spring when it was just sort of a theoretical idea, like do you think more people should show ID at the polls?

It was a hard yes.

Not a hard yes.

It was pretty split, right?

Within a few months, that gets tied to Trump and his national campaign and it goes down in flames.

I just do feel like they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I will be interested to see if a Tony Strickland comes into that role.

Does he have more new ideas on how to really differentiate themselves and maybe just sort of focus on issues that people actually care more about?

- I don't think the decoupling is possible.

- Yeah.

Maybe not.

- I think even if you look in some of these assembly races, there were Republicans who tried to make district specific votes.

Jeff Gonzalez in Imperial County broke with the party on data center regulations because that was a big issue in the Imperial Valley.

Greg Wallace, Republican who had won a couple tough races in Palm Springs, he voted with Democrats to strengthen California's ban on conversion therapy.

So there's instances where clearly these folks were thinking my district is unique, but in a wave like this, it didn't matter.

- Well, you mentioned Jeff Gonzalez down in the Imperial Valley.

He lost.

And Marisa, you were down there this past week talking to the winner.

Her name is Ida Obeso Martinez.

She's a nurse practitioner.

She was on political breakdown with you just on Tuesday.

Tell us a little bit about her and how she managed to defeat this incumbent Republican.

- Yeah.

- Well, I think - And just, excuse me.

I think she's the first woman to ever represent the Imperial Valley in the legislature.

- Well, she's definitely the first person from Imperial to represent that district too, because it's a kind of big district that goes up to the Coachella Valley.

And I think often we've seen candidates from that more like Indio-Coachella area.

But yeah, I think this is also an example of... I mean, she's a great candidate in the sense that she is a part of that community.

She's a nurse practitioner.

She sees thousands and thousands of patients every year.

So she knows people really well.

But she's not deep in the weeds on policy, right?

When I tried to push her on something, she really demurred.

We saw this on the campaign trail too.

To me, that says that as much as Republicans are being sort of punished for the R next to their name, and you're like this Democrats are also benefiting, right?

Because I do think Gonzalez and she on some issues were not that far apart.

Now I also think there's some other things.

I mean, I had lunch with her campaign manager and we were talking about some of the nuts and bolts that we never talk about on this show or that we don't talk about as pundits is constituent services.

Do you have an office that people can walk into and get help at?

Do people feel like when they call you as a constituent, the call is returned?

Those things matter.

They felt like that was a - Weakness - For - They saw that as a weakness for Gonzalez in their campaign.

They said that he had moved one of his offices to make it less accessible, things like that.

I'm sure he would have another side to that, but if that is something that you can really sort of hit on, it's not that people I think are coming up to her and going, "What's your 10 point plan for saving Medi-Cal?"

They're saying, "Do you want to save Medi-Cal?"

- Yeah.

And I think your point on constituent services is right on.

I mean, I think it's really undervalued and underappreciated because that's really where constituents come in contact with the member, whether it's their Congress, Assembly, Senate.

- It's just like those district-specific bills that we all ignore in Sacramento, that stuff really matters.

- Well, and also healthcare was a big issue.

There's a lot of people down there and she's a nurse.

I mean, she has, I think, automatic credibility on the issue like that.

- 100%.

And I think in a year like this when healthcare was one of the main issues and when Republicans are yoked to the Trump cuts to Medicaid, it's very much like a sort of win-win for Democrats to have someone like that, who interestingly was backed by tech, but did not really ask for that support.

- Yeah.

On Monday, AP officially declared the Prop 40 lost the 5% wealth tax on billionaires, divided Democrats from each other and some of their friends in organized labor, given the strong anti-tech, anti-uber wealthy vibe throughout the election.

Marisa, what do you think is the significance of this going down here in California?

It was pretty close.

It was like, what, 48, 52, something like that?

- Yeah.

I think yes.

I mean, we knew heading into Tuesday that that was likely going to be the result.

And I think the just insane amount of money spent against it made a huge difference.

They blanketed the airwaves, your computer, everything, every time you turn on a screaming service.

Also, you had Newsom, Governor Gavin Newsom, Governor-elect Xavier Becerra, Planned Parenthood, the teachers associations all against it.

And the yes side, I think, only spent like $30 million.

Most of the money they spent throughout the entire campaign was just to qualify it.

So this was not a fair fight when it came before voters.

What I think is interesting is both sides, I think, are sort of claiming victory right now.

I think obviously the billionaires are breathing a sigh of relief.

The folks who though that this would really hurt Silicon Valley - - Those U-Hauls coming back from Reno.

- Yeah.

We're here, Sergei.

Bring it back.

We know you didn't really want to be in Reno anyway.

But also, I think for the Yes side, they were able to make this a national conversation.

I think we all expect that this conversation, maybe it's not exactly a wealth tax like this, but just the idea of trying to get at the sort of overall wealth of some of these billionaires is definitely something that Democrats, I think really across the spectrum are talking about when we talk about looking ahead to 2028.

So I don't know that this is as bad for the Yes side as it could have been, but it's not good for them either.

- Well, also, Dave Reagan, the union guy from the health union that promoted all this, there's been some criticism of him.

He didn't really pull together a solid coalition before it went on the ballot, but he says he's going to bring it back in 2028.

But doesn't Proposition 42, which Sergey Brin and his folks put on the ballot as kind of a poison pill in case Prop 40 passed, can you even - - Well yeah, I mean the voters - - The voters can do whatever they want.

- So they would have to undo 42 as well.

- Right.

I mean, I would assume that's how the measure would be written is like undo 42 and pass well tax.

Actually, okay, let's say this ends up at 52/48.

- It's not that bad for 400 million dollars.

- For a campaign that the yes side ran, I mean the no side ran a much better campaign, not just in funding, but they had the trusted messengers, they had a clear kind of argument they put forward voters.

I think you would argue 48% on a campaign that was kind of a mess divided amongst Democrats - - Run by a man who's maybe the most hated guy into the state.

- Yeah.

I mean that's a solid, just basically by the end, their idea was if you don't like billionaires, yes on 40.

And that got 48% of the vote.

So I think the question to me going forward is what does success look like for the YES Coalition?

Is it simply backfilling Medi-Cal cuts?

If Javier Becerra finds some way to do that as he said he would, is that the end of the conversation?

Is there a larger part of the coalition that is saying, no, the real goal of this is a wealth tax and finding a way to do that?

- Well, I think some of the analysis was a little confusing maybe or not very persuasive to get it passed.

I think the LAO said that this could cost the state about a billion dollars in revenue if people leave the state.

In addition, kind of a net net, maybe not as much of a benefit as the proponents were saying.

But I do wonder, like we talked before about Newsom was very much against it, Becerra was against it.

I mean, is there anything, does this sort of protect him in some way as he begins to run for president or the opposite?

- It protects his campaign account.

I think these billionaires are going to be ponying up if they see him as a viable candidate.

I mean, look, I think I agree with Guy though.

A five point race when you got out spent that much and when you had not just that money, but the real democratic establishment behind you, I don't think you can claim was the victory that the billionaires wanted, which is that they wanted this to be like the stake through the heart of the wealth tax idea.

And I just don't think that's going to happen.

- Yeah.

And I think the way it was written too, it gave opponents that was mostly for healthcare.

It was written by the healthcare union.

Teachers didn't like it.

And I think maybe if they tweaked the way it was written a little bit too, it would've taken away some of the - - It had an actual coalition.

And had a coalition.

Reagan did this by himself.

I think there's real policy arguments that actually a state wealth tax is not the best idea, right?

That would be far more effective at the national level.

I think what's interesting, like I sort of alluded to is I think this is opening up a conversation around our tax code in general that maybe will not go anywhere because God knows we never get things done at the national level.

But even before the vote happened, I was talking to folks on the left and in the center left and someone like Jim Kessler at Third Way who hated this tax and who really thinks that California goes too far in a lot of these things when he looks at the national kind of landscape was saying that he does think that some sort of tax conversation is going to be in the platform of every Democrat that runs in 2028.

So I think if anything, you do need to give Dave Reagan and SEIU HW credit for just putting this on the radar of so many people.

And I think that yeah, it would've been a different world if Newsom just hadn't weighed in or if they had had some more money to play with.

- But clearly they've tapped into anger about the super wealthy.

I mean, we saw Elon Musk spend hundreds of million dollars in Texas and go down to defeat.

And then just today we found the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang is out after several affairs, which could have an impact on the economy overall in California.

It's been really driving the AI economy here in San Francisco.

- He's also one of the closest tech CEOs to President Trump.

I think we've already seen a sort of retreat from Silicon Valley trying to sort of maybe rewrite some of their history around who they're lining up with politically.

So I think his fall from grace is both, yes, has practical effects within the AI space.

I mean, Nvidia is just this huge, huge bats above its weight in terms of the amount of chips they were selling and how important they were, especially when he was sitting next to the president at States.

- And he had a lot of contacts with some of these within the supply chain in Asia that I don't know that a new CEO can necessarily replicate right away.

I do think it's going to give the Democrats some fodder for investigations and oversight.

- Howard Lutnik.

- The commerce secretary was protecting them.

- Commerce Department didn't look the other way when there were flags about this company that this Chinese spy was working at.

And yeah, questions about Marco Rubio kind of raising issues.

Maybe another area where Rubio gets to distance himself if he actually decides to run in 2028.

- Better get off that ship quickly.

- It's definitely, I think it's kind of a hot mess for Silicon Valley.

- Well, let's pivot to, I don't know if better news is the right way to look into it, but look at it.

But Guy, you've been looking at how after years of recalls and incumbents being voted out and kind of voters being in a bad mood, cities in the wrong direction, going in the wrong direction, so on, that there seems to be like kind of a new era in Oakland - - Bay Area.

- In the Bay Area.

Talk about that and then maybe start in Oakland where Barbara Lee, the incumbent mayor, got a big victory reelected and also a ballot measure that she promoted.

- Yeah, no, I feel like it did feel like a change of eras in this election in the Bay Area.

We are in this moment from 2021 - ish to 2025 - ish where it was recalls, it was outsider candidates, the Luries, the Mahans winning, mayors getting voted out of office.

And then maybe just coinciding with the Valkyries parade, it just seemed like the mood changed where Barbara Lee won overwhelming reelection victory.

Voters gave her the keys for a strong mayor system.

Daniel Lurie won a strong mayor initiative amidst many ballot wins in San Francisco.

And for the first time, in about 15 years, you look across the three big cities in the Bay Area, not a single city elected official was voted out of office this year.

Wow.

This kind of stability that we really have not seen in recent elections.

And it's been something I've been fascinated with because there isn't a clear pivot point to when the mood changed and why.

There are things you can point to, crime is down, homelessness is down.

More voters say Oakland and San Francisco are on the right track.

But when that change actually happened and how it correlates to the data is kind of messy.

So I have a few different theories, but - - Well, and kudos to Barbara Lee.

I mean, she came in, it was a very tight election.

Sheng Thao was out.

She's now on trial.

And I don't know, I think maybe there were low expectations for her and she's really done a great job of stabilizing the city, bringing in new police chief.

They're now out of that oversight that they were under for so long.

And yeah, like you say, crime is down.

I mean, technology like drones and controversial, but the readers, the, what are they called?

Flock cameras.

All those things contributed to the crime rate going down, certainly here in San Francisco as well.

And that accrues to whoever's in charge and the mayor.

- I think both Lurie and Lee came in with, in different ways.

I think with Lurie, he was such an unknown quantity.

People who did not support him really didn't know what to expect.

I think with Lee, she was such a known quantity nationally that people, I think, were a little skeptical that she could step into this role.

And I think both of them have really overperformed.

Now, if you talk to any of our progressive friends in San Francisco, they are in a deep, deep depression right now.

They are very upset about Lurie's leadership, about the way that all of his ballot measures passed.

And I think part of that might speak to something we've been talking about, which is like, is the progressive streak here in San Francisco waning in part because it's just getting so much more expensive?

- Yeah.

It's interesting though that Lee, she ran as the progressive in that mayoral race, yet she seems to have a lot of voter support.

And on issues like crime, crime was trending down under London Bree.

- Some of this is just luck.

- Lurie takes office and those wrong track, right track numbers overnight change to the cities on the right track.

So that makes you think how much of this is voters' reactions to what's happening on the ground, how much is vibes.

And one thing I thought about that kind of era of voter vitriol in the Bay Area really neatly coincided with Trump being back in the White House.

- Oh, I though you were going to say the pandemic.

- No, but no, it was really like when Trump won again - - Everybody started to lay people.

- Is there something where people have their anger or their angst, it's suddenly directed towards Washington?

- At him instead of each other.

I think that's right.

I also think it speaks to like, sure, she ran as a progressive, Lurie ran as a moderate.

What does that mean on the ground level?

And I think this is something to watch in LA too, because when you're mayor, what really matters are the nuts and bolts.

Are you filling the potholes?

Do people feel safe?

Are they able to get their kids to school and work on a bus or on roads that work?

It's not really a partisan or philosophical divide if you can do the things right.

- Right.

And I think if you look at Lurie he's on social media, Instagram constantly eating sandwiches at new restaurants and cafes.

People love that stuff.

And Barbara Lee was wearing a purple wig in the Valkyries parade before they came over to San Francisco for their part of the parade here.

- I mean, don't underestimate how much the Valks are part of this either.

- Well, yeah.

I mean, actually it's been a good run in the Bay Area for sports generally with the World Cup, the Super Bowl, all those things, those sort of intangible things.

But I would guess more than anything, I think it is people are feeling more safe because all those viral videos, the smashing grabs, all the cars broken.

- But that correlates with national crime trends, which Trump is claiming credit for.

I mean, that's what's so funny.

I think to your point, guys, so much of governing is like luck and the moment you're in and the vibes people are feeling.

- Like was saying, look, the crime is going down.

- Right.

But she had also been the one standing there sort of declaring how terrible things were for a while, which is not... I think people for all of their critiques want a mayor who they feel like has their back and who has the back of their city.

And I think especially for a place like San Francisco that has been under attack by so much nationally for so long, I think that the cheerleader thing, it works.

- It does.

Yeah, one other aspect of all this that you looked into was the transportation, the regional transportation tax passed, the local MUNI tax passed, and it was kind of like labor and business coalition working together.

- Totally.

And you saw that on the Oakland City Council where there was a lot of members who got both the kind of chamber and labor endorsements.

And Janani Ramachandran who's a council member there said part of the voter good vibes might just be a reflection of more kind of collegiality in city halls.

You see that on the board of supervisors - I think that's an excellent point.

Has a good relationship.

It definitely - - Barbara Lee.

- Barbara Lee, the vibe has changed there.

So maybe some of that is reflecting.

I will just add though, there is a world where this parade, this moment in the sun is just kind of like the end of something.

These things can turn very quickly.

Absolutely.

And folks I talked to for this story said, look, if there's an economic downturn, if this Jensen thing turns into a stock market dip that turns into an AI bubble burst, all of a sudden that will seem as like that parade being kind of the end of a moment rather than a beginning of one.

- On the other hand, does Anthropic IPO, what does that do?

Does that help save Medi-Cal?

I mean, there's so many unknowns.

- 49ers in the Super Bowl.

- Yeah.

- Maybe.

Before we go, there was an appointment made on Friday by Governor Gavin Newsom, his former press secretary, Nate Ballard, who worked for Newsom in City Hall.

They're also friends.

Five years ago, he was sentenced in a domestic violence case in Napa involving his ex-wife, some young kids.

The details were not good.

They were very gruesome.

And in spite of that, Newsom appointed him to this somewhat obscure commission that's going to look at nominations for state and national historic registries.

But what do you make of the fact that Newsom is appointing somebody maybe out of loyalty, but who has a record that is going to infuriate a lot of women, people who care about domestic violence?

I mean, we were talking when it happened, does this mean he's not running for president?

Because this can really come back to haunt him.

- Yeah.

I just have to say I am so baffled by this.

I mean, I think the governor takes risks, right?

I mean, he just commuted the sentence of everyone on death row.

I think regardless of whether you stand on that, he is making a moral argument there.

Here it seems like he is just handing really an unnecessary appointment to a friend.

I mean, I don't want to get too far into the details, but this was a case in which he was alleged to have pushed his wife into a glass door, smothered his four-year-old with a pillow.

He pleaded no contest.

Part of his pretty lenient sentence, which was just probation basically, was because former local leaders, including San Francisco former Police Chief Greg Sur, former San Francisco Mayor Mark Ferrell, and the executive director of a domestic violence organization, Kathy Black of La Casa de las Madres, wrote letters in support of him.

And to me, what is sort of really shocking about this, afterward, Ballard said he went to alcohol treatment.

He has essentially said that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.

He has denied his ex-wife's allegations that beyond this event, he abused her and their children together for years.

He has never really taken responsibility for it publicly at least.

And when he was called about this appointment, he essentially said something to the effect of, "I understand that during my years in government and campaigns, there were times I treated an opponent's worst moment as one of my better opportunities."

His sort of pugilistic way of approaching politics is not why people are objecting to this.

And I just really do think it raises questions about Newsom and his judgment, quite frankly.

I mean, it's fine to continue a friendship.

It's fine to forgive somebody, but if that person has never publicly taken responsibility for something this horrific, I just don't see why you would reward them with something like this.

And again, it's just baffling to me at a time when he does seem to be wanting to look to a national stage.

- Yeah.

I think we should add to his resume the reason maybe he got some of those letters of support.

He had a political consulting firm.

He had a lot of contacts in city government.

I think he was pretty well liked until all of this erupted.

But as you say, none of it mitigates the charges, the - Details.

Yeah.

I mean, I think second chances can only occur when accountability takes place and repair takes place.

I mean, I saw this news last Friday, again, released late on a Friday, never a good look, right?

And I was pretty appalled, I'll say.

- Yeah.

Do you think that's going to come back to haunt Newsom?

- I mean, it sounds like something we might not hear the last of.

- I mean, I can't imagine it will not come up, especially in a time where we're seeing more women elected to office, more diversity and sort of diverse points of views when abuse was a huge issue in the Ohio governor's race and that horrible ad Vivek Ramasamy ran.

I mean, I cannot imagine.

I'm sure this is going in the oppo file, let's put it that way.

- It's interesting too that it happens at a time that he commutes all the sentences of people on death row as well, which is a whole other topic.

All right.

Marisa Lagos, Guy Marzorati, thank you so much.

That is a wrap for Political Breakdown.

We're a production of KQED.

Our engineer today is Christopher Beal.

Our producer is Izzy Bloom.

Our video team includes Derek Lartaud, Kate Lowpensky and Vivian Morales.

I'm Scott Shafer.

We'll see you next time.