November 3, 2026 General Election

Personalized Ballot Guide & Rationale

Statewide Offices (12 Races)

Office / Race	Recommended Candidate	Party	# Cands	WHY (ELI5)
Governor	Xavier Becerra	D	2	He's already run the country's biggest law-enforcement agency AND a cabinet department. That's like being head chef of two five-star restaurants before being asked to run one more. Hilton is a great TV host but has never managed a big organization's budget or staff.
Lt. Governor	Gloria Romero	D	2	The Lt. Gov's main job is running the Senate when the Governor isn't there. Romero was Senate Majority Leader—she literally sat in that chair. Ma is great with money but hasn't presided over a legislature.
Sec. of State	Don Wagner SWITCHED	R	2	The Secretary of State runs your elections and business licenses. Weber's office has been slow to count ballots—so slow winners get sworn in before results are official. Wagner promises faster, cleaner counts, like switching from a mail-order catalog company to a same-day courier.
Controller	Malia Cohen	D	2	She's been the person who signs off on every dollar the state spends for years. Think of it like the CFO who's been reconciling the books for 4 years vs. a new hire who's great at investing but hasn't touched the ledger yet.
Treasurer	Eleni Kounalakis	D	2	She's currently Lt. Governor and built/financed housing projects—so she understands both government AND where money comes from. The Treasurer manages $100B+ in investments; her finance + gov combo fits better.
Attorney General	Rob Bonta	R	2	He's been the state's top lawyer for 4 years, handling cases worth billions. It's like keeping the lead attorney who's been winning your firm's biggest lawsuits vs. bringing in a sharp junior partner who's only handled smaller cases.
Insurance Commissioner	Jane Kim	D	2	Close race. She's an attorney who's regulated businesses as a supervisor—closer to the "enforce rules" side of the job. Allen is strong too, but her legal + regulatory edge gives a slight advantage.
Superintendent	Richard Barrera	D	2	He's spent 18 years on a major school board—basically the longest-tenured "teacher's principal" in the state. Shaw is good but newer to the role, and the Superintendent needs deep institutional knowledge of how $60B+ in school funding flows.
BOE District 1	Shannon Grove	R	2	The BOE sets your property tax rate. Grove has voted on tax bills as a Senator AND owns a business—so she understands both sides of the ledger. Esparza is a solid economics teacher, but Grove has the legislative track record.
BOE District 2	John Pimentel SWITCHED	D	2	This tax board has had most of its power stripped by the Legislature already. Lieber wants to keep it as-is; Pimentel thinks its work could fold into other agencies. It's like deciding whether to keep a redundant department or merge it to cut overhead.
BOE District 3	Mike Gipson	D	2	He's a sitting Assemblymember who's voted on tax and budget bills. The other candidate is a union organizer with great advocacy skills but less direct experience with how tax policy actually gets written and passed.
BOE District 4	Tom Umberg	D	2	He wrote Proposition 4, which was about making taxes fairer and simpler. That's basically the BOE's entire job in a nutshell. Plus he owns a small business, so he gets what taxpayers feel.

Propositions (14 Measures)

Prop	Title / What It Does	Your Vote	WHY
Prop 1	$11.25B bonds for affordable housing, homelessness services, and veterans' programs.	NO	It locks the state into ~$500–600M/year in bond payments for 25 years. You're committing a quarter-century of your taxes before you've seen results. Housing spending is urgent, but this is a huge long-term debt commitment with no guaranteed payoff—better to fund it through the normal budget where you can adjust year to year.
Prop 2	Raises the state's "Rainy Day Fund" (emergency reserve) requirements.	YES	Think of it like forcing the state to keep more cash in the savings account before it starts spending. When revenue dips (recession, emergency), you don't have to scramble or cut schools and roads. Bipartisan support, and it just makes the budget steadier—like keeping a bigger emergency fund in your own checking.
Prop 3	Makes the higher income tax rates permanent (they'd otherwise expire in 2031).	NO	Right now those extra rates on high incomes are temporary. This would make them permanent forever, locking in $5–15B/year. Locking in a tax increase permanently removes the state's ability to revisit it later. If the economy changes, you want flexibility, not a rule that can't be changed without another constitutional vote.
Prop 4	Allows public funding of political campaigns (CA is the only state that bans it).	NO	It would let candidates use taxpayer money to run their campaigns—with no limit on how many candidates qualify or how much they can take. That's your money funding negative ads and special interests. Public campaign financing sounds nice in theory, but the version here has weak guardrails. Better to leave it alone than hand out unlimited public dollars to politicians.
Prop 5	Changes recall elections: vacancies filled by special election/appointment instead of voting on a replacement at the same time.	YES	Today, when someone is recalled, the replacement can win with a tiny fraction of the vote because everyone else is busy voting to remove the incumbent. This separates the two steps—first decide if the official goes, then pick the replacement properly. It closes a loophole where replacements slip in with almost no real mandate, and cuts the cost and chaos of future recalls.
Prop 37	$25B loan program offering fixed-rate mortgages to middle-income buyers of new homes under ~$1.5M.	NO	It's funded by private bond investors, not taxpayers, so the pitch is "zero cost." But it's a massive $25B homebuyer program that mainly benefits a specific slice of new-home buyers, and it commits the state to a structure that's hard to change. Home affordability matters, but this is a narrow, expensive mechanism—and notably the Realtor groups are the ones pushing it hardest. Stick with existing help rather than a brand-new giant program.
Prop 38	$8.4B bonds for immunology research, half going to a single UC-affiliated institute.	NO	It commits you to $500–600M/year in bond payments for about 20 years, and half the money is earmarked to one specific institution. Medical research is important, but this locks in decades of debt and directs funds to a particular institute outside the normal budget process. Better to fund research through the regular budget where priorities can shift as science evolves.
Prop 39	Requires voters to present government-issued ID (last 4 digits on mail ballots, physical ID in person).	YES	It adds a basic identity check to voting—like showing your license to pick up a package. The burden is small (you already have government ID), and it helps confirm you're who you say you are. Reasonable security that doesn't block anyone who has standard identification.
Prop 40	One-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires ($1B+ net worth) to fund healthcare.	YES	It's a one-time charge on people with over a billion dollars—people who will barely notice a 5% haircut—directed toward healthcare. It's not a recurring tax and it targets extreme wealth specifically. A reasonable way to raise a chunk of money for a pressing need without touching ordinary earners.
Prop 41	Nullifies certain new taxes exempt from the spending limit; requires audits of programs funded by special taxes.	NO	Framed as "transparency," it's really aimed at undoing the billionaire tax by changing how revenues count against the spending limit. The audit language is a wrapper around a move that would strip away funding for healthcare. The opponents (healthcare workers, Sanders) point out its real target. Don't let the "accountability" framing obscure what it actually does.
Prop 42	Bans new state taxes on personal property (financial assets, savings) and retroactive taxes.	NO	Marketed as "protect your retirement," it's designed to kill the billionaire tax by banning any new tax on financial assets. Protecting savings is a fair concern, but this blanket ban is really a shield for extreme wealth against a modest, targeted tax. Its practical effect is to block the very measure that would fund healthcare. Vote no to keep options open.
Prop 43	Raises the vote needed to approve local special taxes from a majority to two-thirds.	YES	It restores the two-thirds requirement for local special taxes (sales, real estate, utility). That means local governments need broader agreement before raising your taxes—a stronger protection for taxpayers. Yes, it makes some service funding harder, but requiring supermajority consent for new local taxes is a sensible guardrail against easy tax hikes.
Prop 44	Requires community health clinics spend 90% of revenue on patient care/services.	NO	It forces clinics to pour 90% of revenue directly into services, leaving little room to cover administration, staffing, and staying operational. Clinics need some flexibility to run the business side—staff, facilities, compliance. A rigid 90% floor could actually hurt the patients these clinics serve by starving them of the operating budget needed to stay open.
Prop 45	Changes environmental review (CEQA) to speed up approvals for housing, transport, and water projects.	NO	It would weaken the environmental review process that checks projects for their impact before they're built. Faster approvals sound appealing for housing, but trimming CEQA risks letting through projects without proper scrutiny of their effects on air, water, and communities. Keep the safeguards intact rather than trading them for speed.