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Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and many others are slamming California’s vote-counting process.
During an interview with John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on WABC 770 AM, the former Republican House speaker from California echoed similar concerns of alleged election fraud pushed by President Donald Trump.
McCarthy argued that California voters were “continuing to lose faith” in the process, as results keep trickling in from the state’s Tuesday primaries.
“In my years of growing up in California, this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” McCarthy said on the “Cats & Cosby” show, voicing frustration with the delay in counting ballots.
“We just had an election, and you can’t tell me who won?” McCarthy added later. “It was on Tuesday, and they’re telling me it’s going to be another three weeks.”
Officials in the Golden State claim it takes days or even weeks to finalize the outcomes of the June 3 primaries.
Several high-profile races, such as for California governor and Los Angeles mayor, are still ongoing nearly a week after the polls closed.
Part of the reason is the state’s rules about how it treats mail-in ballots.
California gives mail-in ballots extra time to reach county election officials and still be counted.
State law allows mail-in ballots to be counted if they’re postmarked by Election Day and returned to county election offices by the next Tuesday — in this case, June 9.
In California, there is a “jungle” primary where all candidates are on the same ballot.
The top two vote-getters will move on to the general election, no matter their party affiliation.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra (D) has already made it to November in the gubernatorial race, with Trump-backed Fox News commentator Steve Hilton (R) and billionaire Tom Steyer (D) fighting for the second spot.
Karen Bass (D), the incumbent, is waiting to see if she’ll face off against reality star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, or progressive city councilmember Nithya Raman (D) in the race for Los Angeles mayor.
Raman recently took the lead over Pratt after several days of ballots arriving.
This also comes as California’s recently passed gerrymandered map is not working out as well as Democrats expected.
In response to Texas’s redistricting plan in the mid-decade—which was intended to net Republicans five additional House seats in the 2026 midterms—California Democrats unveiled a new congressional map of their own designed to flip five currently Republican-held districts blue.
The Golden State currently has 52 congressional districts, with Democrats holding 43 and Republicans just 9.
The hope with the new map was to cut Republican representation in Congress to just four districts, or less than 8 percent of California’s congressional delegation.
The redraw targeted five districts held by Republicans: District 1 (Rep. Doug LaMalfa), District 3 (Rep. Kevin Kiley), District 22 (Rep. David Valadao), District 41 (Rep. Ken Calvert), and District 48 (Rep. Darrell Issa).
The results may not be what California Gov. Gavin Newsom hoped for, unfortunately.
California Democrats suffered a setback in the race for the state’s 40th Congressional District after two Republican candidates secured the top spots and advanced to the general election.
Democrats are now shut out of contention for the seat.
According to Decision Desk HQ results, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) led the field with 35.68% of the vote, while Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) finished second with 21.12%, positioning the two Republicans for a head-to-head matchup in November.
The unusual contest emerged after mid-decade redistricting placed Calvert and Kim within the same congressional district, forcing two incumbent Republicans onto the same ballot.
Despite those concerns, the outcome in the 40th District ensured that a Republican will hold the seat regardless of the general election result, denying Democrats an opportunity to flip the district and providing the GOP with an unexpected bright spot in a state where Republicans have often struggled to compete statewide.
