2022 California primary elections: When will the results be made public?

On Tuesday California residents will head to the polls in the state-wide primary elections for the Senate, House of Representatives and Governor. Polls will be open throughout the state on 7 July, from 7:00am to 8:00pm.

Although in-person voting ends on Tuesday evening, do not expect an immediate result because the state allows mail-in ballots received up to 14 June, provided they were postmarked on or before Election Day.

Election officials in each county have a whole month, until 7 July, to confirm their results and the official election results will be published by the Secretary of State on 15 July. However in practice this usually happens much earlier and candidates are likely to concede if their margin between them and the winners becomes insurmountable.

How does voting work in the California primary elections?

The California state primaries use the non-partisan top-two-finisher system, whereby all candidate are entered into one race and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. The two final candidates are selected regardless of their political parties, meaning that it is possible to see two candidates from the same party advance to compete in the general election.

California typically sees an above-average proportion of votes cast by mail-in voting and more than 2.9 million ballots had been received ahead of Election Day. Consulting firm Political Data Intelligence has found that 53% of those early votes were cast by registered Democrats, while 26% came from Republicans. This is not unexpected in a state that leans broadly to the left.

Will Gov. Newsom win re-election in California?

Less September California Gov. Gavin Newsom faced a recall election in the state, which he easily beat back with a 61.9% vote supporting him.

“I am humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercised their fundamental right to vote,” Newsom said after the vote. “We [have] so much more in common in our state than we give ourselves credit for.”

Since Newsom took office in January 2019 there have been six recall petitions launched against him, in a state dominated by Democratic voters. So how do his prospects look this time around?

Newsom retains the support of much of the Democratic voting base in the state and it appears very unlikely that he fails to secure a comfortable victory again today. The Republican Party does not have a candidate that comes close to Newsom’s name recognition in the state and he outperforms all opponents in terms of fundraising.

However with 26 different candidates on the ballot, likely to split the Democratic vote, and ongoing concerns about high gasoline prices and inflation, Newsom may not enjoy the same margin of victory that he did last year.