What a night! California environmental voters showed up to the polls. They voted for the best environmental leaders. As a result, California’s election results are the bright spot in the national political landscape for the environment.
Champions for our air, land and water up and down the ticket were victorious in the June 5th Primary Election, handing CLCV a success rate of 98% in the races where we made an endorsement.
These were tough races. A couple were real nail-biters. But we’re thrilled to see our endorsed candidates with the most outstanding records on the environment advance to November’s general election. Just to name a few:
- Longtime coastal advocate Hannah-Beth Jackson advanced to the general election in the central coast’s Senate District 19;
- Up-and-coming good-government reformer Cristina Garcia won her southeastern Los Angeles Assembly race;
- Author of the ban on toxic BPA in baby bottles Betsy Butler, who earned a perfect score on CLCV’s Environmental Scorecard for her leadership, will move forward in the Assembly District 50 race;
- Green jobs champion Phil Ting advanced to the general election in his West San Francisco district;
- Proven environmental policy leader Jared Huffman won his Northern California Congressional contest;
among many others throughout California.
CLCV’s election work included researching the candidates, conducting dozens of in-person candidate interviews, making endorsements in nearly 100 races, communicating our endorsements to environmental voters via mail, email and social media, contributing to candidates’ campaigns directly, and investing in independent expenditure campaigns in several close races where we knew we could make the difference.
These efforts paid off, and while we’re celebrating last night’s victories, we can’t rest. We’re already back to work today with our sights set firmly on the general election.
California’s new top-two primary along with the redistricting process created an unprecedented number of competitive seats in the state legislature and U.S. Congress. From our perspective, it’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to elect an environmental majority. With important opportunities at every level of the ballot from the President to the state legislature, CLCV is ready to mobilize voters to elect our next environmental leaders.
Getting out the environmental vote will be critical to our success, particularly in light of the historic low turnout – just 24% – in yesterday’s election.
Because when Californians show up to vote, the environment wins!
We’re grateful for all of our members’ support for CLCV and for California’s strongest environmental champions. November’s general election is right around the corner, and we’ll keep environmental advocates posted on how to make it a decisive win for California’s environment.
