Dick Spotswood: Marin voters spoke loudly on Election Day

Preliminary election results are in. Final vote tallies aren’t expected to change any outcome, as statewide and in Marin, the early results appear to be decisive.

It was predicted that Proposition 50 would pass. That’s Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to refigure the boundaries of California’s 52 congressional districts to enable Democrats to gain five new seats in the next Congress. It was a tit-for-tat strategy to counter Trump’s directive to GOP legislators to gerrymander districts in Texas and other states to similarly benefit Republicans.

The upshot is Proposition 50 was easily approved. Statewide, with 77% of the vote counted, it prevailed with 63.9% voting yes to 36.1% no votes.  In Marin, Prop. 50 passed in a landslide: 80.6% to 19.4%.

The election was perceived by most voters as an up-or-down referendum of President Donald Trump and his regime. Almost all Democrats voted yes, while most Republicans voted no. “No party preference” independents split with about 65% in favor and 35% opposed.

Newsom was a big winner. He applied Trump’s “no holds barred” tactics to his fight. The win appears to have boosted the governor’s popularity in the Golden State and may be propelling him into the front rank of potential Democratic presidential nominees.

The temporary redistricting impacted the House of Representative’s District 2 for the North Bay/North Coast. San Rafael Democrat Jared Huffman is the incumbent. For the next three years, the district will sprawl from the Golden Gate up the coast to Oregon, then east to the Nevada border.

The district’s population center remains in overwhelming Democratic Marin and western Sonoma County. The incumbent representing much of what will be District 1 and District 2 is Doug LaMalfa, a Republican from Butte County who supports President Trump. I suspect LaMalfa will likely retire and return to rice farming rather than face defeat by Huffman.

The North Bay’s reconfigured District 1 will run from Santa Rosa across the northern Sacramento Valley to the mountainous counties on the Nevada frontier. Its population center is politically “deep blue” Santa Rosa. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican from Roseville in Sacramento County, serves as the elected official for much of that area now. Don’t be surprised if he also opts to return to the private sector.

The new district seems tailormade for North Bay state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Sonoma County resident, who terms out next year.

Meanwhile, the elections in Fairfax and Sausalito provided real choices and decisive results.

In Fairfax, as in New York City with the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor, Tuesday was a good day for Democratic socialists and their allies.  The Marin Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America strongly opposed the recall of Fairfax Mayor Lisel Blash and Vice Mayor Stephanie Hellman.

Blash and Hellman beat back the recall with 54% of Fairfax voting no and 46% casting ballots for recall. During the campaign, both Blash and Hellman indicated that they would not run for reelection when their current terms expire at the end of next year. Ideally, after a wide-open Town Council election in November 2026, the new council will be more collegial with members open to compromise, enabling Fairfax to move forward while healing divisions.

Sausalito witnessed a victory for housing advocates with the decisive passage of Measures J and K. The former, which approves rezoning parcels for housing in most parts of town, was in response to state mandates that all cities and countries enable construction of new multiunit housing, both market-rate and work-force available. It’s passing by 75% to 25% in preliminary returns.

Measure K was closer. It will rezone two acres of city-owned land at MLK Park’s southwestern edge for a 50-apartment complex for low-income seniors. It is prevailing by about 56% to 44%. Much of the opposition was due to plans to demolish space the city had previously set aside at the park for working artisans and crafts people. Sausalito now needs to honor its promise to relocate them at city expense to suitable spaces in the Marinship neighborhood.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.