Elward leads Assembly race; billionaire tax trails statewide

Rohnert Park Councilmember Jackie Elward led Marin Supervisor Eric Lucan for the Assembly seat representing the peninsula in election-night returns Nov. 3, while a one-time tax on billionaires trailed statewide and by even wider margins in Tiburon and Belvedere.

At the top of the ballot, Democrat Xavier Becerra will win the race for governor over Republican Steve Hilton, with a nearly 2-1 majority.

All results are unofficial and will change. The secretary of state’s 9:45 p.m. update counted ballots from 15,531 of the state’s 23,860 precincts, or 65.1%. Marin’s first report, posted at 8:25 p.m., counted 59,846 ballots, or 34.4% of the county’s 173,804 registered voters. The county is still counting late-arriving mail ballots, provisional ballots and ballots awaiting signature cures, and it won’t certify results until about a month after the election.

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On the peninsula, the county had counted ballots from 2,472 of Tiburon’s 7,553 registered voters, or 32.7%; 598 of Belvedere’s 1,618, or 37%; and 1,032 of Strawberry’s 3,081, or 33.5%. Peninsula figures are The Ark’s tallies of the precincts serving Belvedere, Strawberry and Tiburon, including unincorporated Tiburon areas such as Paradise Cay.

Results for the Tiburon Town Council, the Reed Union School District board and its Measure O bond, the Tamalpais Union High School District board, the Marin County Board of Education, the Richardson Bay Sanitary District, the Strawberry Recreation District and Paradise Cay’s Measure Z run in separate stories.

Southern Marin Fire

Special district, Strawberry and northern Tiburon voters

All four incumbents led for four seats on the Southern Marin Fire Protection District board: Cristine Soto DeBerry with votes on 49.6% of ballots counted, Kurt Chun with 47.8%, Thomas Perazzo with 41.5% and Peter Fleming of Strawberry with 40.6%. Challengers Eric Steinhofer, 24.4%; Amy Svendberg, 23.2%; and Thomas Clark, 7.3%, trailed. In Strawberry’s precincts, Fleming ran third, behind DeBerry and Chun.

Unopposed

Belvedere Councilmembers Jane Cooper and Peter Mark, the only candidates for two seats, had votes on 74.4% and 64.9% of ballots counted. Incumbents also ran unopposed for three other boards: Joy Ho, Rick Jones and Cheryl Woodford on the Tiburon Fire Protection District board; Catharine Benediktsson and Tod Moody on the Sanitary District No. 5 of Marin board; and Natalie Katz, Sharon Nakatani and Yunhee Yoo on the board of the Mill Valley School District, which serves Strawberry Point Elementary School.

County measures

Marin County and Marin Healthcare District special taxes, all voters; each qualified by petition and needs a simple majority

Measure CC, the Marin Healthcare District’s 30-year parcel tax of 14 cents per square foot of building space for intensive care, trauma, emergency and other hospital capacity, was passing with 56.4%. It led in all three peninsula communities, with 53.3% in Tiburon, 52.3% in Belvedere and 55.7% in Strawberry.

Measure P, the county’s 15-year childcare parcel tax of 5 cents per square foot, was passing with 53.3%, though Tiburon voted against it 53.9% to 46.1% and Belvedere 53.2% to 46.8%. Strawberry backed it with 53.7%.

Congress and the Legislature

Federal and state officials, district voters

Elward led Lucan 56.8% to 43.2% in the race to succeed Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, in the 12th Assembly District, with 300 of its 301 precincts reporting. Both are Democrats. Elward also led in Marin, 54% to 46%.

The peninsula went the other way. Lucan carried Tiburon with 55.6% and Belvedere with 64.4%, while Elward narrowly took Strawberry, 52.3% to 47.7%.

Connolly led Republican Tief Gibbs of Novato 76.2% to 23.8% for the open 2nd District state Senate seat.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, led Republican Robin Littau of Redding 75.4% to 24.6% across the 2nd Congressional District and took 83.2% in Marin, with 62.7% of the district’s precincts reporting. It is the district’s first general election under the Proposition 50 map, which stretched it from Marin to the Oregon and Nevada borders.

Governor and statewide offices

State officials, all voters

Becerra, a former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and California attorney general, will win with 64.9% to Hilton’s 35.1% in the secretary of state’s 9:45 p.m. count. He took 80.5% in Marin, 70.9% in Tiburon, 66.9% in Belvedere and 77.4% in Strawberry. Hilton, a former Fox News host from Atherton, ran best on the peninsula in Belvedere, at 33.1%.

Democrats led the other partisan statewide races by similar margins: Treasurer Fiona Ma over Republican Gloria Romero for lieutenant governor, 64.8% to 35.2%; Secretary of State Shirley Weber over Republican Don Wagner, 65.5% to 34.5%; Controller Malia Cohen over Republican Herb Morgan, 64.6% to 35.4%; Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis over Republican Jennifer Hawks for treasurer, 64.9% to 35.1%; and Attorney General Rob Bonta over Republican Michael Gates, 64.7% to 35.3%.

The closest statewide race, for insurance commissioner, pitted two Democrats. Jane Kim, a consumer attorney and former San Francisco supervisor, led state Sen. Ben Allen 51.5% to 48.5%. Allen carried Marin with 57.5% and ran stronger still on the peninsula, with 65.7% in Tiburon, 70.4% in Belvedere and 62.7% in Strawberry.

In the nonpartisan race for superintendent of public instruction, San Diego Unified board President Richard Barrera led Chino Valley Unified board President Sonja Shaw 57.9% to 42.1%. Barrera took 69.7% in Marin and more than 60% in all three peninsula communities.

For the Board of Equalization’s District 2 seat, which covers Marin and the coast from Del Norte to Ventura counties, incumbent Sally Lieber led fellow Democrat John Pimentel 61.2% to 38.8%, with 50.2% of the district’s precincts reporting.

State propositions

All voters; each needs a simple majority

Proposition 40, the one-time 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026, was failing with 56.5% voting no statewide and 54.7% no in Marin. Tiburon voted against it 68% to 32% and Belvedere 77.5% to 22.5%. Strawberry opposed it 57.6% to 42.4%.

Proposition 42, one of two measures written to block it, was passing 54.6% to 45.4%. It would bar new state taxes on owning retirement accounts, financial assets and other personal property. Tiburon and Belvedere backed it, and Marin and Strawberry opposed it.

The other, Proposition 41, was failing 47.5% to 52.5%. It would bar collecting any new tax that, like Proposition 40’s revenue, is exempt from the state spending limit. Belvedere backed it 53% to 47%, and Tiburon split almost evenly, 49.5% yes to 50.5% no.

Proposition 3, which would make permanent the top income-tax brackets voters approved in 2012 and extended in 2016, was passing 58.9% to 41.1% statewide and with 67.9% in Marin. Tiburon narrowly opposed it, 51% to 49%, and Belvedere voted against it 55.7% to 44.3%. Strawberry backed it with 65.4%.

Proposition 5, the closest measure on the ballot, was passing 50.5% to 49.5%, a margin of about 54,000 votes out of about 5.8 million. It would drop the replacement-candidate question from recall ballots and let the lieutenant governor succeed a recalled governor. Marin backed it with 59.5%, while Tiburon and Belvedere were narrowly against.

Proposition 38, the $8.4 billion immunology research bond, was passing with 57% statewide but just 50.4% in Marin, and it trailed in Tiburon and Belvedere. Proposition 4, which would lift the state’s ban on public financing of campaigns, was failing 48% to 52%, though Marin backed it with 57.1%.

On the rest, Marin voted with the state, usually by wider margins.

Proposition 1, the $11.25 billion housing and veterans bond, was passing 59.4% to 40.6% and drew 68.9% in Marin. Proposition 2, which would double the cap on the state’s rainy day fund, was passing with 60% and drew 73.3% in Marin. Proposition 37, the middle-income homebuyer loan program, was passing with 60.9% and drew 64.8% in Marin.

Proposition 39, requiring voter ID, was failing 40.3% to 59.7%, and 77.4% of Marin voters opposed it. Proposition 43, which would require two-thirds approval for citizen-initiated local special taxes starting Jan. 1, 2027, was failing 45.3% to 54.7%, with 65.2% of Marin voters opposed.

Proposition 44, requiring community health clinics to spend at least 90% of revenue on patient care, was failing 17.4% to 82.6%, and 87.1% of Marin voters opposed it. Proposition 45, a faster environmental-review track for housing, infrastructure and other projects, was failing 45.6% to 54.4%, and 72.6% of Marin voters opposed it.

Judges

Retention votes

California Supreme Court Associate Justices Kelli Evans and Joshua Groban won retention to new 12-year terms, with 72.7% and 72.1% voting yes statewide. In Marin, all 11 justices of the 1st District Court of Appeal on the ballot were drawing 83.5% to 87% yes.

Reach Executive Editor Kevin Hessel at 415-435-2652.