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October 14, 2024

Your guide to the presidential candidates’ views on health care

By Emily Alpert Reyes, Los Angeles Times

Medicare. Drug costs. The fate of the Affordable Care Act.

Health care — and who would handle it best — has continued to be contested turf in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Polls show that Americans have ranked health care costs high on the agenda for national leaders.

It’s little surprise, then, that both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump have pledged to bring down the cost of prescription drugs and protect Medicare.

But in a campaign season that has been light on detailed proposals on health policy — which has often taken a back seat to other issues — “you have to look more at their records,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, an independent health policy research and news organization.

“And if you look at their records, Harris and Trump are polar opposites,” starkly split on the role that government should play in health care and the trade-offs surrounding its spending, he said. Trump has focused on cutting government spending, he said, while Harris has emphasized expanding coverage and affordability.

The debate is playing out as the Affordable Care Act, the landmark law passed nearly a decade and a half ago to reshape health coverage, has swelled in public popularity. Harris has taken Trump to task for his repeated attempts to roll back the law, arguing that its protections are at risk if he wins a second term. Trump said he would replace it only if there is a better alternative, but provided little detail about a plan.

In the aftermath of Roe vs. Wade being overturned, Harris has also focused heavily on abortion rights — see another Times guide for more on where the candidates stand on the issue. Trump, in turn, has targeted Harris over expressions of support for gender-affirming care and vowed to stop “COVID mandates,” issues that reverberate on the political right.

Here’s a breakdown of where the candidates stand on key issues.

The Affordable Care Act

When she sought the Democratic nomination for president five years ago, Harris promoted a “Medicare for All” plan. This time around, Harris has promised to protect and strengthen the Affordable Care Act.

For instance, she wants to permanently extend an enhanced set of premium subsidies for people buying health insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Those subsidies, which reduced premium costs for recipients, are now due to expire at the end of 2025.

Trump sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act as president. His administration eliminated a financial penalty for individuals who fail to maintain health insurance coverage, a significant provision in the federal law.

As Trump campaigns for another term, he has said he would replace the Affordable Care Act if a better plan is devised, but would “run it as good as it can be run” until then. As of the September debate, Trump had not provided a detailed plan on what he would implement in its place.

His running mate, JD Vance, has said their plan would “allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools.” Risk pooling means sharing medical costs to calculate insurance premiums. Such a plan could lower insurance costs for the young and healthy but risks driving up rates for older people, especially those with chronic conditions, said Mark A. Peterson, a professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The Trump campaign has also raised concerns about the premium subsidies that Harris wants to make permanent, telling the Washington Post that they “benefit big insurance companies and brokers more than American patients.”

Cost of drugs and health care

Levitt described bringing down the costs of prescription drugs as “the one area in health care where they seem to agree, but how that would translate into specific policies is somewhat unclear.”

The Trump administration paved the way for states to import prescription drugs from Canada. As president, Trump also tried to tie Medicare reimbursement for certain drugs to the prices paid by other countries, although that effort was blocked in court and ultimately rescinded during the Biden administration. A Trump campaign spokesperson said he would pursue that plan again.

Trump also issued an executive order on price transparency, which led to hospitals having to reveal information online about their standard charges. (The Biden administration followed up with rules meant to bolster its enforcement.) And as president, Trump created a demonstration program that limited insulin copays to $35 monthly for some Medicare beneficiaries.

Many of the efforts to bring down health costs touted by the Biden administration came under the Inflation Reduction Act, for which Harris cast the tie-breaking vote. For instance, that law extended a $35 monthly limit on insulin copays to all Medicare beneficiaries. It also put a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug spending for Medicare drug coverage.

The Inflation Reduction Act also required the government to negotiate prices for some drugs under Medicare: In August, the federal government announced it had negotiated lower prices for 10 medications to treat conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.

Requiring Medicare plans to be more generous in drug benefits, however, has raised concerns that they could significantly increase premiums. The Biden administration avoided that for next year, on average, with the help of subsidies for insurers, but the Trump campaign has criticized the Inflation Reduction Act over that and other issues.

Harris has promised to expand the $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending and the $35 monthly cap on insulin copays to cover everyone, not just seniors. She has also vowed to speed up negotiations to lower Medicare drug prices.

Harris has also made eliminating medical debt a focus: As vice president, she worked on removing medical debt from credit reports and promoted the use of American Rescue Plan funds by state and local governments to buy up and forgive debts. Harris said that as president she would expand such efforts.

Medicare and Medicaid

Both candidates have vowed to protect Medicare, but that hasn’t stopped it from being a campaign issue.

The Republican Party platform under Trump pledges to protect Medicare, the federal insurance program that covers Americans ages 65 and older, “with no cuts.” Trump has at points made remarks that seemed to suggest he was open to cutting entitlements, but then said he was taken out of context.

Harris, who has vowed to protect Medicare, argues that Trump and his allies pose a threat to the program, repeatedly pointing to Project 2025, a conservative playbook for a second Trump term. Project 2025 says that Medicare Advantage, the private offering under Medicare, should become its default option for enrollees.

Trump has repeatedly sought to distance himself from the Project 2025 plan. Trump campaign senior advisor Danielle Alvarez said Harris was “fear-mongering” and that the former president has only endorsed the Republican platform and his own “core promises,” but didn’t say whether he supported making Medicare Advantage the default option.

Then there’s Medicaid, which covers Americans who are low-income. The Trump administration approved work requirements in some states as a condition for being eligible for Medicaid. He also proposed major changes in how Medicaid is financed that could have capped its federal funding.

The Biden administration withdrew approval for work requirements in state Medicaid programs and encouraged states to expand coverage. As vice president, Harris urged states to extend postpartum coverage under Medicaid from two months to a year, promoting it as a way to combat maternal mortality.

Gender-affirming care

Trump has decried the use of puberty blockers and other forms of gender-affirming care for transgender youth, saying that he would seek to terminate any hospital that “participates in the chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth” from Medicaid and Medicare. The Republican Party platform also includes banning taxpayer funding for gender transition surgeries.

During her Democratic primary run five years ago, Harris told the ACLU she supported policies ensuring prisoners, who rely on the state for their care, can access “medically necessary care for gender transition.” Courts have since weighed in on that issue, and a Harris-Walz campaign communications director recently told Fox News that that is “not what she is proposing” now.

Harris has said she supports the Equality Act, a bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in public accommodations, as a way to protect LGBTQ+ patients from discrimination in health care.

During her vice presidency, the Biden administration rolled out federal regulations that provide broad protection against discrimination based on gender identity by federally funded health care entities. The rules prohibit them from denying gender-affirming care if the same kind of care is provided for other medical purposes, but provisions related to gender identity are now on hold after a legal challenge.

Public health

Trump helped accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed. Despite touting that accomplishment, Trump has at times expressed skepticism about vaccines.

He said he would “stop all COVID mandates” and cut federal funding from schools with vaccine or mask mandates. His campaign said he was referring specifically to COVID vaccination requirements, although Trump has repeatedly made the statement without specifying that.

He has also pledged to create a commission to investigate a rise in chronic illnesses among children. That echoes concerns raised by former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spread debunked claims about vaccines and endorsed Trump after dropping his bid.

Harris called vaccination “the single-best defense against COVID-19.” Earlier in the pandemic, the Biden administration rolled out broad rules requiring COVID vaccination for federal employees and contractors, which have since been phased out.

The Biden administration also launched a new office at the White House focused on pandemic preparedness and response. Trump has said he “probably would” disband that office.

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Published on October 14, 2024 03:20

Your guide to the presidential candidates’ views on immigration

By Noah Bierman, Los Angeles Times

Trump has called for rapid and historic deportations of millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally.Harris once supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings, but has shifted her stance significantly.

Former President Donald Trump calls migrants invaders and criminals who are stealing jobs, “poisoning the blood of our country” and eating people’s pets, among other unfounded and inflammatory claims. Vice President Kamala Harris, the child of immigrants from India and Jamaica, celebrates the immigrant story as central to the country’s promise.

The issue has been the central motivation for Trump and his supporters since he began his first run for president in 2015 with a pledge to build a border wall and force Mexico to pay for it. It continues to be one of his top advantages in polls as Americans have seen record numbers of people stopped at the border during the Biden-Harris administration.

Harris, who once supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings, has responded to the political liability by toughening her stance on the border, hoping to win over voters who see Trump’s rhetoric and plans for historically large deportations as too harsh. But she has not explained her shifting policy views.

Trump has labeled Harris the “border czar” because President Biden tasked her with improving conditions in certain Central American countries to reduce migration from them. But she did not have direct responsibility over the border or immigration policy.

Mass deportations

Trump has called for rapid and historic deportations of the estimated 11 million immigrants — he says there are more — who are in the country illegally. He wants the National Guard and U.S. military, as well as police forces in cooperative states, to go door-to-door in a process that he recently said would be a “bloody story.” He has not ruled out creating detention camps to hold people awaiting deportation, though he has maintained that the removals would be so fast, camps would not be necessary.

Policy experts doubt it would be so easy.

“It’s not just simply putting someone on a plane and sending them back to their country,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

Officials would have to locate the immigrants, who are often living in the shadows, and then disrupt families and local economies to remove them, she said. They would also need to negotiate with other governments — some uncooperative, others ill-equipped — to verify immigrants’ identities and accept them, and then find airplanes to send people back, she said.

‘Build the wall’

Trump promised in 2016 that he would erect a wall along the southern border and that Mexico would pay for it. He had about 500 miles of barrier built during his four years in office, most of it replacing existing fences and walls. Mexico did not pay for it.

Harris has called the border wall a “stupid” use of money, though the Biden administration is continuing to erect about 20 miles of new barriers under legislation signed by Trump. And she has pledged to sign a bipartisan border bill negotiated this year that includes hundreds of millions of dollars to continue construction.

Tough bipartisan bill

When she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Harris supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings. She has said as far back as 2017 that people who try to come into the country illegally are not criminals.

But as the Biden administration encountered record arrivals at the border, she shifted significantly. She supported a Biden administration executive action in June that severely limited asylum claims, and her campaign has said she no longer believes crossing illegally should be decriminalized.

Harris has also promised to sign the tough border bill, negotiated with Republicans this year, that would add 1,500 border agents and 10,000 detention beds, and double the number of deportation flights. The bill would have also sped up the asylum process and expanded visa and green card availability. It contains nothing for the so-called Dreamers who were brought to the country illegally when they were minors.

Trump effectively killed the bill for the time being by telling Republican lawmakers to oppose it so he could use the issue more effectively in his campaign.

Paths to legal status

Harris has also pledged to pass a comprehensive immigration bill, something that has not been done since the Reagan administration four decades ago.

She hasn’t given details or endorsed frameworks from the past, but said in her Democratic National Convention speech last month and on her website that it would include “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship” for people in the country illegally.

Trump promised on his website to “deliver a merit-based immigration system that protects American labor and promotes American values.”

When he was president, he endorsed a merit-based proposal that would have slashed the number of immigrants allowed into the country legally and stopped prioritizing family members of legal residents. That plan failed in Congress, and Trump killed a separate bill that would have given legal protections to Dreamers in exchange for tighter border security.

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Published on October 14, 2024 03:10

Your guide to the presidential candidates’ views on abortion

By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times

Abortion rights, always a polarizing issue in American politics, became an electoral tinderbox in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision to create a federal right to abortion access. Democrats have seized upon the issue of women’s bodily autonomy, notably in the 2024 presidential election, in part because it could motivate the critical bloc of suburban women voters in swing states.

The prospect of women not having access to abortion was theoretical in many voters’ minds until the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which set in motion a domino effect of widely varying laws about abortion in the states. As of June, 14 states had enacted total bans on the medical procedure, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization that supports abortion access.

Other states have enacted restrictions at various stages in pregnancy. The end result of all of the laws is many American women traveling to receive reproductive care, more than 171,000 in 2023, according to the institute. ProPublica reported on Sept. 16 that two Georgia women died after being unable to access legal abortion and timely medical care there, including a 28-year-old single mother who traveled to another state to obtain a prescription for a medical abortion, but then had rare complications because the fetal tissue was not fully expelled from her body.

Care that is routinely provided in such situations was significantly delayed, resulting in Amber Nicole Thurman getting a sepsis infection that caused her blood pressure to plummet and her organs to fail, according to the ProPublica report. Twenty hours later, after doctors decided to operate, her heart stopped. A state committee focused on pregnancy-related fatalities concluded that her death was “preventable.”

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris weighed in the day after the report was published, saying that such tragedies are the direct result of former President Trump’s Supreme Court appointees who voted to strike down Roe.

“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” the vice president said in a statement. “In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans are preventing doctors from providing basic medical care. Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”

There have also been multiple reports of woman suffering miscarriages and other medical emergencies who struggled to get care.

The ‘execution’ of babies

Republicans, including Trump, have claimed that Harris and running mate Tim Walz support allowing babies to be killed after they are born. Trump repeated that false assertion during the September presidential debate.

“It’s an execution,” Trump said, claiming that Democrats support allowing babies to be killed in the final months of pregnancy and after they are born.

It is illegal to kill babies after they are born in every state, and extremely rare late-term abortions typically occur because the baby’s health is severely compromised and the baby is not viable, or because of threats to the health of the woman.

Abortions after 21 weeks, considered late-term pregnancies, account for less than 1% of abortions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 80% of abortions occur in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, and 6% occur during the second trimester.

A federal abortion ban

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, questions immediately arose about whether Congress would enact legislation protecting abortion access across the nation or a federal measure prohibiting such rights.

Trump has vacillated on whether or not he would sign a federal abortion ban, but he has said that he would support a federal prohibition after a certain length of pregnancy. The former president has also stated that Americans broadly support the issue being decided by the states, which is decisively refuted by all reliable public polling.

“Look, this is an issue that’s torn our country apart for 52 years,” Trump said during the debate. “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican … they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote, and that’s what happened.

“Each individual state is voting. It’s the vote of the people,” Trump said.

Harris argues that Trump is untrustworthy on the issue, and she vocally supports federal legislation allowing abortions until a fetus could survive outside the uterus, and later if required for medical reasons. The first White House official to visit an abortion clinic, Harris has called Trump’s actions on abortion “unconscionable.”

“It’s insulting to the women of America,” Harris said. “Understand what has been happening under Donald Trump’s abortion bans. Couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments. What is happening in our country, working people, working women who are working one or two jobs who can barely afford child care as it is, have to travel to another state, to get on a plane, sitting next to strangers to go and get the healthcare she needs.”

The importance of Supreme Court appointees

A president’s power to reshape the Supreme Court took on greater importance when Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. Senate Republicans refused to even consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the seat of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia after Scalia died in February 2016 — nine months before the election.

That set the stage for Trump to fill Scalia’s seat and two others — the last of his picks, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed just a week before the 2020 election — paving the path to Roe being overturned, which the former president frequently boasts about.

“Now it’s not tied up in the federal government,” Trump said. “I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it, and the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it, and I give tremendous credit to those six justices” who voted to overturn the landmark abortion ruling.

Harris has lashed out at Trump for appointing the justices who supported overturning federal protection for abortion rights.

“Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade — and they did exactly as he intended,” she said.

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Published on October 14, 2024 03:00

October 13, 2024

3 takeaways as Warriors, missing stars, stay undefeated in preseason with win over Pistons

SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Kerr considers this Warriors group possibly the deepest team he’s ever coached, one-through-13, and the abundance of NBA-caliber talent showed on Sunday.

Even without Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins, the Warriors boat-raced the Pistons to stay undefeated in preseason action. They never trailed after the opening minutes and led by as much as 26 points.

Brandin Podziemski (12 points, four assists, four rebounds) paced the offense before he left in the third quarter due to an injury, and Trayce Jackson-Davis (12 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks) made an impact on both ends. In the Warriors’ 111-93 victory to improve to 4-0 in the preseason, six Warriors scored in the double digits.

“Much better tonight than (Friday) night, just getting into our offensive rhythm and creating better shots for each other,” Kerr said postgame. “Thought we played with more energy, more bounce, and those things often go hand-in-hand.”

Golden State stayed hot from behind the arc even without Curry, shooting 18-for-39 (46.2%) from 3. The Warriors’ advantage in that area, as well as at the free throw line, negated their 21 turnovers.

Curry and Green had a scheduled night off, although Curry’s minor right index finger injury could knock him out of another contest out of caution. Wiggins, who has worked back from an illness, is expected to play in Golden State’s final two preseason games, on Tuesday and Friday.

Here are three takeaways from Sunday’s game.

Looney’s going to play

Some raised their eyebrows when the Warriors fully guaranteed Kevon Looney’s $8 million deal to keep him, but it looks like a prudent decision now.

Looney lost his games played streak last year and fell out of Golden State’s rotation as his productivity slipped. But he spent the summer reimagining his body and conditioning. He took hundreds of 3-pointers a day, and even if his range doesn’t extend to the perimeter for real, he has had a tremendous camp.

In his first-quarter shift, Looney hit a 15-footer off the short roll — he has made a jumper in each preseason game — and was a force on both ends. He finished strong over Isaiah Stewart then stoned Stewart in the post on the other end. He helped key a 17-2 run to close the first quarter.

Looney logged eight points, three rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block in 13 minutes. If he produced that exact stat-line consistently, the Warriors would be thrilled.

Slimming down should allow Looney to be more nimble on both ends. With the Warriors committed to playing a big next to Draymond Green for the majority of his minutes, Looney is certainly going to be in the mix. That wasn’t the case last year, and didn’t seem obvious heading into training camp.

The Kuminga positional question continues

The starting lineup of Brandin Podziesmki, De’Anthony Melton, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and Trayce Jackson-Davis made Kuminga nominally a power forward in a small-ball unit. The Warriors have mostly played Kuminga at small forward this preseason, deploying him in a frontcourt with a pair of non-shooting bigs.

Yet Kuminga played just like a small forward — the position he has known his entire life. The former seventh overall pick drained his first two 3-pointers, continuing a promising trend in the preseason.

Entering Sunday, Kuminga had sank seven of his first 13 3-point attempts (53.8%). Te even drilled one off-the-dribble pull-up triple at the end of the shot clock on Friday. The Warriors have empowered him to shoot when open, and he has obliged.

“He’s shooting the 3 much more confidently, clearly,” Kerr said of Kuminga. “There’s no hesitation, looks like he’s getting better balance on his shot. And we want the catch-and-shoot when he’s open. The one thing we don’t want is guys to catch and hold.”

Most of the looks Kuminga has taken have been clean opportunities off the catch. Against the Pistons, he hit a stand-still trey from the wing off a De’Anthony Melton pass and another one off the bounce from the top of the arc, dribbling into an easy one when his defender sagged off. Early in the third quarter, Kuminga didn’t hesitate to fire in transition from the left wing.

Kuminga went 3-for-5 from deep, finishing with 12 points in 23 minutes.

Kuminga certainly still has room to improve. He only snagged two boards, which is a point of emphasis. And even the Pistons, one of the worst teams in the league, had success driving by him. But the perimeter shot looks improved, and that’s the biggest variable for him to play in Golden State’s preferred lineup configurations.

Trayce Jackson-Davis grew a quarter-inch to 6-foot-10 this summer, and it showed in the best play of the night.

As the last line of defense in transition for Golden State, the second-year center stoned Tobias Harris at the rim, then got a finger tip on Jalen Duren’s putback attempt.

The dual rejections led to a fast break that ended in a Brandin Podziemski 3-pointer. Detroit promptly called timeout, allowing Podziemski to hype up his understated rookie classmate with a shove in the chest.

“Just make a play on the ball, then try to be reactive,” Jackson-Davis said postgame. “Saw Duren get it and try to make another player. Then I got hit, and I kind of saw (Podziemski) hit a 3, but I was a little bit out of it, got poked in the eye.”

They combined for the highlight reel on the night in which the Warriors handed out bobbleheads of them high-fiving, no less.

The two also created, ironically, the lowlight of the game. With Jackson-Davis handling in the corner, Podziemski tried to sprint around him for a handoff but ended up running into his teammate. After a few moments on the court, Podziemski asked to be subbed out. He headed to the tunnel with training staff members and was ruled out with a nose contusion.

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Published on October 13, 2024 19:43

Warriors sitting Steph Curry, Draymond Green for Sunday’s preseason tilt

SAN FRANCISCO — Neither Steph Curry nor Draymond Green will play in the Warriors’ Sunday night preseason matchup against the Detroit Pistons, paving the way for more opportunities down Golden State’s roster.

“We’ve got a deep team, and this will open up a lot of minutes,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “Excited to see them all play.”

The Warriors planned a rest night for both Curry and Green. But Curry’s jammed right index finger from Friday night’s Kings game made the decision to rest him even more obvious. The x-rays on Curry’s finger came back negative and there is little concern about the severity of the injury.

Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry (30) sits on the bench with a taped index finger on his right hand in the third quarter of their preseason NBA game at Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. The Golden State Warriors defeated the Detroit Pistons 111-93. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

Without their two best players, the Warriors are starting Brandin Podziemski, De’Anthony Melton, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and Trayce Jackson-Davis.

Kerr considered starting Buddy Hield, and said the sharpshooter will likely be on the floor when Curry sits during the regular season. But he opted to see how the young core of Moody, Kuminga, Jackson-Davis and Podziemski all look together.

“Melton really connects the game well for others,” Kerr said. “And I want to see all of our young guys. I want to see them take the next step, play well together, playing for each other.”

Golden State won its first three preseason games — the opener in Hawaii against the Clippers and then a pair of wins against Sacramento. Moody has had a strong preseason, as has Kuminga and Melton, the new guard. But Andrew Wiggins fell ill during training camp and has yet to appear in an exhibition game, slowing the team’s ability to holistically assess their status at full-strength.

“We’re nowhere near where we need to be, but it’s okay,” Kerr said. “We’re putting in a lot of good work, and we’ll get there.”

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Published on October 13, 2024 16:13

Prop. 36: Opponents of crime ballot measure see fundraising surge while trying to overcome polling deficit

Backers of Proposition 36, the California ballot measure that would toughen property and drug crime penalties to combat serial theft and the fentanyl epidemic, have been on a roll with a multimillion-dollar war chest and multiple polls showing supermajority support for the initiative.

But the measure’s opposition has gotten a notable shot in the arm in recent weeks, more than tripling their fundraising totals from the first nine months of the year thanks to a string of large donations — including a million-dollar donation that arrived on Friday. That funding coincides with a new TV advertising blitz they hope will help close a polling gap for Proposition 36 that has hovered around 70% in favor versus 20% opposed.

As of the last campaign finance reports through Sept. 21, the official Yes on Prop. 36 campaign had raised $10.6 million for the calendar year, compared to $1.7 million by the official No on Prop. 36 campaign. When adding in contributions collected by parallel fundraising committees, those figures grow to $11.4 million versus $1.9 million, a more than five-fold advantage.

However, records of donations given in the last three weeks show that the main No campaign — formally registered as the Committee to Protect Public Safety, Sponsored by Action for Safety and Justice, No on Prop. 36 — has received a string of six-figure and other large contributions totaling more than $3.9 million. That surge of funds, current as of Friday afternoon, is helping bankroll a new statewide advertising campaign aimed at dissuading voters from supporting the measure.

That ad buy includes spots broadcast over the last week during the Major League Baseball divisional playoff series between two California teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

The official Yes campaign — with the registered title of Yes on Prop 36 – Californians for Safer Communities, sponsored by Golden State Communities — has seen $1.1 million in donations come in since Sept. 21. The campaign has spent most of its cash and even made a $500,000 donation to the California Republican Party, which is perhaps a signal of its confidence heading toward Election Day on Nov. 5.

Campaign officials, however, are focusing their attention on voter outreach: For the Yes campaign, to reinforce their current standing and ensure that their polling support translates into votes, and for the No campaign, in the hopes of turning the tide.

“We take nothing for granted,” said Greg Totten, spokesperson for the official Yes on Prop. 36 campaign and a former Ventura County district attorney. “We are working every single day, up to and including Election Day, to secure voter approval of this initiative.”

Anthony York, spokesperson for the No on Prop. 36 campaign, said he is encouraged by the results of their direct voter conversations, which he says has been largely effective in persuading voters to join their side.

“The Yes side has done a pretty good job of misleading folks, and identifying emotional issues, and ignoring that Prop. 36 won’t solve those problems,” York said. “There is a lot of confusion out there. When more people learn about what 36 does, the less they like it.”

Totten makes a similar claim: “We know that when voters have seen, read or heard about the initiative, they’re inclined to overwhelmingly support it by a margin of 2-to-1.”

Backers of the measure want to drive down serial theft by undoing the $950 threshold for a theft to be charged as a felony, and stiffen punishments for drug dealing that has fueled the fentanyl and opioid crises. It also would revive a drug court infrastructure that provides those arrested for certain kinds of drug possession with the choice to enter court-monitored rehab or face up to three years in jail.

Among the Bay Area’s proponents for Proposition 36 is San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who co-founded the campaign committee Common Sense on Safety, Yes on Prop. 36. That group has become a political haven for state Democrats who support the proposed law change but don’t want to align with the GOP forces behind the official campaign.

Its existence is a reflection of how effectively Proposition 36 has been positioned as a middle ground for many on the left who support leniency for low-level offenders — but are also confronted with recurring imagery of smash-and-grab burglaries, organized retail theft, rising addiction to drugs like fentanyl and homelessness, and how those problems feed each other.

“This is a direction we must go in, and it’s long overdue,” Mahan said. “This is not an abrupt change. This is a movement we’re a part of, in demanding that our state be more pragmatic in addressing these interlocking issues.”

Polling to this point appears to validate that stance, with large majorities of polled voters who identify as conservative and independents voicing support for Proposition 36, and more than half of liberal-identifying voters joining them.

Opponents of the measure know their work is cut out for them. But they remain confident that the substance of their position — the belief that Proposition 36 is an overreaction to 2014’s Proposition 47, which shifted low-level drug offenses to misdemeanors and helped the state comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to reduce its prison populations.

They argue that Proposition 47 vitally diverted people accused of crimes, especially those borne from addiction and homelessness, toward support programs instead of jail, and that Proposition 36 would reinstitute higher prison populations and return the state to ineffective “War on Drugs” policies.

Advocates of the ballot measure say that Proposition 36 is a selective peeling back of Proposition 47 that preserves leniency but reestablishes latitude to deal with serial offenders who have exploited that same leniency.

Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, a major backer of the No campaign, said voters should not be fooled by the characterization of the ballot measure as a happy medium. She referenced the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimate that Proposition 36 would raise state costs from between “several tens of millions of dollars” and “the low hundreds of millions of dollars” by increasing the prison population.

“Proponents of this proposition have really taken the language of reform advocates, but they’re taking advantage of voter frustration and fear. We all want treatment, and we all want more access, but the difference is the ‘How,’ ” she said. “This is going to be super costly, and that tends to be what tough-on-crime policies look like in the end.”

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Published on October 13, 2024 12:45

Beth Peerless, Where it’s at: Monterey electronic music fest take fans ‘Worlds Away’

Saturday’s debut of the Worlds Away festival at the Monterey Fair & Event Center had a good turnout of about 7,200 fans and the fairgrounds shone with its whimsically outfitted appearance. Light design and a small amusement park section provided a fun atmosphere for the primarily young audience.

The music in the arena pulsated with the EDM (electronic dance music) style first popularized in Europe and that has become a big deal in the U.S. as well in the past 20 years. The crowd pulsated along with electronically produced sounds as the internationally-known artists Tiësto and The Chainsmokers connected with the audience and encouraged them to jump and shout. In a more subdued performance between the two powerhouse acts, Lauv sang and performed a more melodic style music. He had to work a little harder to get the audience to react. But he was a good buffer between the two hard-charging headliners.

Weather contributed to the festival atmosphere, with a sunny, warm day allowing festival goers to dress freely, many of them like they were ready for a day at the beach. Bare bodies with paint or other adornments mingled with those who came in street clothes or what is considered festival dressing.

This was an event that showcased a music culture that is decidedly young, with a new way of presenting themselves, apart from the reggae, rock ’n’ roll, Americana, jazz scene we’re accustomed to seeing at our large festivals on the Monterey Peninsula. It’s refreshing to see how the younger generation has chosen their own style and way they represent themselves at events such as this.

Usually fans of EDM need to travel outside the area to attend shows. We previously had Lightning in a Bottle festival in South County but it has moved further south out of our county. Still, for this festival to fill up it needs fans from the bigger cities around the Bay Area or the Central Valley.

In my experience covering festivals here and in San Francisco, I’ve seen the evolution in musical style become more DJ and dance music-oriented. Lineups will still offer what would be considered organic acoustic styles and mainstream pop music, but more often there are increasing numbers of acts that present what was known more commonly as electronica in the past and can come in any number of iterations today but with the common factor of having DJs mixing up sounds and energy into music that the audience can feel in their bodies as well as hear. It’s usually pretty loud and with deep bass underpinnings.

The stage show is also part of the mix. The arena stage, renamed The Portal for this festival, was built out and extended beyond where it would normally be to facilitate the smoke blasts and the streamers that are shot off into the crowd. Light shows with strobes dominate the stage, not only on the back wall, but on the front of the DJ station that stretches across the width of the stage. Lasers and other light projections blast into the audience, and all of those elements combine to get the audience revved up and hopping. While I didn’t attend the entire one-day festival from the start, I did catch the nighttime acts where the lighting would be most prominent.

Overall, Worlds Away is a good addition to our festival culture here in Monterey County. In a future column I’ll follow up with more details and what the future holds for its continuance.

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Published on October 13, 2024 12:36

How AP uses expected vote instead of ‘precincts reporting’ when determining a winner

By Robert Yoon, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s usually possible to determine who won an election before the vote counting is 100% complete. But doing so requires determining how many ballots still need to be tabulated at any point in the vote count, and that’s not as straightforward or clear-cut as you might imagine.

In fact, it’s only gotten more complicated as elections have evolved, making traditional methods of tracking vote count progress less reliable.

What happened to ‘precincts reporting’?

For years, the most common way news organizations kept track of the progress in the vote count on election night was to calculate the percentage of precincts that had reported their results. But over the years, that method has become a less and less reliable measurement that does not reflect the realities of modern elections.

For starters, precincts throughout a state are not necessarily equal in population. Saying that 10% of precincts have yet to report could mean different things depending on which precincts are at issue. In addition, sometimes a state or county will count a precinct as reporting even if it has only reported some of its votes.

An even bigger problem is that “precincts” traditionally refer to Election Day polling places. As voting by mail and early in-person voting has gained in popularity, the “precincts reporting” measurement could be deceiving depending on how the votes are tabulated from state to state.

Some states do not include pre-Election Day votes in the voters’ home precincts — that is, the ones where they would vote if they voted on Election Day — and opt instead to lump all of their pre-Election Day votes into one precinct. In some other states, “precincts reporting” only reflects votes cast in person on Election Day and excludes any mail or early in-person voting altogether.

These states may show that all or nearly all precincts have reported complete results, even though the actual number of ballots yet to be tabulated might be significantly larger. Alternately, they sometimes report large numbers of early and mail votes before any precincts are reported at all.

In some states where there’s relatively little voting before Election Day or where election officials strive to assign mail and early votes to their home precincts, the percentage of precincts reporting does still provide a reasonably accurate sense of the votes left to be counted.

But across the board, The Associated Press calculates an expected vote estimate to provide a more consistent and reliable measurement to track the progress of the vote count on Election Night.

Reporting the expected vote

Clearly, the ideal way to calculate the number of ballots that remain to be counted is to subtract the total votes counted so far from the total number of votes cast overall. But since the exact number of votes cast in an election isn’t immediately available on election night, the AP instead analyzes several key pieces of election data to estimate the total votes expected to be cast in any given contest.

This estimate is based on several factors, including the total votes cast in previous elections, changes in population, voter registration figures and the competitiveness of the current election. Turnout data on pre-Election Day voting has become increasingly helpful in determining the expected vote, as the share of voters casting early ballots has gone up.

Once voting and vote counting begins, the AP will evaluate the latest Election Day voter turnout figures reported by elections officials as well as actual vote returns to update and refine its expected vote estimates.

Over the course of election night, the AP will report for every contest the percentage of the total expected vote counted so far. This percentage should steadily grow as the number of votes counted gradually approaches the expected vote total. But because the expected vote estimate is continually monitored and updated as more data becomes available, it’s possible that the percentage of the vote counted may temporarily get smaller because the estimate of overall turnout got bigger.

For example, if elections officials initially tell the AP that Election Day turnout in their state was 1 million voters but later revise that number to 1.2 million, the percentage of votes counted will drop temporarily before going back up again as more votes are tabulated.

What’s so difficult about nailing down the total votes cast?

The main challenge is that it can take a while for the people running elections to figure out exactly how many people voted in any given election. It often takes local and state officials weeks to arrive at the final, official number.

That’s in part because of mail voting. A local elections office might know exactly how many mail ballots they sent out to voters and have a good estimate of how many have been returned in the days leading up to Election Day. In fact, before officials begin counting votes, it’s often easier to know the approximate number of mail ballots cast than the number of people who turned up on Election Day.

But they won’t know exactly how many of those voters actually cast a mail ballot until their deadline to receive them, which is usually on Election Day itself or even after that.

With the number of voters casting their ballots by mail each year steadily on the rise, determining the total number of mail ballots can take some time, especially if the deadline to receive them is after Election Day.

Mail voting spiked in the 2020 election and outnumbered voting at polling places on Election Day for the first time ever as voters sought alternatives to in-person voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the level of mail voting is expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels, in many areas, it may fall in comparison to the 2020 election, adding another complication to estimating the expected vote in this year’s elections.

Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Published on October 13, 2024 04:15

The AP has called winners in elections for more than 170 years. Here’s how it’s done

By ROBERT YOON

WASHINGTON (AP) — One question will be asked over and over on election night: Who won?

The Associated Press will answer that question for nearly 5,000 contested races across the United States and up and down the ballot, from president and state ballot measures to a variety of local offices.

The AP has compiled vote results and declared winners in elections for more than 170 years, filling what could otherwise be a critical information void of up to a month between Election Day and the official certification of results.

What goes into determining the winners? A careful and thorough analysis of the latest available vote tallies and a variety of other election data, with the ultimate goal of answering this question: Is there any circumstance in which the trailing candidate can catch up? If the answer is no, then the leading candidate has won.

Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace, right, looks over a headline with deputy managing editor for operations David Scott in the newsroom at the Associated Press in Washington.

FILE – In this Feb. 5, 2020, photo Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace, right, looks over a headline with deputy managing editor for operations David Scott in the newsroom at the Associated Press in Washington. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)Analyzing the vote

Race calls are based on provable facts, primarily from the AP’s vote count, which is compiled from state and local election offices around the nation.

As more and more ballots are tabulated starting on election night, the AP will monitor the incoming vote at the county level and analyze who is in the lead and what areas the votes are coming from.

At the same time, the AP tries to determine throughout the night how many ballots are uncounted and from what areas. State and local election officials don’t immediately know by election night exactly how many ballots were cast in every contest. Determining how many remain has become more complicated because of the growing number of ballots cast by mail that may arrive after Election Day, which is Nov. 5 this year.

This means there are usually no official and exact tallies of the outstanding vote to rely on once the vote counting gets underway. As a result, the AP estimates the turnout in every race based on several factors and uses that estimate to track how much of the vote has been counted and how much remains.

The AP also tries to determine how ballots counted so far were cast, and the types of vote — such as mail ballots or Election Day in-person — that remain.

That’s because the method a voter chooses often speaks to whom they voted for. Since the issue of voting by mail became highly politicized in the 2020 election, most mail votes nationally have been cast by Democratic voters, while most in-person Election Day votes have been cast by Republicans.

In many states, it is possible to know which votes will be counted first from past elections or plans announced by election officials. In some others, votes counted so far are clearly marked by type.

This helps to determine if an early lead is expected to shrink or grow. For example, if a state first counts votes cast in person on Election Day, followed by mail-in votes, that suggests that an early Republican lead in the vote count may narrow as more mail ballots are tabulated. But if the reverse is true and mail ballots are counted first, an early Republican lead could be the first sign of a comfortable victory.

Finding clues from election data

The AP’s analysis to determine the winners is also greatly informed by other election data, especially the long-standing voting trends in a given area. Past election results over time show that states and counties with a long history of lopsided Republican or Democratic victories tend to continue the same voting patterns from one election to the next.

Even in closely contested races, comparing current vote patterns with those in past races can provide important clues.

A screen shows a news program website on the U.S. elections as a traders of a foreign exchange dealing company looks on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

For example, if a Democratic candidate is performing a few percentage points better across all counties that have reported votes in a state a Democrat previously won by a narrow margin, that could be a sign of a more comfortable Democratic victory. But if the Republican is performing a few percentage points better, that could point to an exceedingly close race or even a flipped result.

Large changes in an area’s voting patterns that differ substantially from statewide trends are certainly possible but tend to take root over a time frame of multiple elections. This helps analysts understand whether one candidate’s lead is an expected result or a sign of tight race. It also helps determine whether the remaining uncounted ballots are from areas that would likely benefit one candidate over another.

Demographic data can also shed light on the vote count. For example, shifts that differ from statewide patterns might be explained by a shift among a specific group, such as Hispanic voters or white voters without college degrees.

Harnessing AP VoteCast

Another tool available to the AP’s decision teams is AP VoteCast, a comprehensive, 50-state election survey that provides a detailed snapshot of who voted in an election and what was on their minds when they voted. Data from AP VoteCast makes it possible in some cases to call non-competitive or less competitive races as the polls close or shortly afterward with the initial release of votes.

When considering poll-close calls, the AP will only declare a winner if AP VoteCast data confirms the expected result in that contest based on past vote history and other preelection data.

When does the AP call a race?

In almost all cases, races can be called well before 100% of the votes have been counted. The AP’s team of election journalists and analysts will call a race as soon as a clear winner can be determined. That may sound obvious, but it is the guiding principle that drives the organization’s election race-calling process.

The AP’s race calls are not predictions and are not based on speculation. They are declarations based on an analysis of vote results and other election data that one candidate has emerged as the winner and that no other candidate in the race will be able to overtake the winner once all the votes have been counted.

Why might the AP not declare a winner?

The AP may delay calling a winner if the vote results go against the expected outcome of the contest as indicated by the available election data. In other words, if the vote results show a large lead for one candidate but some combination of the past vote history, demographic data or AP VoteCast data point to a different outcome, the AP would carefully review the vote results before making any determination.

In competitive races, AP analysts may need to wait until additional votes are tallied or to confirm specific information about how many ballots are left to count.

The AP may declare that a race is “too close to call” if a race is so close that there’s no clear winner even once all ballots except for provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots have been counted.

Competitive races where votes are actively being tabulated — for example in states that count a large number of voters after election night — might be considered “too early to call.” The “too close to call” designation is not used for these types of races.

The AP may also decide not to call a race if the margin between the top two candidates is less than 0.5 percentage points unless it determines that the margin is wide enough that it could not change in a recount.

Things that don’t affect a call

AP race calls are never made based on lobbying from campaigns or political parties or announcements made by other news organizations, or on candidate victory speeches. Although it will never call a winner based on a concession speech, in some cases, a concession is the final piece of the puzzle in confirming that there will be no recount in a close race.

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Published on October 13, 2024 04:10

Why and how AP counts the vote for thousands of US elections

By MAYA SWEEDLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — There isn’t an easier way to count votes than to count the votes.

The Associated Press has been tallying results in national, state and local elections since 1848. In broad terms, the process is the same today as it was then: Vote count reporters collect election results at a local level as soon as polls close, then submit those results for the AP to collate, verify and report.

This year, AP will count the votes in about 5,000 contested races around the United States, from the presidency and Congress to state legislatures and ballot measures.

The U.S. doesn’t have a nationwide body that collects and releases election results. Elections are administered locally, by thousands of offices, following standards set by the states. In many cases, the states themselves don’t even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.

The AP plays a role in collecting and standardizing the results.

The AP’s vote count fills a gap by bringing together information that otherwise might not be available online for days or weeks after an election or is scattered across hundreds of local websites. Without national standards or consistent expectations across states, it also ensures the data is in a standard format, uses standard terms and undergoes rigorous quality control.

FILE – Associated Press journalists David Espo, bureau chief Jonathan Wolman and Walter Mears work on Election Day, November 1992, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

FILE – Then-Associated Press Washington bureau chief Sally Buzbee, talks with Stephen Ohlemacher, who in 2020 is the decision desk editor, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, at the Washington bureau of The Associated Press during election night. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)

FILE – Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace, left, talks with Stephen Ohlemacher, right, on election night at the Washington bureau of The Associated Press, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

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FILE – Associated Press journalists David Espo, bureau chief Jonathan Wolman and Walter Mears work on Election Day, November 1992, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

Expand

Data collection efforts begin when Americans start voting, which in almost every race means well before Nov. 5 this year.

The AP requests information from state and local election administrators about the number of absentee ballots requested and the number of early votes cast as soon as voting begins. (You can track those numbers here.) These figures don’t contain results, which aren’t released until after polls close, but they can provide valuable insights into the people who have voted by Election Day.

The big effort begins once polls close, when approximately 4,000 AP vote count reporters fan out across voting precincts and county election offices. An AP vote count reporter will be stationed at nearly every county election office on Election Day, as well as in key cities and towns, collecting data straight from the source.

Many vote count reporters have a substantial amount of experience collecting accurate vote count information for the AP. In the most recent general election, about half of them had worked for the AP for at least 10 years. Hundreds more have experience collecting vote count data in primary and general elections.

They work with local election officials to collect results directly from counties or precincts where they are first counted and collected and submit them, by phone or electronically, as soon as they’re available. The results are transmitted to the AP’s vote entry center, which employs an additional 800 to 900 people.

Because many states and counties display election results on websites, the AP monitors those sites and enters the results into the same system. The vote entry center also takes in feeds of results directly from election officials where they are provided, and uses automated tools to collect results from official government websites.

In many cases, counties will report more votes as they count ballots throughout the night. The AP is continuously updating its count as these results are released. In a general election, the AP will make as many as 21,000 race updates per hour.

Mistakes can happen, such as test data accidentally getting published on a state’s website or a stringer accidentally transposing two candidates’ vote totals. Having multiple sources helps the AP figure out where these mistakes happen and often prevents them from getting published.

Sometimes counting errors need to be corrected, such as when a county has made a correction to its data or someone accidentally entered an extra zero. In some cases, that can lead to a drop in the total number of votes counted when the problem is identified and fixed.

This is why it helps to have multiple sources of updates.

On general election nights, the AP can have up to five or six potential sources of election results in each county and can choose between them depending on which is most up-to-date and accurate. Those multiple sources don’t just serve as a backup to each other; they also provide a check to help ensure the vote totals reported are correct.

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Published on October 13, 2024 04:05

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