Good morning. It’s Monday, June 1.
- Polls show tightening races for governor and L.A. mayor.
- Climate rules bend to politics over gas prices.
- And a sea of Marilyn Monroes gathers in Palm Springs.
Election 2026
1.
Tomorrow is Primary Day, and many voters are underwhelmed by their options in the race for California governor. But there are some sharp differences between the leading candidates. CalMatters published a helpful cheat sheet. For example:
- Xavier Becerra said he wants to freeze utility and insurance rates.
- Chad Bianco said he would kill the state’s sanctuary law.
- Steve Hilton said he would open natural spaces for housing.
- Matt Mahan said he wants to tie officials’ pay to performance.
- Katie Porter called for lower middle-income taxes and higher corporate taxes.
- Tom Steyer proposed a fee on AI usage to support displaced workers.
- Antonio Villaraigosa said he supports a moratorium on climate rules.
- Tony Thurmond said he would use school property for housing.
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Polls open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Find your polling place.
See voter guides: CalMatters | S.F. Chronicle | L.A. Times
2.
Outside organizations have been spending record sums on the governor’s race — nearly $80 million so far. Some of the groups that are fighting Tom Steyer’s bid are the same ones boosting Xavier Becerra. One of them, as Steyer has been eager to remind voters, is Chevron. Also bankrolling Becerra: McDonald’s, Meta, the California Medical Association, and the dialysis giant DaVita. See who’s funding the gubernatorial campaigns and why. 👉 CalMatters | Politico
- A new poll showed Tom Steyer edging out Steve Hilton in the battle for second place behind Becerra, raising the possibility of an all-Democrat finish. Bloomberg | Sacramento Bee
3.
Polling now shows three candidates in the primary race for Los Angeles mayor — moderate Democrat Mayor Karen Bass, progressive City Council member Nithya Raman, and Republican Spencer Pratt — running neck-and-neck. “You’ve got three very different candidates, each with very different constituencies, all within the margin of error,” pollster Mark DiCamillo said. “It’s going to boil down to turnout.” L.A. Times | Politico
- The Atlantic’s Marc Novicoff called it a “lose-lose-lose” primary: “In Los Angeles, the leftist insurgent isn’t inspiring, and the boorish challenger — the former reality-TV villain Spencer Pratt — is inexperienced. The incumbent isn’t corrupt, just feckless.”
4.
Other election updates:
- One of the oddest outcomes of California’s redistricting push: pro-MAGA Huntington Beach is likely to get a gay, liberal congressman. Pat Burns, a local lawmaker, is furious: “It’s just California ugly-ass politics,” he said. Reuters
- An intensifying current of anti-rich sentiment is driving a measure in San Diego that would tax owners of homes that are left vacant more than half the year. The city has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. S.D. Union-Tribune
- Shasta County’s registrar of voters, Clint Curtis, has threatened to “throat-punch” staff, has asked them to engage in illegality, and has campaigned on his own behalf in violation of election law, according to personnel records. Now he’s on the ballot and running the vote. S.F. Chronicle
Statewide
5.
California regulators on Friday approved an overhaul of the state’s signature cap-and-invest program that environmental groups said would amount to its dismantling. The changes ease costs for refineries to keep them from fleeing the state at a time when gas prices are surging. The vote was seen as a victory for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is fending off attacks on affordability. “Even in deep-blue California,” Politico reported, “politicians have moved from setting ambitious climate goals to scrambling to hold the line against a cost-of-living backlash.”
Northern California
6.
A wild turkey recently attacked an 83-year-old woman in Alameda, knocking her to the ground and bloodying her face. Wild turkeys have strutted through Northern California suburbs since the 1950s, when they were introduced for recreational hunting. Some residents find them charming. But they are notorious for blocking intersections, pecking at shiny vehicles, and acting out during their spring mating season. Emily Crum, an Alameda animal control officer, said there was little the city could do. “Just try to stay as far away from them as possible,” she said. KGO
7.
Anxieties over artificial intelligence seem to be mounting:
- The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel wrote about the “crisis of agency” as AI answers emails, builds websites, makes music, and solves math problems: “Across so many levels of culture, there’s a feeling of control slipping ever so slightly away.”
- The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang chronicled the growing despair of professors. “Was it always the case that half of our students would cheat if it were easy enough?” one instructor asked.
- The New York Times Magazine’s Taffy Brodesser-Akner interviewed Tilly Norwood, an AI creation meant to be “a kind of Platonic ideal of a hirable actress.” “It was harder than you think to remember that Tilly is just a computer,” she wrote.
8.
In the middle of the vast flatness of the Sacramento Valley, an improbable volcano pokes up 2,122 feet like an island from water. A Bay Nature correspondent, H.R. Smith, paid a recent visit to the Sutter Buttes and found them spectacular: “We pass olive trees, beehives stacked like filing cabinets, hawks perched on power lines. The olive trees become tall grasses, backlit iridescent as the sun burns off the fog. Boulders appear strewn among them, as if a giant got lazy with her toys.”
9.
Sonoma County’s Bohemian Highway, a winding two-lane corridor, stretches just 10 miles, but its diversions could easily fill an entire weekend. The route links three charming small towns — Freestone, Occidental, and Monte Rio — across a landscape of redwoods, pastures, vineyards, and the lazy Russian River. Travel + Leisure drove the highway and came back with recommendations, including a zipline that will send you flying through the forest at 40 miles an hour.
Southern California
10.
A year after AB Hernandez won gold medals in the girls high jump and triple jump at the California state track and field championships, the trans athlete from Jurupa Valley won both events again at the 2026 contest on Saturday. Hernandez, however, shared the podium with co-winners. Under a policy created to address concerns about fairness, transgender athletes who place at the state championships receive medals but do not displace other athletes in the final standings. L.A. Times | City News Service
11.
Temecula on Monday plans to debut what it is calling California’s first “smart freeway,” a stretch of the 15 Freeway that will use sensors and ramp meters that adapt in real-time to optimize traffic flow. Digital signs will recommend driving speeds aimed at eliminating the scourge of stop-and-go traffic, officials said. Raymond Gregory, a transportation official, said the system is a superior alternative to adding more lanes. “Building our way out of traffic congestion is not an option.” Press-Democrat
12.
It was Marilyn Monroes as far as the eye could see in Palm Springs on Saturday as impersonators gathered downtown two days before what would have been the Hollywood starlet’s 100th birthday. Altogether, 1,037 men and women donned platinum-blonde wigs and halter dresses for the event, setting a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of Marilyn Monroe look-alikes. The pictures are something. 👉 L.A. Times | Desert Sun
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