The Democrat led the Orange County supervisor 64.8% to 35.2% in early returns, and her office will certify the statewide results, her own race included, by Dec. 11.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, won another term Tuesday as California’s chief elections officer, defeating Republican Don Wagner, an Orange County supervisor and former Irvine mayor. The Associated Press called the race for Weber around 9 p.m.
Weber had 4,641,675 votes, or 64.8%, to Wagner’s 2,526,404, or 35.2%, in her own office’s unofficial count as of 12:45 a.m. Wednesday. The numbers are preliminary and uncertified, with 20,301 of 23,860 precincts partially reporting and mail, provisional and other ballots still to be tallied.
The office Weber keeps oversees state elections and will certify the statewide results by Dec. 11, including the outcome of her own race. Wagner made California’s slow vote count a centerpiece of his challenge.
By early Wednesday, neither Weber nor Wagner had posted a statement about the result on X or on a campaign website.
Gov. Gavin Newsom nominated Weber on Dec. 22, 2020, and she was sworn in on Jan. 29, 2021, as the first Black secretary of state in California history. Voters elected her to a full term in 2022.
Weber’s voter guide statement opened with a pledge, “I will never give up on protecting your voting rights,” and later added, “I’ve stood up to Donald Trump.”
Wagner, who also served in the state Assembly, argued in his primary voter guide statement that California lags other big states in reporting results. “While other large states can finish vote counts and announce results on Election Night, California takes 30 excruciating days,” he wrote.
In the same statement, he proposed requiring voter ID at the polls, requiring mail ballots to be returned by Election Day and banning “ballot harvesting” by paid canvassers. His campaign website says he “fully supports the Voter ID Initiative on the ballot in November.”
Wagner also called for taking party labels off the office. “I’d like to see the Secretary of State’s office be nonpartisan so that it’s not a Republican or a Democrat calling an election for a Republican,” Wagner told KCRA in a campaign interview.
Counting will continue for weeks. Under Secretary of State guidance, mail ballots postmarked by Election Day still count if they reach county election offices within seven days, and local election offices get about a month to complete the official canvass, which includes audits and certification.
The state Constitution sets the secretary of state’s term to match the governor’s, so Weber’s new term begins Jan. 4, 2027. Until certification, her office says the totals will keep shifting as the remaining ballots are counted.
