Bonta on pace to face GOP challenger in California AG race
SACRAMENTO — California’s Democratic attorney general was on pace to face the Republican Party’s endorsed candidate in the November general election in a state that overwhelmingly favors Democrats, based on early ballot returns Tuesday.
Attorney General Rob Bonta, the only Democrat in the five-way primary field, advanced after winning 58 % of the vote shortly after polls closed.
He was trailed by the GOP’s endorsed candidate, Nathan Hochman, with 17 %. Hochman is a former federal prosecutor and former assistant U.S. attorney general.
Conservative Republican Eric Early was third, with 14 percent, while Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, running without party affiliation, had 8 percent of the vote. Green Party candidate Dan Kapelovitz had 3 percent in early vote tallies.
The top two vote-getters advance to the November election under California law, no matter their party affiliation.
Independent organizations supporting Bonta spent more than $1 million on targeted messaging advising Republican voters that Early is a Trump supporter, recall leader and defender of Second Amendment rights. Early was legal counsel for the unsuccessful effort to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom last year.
The state Republican Party, in a letter distributed by Hochman’s campaign, called the tactic “dirty tricks.”
Early had finished last in a four-way primary election for attorney general in 2018 and this year was far behind other candidates in campaign fundraising.
Hochman and Schubert both said Bonta allies were trying to sideline their campaigns that might have greater appeal to centrist voters and thus pose a greater risk to Bonta in a general election.