RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA — The polls are closed in Orange County, and voters will soon know who will represent them on the Rancho Santa Margarita City Council, if billionaires will get their own California tax, and whether a blue wave will flood Congress, possibly sinking the final two years of President Donald Trump's lame-duck presidency.
Millions of voters and election officials wait not only for the results but also for the president's reaction. Trump's Justice Department spent the final two weeks of the campaign season issuing subpoenas to California election officials and suing to block 20,000 Golden State ballots from being counted amid allegations of illegal voting. The Justice Department issued subpoenas for multiple California election officials to appear in court the day after the election.
Amid that contentious backdrop, Californians cast their ballots for a new governor, widely expected to be Democrat Xavier Becerra, who went into the election with a wide lead in the polls over Republican Steve Hilton.
The outcome of dozens of down-ballot primary races also hangs in the balance in Orange County. Voters are waiting to find out who came out ahead in the county Board of Supervisors and congressional districts.
In Rancho Santa Margarita, voters three districts determined who they wanted to represent them on the city council dais. Across town, residents voted on who they wanted to serve as their congressional representative for the 40th District.
Scroll down for real-time [PATCH County] election results.
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As of September, the California Secretary of State reported that 23,164,977 Californians were registered to vote, which accounts for more than 85 percent of the state's eligible voting population.
Not surprisingly, there are far more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state, with 45 percent for the former and 25 percent for the latter.
In Orange County, the rate of voter registration is high. As of September, 1,905,933 were registered to vote — with 36.46 percent of voters registered as Democrats, 33.59 percent as Republicans.
Can't see the widget? Click here for all County election results. Be sure to refresh this page for the latest.
Based on early voting, California is poised to see 60 percent of registered voters head to the polls, a record for a gubernatorial race, Paul Mitchell, of political data analysis firm Political Data told The San Francisco Chronicle.
While the governor's race was expected to be called early Tuesday, it's California's congressional races and ballot measures poised to offer the biggest upsets and surprises. Hanging in the balance is control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mitchell predicted that five key redrawn congressional districts appear poised to deliver Democratic victories driven, in part, by high turnout among Latino voters.
"I think the blue wave is on track," Mitchell told The Chronicle. "It seems to be on track that we're going to have a really strong turnout."
So far, voter turnout has been higher in competitive races such as the Central Valley's District 22 and the 48th Congressional District in San Diego — two districts Democrats hope to flip after their mid-decade gerrymander.
As of Oct. 29, Democratic voters represented 51 percent of ballots returned statewide compared to just 28 percent among Republican voters, according to the Political Data tracker.
Rancho Santa Margarita City Council
In Rancho Santa Margarita, seven candidates across three districts are currently in the running for a seat on the Rancho Santa Margarita City Council.
Incumbents running in the 2026 Rancho Santa Margarita City Council election include Anne Figueroa and Brad McGirr, who are running in District 2 and District 4, respectively.
New faces running in the 2026 Rancho Santa Margarita City Council election include John Bastian and Nicholas Reese, who are running in District 1; Rod Ganjifard and Natalie Guse, who are running in District 2; and Maryann Verghese, a write-in candidate vying for District 4.
CA-40
In California's 40th Congressional District, Republican incumbents Ken Calvert and Young Kim are facing off to keep their seats in congress and represent the district.
The seat, which blends portions of Calvert's and Kim's current district, spans from cities in Orange County such as Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita to Menifee and Murrieta in Riverside County.
The district was redrawn under Proposition 50, the ballot measure that passed in 2025 to reconfigure the boundaries of the state's congressional district, resulting in a race that features two Republican candidates pitted against one another.
Calvert is a Corona native who was originally elected to Congress in 1992. He serves as a senior member of the House Committee on Appropriations and is a Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
Kim is one of three Korean American women who were the first to be elected to Congress in 2020. She currently serves on the House Foreign Affairs and the House Financial Services committees and the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
California voters headed to the polls Tuesday, facing high gas and grocery prices, the effects of climate change on wildfires and rising seas amid a shortage in insurance coverage and the ever-present housing affordability crisis.
The governor's race was somewhat anticlimactic following a chaotic primary with a crowded field of candidates roiled when the frontrunner was forced to step down amid sexual assault allegations. Since then, Becerra maintained a steady lead over Hilton in the polls.
In the final days of the election, a new SurveyUSA poll showed Becerra with a 22-point lead.
Click here for real-time results in the California Governor's races.
All 52 of California's Congressional seats were on the ballot.
Congressional races across California were under intense scrutiny following voter approval of Proposition 50, a partisan redistricting measure expected to reshape the state's political map. Thanks to the redistricting, only a handful of districts were truly competitive. Democrats hoped to flip as many as five Republican House seats in a bid to overturn the GOP's slim House majority.
Democrats think they can flip as many as five seats, with four seeming very much in reach, according to the polls. Both parties are spending like control of the House is on the line.
Click here for real-time results in California's Congressional races.
There were 14 statewide propositions on the ballot this week. Arguably, the most hot-button ballot initiatives involve taxation. Proposition 40 is the highly discussed billionaire tax, while Propositions 41 and 42 aim to counter the measure. Proposition 3 also addresses taxes on the state's highest earners.
Click here for real-time results for all of California's ballot measures.
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