Former tech executive Lexi Reese raises over $1 million in bid for California Senate seat

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TECH EXEC SENATE CANDIDATE RAISES $1.1 MILLION

Via David Lightman...

Lexi Reese entered the California Senate race just two weeks before the June 30 deadline for second quarter campaign finance reports. But the Democrat and former tech executive still managed to raise $1.1 million in her long shot bid for the seat of retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Her Federal Election Commission filing shows she received $818,118.48 in contributions and gave herself $283,937. She had $625,450 cash on hand.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Los Angeles, leads the money chase. He collected $8.1 million in the second quarter and reported $29.5 million on hand. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Orange County, took in $3.2 million and had $10.3 million on hand. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, raised $1 million and has $1.4 million on hand.

Porter, Schiff and Lee were in a tight race, according to a June poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. The survey’s leading Republican, businessman Eric Early, reported raising $201,276 in the second quarter and had $80,343 on hand. Reese had not yet entered the race when the poll was conducted.

The top two finishers in the March primary next year, regardless of party, will compete for the seat in the November general election.

KEVIN MCCARTHY RAISING MONEY FOR STOCKTON MAYOR

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, is attending a fundraiser Thursday in support of a bid for Congress by Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln.

Lincoln hasn’t officially announced his entry into the race for California’s 9th Congressional district. He would face incumbent Rep. Josh Harder, a moderate Democrat who joined Congress by unseating a Republican in 2019.

The fundraiser, first reported by KCRA, was confirmed per texts to a Bee reporter from San Joaquin County Supervisor Tom Patti.

Harder defeated Patti for the 9th district in 2022 with 54.8% of the vote. The district is friendlier toward Democrats, with 43.5% registered as Democrat and 28.4% as Republican. Right now, election tracking groups predict Harder as the likely 2024 winner.

But the slim margin in the 2022 race caught the attention of a GOP looking to expand its slight House majority. In March, the National Republican Campaign Committee listed the district as one of their 37 priority seats.

McCarthy’s fundraising prowess led one GOP consultant to label him their “financial spigot.” Since November, he has raised $62.5 million since November for the McCarthy Victory Fund, his fundraising committee, according to CNN.

CALIFORNIA CONSTRUCTION UNION GETS A NEW PRESIDENT

The State Building and Construction Trades Council of California has a new president: Chris Hannan.

Hannan will represent 450,000 plumbers, electricians and construction workers who are members of the statewide union.

His predecessor, Andrew Meredith, left the job in the middle of the legislative session after less than two years.

The union is a force on Capitol hill, holding leverage over housing and climate legislation. It also has a history of butting heads with Gov. Gavin Newsom and launching campaigns against assemblymembers.

Hannan comes from the Los Angeles and Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, where he served as executive secretary. He helped launch a public-private collaboration to accelerate the use of renewable hydrogen projects in California.

DECREASING ENROLLMENT IN CALFRESH, CALWORKS

The number of infants enrolled in CalFresh, California’s supplemental nutritional program for low-income families, and CalWORKs, the state’s cash assistance program, has declined over the past decade, according to analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

Infant enrollment in CalWORKs has halved since 2010, when one in five received aid. The decrease is in spite of the Legislature’s passage of policies aimed at expanding the program.

PPIC says part of the decline is attributable to an overall reduction in California poverty since 2010. But the analysis suggests that some eligible families aren’t being connected with the programs.

One in eight Californians participate in CalFresh each month. PPIC estimates that it keeps 700,000 Californians out of poverty.

CalFresh and CalWORKs enrollment hit all-time lows in 2019, before the pandemic caused an uptick. Poverty in California fell five percentage points from 2019 to 2021 as a result of expanded social safety net programs like CalFresh and the Child Tax Credit, according to research conducted by PPIC and Stanford’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. Child poverty fell by 8 percentage points.

According to 2021 Census data, 12.3% of California households are below the federal poverty line. But the United Way of California’s poverty calculation, which adjusts for cost of living, estimates that one in three households cannot cover basic living costs.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Members have been receiving death threats. I’ve been called the N-word. People talked about raping some of the members’ children. Some of the most abhorrent things you could ever hear from some of the Q-Anon, racist individuals spurred on by a couple of Republicans. That has no business in the discourse being able to discuss a policy, a policy that was flawed,” said Asm. Reggie Jones-Sawyer , D-Los Angeles, in an interview on FOX 5 about SB 14.

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• An extra $4,000 added to the standard deduction if you file your federal taxes jointly? And $2,000 more for single filers? That’s the Republican plan headed for a vote in the House as part of a big GOP-authored tax cut bill, via David Lightman.

• The California Public Employee and Retirement System launched its three-day offsite meeting in Monterey with a long-awaited update on a June data breach that exposed Social Security numbers, birth dates and other personal information on nearly 1.2 million retirees and other beneficiaries, via Maya Miller.

• California Democrats spent the final few days before summer recess in an unusual spot: embroiled in a legislative fight with Republicans, who typically operate in the shadow of the state’s blue supermajority, via Lindsey Holden.