California’s 2024 November General Election Preview

With ballots arriving in the mailboxes of California voters, the below provides a snapshot analysis of the open and competitive seats in the California Legislature for the 2024 General election.

Prior to the March primary election, the voter registration report from the Secretary of State’s office tracking registration activity between October 2023 and January 2024 noted an uptick in Republican registration, with the GOP gaining 46,000 registered voters statewide. Democrats lost 30,000 voters statewide and saw a decrease in registration advantage in just about every Assembly district in the state. No Party Preference voters saw a drop of about 70,000 voters. As of September, a record total of 22,310,352 eligible Californians are registered to vote, which is 1,070,116 more than at the same point in the presidential election cycle four years ago. Democrats saw less than a 1% decrease in voter registration from 2020 to 2024, while Republicans saw a 0.65% increase in GOP registration between 2020 and 2024.

In the 12 years since California’s election law was changed to allow the top two vote-getters, regardless of political party, to proceed to the general election, the types of candidates in Assembly and Senate races have significantly changed. In addition, due to the term limits instituted around the same time, many of the legislators who came in under the new term limits are now term-restricted. Upon completion of this election cycle, 68.5% of the Assembly and Senate seats will have changed hands in just the past four years.

Below is a list and analysis of each open and competitive Assembly and Senate races in the current election cycle. 

Click here for the full analysis of each race.

ASSEMBLY

• AD 1: Megan Dahle (Bieber/Rural Northern CA)
• AD 2: Jim Wood (Healdsburg)
• AD 6: Kevin McCarty (Sacramento)
• AD 7: Josh Hoover (Folsom)
• AD 8: Jim Patterson (Mariposa)
• AD 13: Carlos Villapudua (Stockton)
• AD 15: Timothy Grayson (Concord)
• AD 19: Philip Ting (San Francisco)
• AD 26: Evan Low (Silicon Valley)
• AD 32: Vince Fong (Bakersfield)
• AD 33: Devon Mathis (Tulare)
• AD 41: Chris Holden (Los Angeles/Pasadena)
• AD 43: Luz Rivas (San Fernando Valley)
• AD 44: Laura Friedman (Los Angeles/Glendale)
• AD 50: Eloise Gómez Reyes (San Bernardino)
• AD 52: Wendy Carrillo (Los Angeles/East LA)
• AD 53: Freddie Rodriguez (Chino Hills/Pomona)
• AD 54: Miguel Santiago (Downtown Los Angeles)
• AD 57: Reggie Jones-Sawyer (South Los Angeles)
• AD 58: Sabrina Cervantes (Riverside)
• AD 62: Anthony Rendon (Southgate/Paramount-Unincorporated LA County)
• AD 75: Marie Waldron (Santee/Poway)
• AD 76: Brian Maienschein (Rancho Santa Fe)
• AD 79: Akilah Weber (San Diego/La Mesa)

SENATE

• SD 1: Brian Dahle (Bieber/Rural Northern CA)
• SD 3: Bill Dodd (Napa)
• SD 5: Susan Talmantes Eggman (Stockton/San Joaquin County)
• SD 7: Nancy Skinner (Berkeley/Alameda County)
• SD 9: Steve Glazer (Orinda/Lafayette)
• SD 23: Scott Wilk (Santa Clarita)
• SD 25: Anthony Portantino (La Canada Flintridge)
• SD 29: New Seat (San Bernardino)
• SD 31: Richard Roth (Riverside)
• SD 35: Steven Bradford (Gardena/Carson)
• SD 37: Dave Min (Irvine/Costa Mesa)
• SD 39: Toni Atkins (San Diego)

THIS DOCUMENT IS INTENDED TO PROVIDE YOU WITH GENERAL INFORMATION REGARDING CALIFORNIA'S NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION. THE CONTENTS OF THIS DOCUMENT ARE NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE SPECIFIC LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CONTENTS OF THIS DOCUMENT OR IF YOU NEED LEGAL ADVICE AS TO AN ISSUE, PLEASE CONTACT THE ATTORNEYS LISTED OR YOUR REGULAR BROWNSTEIN HYATT FARBER SCHRECK, LLP ATTORNEY. THIS COMMUNICATION MAY BE CONSIDERED ADVERTISING IN SOME JURISDICTIONS. THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS ACCURATE AS OF THE PUBLICATION DATE. BECAUSE THE LAW IN THIS AREA IS CHANGING RAPIDLY, AND INSIGHTS ARE NOT AUTOMATICALLY UPDATED, CONTINUED ACCURACY CANNOT BE GUARANTEED.