Los Angeles County Voter Guide 2026: Recommendations and Ballot Guide

For the November 3, 2026 election, Sherafy recommends NO on Los Angeles County Measure A, YES on Measure E, and YES on California Propositions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 40. We recommend NO on Proposition 5, Propositions 37 through 39, and Propositions 41 through 45. The candidate and judicial recommendations are summarized below. For Los Angeles County Superior Court Office 131, the public evidence does not support choosing between David Ross and Donna Tryfman, so we make no candidate recommendation.

This page is the answer-first overview. It links to 32 deeper guides that examine what each choice does, the relevant current-law or governing baseline, the best evidence and counterarguments, uncertainty, and the reasoning behind the recommendation. Each guide applies the sherafy.com Civic Outcomes Standard. These are independent Sherafy editorial recommendations based on that standard, not official election information or campaign material. Confidence describes the strength of the recommendation on the evidence reviewed; it is not a probability that a prediction will come true.

Use the exact sample ballot for your home address as the final authority on which contests you can vote on. Countywide and statewide contests are shared broadly, but city, district and legislative races vary by address.

Quick recommendations

Confidence key

• High: strong evidence and relatively little material uncertainty.
• Moderate: the evidence favors a choice, while meaningful uncertainty remains.
• Low: the comparative evidence is limited or the advantage is narrow.
• Indeterminate: the evidence does not justify a directional recommendation.

Los Angeles County choices

Sheriff and county measures

• Sheriff — Robert Luna over Alex Villanueva; moderate confidence. Los Angeles County Sheriff 2026: Robert Luna vs. Alex Villanueva. The analysis compares the candidates’ records on jail safety, deputy gangs, oversight, staffing, litigation and department management.

• Measure A — NO; moderate confidence. Los Angeles County Measure A 2026: binding arbitration analysis. The guide reconstructs the current bargaining system before weighing binding interest arbitration, worker bargaining power, fiscal exposure and the transfer of contract-setting authority.

• Measure E — YES; moderate confidence. Los Angeles County Measure E 2026: ethics and community investment. The measure combines ethics-system independence with a protected community-investment allocation; the article evaluates both components, the existing spending baseline, the backlog and implementation risks.

Superior Court runoffs

Judicial races call for a different standard from ordinary candidate contests. The guides assess legal experience, professional records, courtroom work, ethics and the limits of the public evidence rather than treating disagreement with a ruling as proof of unfitness.

• Office 64 — Maria Ghobadi; moderate confidence. Los Angeles Superior Court Office 64 2026: Maria Ghobadi vs. Rhonda Haymon. It weighs each candidate’s criminal-court experience and professional evaluations, including the limits of bar ratings.

• Office 65 — Justin Allen Clayton; low confidence. Los Angeles Superior Court Office 65 2026: Justin Clayton vs. Anna Slotky Reitano. Both candidates are rated Qualified; the recommendation turns on a close comparison of courtroom activity, leadership and broader litigation experience.

• Office 87 — Anthony (A.J.) Bayne; moderate confidence. Los Angeles Superior Court Office 87 2026: A.J. Bayne vs. David DeJute. The analysis compares their courtroom records and bar ratings and tests claims about Bayne’s court-technology proposals against the available evidence.

• Office 131 — no candidate recommendation; genuinely indeterminate, with low confidence in a directional choice. Los Angeles Superior Court Office 131 2026: David Ross vs. Donna Tryfman. David Ross and Donna Tryfman have complementary experience and both are rated Qualified; the available public record does not establish a reliable basis to prefer either.

California statewide offices

These recommendations account for what each office can actually do. The linked guides compare records and proposals within those powers and explain the strongest case against the recommendation.

• Governor — Xavier Becerra; moderate confidence. California Governor 2026: Xavier Becerra vs. Steve Hilton. It compares their approaches to affordability and public services while scrutinizing Becerra’s governing record and the case for Steve Hilton.

• Lieutenant Governor — Fiona Ma; moderate confidence. California Lieutenant Governor 2026: Fiona Ma vs. Gloria Romero. Ma’s recent statewide executive record fits the office’s board and stewardship duties; the guide also weighs Gloria Romero’s education-policy experience and Ma’s settled employment case.

• Secretary of State — Shirley N. Weber; moderate confidence. California Secretary of State 2026: Don Wagner vs. Shirley Weber. It compares election administration, voter access, privacy, campaign-finance disclosure and the candidates’ actual authority.

• Controller — Malia M. Cohen; moderate confidence. California Controller 2026: Malia Cohen vs. Herb W Morgan. Cohen has delivered measurable modernization, but the guide also weighs serious control failures identified in a recent audit and the limits of Herb Morgan’s public technology plan.

• Treasurer — Eleni Kounalakis; moderate confidence. California Treasurer 2026: Jennifer Hawks vs. Eleni Kounalakis. Kounalakis has the stronger documented statewide and public-board record; her overlapping real-estate interests create an unresolved ethics question that limits confidence.

• Attorney General — Rob Bonta; moderate confidence. California Attorney General 2026: Rob Bonta vs. Michael Gates. The guide compares statewide enforcement and litigation responsibilities with Michael Gates’s municipal prosecution and litigation experience, while separating verified case outcomes from campaign framing.

• Insurance Commissioner — Ben Allen; moderate confidence. California Insurance Commissioner 2026: Ben Allen vs. Jane Kim. It tests Allen’s regulated-market approach and Jane Kim’s proposed public wildfire-insurance pool against the commissioner’s powers, market conditions and evidence limits.

• Board of Equalization, District 3 — Mike Gipson; moderate confidence. California Board of Equalization District 3 2026: Mike Gipson vs. Samuel Sukaton. Gipson has more documented experience inside tax policymaking and BOE oversight; the guide also takes Sukaton’s taxpayer-access agenda seriously and clarifies the limited power of an individual board member.

• Superintendent of Public Instruction — Richard Barrera; moderate confidence. California Superintendent of Public Instruction 2026: Richard Barrera vs. Sonja Shaw. AB 181 changed the office’s responsibilities; the analysis compares the candidates against the role that will actually exist and avoids attributing districtwide test-score results to either individual.

Judicial retention

Each retention question is a separate vote. The articles explain what YES and NO do, review the public records and opinions, and disclose where the available sample cannot support a confident judgment across a justice’s full career.

• California Supreme Court — YES to retain Kelli M. Evans and YES to retain Joshua P. Groban; moderate confidence for each. California Supreme Court retention guide 2026: Kelli Evans and Joshua Groban. The two decisions are evaluated separately, including substantial contrary arguments about consequential opinions and the limits of a selected-case review.

• Second District Court of Appeal — YES to retain each of the 18 justices; moderate confidence overall, with lower confidence for the newest appointees. California Second District Court of Appeal retention guide 2026: all 18 justices. It names every justice, gives an individual recommendation and explains the evidentiary basis and limits for each vote.

California propositions

The November 3, 2026 ballot includes fourteen statewide propositions, numbered 1 through 5 and 37 through 45, according to the California Secretary of State’s official proposition list. The recommendation is followed by the core question each linked guide answers.

• Proposition 1 — YES; moderate confidence. California Proposition 1 (2026): housing affordability bonds. Do the expected housing benefits justify long-term General Fund borrowing given delivery and oversight risks?

• Proposition 2 — YES; moderate confidence. California Proposition 2 (2026): rainy-day fund expansion. The article compares the proposed reserve, debt-payment and spending-limit changes with current law and tests what evidence can establish about fiscal resilience and service protection.

• Proposition 3 — YES; moderate confidence. California Proposition 3 (2026): permanent high-income tax. It examines the continuation of existing tax rates, revenue volatility and the limits of claims about automatic cuts or guaranteed school funding.

• Proposition 4 — YES; moderate confidence. California Proposition 4 (2026): public campaign-financing authority. The measure enables future programs but does not create or fund one by itself; the analysis weighs that legal change against mixed evidence from other jurisdictions.

• Proposition 5 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 5 (2026): statewide recall process. The guide weighs separating a recall vote from the choice of a successor against the immediate voter choice available under the current system.

• Proposition 37 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 37 (2026): middle-income homebuyer loans. Borrowers would repay the proposed second mortgages, but the measure does not establish that the subsidy would produce enough additional housing or lower home prices to justify its design.

• Proposition 38 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 38 (2026): immunology research bonds. Valuable research is possible, but the guide finds uncertain public returns alongside long-term General Fund debt and a highly concentrated allocation structure.

• Proposition 39 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 39 (2026): voter identification and citizenship verification. The analysis compares the amendment’s requirements with existing safeguards and distinguishes records flagged for scrutiny from proven illegal ballots or evidence that universal ID would prevent them.

• Proposition 40 — YES; moderate confidence. California Proposition 40 (2026): one-time tax on certain billionaires. A potentially large, dedicated health-care, education and food-assistance fund from a very small group outweighs the serious but unquantified risks from the steep threshold formula and possible future revenue effects.

• Proposition 41 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 41 (2026): spending-limit and special-tax audit rules. The proposal mandates audits and changes future tax treatment under the state spending limit; the article distinguishes required recommendations from guaranteed savings and examines its potential interaction with Proposition 40.

• Proposition 42 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 42 (2026): personal-property and retroactive-tax limits. The text reaches beyond campaign framing about retirement savings, placing a durable limit on new state taxes on broadly defined personal property; the guide weighs that restriction against the evidence of a present problem.

• Proposition 43 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 43 (2026): local special-tax voting thresholds. It would change the threshold for voter-initiated local special taxes while leaving the existing threshold for government-sponsored measures unchanged; the legal and fiscal implications remain uncertain.

• Proposition 44 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 44 (2026): community-clinic spending rule. A 90% mission-spending ratio could expose waste, but accounting classifications do not directly measure patient access or quality and could create risks for clinic operations.

• Proposition 45 — NO; moderate confidence. California Proposition 45 (2026): CEQA and environmental review reform. The article weighs enforceable timelines against narrower alternatives analysis, public-comment periods and court remedies, asking whether the record supports this broad statewide change after recent targeted reforms.

Read Propositions 40, 41 and 42 together

These three measures contain provisions that may affect one another, including vote-count and tax-treatment rules. Their legal interaction is not fully settled in the records reviewed. Read the linked analyses as a set; do not treat a possible cross-measure consequence as a settled outcome or forecast.

How to use the deeper guides

Each spoke begins with its recommendation and confidence, then establishes the actual choice and realistic baseline before evaluating evidence. The guides present the strongest case on each side, distinguish verified facts from estimates and inference, audit material campaign claims, identify meaningful unknowns, and explain what evidence could change the conclusion. They do not assign numerical scores or treat “balance” as a substitute for judgment.

The Civic Outcomes Standard examines human welfare, distribution, civil liberties, economic effects, fiscal reality, institutional integrity, effectiveness evidence, implementation, unintended consequences and reversibility. Recommendation confidence is an editorial assessment of the decision—not a measure of certainty about every underlying fact or forecast.

Check your own ballot and official information

This countywide guide cannot show every contest assigned to a particular address. Use the Los Angeles County Interactive Sample Ballot to identify your local, legislative and district races.

For authoritative statewide information, consult the California Secretary of State’s 2026 Voter Information Guide and its official proposition list. The detailed spoke articles link to the controlling legal texts, fiscal analyses, court records and other evidence relevant to each recommendation.

Research currency: This hub was reconciled with the 32 completed spoke recommendations and their canonical URLs on October 11, 2026. Shared statewide and county ballot and roster checks are recorded as of that date; article-specific evidence dates and open source checks vary and are disclosed in the linked guides. Recheck official ballot information and material legal, fiscal and campaign developments before release.