AP projects Rob Bonta elected to second term as California Attorney General
The AP has projected that Rob Bonta has been elected to a second term as the state's top law job.
Bonta was one of 120 ambitious yet relatively obscure California state lawmakers just last year. He was heavily favored over Republican challenger Nathan Hochman, given Democrats' predominance in the deep blue state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom picked Bonta to fill the vacancy in March 2021. Because Bonta, 50, was appointed more than midway through his predecessor's four-year term, he's eligible to run for two additional full terms, which could allow him to serve nearly 10 years in an office that already has given him a national stage on issues as diverse as abortion, climate change, gay rights, and gun control.
The state's first Filipino-American attorney general is a particularly hot draw at events featuring the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, which makes up about 16% of California's nearly 40 million residents.
Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, tried to tap into voter anger over rising crime and homelessness, decrying what he calls the state's "spiral of lawlessness." He had more campaign cash than all but one other GOP statewide candidate, but concentrated his TV advertising in the Los Angeles area with one commercial trying to tie Bonta to progressive LA District Attorney George Gascón and another featuring an endorsement by a co-founder of Death Row Records.
Bonta released a single online ad two weeks before Election Day that never mentions Hochman but emphasizes Bonta's defense of reproductive rights. He also announced forming a California Reproductive Rights Task Force along with 14 local law enforcement officials to confront abortion restrictions in other states and protect access and privacy in California.
Bonta was backed by more than a dozen gun control advocates and gun violence survivors, along with his wife. She had sought to create the office and declare gun violence a public health crisis through legislation that died in an Assembly committee in May — so her husband did it by administrative fiat.