In the California election on Tuesday, Democrats are poised to score.
President Barack Obama is expected to cruise to victory and capture California's 55 electoral votes over Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein appears to be in a strong position to defeat GOP challenger Elizabeth Emken, according to the latest polls.
The AP reports on another race in the spotlight in the Golden State:
A win by Councilman Carl DeMaio would make San Diego the largest U.S. city by far to choose an openly gay Republican leader. DeMaio also would become one of the few young Republicans elected to a high-profile office in California.
DeMaio, 38, made his political mark in the city by attacking municipal employee unions and attaching himself to the winning sides of ballot campaigns to privatize services, defeat a sales tax and cut public pensions.
Several ballot measures up for a vote in California have also made headlines over the course of the election season. Reuters recently reported:
A handful of individual super-donors, business groups and unions have poured more than $350 million into California ballot initiatives ahead of the November 6 election, underscoring the extent to which the state's system of "direct democracy" has morphed into a big-money battleground.
Some of the spending is directly tied to the financial interests of the donors. Food and agriculture interests, for example, have spent $43 million so far to defeat a proposition that would require labeling of genetically modified foods, according to non-partisan researcher Maplight, which uses state data for its calculations.
In other cases, long-standing political divisions are at play: the most expensive single battle is over Proposition 32, which would ban payroll deductions for political activity and strikes at the core of labor unions' power. Unions have led a "no on 32" campaign that has raised $68.8 million.
Voters in California can cast ballots at the polls between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Pacific time.
Check out the latest polls in the presidential race in states across America below. Scroll down for live updates on the latest Election Day news.
