BILLIONAIRE TAX AND VOTER ID FAIL IN CALIFORNIA
Mariposa County Board of Supervisor D-1 candidate Lisa Edelheit celebrates her victory with husband/campaign manager Charles Lammers.The blue wave that swept across much of the United States didn’t quite make it up the foothills to Mariposa County, which voted reliably red in the Nov. 2026 midterm election.
The county remains an electoral mirror image of California as a whole, in most respects.
Most, but not all.
In the race for Mariposa County District One Supervisor Lisa Edelheit defeated Stanley Bissmeyer with about 56 percent of the vote as of Tuesday night. The race is nonpartisan, but Edelheit, a Democrat, and Bissmeyer, a Republican, reside comfortably in those partisan camps.
District One includes Yosemite Valley, along with Yosemite West, El Portal, and Fish Camp. It is generally regarded as the more liberal of the five supervisor districts.
Edelheit was at the Mariposa County Election Clerks Office Tuesday night as the votes were coming in.
Edelheit said her priority is finding answers to the astronomical rate increases facing water and sewer districts in Yosemite West and Mariposa Pines. “We’ve pushed the can down the road for too long,” she said.
Edelheit also worries the county is “behind the game” when it comes preparing for a return to major gold mining, as three Canadian companies have already begun exploratory drilling in Mariposa County.
“We have to think of how to leverage what’s going to happen,” she said.
Otherwise, from Governor to Attorney General, Mariposa County voted a straight Republican ticket by a 14-point margin, 57 to 43 percent.
Statewide those trend lines were flipped, with Democrats seizing 64 percent of the votes for the State Constitutional Office Holders, including Governor and Attorney General.
In the newly redrawn 5th Congressional District, incumbent U.S. Congressman Tom McClintock captured 57 percent of the vote over his Democratic Challenger Michael Masuda. McClintock did only one percentage point better in Mariposa County.
In State Senate District 4, Republican Alexandra Duarte edged out Democrat Jaron Brandon with 52 percent of the vote. She maintained a 10-point lead in Mariposa County.
The Billionaire Tax --Prop 40 – was a decisive ‘No’ in Mariposa County with 70 percent voting against a one-time 5 percent tax on people worth more than one billion dollars. Statewide 56 percent voted ‘No’.
Statewide Prop 41, which would have prohibited new state taxes failed. But Prop 42, which prohibits any the new state personal property taxes passed with 54 percent of the vote. Voters in Mariposa County decisively voted for both.
Both Mariposa County and California rejected a voter I-D proposal by the same margin, 59 percent, and both said no to public funding of political campaigns.
Full election coverage and results are available at CalMatters and results can also be found at the California Secretary of State.
