IVN Editorial BoardThe President spent the day after the election on Truth Social calling California a "third-world nation" because Los Angeles takes more than one night to count its ballots. Slow counting isn't fraud. And the actual story has nothing to do with rigged machines.
Steyer dropped more than $200 million of his own money into the California governor's race that was reportable. He also spent unknown amounts funding the turnout operations of organizations his progressive positioning spoke to, including the Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution, the Working Families Party, and labor groups that endorsed his "outsider" candidacy. All perfectly legal.
That's why Karen Bass woke up the morning after election day expecting Spencer Pratt in November and got Nithya Raman instead. CNN's Harry Enten said it plainly: "She wanted to face Pratt. She wanted nothing to do with Raman."
The rules may be worth a debate. But there was no wholesale cheating. There was a billionaire.
Elsewhere, IVN exposed several other stories the national narrative has missed, including:
- In Oklahoma, election officials rejected nearly 58,000 signatures from an open primaries petition. Voters are demanding answers.
- In Maine, the story everyone's ignoring isn't a candidate's sexting scandal. It's a quiet shift that could reshape how the state votes.
- In New Mexico, the tired myth that independent voters are too apathetic to show up just died a very public death.
Check out more stories that go outside the two-sided narrative below.
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It Wasn't Fraud. It's Steyer $$$$.
The President called it fraud. CNN's Harry Enten called that "the dumbest conspiracy theory I have ever heard." The truth is far simpler - and far more revealing. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was supposed to coast into a second term against a Republican in a city where Democrats outnumber the GOP three to one. Instead, she's facing fellow Democrat Nithya Raman in November, and the reason isn't a rigged count. It's Tom Steyer's money and a primary system that forced Democrats to fight each other in public.
California's Top Two primary doesn't protect incumbents or guarantee partisan outcomes - it makes every candidate earn it. That's exactly why party insiders hate it, and exactly why it works. Read the full breakdown on IVN →
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We Were Right: Becerra Rides Latino Support to Win Primary
The Independent Voter Project poll got it right. While other pollsters spun narratives that didn't hold up, we showed Xavier Becerra surging into a commanding lead well before the results confirmed it - making us the first poll to call his rise and the strength he'd carry with Latino voters, the fastest-growing bloc in the state. As Becerra heads toward a traditional R-vs-D general against Steve Hilton, the "two Republicans will advance" panic looks exactly like the manufactured fear we said it was.
And on the question of open primaries themselves? Those same Latino voters made their position clear: only 22% want to go back to closed partisan primaries.
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Independent Voter Podcast
Fresh off the California gubernatorial primary, Chad, Cara, and Ethan break down why the "Top Two will produce two Republicans" narrative was a manufactured fear - and why it collapsed the moment voters actually voted, with Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra heading toward a traditional R-vs-D general.
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Flashback: CA Independents Locked Out of Primaries Pre-Top-Two
Remember when California independents were "second class citizens"? Before 2010, political parties got to decide - election by election - whether to even let independents vote in their primaries. In heavily one-sided districts, that meant millions of NPP voters had no real say in who represented them.
Our video showing news coverage of the effort to pass the Top-Two primary has racked up over a million views on Instagram.
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