At the November election, Manhattan Beach voters welcomed two new city council members and returned an incumbent, supported both a sales tax increase and a continuation of a local property tax, and opposed county-level plans for a higher sales tax and restructuring of county governance. 

Local voters also bucked the county by supporting a hometown favorite for a judgeship, while joining a sweeping effort to replace a first-term district attorney. 

All of these findings are evident in final results from the November 2024 election.

Now that results are certified, we can look indepth at how city voters cast ballots on a range of issues, and compare those results to how others voted. (See more about local voters' preferences on state and federal races in this recent story.)

(Election results specific to each city are available in a PDF download by going to this Resources page of the LA County Registrar-Recorder, clicking on the Nov. 5, 2024, election, and downloading "Votes Cast by Community.") 

Voter Turnout Impressive 

That's more than 14% higher than the last general election in Nov. 2022, but slightly behind two other presidential elections with even higher turnout, including the Nov. 2020 election, which saw 87.4% local turnout. That was the first election in which all households in California received a mail ballot.

The total number of registered voters for this election in Manhattan Beach was 26,630, while the total number of ballots cast by Manhattan Beach voters was 21,970. (Previous MB News stories used a total registration figure of 26,679, but the county revised this total when reporting final results.)

In just the second presidential-year election in which all voters received a mail ballot, about 44% of all voters who cast their ballots did so by mailing or dropping off their ballots by Nov. 1, the day before in-person vote centers opened. These early votes represented 36% of all those registered in town. These data emphasize that there is no longer an "election day," but more like an "election deadline." The last day to vote this year was Nov. 5. 

The highest recent voter turnout in Manhattan Beach was seen in Nov. 2008, the first general election featuring Barack Obama on the ballot, with 90.7% of local voters casting ballots.  

Turnout among Manhattan Beach voters this year fell just between two other recent presidential years: Nov. 2012 (84.4%) and Nov. 2016 (81.1%).

 

City Council: Franklin Re-Elected, Two New Members Join Council

In the election for city council, local voters opted to return current member Joe Franklin to the council, making him the top vote-getter with 11,599. The result was quite a change from Franklin's first election to the council in Nov. 2020, when he squeaked past Gretel Fournell by 160 votes.

Re-election to the city council is no sure thing, as was made clear at the Nov. 2022 election. Incumbent Suzanne Hadley failed to earn a second term then, placing third in an election where voters chose two council members.

At just the second-ever presidential-year election ballot on which the city council race appeared, Franklin's vote total this year is second only to Steve Napolitano's total of 12,245 in Nov. 2020. The third-most votes ever earned by a city council candidate was 10,185, for Richard Montgomery, also in 2020. 

Newcomer Nina Tarnay placed second this year with 9,961 votes. The third seat will go to Steve Charelian, who served in city government for three decades, and who received 7,658 votes.

'Bullet' Voting Appeared to Be Frequent in Council Race 

Voters were allowed to use up to three votes for members of city council, in choosing among the six candidates running for three open seats. 

However, a large number of votes that could have been cast were not cast at all – at a much higher rate than in past city council elections. The numbers hint strongly that many voters employed a "bullet voting" strategy, using only one or two of their votes instead of all three, to support their favored candidates without helping competitors. 

Final counts show that 32.1% of potential votes for council were not cast. In other words, the average ballot used two, instead of three, votes, leaving 21,184 potential votes "missing." 

This vote-skipping behavior stands out as extraordinary. A recent MB News analysis of City Council races going back to March 2013 found that a rate of about 14-16% of "skipped" or "missing" city council votes was common. In November 2020, the first year that city council races appeared on the November general election ballot, the number of skipped votes jumped to 25.4%, before dropping again to 14% in November 2022. 

While we estimated that "missing" votes would be over 28% in our mid-November analysis, the total proved to be quite a bit higher at 32.1%, based on final data.

While some degree of apathy toward the city council race during a presidential year may account for a chunk of that non-voting, the best explanation for the high rate this year appears to be voters making their own strategic choice to withhold at least one vote.

Voters Support City Measures, Oppose Beach Cities Health Measure

Local voters agreed to increase the city sales tax by 1/2 cent, by approving Measure MMB, and the result was never in doubt once votes began to be tallied. The measure passed with 57% support, needing only 50%-plus-one to be enacted.

Passage was by no means guaranteed, however, as the electoral environment as a whole was clouded by anxiety over the economy, and local voters also firmly said "no" to a county-level sales tax increase.

Support for local schools was evident in an impressive victory for Measure RLS, informally known as the "repair local schools" measure.  

Measure RLS extends current bond assessments, generating approximately $200 million over time. Supporters argued that the measure amounted to a continuation of existing charges, and not a tax increase.

Measure RLS needed a 55% supermajority to pass, but it finished with an overwhelming 67% "yes" vote. 

Measure RLS earned another distinction that's only evident in a data deep-dive. It received the third-highest engagement from local voters out of all candidates and issues on the ballot, behind only the races for president and U.S. senate. 

MB News rated "engagement" by calculating the total number of votes in each race as a share of all ballots cast. It's well-understood that many voters will simply skip over issues that they don't care about, or don't know enough about to form an opinion. The presidential and senate races received 97% and 94% engagement, meaning just 3% and 6% of voters, respectively, neglected to make a selection. Measure RLS saw 92.5% of local voters who cast ballots weighing in on the measure.

Measure MMB also ranked highly, with 91.3% engagement, although four state propositions got slightly more voters' attention. 

Meantime, a regional measure to support infrastructure development for the Beach Cities Health District, Measure BC, required a high bar (66.7%) for passage, but instead was decisively defeated. 

Out of all voters presented with Measure BC, 52.5% said "no." In Manhattan Beach, 58.5% of voters opposed BC. 

Where Manhattan Beach Varied on County Issues

In two significant races, voters in the city of Manhattan Beach preferred different outcomes on county-level issues. In two others, local voters also had their own voice.

Countywide, voters approved Measure A, to both double a sales tax whose revenue is devoted to addressing homelessness and to make it permanent, with a 57.8% "yes" vote.

The result was almost the opposite locally, with 57.1% of Manhattan Beach voters saying "no" to county Measure A. That result contrasts directly with local voters' choice to increase the city sales tax with Measure MMB, with 57.4% support. The big difference: Measure MMB revenues remain 100% local.

Also, county voters narrowly agreed to restructure L.A. County government by adding more supervisors and an elected CEO, passing Measure G with 51.6% voting "yes." Manhattan Beach voters wanted no part of that proposal, voting "no" by 62.2%. Still, the city will face some change in representation, as the number of county supervisors will increase from 5 to 9. 

District Attorney George Gascon was turned out of office after one term, with a decisive 59.9% of county voters opting for newcomer Nathan Hochman instead. In Manhattan Beach, the preference to replace Gascon was even stronger, with 74.5% voting for Hochman. (In November 2020, Gascon earned only 45% support in Manhattan Beach; his support fell to 19% locally at the March 2024 primary.)

Meantime, local voters gave overwhelming support to Steve Napolitano, the veteran council member, in his bid for a Superior Court judgeship (Office 39). Napolitano earned 81.6% of local voters' support over George A. Turner Jr. However, Turner won countywide, with 59.7% support.