• Sacramento, CA Mayor: Retiring Mayor Darrell Steinberg declared Tuesday that he was backing Assemblyman Kevin McCarty in the November nonpartisan election to replace him as leader of California's dark blue capital city.
The Sacramento Bee's Theresa Clift writes that Steinberg, who only confirmed his "support" after the paper learned he'd made a donation to McCarty back in March. Steinberg did not say he was endorsing the legislator, but as we've written before, this is a distinction without a difference.
McCarty, a Democrat whose social media profile declares, "* NOT Kevin McCartHy, Seriously!" faces physician Flojaune Cofer, who is the endorsed candidate of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Cofer, who would be the first Black woman elected to lead Sacramento, led McCarty 29-22 in the March nonpartisan primary. Neither of the two candidates who finished just behind him, former state Sen. Richard Pan and City Councilman Steve Hansen, appear to have backed either McCarty or Cofer.