June 7th, 2022 is when the primary election is being held in California. With the election coming up in just 2 weeks, parties are going to be after as many votes as they can. But this election has gotten confusing for some because of our current Attorney General.
Rob Bonta has been the Attorney General for California since 2021. As a member of the Democratic party, he has been pushing for one challenger for Attorney General. His name is Eric Early.
Bonta has been spending what seems like an abnormal amount of money on ads for Early. In reality, Bonta is just trying to lift up Early because he calculates that he has a better chance of overcoming Early as his challenger. Other runners for the position are Independent Annie Marie Schubert, and Republican Nathan Hochman who has been endorsed by the California Republican Party.
The Attorney General has been putting money into these ads by the way of IEs, or Independent Expenditures. IEs basically allow a candidate to put money into any other running candidate as long as the said candidate does not align with the campaigns they are helping.
Other candidates have used this strategy too by mailer. On one mailer it said “We all want to protect the environment, increase recycling and reduce plastic waste, but adding billions of dollars in higher costs on the backs of working families is the wrong way to do it,” On the flier, it didn’t have any mention of the bill or ballot measure.
While the classic ways such as having your mailbox packed to the brim with various candidates and elections or a flier under your car wiper still do have ways of working, IEs are the future of marketing for elections. These techniques do not have any laws against them, politicians are welcome to use them whenever an election comes up in the future.
Photo Cred: AP Photo/Noah Berger
