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'Path to 218 runs through California': State races pivotal in fight to control the House

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'Path to 218 runs through California': State races pivotal in fight to control the House


(Jim Cooke / Los Angeles Times)

Barring divine intervention or the West Coast falling into the sea, President Biden will handily win California in the November election.

But should he — or presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump — secure a second term in the fall, the future of either’s policy agenda rests heavily on which party controls Congress, where Republicans currently hold a wafer-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

With the Golden State home to some of the most hotly contested swing districts in the country, the House’s fate will almost certainly come down to California.

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The battle for the next two years of partisan political control will be waged door-to-door, from California’s beachside suburban cul-de-sacs to the tiny farm towns in the state’s fertile Central Valley.

Those battlefields will look a lot like Bridgecreek Plaza — a sun-bleached shopping center a few hundred yards from a freeway onramp in Orange County’s Huntington Beach. The mall is home to a crystal store, several insurance brokers, a dentist and the local Republican Party headquarters.

It’s also where about two dozen GOP faithful gathered on the morning of election day, bowing their heads for a quick prayer and pledging allegiance to a portable flag before turning their attention to Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party.

Patterson was in a very good mood.

When she was first elected to lead the party, in 2019, California Republicans were “essentially the third-largest party in the state,” having sunk below the share of voters registering “decline to state” under party preference.

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But Patterson had presided over a massive voter registration drive over the last five years, and the party had moved back into second. People across the country liked to dismiss “blue California,” she said, but they were forgetting that California has more registered Republicans than any other state.

“California Republicans are the reasons why we have a House majority,” she added, to raucous cheering.

That majority was what they hoped to hold on to, and the group would spend the morning of the March 5 primary election canvassing for Scott Baugh, a Republican attorney and former state Assembly member vying to push Democratic Rep. Katie Porter’s soon-to-be-open congressional seat back from blue to red.

Scott Baugh, in a red-and-white plaid shirt and white baseball cap, holding a mic as he speaks in front of campaign postersScott Baugh, in a red-and-white plaid shirt and white baseball cap, holding a mic as he speaks in front of campaign posters

Scott Baugh is trying again to flip Orange County’s 47th District back to the red column. The seat is a chief target of state and national Republican efforts to maintain control of the House. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The latest round of redistricting put more conservative enclaves such as Huntington Beach and Newport Beach into California’s 47th Congressional District, and Baugh lost to Porter only narrowly in 2022 despite being vastly outspent, making the coastal Orange County district one of the most competitive in the nation.

The charismatic Porter will be out of the House picture after a failed Senate run; her seat is one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s three offensive targets in California and top priorities. And it’s equally prized by Democrats.

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Read more:How Trump propelled Schiff to the general election — and likely a Senate seat

In a country where enmity and distrust separate the two major political parties on most issues, California’s utmost importance to any November House strategy is one of the few things on which Republicans and Democrats can agree.

California is home to 10 races rated as competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report — five of them in districts that are represented by Republicans but that President Biden won in 2020. In the months to come, both parties will beinvesting significant resources in those races, as national attention inevitably turns west.

With an expected Biden-Trump rematch, voter turnout in 2024 is also likely to be supercharged compared with the 2022 midterm election. That could give an edge to Democrats, given the registration advantage that they hold in many of the competitive districts. Republicans gained one California House seat in the 2022 midterms, a nonpresidential election when turnout was substantially lower than when Biden and Trump topped the ballot two years prior.

“At the end of the day, the path to 218 runs through California,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Dan Gottlieb, referring to the number of seats needed to garner a House majority.

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Dave Min, seen from the shoulders up in a blue suit jacket, looking up to his left against a backdrop of dark-wood columnsDave Min, seen from the shoulders up in a blue suit jacket, looking up to his left against a backdrop of dark-wood columns

Dave Min will face Baugh in November’s runoff for the 47th District seat, which Katie Porter is vacating. Min’s bruising primary battle for the crucial seat has already cost Democrats millions. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Gottlieb was bullish on his party’s chances, citing the high turnout expected for the presidential election, along with strong Democratic candidates and “a bunch of dysfunctional and out-of-touch Republicans enabling the worst of their party’s chaos and dysfunction and extremism.”

But Gottlieb’s GOP counterpart was equally roseate in his outlook, with National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Ben Petersen reveling in the ugly and expensive primary fights that consumed Democrats in several of the state’s most crucial swing districts.

In the O.C. district where GOP volunteers fanned out for Baugh on primary morning, Democrats had sunk millions into a bruising primary battle between state Sen. Dave Min and fellow Democrat Joanna Weiss. Min ultimately emerged victorious, but only after surviving a barrage of negative advertising centered on his 2023 arrest for driving while intoxicated — arguably a gift to Republicans ahead of his fall battle with Baugh.

Read more:Two Democrats battle to keep Katie Porter’s Orange County U.S. House seat blue

“Extreme Democrats are stumbling out of their vicious primary fights broke and bested by Republicans, who saw a groundswell of support for a commonsense safety and affordability agenda,” Petersen said, adding that the primary results made clear the GOP was “playing offense in California” in a way that would set the stage for victories in November.

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Baugh, though, is not expected to go unscathed. In 2022, Porter’s ad campaign ripped the Republican for his antiabortion stance, as well as his work as a lobbyist and criminal charges he faced over campaign violations, for which he ultimately paid $47,000 in fines.

In the San Joaquin Valley, there were last-minute fears that a bruising primary battle would lock Democrats out of one of the races where they have the best chance of flipping a seat, but those concerns proved overblown.

Rudy Salas, backed by the Democratic establishment, vanquished fellow Democrat Melissa Hurtado to secure a spot in the fall against incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) in the 22nd Congressional District, but that race also put a dent in Democratic coffers.

The November race will be a rematch of the pair’s 2022 runoff, when Salas lost to Valadao by several thousand votes. And Salas and Valadao won’t be the only rematch on the November ticket.

In a heavily agricultural San Joaquin Valley district that includes all of Merced County and parts of Fresno, Madera, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, incumbent GOP Rep. John Duarte will once again face off against Democratic challenger Adam Gray. Duarte won the 13th Congressional District in the midterm election by fewer than 600 votes, one of the closest races in the nation.

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Several hundred miles southeast, in Southern California, Democratic challenger Will Rollins will again take on GOP incumbent Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest-serving member of the California delegation. The recently redrawn 41st Congressional District stretches from the suburban Inland Empire, where Calvert has long lived, to Palm Springs, where Rollins and his partner make their home.

Read more:LGBTQ+ culture wars surface in heated Riverside County congressional race

The district’s new boundaries — which now include one of the largest concentrations of LGBTQ+ voters in the nation and liberal pockets of Californians in the desert — are far more friendly to Democrats. They also set up Rollins, who is gay, as a potent challenger to Calvert, who voted against LGBTQ+ rights in the past, but who says his views have since evolved.

One race that will have some new blood this year, after the same pair of candidates dueled in three previous elections, is California’s 27th Congressional District in northern Los Angeles County.

Once solidly Republican, the district has been reconfigured by redistricting, and has undergone a political transition driven by younger, more diverse transplants from L.A. seeking affordable housing in Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley. The district briefly switched from red to blue with former Rep. Katie Hill’s victory in 2018, but the young Democrat’s very public scandals and ultimate resignation helped hand the seat back to the GOP.

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Now-incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Garcia beat Democrat Christy Smith in a 2019 special election to fill the seat, then twice more for full terms in 2020 and 2022. He will face off against George Whitesides, a fresh Democratic challenger, in November.

Ludovic Blain, executive director of the California Donor Table, a progressive group that pools donor funds, said his organization hopes to invest about $10million in California House races in the fall, working with local nonprofits in key areas to turn out voters of color.

They’ll be focusing on seven key races: the three aforementioned rematches, Porter’s open seat and two other Orange County races, and the Garcia-Whitesides matchup.

One point of concern Blain raised is that Republican Steve Garvey’s place near the top of the ticket, facing off against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) in the Senate race, might affect Democrats in House races.

Schiff engaged in a controversial strategy in the primary, boosting Garvey to lock out Porter and his other major Democratic challenger, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), whom Blain’s organization supported.

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It was a gambit that some in the Democratic establishment said would actually help Democrats in other tight races, since a less-competitive Senate race would siphon away far less money from the party’s coffers.

Read more:Steve Garvey touts ‘family values’ in his Senate bid. Some of his kids tell another story

But others, like Blain, argue that Garvey’s presence could hurt down-ballot Democrats. Plus, having him on the ballot may draw in moderate Republican and independent voters who remain sour on Trump.

“Having Garvey, I think, does spike or further encourage Republican voters to turn out, and more importantly, to vote down the ticket,” Blain said.

Patterson agreed. Unlike Trump, Garvey will likely campaign across the state, providing a lift for other Republicans while he’s at it.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.



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Trump wants even looser AI guardrails. How California could impose more

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Trump wants even looser AI guardrails. How California could impose more

In summary

President-elect Trump has vowed to rescind an executive order that imposed AI safeguards, and could use tech to enable mass deportations. How far will California the other direction?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is preparing to wage a legal war against President-elect Donald Trump, convening a special legislative session next month to try to “Trump-proof” the state. But it appears Newsom and California legislators won’t initially include artificial intelligence safeguards in that fight, even though AI regulations were a major preoccupation of the Legislature this year.

Trump has promised to immediately rescind President Joe Biden’s executive order that had imposed voluntary AI guardrails on tech companies and federal agencies. The president-elect’s administration could also, immigrant advocates say, use AI tools to assist the mass deportation he has pledged to implement. 

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While California adopted a number of AI regulations earlier this year, other issues are likely to take priority in Newsom’s special session, legislators told CalMatters.

There are signs, though, that AI could — in the not-so-distant future  — go from abstract concern to prominent political cudgel between the Trump administration and California’s Democratic leaders. It could be another high-profile way to challenge Trump and his newfound tech allies, some of whom have gleefully proclaimed a new, deregulated era for artificial intelligence products.

“I think Newsom and the California Legislature have an opportunity to step into the gap that the federal government is leaving — to create a model environment for safe and rights-respecting technology and deployment,” said Janet Haven, executive director of the Data & Society Research Institute, a nonprofit that studies the social implications of AI and other technologies. “On the other hand, there’s no way to get around the fact that Big Tech is right there, and will be a huge factor in whatever the California Legislature and Newsom want to advance in terms of AI legislation.”

Why California lawmakers and others worry about AI

AI safety advocates told CalMatters they’re not necessarily sweating the apocalyptic AI nightmares imagined by some doomsayers. Instead, they are focused on how AI tools are increasingly used in healthcare, housing, the labor force, law enforcement, immigration, the military, as well as other industries and fields prone to discrimination, surveillance, and civil rights violations — because there’s evidence that such tools can be unwieldy, inaccurate, and invasive. “We have documentation that shows how these AI systems are likely to do all sorts of things—they’re pattern-making systems, they’re not really decision-makers, but the private sector and the public sector are using them as a substitute for decision-makers,” said Samantha Gordon, chief program officer at TechEquity. “That’s not wise.”

Santa Ana Democratic Sen. Tom Umberg told CalMatters that 2024 “was a bit of a testing year” for AI bills. California lawmakers outlawed sexually explicit deepfakes and certain election-related deepfake content, required tech companies to provide free AI detection tools, and stipulated that tech companies must publicly release data about their AI training tools.

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Gov. Newsom ultimately signed roughly 20 AI bills into law. But he also controversially vetoed a major bill by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener and would’ve instituted significant testing requirements on AI tools to make sure they avoid catastrophic outcomes. In his veto message, Newsom wrote that the bill risked curtailing innovation, but he added that he wanted to “find the appropriate path forward, including legislation and regulation.” 

“Newsom’s incentive for strengthening his relationship with Silicon Valley is probably stronger than his need for yet one more issue to fight over with Donald Trump.”political analyst Dan Schnur

Wiener told CalMatters he’s working on updated legislation that could garner “broader support.” Such a bill would presumably include additional buy-in from the tech sector, which the state is relying on for tax revenues, and which has a notable lobbying presence in Sacramento — Google just racked up the largest quarterly lobbying tab in a decade.

Asked whether to expect more Big Tech lobbying against regulatory efforts in California, Palo Alto Democratic Assemblymember Marc Berman said: “It’s going to be a good time to be a lobbyist. They’re going to do very well.”

Though Wiener’s AI testing bill was batted down, as were a few other noteworthy AI bills that didn’t make it out of the Legislature, California is “far and away the center of AI regulation in the U.S,” said Ashok Ayyar, a Stanford research fellow who co-wrote a comparative analysis of Wiener’s bill against the European Union’s more comprehensive AI efforts.

A lack of federal AI regulation and legislation

California is leading on AI in large part because the competition is basically non-existent.

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Congress hasn’t passed meaningful AI legislation. Asked about Trump and the incoming Republican majority, San Ramon Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan said, “There isn’t much regulation to deregulate, to be honest.”

Sans federal legislation, President Biden issued an executive order in October 2023 intended to place guardrails around the use of AI. The order built on five policy principles on the “design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the American public.” Biden directed federal agencies “to develop plans for how they would advance innovation in the government use of AI, but also protect against known harms and rights violations,” said Haven. Soon after Biden’s executive order, his administration created the U.S. AI Safety Institute, which is housed within the Commerce Department. 

Biden’s executive order relies on tech companies, many of which are based in California, to voluntarily embrace the administration’s suggestions; it also relies on agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, to be transparent and honest about how they’re using AI technology and not violate people’s civil rights. 

Like most executive orders, Biden’s AI edict is loosely enforceable and fairly easy to reverse.

“Stick a fork in it, it’s over. The US will be the preeminent AI superpower in the world after all.”venture capitalist marc andreessen

Trump has already promised to repeal Biden’s executive order on day one of his term; the 2024 Republican platform argues that the executive order “hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.” Homeland Security and other executive branch agencies may be granted far more flexibility when Trump takes office, though advocates say the bar was already low; a June 2024 report from the nonprofit Mijente titled “Automating Deportation” argues the department hasn’t followed through on the Biden administration’s already relatively meager requests.

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After Trump clinched the 2024 presidential election, segments of the tech industry were jubilant about what they foresee for the AI industry—including an imminent uptick in government contracts. “Stick a fork in it, it’s over,” Marc Andreessen, the billionaire general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote on X. “The US will be the preeminent AI superpower in the world after all.”

Fully unleashed federal agencies

If mass deportation of undocumented immigrants come to pass, as Trump has promised, that would require a wide variety of technologies, including AI tools. Homeland Security already employs an AI system called the Repository for Analytics in a Virtualized Environment, or RAVEn, a nine-figure government contract. The department also has access to an extensive biometric database, and monitors certain undocumented immigrants outside of detention centers via a surveillance tool that utilizes AI algorithms to try to determine whether an immigrant is likely to abscond. 

“We know from Trump’s first administration that there are going to be fewer guardrails with the use of this tech, and agents will feel even more emboldened,” said Sejal Zota, co-founder and legal director of Just Futures Law, a legal advocacy group focused on immigration, criminal justice and surveillance issues. “That’s one area where we’re going to see increased AI use to support this mass deportation agenda.”

To the best of Zota’s knowledge, there’s little California lawmakers or courts could do to prevent federal agencies from using AI tech against vulnerable populations, including undocumented immigrants. “Is it an issue? Absolutely, it’s an issue,” said Sen. Umberg. “What can we do about it? What can we do about federal agencies using artificial intelligence? We can’t do much.”

Estimates show there are at least 1.8 million undocumented immigrants in California.

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A conference hall with attendees and colorful signage related to artificial intelligence.
The Dreamforce conference hosted by Salesforce in San Francisco on Sept. 18, 2024. Dreamforce is an annual tech conference attracting thousands of participants and is the largest AI event in the world, according to Salesforce. Photo by Florence Middleton for CalMatters

Another potential threat to California’s AI regulations is if the majority Republican Congress passes looser AI rules of its own, preempting state law. California lawmakers, including Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan and Sen. Umberg, said they don’t think significant AI legislation will make it to President Trump for his signature. 

Congressional gridlock is one reason Sen. Wiener said he’s pursuing AI regulation in the California Legislature in the first place: “I was very clear that if (the issue) were being handled statutorily at the federal level, I’d be happy to close up shop and go home,” he said. “But it wasn’t happening, and it’s certainly not going to happen under Trump.”

Not everyone believes Congress will remain stagnant on this issue, however, particularly with one party now dominant in Washington. “I wouldn’t underestimate the creativity of this incoming administration,” said Paromita Shah, executive director of Just Futures Law.

Added Haven: “I think it’s possible that with a Republican trifecta, we’ll see an attempt to pass a very weak data privacy law at the federal level that preempts state law. Then it’s a game of whack-a-mole between the state legislature and the federal legislature.”

California’s next AI steps

Newsom has to date signed many AI bills but turned back others he says go too far and risk inhibiting  an industry he has sought to cultivate as a government partner. A spokesperson for Newsom did not directly respond to CalMatters’ questions for this story, instead providing a statement highlighting the state’s role in shaping the future of so-called “generative AI,” a recent and innovative form of the technology behind tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Midjourney: “California has led the nation in protecting against the harms of GenAI while leveraging its potential benefits,” said spokesperson Alex Stack. 

President-elect Trump’s team did not respond to written questions from CalMatters.

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Dan Schnur, a political analyst and professor at UC Berkeley and other campuses, predicted the governor will save his political capital for other clashes. “Newsom’s incentive for strengthening his relationship with Silicon Valley is probably stronger than his need for yet one more issue to fight over with Donald Trump,” Schnur said.

Florence G’Sell, a visiting professor at Stanford’s cyber policy center, cautioned Newsom against clinging to the deregulatory side of Silicon Valley. “There is really a very strong movement that wants to highlight the risks of AI, the safety questions,” G’Sell said. “If I were the governor, I wouldn’t be insensitive to this movement and the warnings.” 

Lawmakers are eyeing other avenues to shore up Californians’ redresses against AI technology. Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan previously told CalMatters she plans to reintroduce a stronger version of a bill, which failed to advance past the Legislature last session, to crack down on discriminatory AI practices. Another top AI priority, according to Menlo Park Democratic Sen. Josh Becker, is less sexy, but perhaps just as important: “closely monitor the implementation of this year’s regulatory framework (that we just passed),” he wrote. 

California’s next AI regulatory steps were always going to be intensely analyzed. That’s even more so the case now, with Trump returning to office—a challenge state lawmakers are embracing.

“One of the things that is somewhat amusing to me is when folks come to me and say, ‘Whatever you do in California is going to set the standard for the country,’ Sen. Umberg said. “As a policymaker, that’s catnip. That’s why I ran for office.”

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Rain and snow pummel Northern California in latest wave of damaging weather to strike West Coast

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Rain and snow pummel Northern California in latest wave of damaging weather to strike West Coast


SANTA ROSA, Calif. — A major storm pummeled Northern California with rain and snow on Wednesday night and threatened to cause flash flooding and rockslides in the latest wave of damaging weather to wash over the West Coast.

The National Weather Service extended a flood watch into Saturday for areas north of San Francisco as the strongest atmospheric river — a large plume of moisture flowing onshore — that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season inundated the region. The storm system unleashed winds the night before that left two people dead and hundreds of thousands without power in Washington state.

Up to 16 inches of rain (about 41 centimeters) was forecast in Northern California and southwestern Oregon through Friday. By Wednesday evening, some areas in Northern California had experienced heavy rain, including Santa Rosa, which had seen about 5 inches (about 13 centimeters) within 24 hours, according to Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Dangerous flash flooding, rockslides and debris flows were possible, officials warned. About a dozen small landslides had struck in northern California in the last 24 hours, including one on Highway 281 on Wednesday morning that caused a vehicle crash, said Chenard.

The National Weather Service in the Bay Area warned people that the atmospheric river was focused on the North Bay and to “expect heavy rain to continue tonight, Thursday into Friday. This will result in mudslides, road closures.”

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The storm system, which first hit Tuesday, is considered a “ bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly.

A winter storm watch was in place for the northern Sierra Nevada above 3,500 feet (1,066 meters), where 15 inches (38 centimeters) of snow was possible over two days. Wind gusts could top 75 mph (121 kph) in mountain areas, forecasters said.

The storm had already dumped more than a foot of snow along the Cascades by Wednesday evening, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters warned of blizzard and whiteout conditions and near impossible travel at pass level.

In Washington, there were nearly 376,000 power outage reports Wednesday evening, resulting from strong winds and rain the night before, according to poweroutage.us. Falling trees struck homes and littered roads across western Washington, killing at least two people. One woman in Lynnwood was killed when a large tree fell on a homeless encampment, while another woman in Bellevue was killed when a tree fell on a home.

More than a dozen schools were closed in the Seattle area Wednesday and some opted to extend those closures through Thursday.

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In California, there were reports of nearly 21,000 power outages as of Wednesday evening.

Southbound Interstate 5 was closed for an 11-mile (18-kilometer) stretch from Ashland, Oregon, to the California border on Wednesday morning due to extreme winter weather conditions in northern California, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. It was expected to be a long-term closure, the department said.

Hundreds of flights were delayed and dozens were canceled at the San Francisco International Airport, according to Flight Aware.

The weather service issued a flood watch for parts of southwestern Oregon through Friday evening, while rough winds and seas temporarily halted a ferry route in northwestern Washington between Port Townsend and Coupeville.

___

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Golden reported from Seattle.



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Top 18 running backs in California high school football playoffs | Sporting News

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Top 18 running backs in California high school football playoffs | Sporting News


The high school football playoffs are underway across California with several big games set for this weekend. Many of the state’s top running backs have helped lift their teams into position for a deep postseason run.

Here’s a look at 18 of California’s top high school running backs who are still in action this season.

Top 18 running backs in California high school football playoffs

Derrick Blanche Jr., De La Salle – senior (Portland State)

Blanche has been a very consistent performer for the Spartans over the past three seasons, closing in on 3,000 all-purpose yards. He’s scored 10 times on the ground each of the past two seasons and is headed to play at Portland State next season.

Jordon Davison, Mater Dei – senior (Oregon)

Running the ball for the nation’s top team, Davison has had a light workload. He’s rushed for 764 yards and 12 touchdowns, giving him 43 touchdowns in his four-year varsity career. He committed to Oregon in June after amassing 50 scholarship offers.

Koen Glover, St. Bonaventure – senior

Glover broke out with nearly 1,200 yards on the ground in 2023 and has followed that up with 1,584 through 10 games as a senior. He has 46 career touchdowns and has also contributed as a returner.

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Brice Hawkins, Simi Valley – senior

Hawkins has carried the ball more than 450 times over the past two seasons, averaging more than seven yards per rush. This year, he’s run for nearly 1,500 yards and 28 touchdowns, adding more than 300 yards and five touchdowns through the air.

Dorian Hoze, Murrieta Valley – senior

Hoze broke out in 2023 and has improved on those numbers with 1,500 yards and 23 touchdowns through 10 games. He’s 33 yards shy of 3,600 for his career.

Carter Jackson, Folsom – senior (Nevada)

Jackson is averaging 10 yards per carry as a senior and has scored seven times on the ground this year, giving him 50 for his career.

Kingston Keanaaina, St. Francis – senior (BYU)

Keanaaina has rushed for more than 1,700 yards in 10 games this season and recently passed the 4,000-yard mark for his career. He’s found the end zone 16 times this year while averaging over eight yards per carry.

Dominic Kelley, De La Salle – senior

Paired with Blanche, Kelley has averaged more than nine yards per carry this season and has scored 28 touchdowns over three varsity seasons.

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Sean Morris, Loyola – junior

Morris has gone over 1,100 rushing yards for the second consecutive year and sits at 1,597 total yards with 16 touchdowns through 11 games. Kansas is among the many schools that have extended a scholarship offer.

Deshonne Redeaux, Oaks Christian – junior

Redeaux has gone over the 100-yard mark six times in nine games, scoring 12 touchdowns through last week. Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State are among his nearly 30 scholarship offers.

Jamar Searcy, Pittsburg – senior (Washington State)

Searcy has contributed to all three phases for the Pirates. He’s racked up 1,257 yards and 17 touchdowns on offense, also grabbing two interceptions on defense.

Brandon Smith, Central (Fresno) – junior

Smith has nearly doubled his output from a year ago, rushing for nearly 1,500 yards and 19 touchdowns through 12 games. He’s also reeled in 23 passes for 230 yards.

Max Turner, Granite Hills – senior (Utah Tech)

Turner has taken his game to the next level as a senior, rushing for more than 1,500 yards in 10 regular season games. He’s scored 47 touchdowns over the past two years and recently committed to Utah Tech.

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Alexander Villanueva, Monte Vista – senior

Villanueva has gone over the 200-yard mark in a game seven times this season including each of the past four. He rushed for a career-high 365 yards in last week’s 47-46 playoff win.



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