Republican Neel Kashkari advanced to the general election to challenge California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) from the state's top-two primary.
Kashkari, a former U.S. Treasury official, beat fellow Republican Tim Donnelly in Tuesday's nonpartisan primary. Donnelly, appearing in front of supporters at an election night rally, said he had called Kashkari to concede the race. The Associated Press later declared the race results, with Kashkari taking 19 percent of the vote to Donnelly's 15 percent.
Donnelly, a state assemblyman and former member of the anti-immigration Minuteman, had some Republicans worried that his conservative politics could drive more Democratic voters to the polls, impacting more competitive down-ballot races in the largely blue state. Meanwhile, Kashkari, who put over $2 million of his own cash into his campaign, picked up endorsements from key national Republicans like Condoleezza Rice and Mitt Romney.
Brown, however, is expected to cruise to victory in November's general election. HuffPost Pollster, which tracks all publicly available opinion polls, finds Brown with a wide lead over Kashkari:
This story has been updated to include the final AP results.
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