I think it's important to remember that the most important elections to everyday people are often not DC elections but rather local elections. Municipal, school boards, etc. In those elections, turn out matters a LOT, and has huge impact.

It's a pretty fair bet that the candidate with a "D" after their name will be the winner in CA/SV.

I'm going to guess you've not paid a whole lot of attention to CA politics. The state's voters somehow have this reputation as a bunch of liberal hippies. But let's look at a few items that stand out in my mind: 1. Of the last ten CA governors, six were Republicans. 2. Legal weed: CA said "no". 3. Gay marriage: "no" again.

National elections, sure, the Democrat is almost a shoo-in. But it would seem that as we drift down to the state and local level, CA is a bit more conservative than the hype.

And don't forget, we now have a top 2 primary, so just because the central valley gets to pick between two R's and the coasts get to pick between two D's there may be miles and miles of practical difference between the two even if the caucus with the same party when they get to Washington or Sacramento.

That's not at all true. There are still lots of republicans at the state and municipal level, and they're often the most competent candidate. The lower you go in government, the more likely it is that someone will be personally acquainted with a politician who's running, and they'll say "I may not agree with everything she stands for, but we had a good chat and she seems like she could do the job."

But which one of them? California does non-partisan blanket primaries, so in solidly Democratic areas the general election will have two Democrats and vice versa.

Do you stack federal, state, and municipal elections in the US? Does everyone vote for all levels on the same day?

Commonly, yes.

Having said that, in an awful lot of places the primary is the real election for races below the statewide level.

People always say that, but it's not clear to me how. Candidates for those elections are often folks I don't know anything about, and at best I'll have a flier from an appropriately-stationed candidate near my train station to go off of. I don't know where to get information on candidates for those elections!

If only there were tools that allowed searching the Internet.

If only there were neighbors one could ask.

If only there were city council meetings one could attend.

If only one could mail a letter or make a phone call to the candidates, to ask them about things one considers important.

You get the information by going out and getting it. If you don't, you're saying "I don't care, at all". And those local candidates will often move on to the next higher level at some point. At which point suddenly "I don't care" turns into "we only have terrible choices".

It's actually quite difficult to find information on, say, Soil and Water Conservation District Manager (yes, we elect those in some places), particularly since that minor of a race might not even result in websites. It's also difficult to get a full sense of the issues that matter in a race by reading the candidates' websites--and if your local newspaper doesn't help by providing interviews, you can be quite SOL.

The last election took me about 1-1½ hour to figure out whom I was going to vote for.

The candidates who are running are listed with contact information at city hall. You can call them on the telephone or write them an email asking detailed questions about whatever is relevant to your interests, and you will probably get an excellent reply. If you don't, then you can vote for their opponent or write in your own name.

The change to the "top two" primary system in California has created more competitive races in the Bay Area. For example, I voted for Ro Khanna in the primary, who is running against corrupt incumbent Mike Honda. Both Democrats.

https://ballotpedia.org/California%27s_17th_Congressional_Di...

If all of the people who don't vote picked a third party candidate, the third party candidate would win in a landslide.

Of course that's not going to happen. But it's inaccurate to think that people not voting don't vote because they have no bearing on the election.

SFYimby regularly reports on local elections that matter a lot in terms of housing.