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State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) will spend the last few days before the election barnstorming statewide to support Democratic Assembly candidates in several hotly contested districts.

Bass, who expressed hopes a week ago that Democrats could win more than two additional seats, will appear in ADs 10, 15, 26, 36, 37, 78 and 80, all of which are held by Republicans, though most of them are termed out.

The California Republican Party gave $125,000 to Assemblywoman Audra Strickland's re-election campaign on Tuesday. While the party has routinely made similar investments in various competitive races around the state, the donation marked the CRP's first in the 37th Assembly District. The sum, while merely a drop in the CRP's financial bucket, is significant considering Strickland had less than that much in cash on hand at the beginning of the month.

Independent expenditures in several closely contested state legislative races will get a close eye from the California Fair Political Practices Commission between now and Nov. 4

The commission will post online a daily tally of how much independent expenditure committees are spending in those races, and who's contributing to those committees.