Eric Swalwell’s name continues to cause headaches for East Bay voters 36%

By Ross O'Keefe0%

5/16/2026, 11:10:48 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 36.5% saturation with 146 hits. Analysis detected 603 faulty-reasoning hits from 400 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 43.2% and a BS Rank of 36% (14,027 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 64.10% of the article peer group.

For these voters, Eric Swalwell just won’t go away. 
The disgraced former Congressman will appear on two separate ballots for East Bay voters: the special election for his 14th congressional district seat and the California June 2 primary ballot. 
Voters in the East Bay cities of Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, and Pleasanton should expect to receive the ballots. 
Swalwell resigned from his congressional seat last month due to weighty sexual misconduct allegations that also forced him to drop out of the governor’s race. 
Swalwell has been in hiding for more than a month and denies the allegations against him. 
The special election primary for Swalwell’s seat is on June 16, two weeks after the primary election. 
Voters in Swalwell’s district will first decide if there’s a candidate who should take his seat for the next Congress before deciding later in the month who will fill it for the rest of his term. 
In either election, if a candidate gets a majority, they will win the seat outright. 
If not, the two top candidates will proceed to a later election. 
For the special election, it will be on Aug. 18, and the regular general election will be in November. 
Voters will also see Swalwell’s name on the primary ballot for governor because he dropped out after the deadline to remove his name from the ballot. 
Gov. 
Gavin Newsom called for the special election within hours of Swalwell’s resignation in April, likely to prevent Democrats from ceding ground to Republicans in the House for too long. 
The governor took 10 days to call a special election when GOP Rep. 
Doug LaMalfa died in January. 
There are a myriad of candidates looking to fill Swalwell’s seat in the special election. 
They include Democrats like State Sen. 
Aisha Wahab, former BART Director Melissa Hernandez, and educator Rakhi Israni, along with Republicans including real estate investor Wendy Huang, florist Dena Maldonado, businessman Tom Wong, and educator Jack Wu. 
Several of those candidates are also running to fill his seat permanently. 
The June 2 primary election will also take place under the new congressional lines approved via Prop 50, but the special election will use the old district lines. 
Swalwell’s former benefactor, Stephen Cloobeck, was recently caught up in controversy of his own. 
He got arrested on multiple felony charges pointing to witness tampering this week. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 10.3%Ross O'Keefe: 3.7%California Post: 4.1%Confirmation Bias10.3%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.5%California Post: 1.4%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 3.8%Ross O'Keefe: 3.4%California Post: 4.2%Availability Heuristic3.8%This article: 7.5%Ross O'Keefe: 0.9%California Post: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic7.5%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.5%California Post: 0.8%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.3%California Post: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 12.3%Ross O'Keefe: 11.8%California Post: 10.3%Framing Effect12.3%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.4%California Post: 0.9%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.5%California Post: 0.6%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.0%California Post: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.8%California Post: 2.5%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.7%California Post: 1.5%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 36.5%Ross O'Keefe: 15.0%California Post: 16.0%Negativity Bias36.5%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 2.3%California Post: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 2.0%California Post: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.1%California Post: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 2.4%California Post: 1.6%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.9%California Post: 1.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 7.5%Ross O'Keefe: 4.3%California Post: 3.1%Halo Effect7.5%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.3%California Post: 0.6%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.1%California Post: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 5.5%Ross O'Keefe: 1.4%California Post: 1.6%Recency Bias5.5%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.5%California Post: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 7.5%Ross O'Keefe: 1.3%California Post: 2.6%Ad Hominem7.5%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.4%California Post: 0.5%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 5.2%California Post: 4.2%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 3.8%Ross O'Keefe: 1.6%California Post: 1.5%False Dilemma3.8%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.4%California Post: 0.9%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.0%California Post: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 11.0%Ross O'Keefe: 4.3%California Post: 5.5%Hasty Generalization11.0%This article: 3.5%Ross O'Keefe: 0.9%California Post: 0.7%Red Herring3.5%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.3%California Post: 1.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 7.2%Ross O'Keefe: 10.4%California Post: 8.9%Appeal to Emotion7.2%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.1%California Post: 1.1%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 6.3%Ross O'Keefe: 3.1%California Post: 2.7%Post Hoc (False Cause)6.3%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.1%California Post: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.1%California Post: 0.8%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.0%California Post: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.4%California Post: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 3.3%Ross O'Keefe: 2.8%California Post: 3.6%Anecdotal3.3%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.1%California Post: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 9.0%Ross O'Keefe: 3.4%California Post: 2.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)9.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.0%California Post: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.1%California Post: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.1%California Post: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.2%California Post: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 7.2%Ross O'Keefe: 4.6%California Post: 3.2%Unattributed Quote7.2%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 2.4%California Post: 2.1%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 8.8%Ross O'Keefe: 11.0%California Post: 13.1%Biased Writer Voice8.8%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.6%California Post: 1.4%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 0.2%California Post: 0.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.9%California Post: 3.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ross O'Keefe: 1.4%California Post: 6.0%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

400 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker7.2%attributed speech371writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 36 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageGavin Newsom • 29 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 28 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Gavin Newsom

100%flagged-word coverage
29 attributed words100% of attributed speech61% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Unattributed Quote+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Gavin Newsom: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice-9.4 ptsWriter: 9.4%Gavin Newsom: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.