The California Democratic primary for governor, lacking both predictability and high-caliber candidates, has seen stunning falls from grace and resurrections as it comes to a close on Tuesday.
Former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), the frontrunner out of the gate, slipped and never recovered when two videos went viral this fall. One showed her berating a staffer and another her walking out of a televised interview.
By early spring, Democrats started to worry that their abundance of mediocre candidates threatened the unthinkable: a Republican in the governor’s mansion. With a split field and California’s jungle primary system, the two Republicans in the race could take the top two spots and lock Democrats out of the general election.
That fear started to fade as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) gained momentum and President Donald Trump, bafflingly, endorsed a David Cameron staffer-turned-former Fox News Host Steve Hilton, shifting most Republican voters to the British political commentator’s camp at Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s expense. Hilton, the inspiration for the indelible and eccentric Stewart Pearson in political satire The Thick of It, has largely tried to avoid mentioning his endorser.
Then the checkerboard was upended in April, when multiple women accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct ranging from sending graphic unsolicited photos to rape. The news ended his campaign and political career, as he dropped out of the race and resigned his House seat.
Democratic voters, once merely disenchanted and now horrified, cast about among some two dozen candidates for a Swalwell replacement, leading to a surprising surge for Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was previously mired in the single digits. A luckily timed, seven digit ad buy in the wake of Swalwell’s collapse helped rocket him to the front of the pack.
In most recent polling, Becerra has a small lead. If he holds on to his momentum, the real drama could come in the second chance finish, where billionaire and former presidential candidate Tom Steyer is polling neck-and-neck with Hilton. If Hilton wins, Becerra is virtually guaranteed the governorship.
In a sign of how bizarrely the race played out, California voters reportedly hung on to their mail-in ballots for longer than usual, presumably to see if any more eleventh hour surprises reshuffled the field.
Ultimately, the primary was remarkable for who wasn’t in it more than who was. All the California heavyweights that would have waltzed into the mansion — including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) — passed on running to replace the term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). The California kingmakers — Harris and Padilla again, Newsom, Nancy Pelosi — all stayed out of the race, leaving the candidates to scrabble and claw into the 20% range.
The race exposed the thinness of the California bench, as the old guard retires or looks to national races. California governor should be a plum (if difficult) job; Newsom has used his perch to do battle with Trump and rode the subsequent attention to an early spot among the 2028 presidential frontrunners.
Ok, it is going to be a while for those in California to post, so, Frist!
Swalwell should have changed parties because we know the GOP loves their sexual predators.
So I am and have been following this race closely. Here’s the deal, it’s a myth that CA is reliably blue IMO. You scratch the surface and there are TONS of republicans chillin in the background. Like the US Congress, a lot of our bench is aging out. We, too, need new blood at the state level. As for the governors race, I don’t think anyone wanted Swalwell.
We have a bench but it wasn’t dazzling. Let’s face it we had a lot more star power with Schwarzenegger and Newsom. But that is not typical. The caliber of candidate didn’t change, the political environment has. A lot of us were willing to get behind Swalwell to have (IMO) a generic Democratic Ken doll to run against these crazy Maga candidates. Swalwell was very problematic in that he had a thin resume and no policy positions. The fact that he had sexual assaults just lying there that were not investigated seems appalling as well.
I wanted Becerra as far back as last summer. But his actions didn’t appear as if he wanted the job. So as far as the Dem candidates are concerned: Tom Steyer is just gross. The amount of money he has spent on just the primary alone is disgusting and disqualifying for me. Katie Porter - I know people who have had personal interactions with her. She’s got interpersonal issues that have not been publicized within the party and would really have an issues the Party Apparatus. While Matt Mahan was billing himself as a centrist, a lot of his money came from major Republican and Silicon Valley oligarchy donations. No one trusts him. Villaragosa, Yee, and Thurman could not get out of the single digits.
Finally two remaining thoughts. California could have had a more productive conversation about the direction of the state if Tom Steyer had not sucked up all the oxygen with his money. He wanted bad, and he was pulling all the Trump tricks. He’s calling himself a progressive, but he has no record other than as a donor to the Ca State Democratic Party. The state Dems and liberal elites were all falling in line: celebrities and pundits. Again, he has no record and the amount of money he’s spending should be disqualifying. In addition, he and his family has a vested financial interest in the environmental initiatives if he wins. At some point when you’re spending that much much money, it’s just fishy.
Second, it appears as if there really is a racial bias that no one is talking about. Becerra is a quiet guy but he’s no dummy. He’s not as media trained or savvy with social media. Not everyone can’t be Newsom and AOC. Frankly he’s a nerd, but he also happens to be a Mexican nerd. The groundswell is organic and from the people. He’s pragmatic and a policy wonk, and not a BOLD VISIONARY ™ and for some people that’s not exciting. I am very disappointed in all those very smart people who lined up for Steyer in the media and progressive elite spaces. His tactics are IDENTICAL to Trump in 2016 and everyone is falling for it.
If you can’t tell I voted for Becerra and I don’t regret it.
I heard he has a small lead in the polling
Three separate polls released between May 29 and June 1 show a tight race between three gubernatorial candidates: Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News contributor, and Democrats Xavier Becerra, the former health and human services secretary, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist.
Becerra leads a CSU Long Beach-USC-Cal Poly Pomona survey, conducted with a sample of 735 voters between May 23 and May 26 and obtained by POLITICO, holding 27% of voters. Hilton is 4 percentage points behind at 23%, while Steyer holds 15%
For most of the country, we’re not going to know anything until Wednesday and maybe not even then, depending on how the vote settles.
Does CA have to have run-offs in this case, should there not be a certain percentage of lead? I know it’s ranked choice, but I’m less familiar with how it all works.