As a registered voter in California, I’ve been watching the slowly developing 2026 gubernatorial race in which no Democrat seems to be breaking out of the bipartisan pack. I wrote an early assessment for New York:
The last three governors of California were all legendary, larger-than-life political figures. Arnold Schwarzenegger (2003–’11) was a huge Hollywood and pop-culture celebrity before he entered politics in a recall election that ejected his predecessor Gray Davis. He remains the last Republican to be elected as governor or U.S. senator in the Golden State. Jerry Brown (2011-2019) served in his second two-term gubernatorial stretch, having first been elected to the office way back in 1974 (he also ran for president three times). And the current and outgoing California governor, Gavin Newsom (2019-present), was San Francisco mayor and two-term lieutenant governor before stepping up to the top job in Sacramento. He, too, has dominated California politics in a big way.
The contest to choose the 41st governor of California currently has ten candidates — eight Democrats and two Republicans — and not that many voters could identify them in a line-up. Two Democratic politicians who did have some name ID and who might have dominated the field have given the race a pass. That would be former U.S. senator, vice president, and presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who may instead run for president again in 2028 (very likely against Newsom); and her successor in the Senate, Alex Padilla, who gained a lot of attention when he was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by Secret Service agents for trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question at a press conference.
With those big fish out of the tank, the remaining field is composed of candidates who are far from unknown, but are still small fry, relatively speaking. A well-known former Democratic member of the U.S. House, Katie Porter (who ran for the Senate in 2024) and current House member Eric Swalwell (who very briefly ran for president in 2020), are running. One current Democratic statewide office-holder, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, is making a bid. So is former state comptroller Betty Yee, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Biden administration HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and former state assembly majority leader Ian Calderon. The most recent Democrat to enter the race was hedge fund billionaire and liberal activist Tom Steyer (who ran a presidential campaign briefly more successful than Swalwell’s in 2020).
Alongside these eight Democrats are two Republicans: Fox News gabber and former British Tory political operative Steve Hilton, and current Riverside County (east of L.A.) sheriff Chad Bianco.
Polls consistently show these ten candidates struggling to break out of the pack. Early on, Porter, building on name ID from her unsuccessful 2024 Senate race, had some buzz, but she damaged herself by pitching a temper tantrum during a media interview that wasn’t going her way. Since then it’s become a sluggish race between snails. The latest public poll, from Emerson, released in early December, shows Bianco at 13 percent, Hilton and Swalwell at 12 percent, Porter at 11 percent, Villaraigosa at 5 percent, and Steyer and Becerra at 4 percent. The remaining candidates combine for 7 percent, and there’s an impressive 31 percent who are undecided or don’t know who these people are. Everyone but Porter has name ID under 50 percent, and hers isn’t all that positive. You may think that’s because it’s so very early in the contest, but in fact, the primary is on June 2, just over six months away.
That primary, by the way, is part of California’s non-partisan top two system in which the first- and second-place finishers, regardless of party, proceed to the general election. And the early polling has created a bit of a freak-out among Democrats bewailing their candidates’ lack of star power, as Politico noted:
“California Democrats have a math problem: They’ve added so many candidates in the race to succeed Gavin Newsom that two Republicans could end up winning the state’s quirky ‘jungle primary,’ shutting the Democrats out.
“A Democratic wipeout is still unlikely. But the prospect of a humiliating pile-up, with no clear powerbroker to act as traffic cop, has put the state’s political class increasingly on edge with each new entrant into the field.”
Even though the race should intensify considerably as we get deeper into 2026, the candidate filing deadline isn’t until March. So the power vacuum in the gubernatorial field could yet attract a late entry from some celebrity (Hollywood is chock full of them) or insanely rich self-funder (one such bag of money, Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso, could run for governor if he doesn’t run again for L.A. mayor). Or more Lilliputs could join the race hoping that lightning strikes (e.g., state Attorney General Rob Bonta).
If the field remains as it is, keep an eye on Steyer, whose vast wealth could buy him the name ID he needs. Ideological divisions and factional alignments could also be key. Thurmond is touting his support for a single-payer health care system and has the endorsement by California’s powerful teachers unions. Villaraigosa (who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018) has a well-worn reputation as a Democratic “moderate.” Porter has scars from her battles with the crypto industry, which savaged her with negative ads in 2024, while Calderon has become a crypto bro ally. Becerra can run on his legal battles with the first Trump administration (when he served as California attorney general) and Swalwell has been trading insults with Trump for years. Meanwhile the two Republicans in the race can be expected to compete for a Trump endorsement (Hilton is a long-time Trump backer on Fox News, while Bianco is a former Oath Keeper).
Ethnic and geographical rivalries could matter too. Becerra, Calderon, and Villaraigosa are Latino; Yee is Asian-American; Thurmond is Black. Calderon, Porter, and Villaraigosa are from the greater Los Angeles area; Steyer, Swallwell, Thurmond, and Yee are from the San Francisco Bay area; and Becerra is from Sacramento. Schwarzenegger was the last California governor from Southern California, but he also represented the last gasp of truly moderate Republicanism.
While the field could shrink or expand even more before the filing deadline, the next governor of California probably won’t enter office with anything like the street cred and national prominence of the other 21st century chief executives, who often acted as though the state is an independent principality with its own foreign and domestic policies. Newsom will also leave some chronic fiscal problems, a perpetually fractious legislature, all sorts of natural resources and environmental challenges, and a housing “affordability” crisis that has spurred a national debate over a so-called “abundance” agenda prioritizing regulatory streamlining to speed up housing and other construction. It’s a lot, but whoever wins will become a lot more famous, fast.
Maybe the trouble is that people like me just aren’t really democrats anymore.
I always felt the war was wrong and took a lot of grief from my neighbors in a very conservative neighborhood for opposing it. (Those same neighbors now agree with me). I cringed as I saw democratic congressional members abdicate their responsibilities and rubber stamp the President’s insanity.
I believe in plurality. The IRS doesn’t care if I believe in God. They don’t care if I’m straight or gay. They don’t care if I’m black, white, hispanic or other. They want my money so that our government can provide the services we have said we collectively want and need.
I don’t think my tax dollars should be spent on a lot of things – but I don’t try to hold other people hostage with my views. Texas shows us clearly that abstinence only does NOT work well as policy- yet tax dollars continue to pour in for this. Programs that include information on and access to birth control DO work better statistically — yet, because the christian right doesn’t want to accept that mary is having sex – even more of my tax dollars are wasted.
Who is not afraid to speak for me on this? One of the department of education secretary’s first acts was canning an episode of a pbs show (whose mission is to portray DIFFERENCES among people and places) for having the audacity to show lesbians in vermont. What on earth kind of country is this becoming? No Child Left Behind is so grossly underfunded that children aren’t being educated yet the secretary focuses on this. And let’s remember that some of us don’t want our children exposed only to wonder bread.
The Democratic party has lost it’s rich language and diversity. It hides under the covers and has become the party of apologists and poll jumpers. I know where I stand. I DON’T know where the party stands anymore.
I’m not afraid to say I believe access to affordable healthcare should be a basic human right in this country.
I’m not afraid to say, “BAD DEAL” on the President’s crazy Social Security scheme. My mother lost almost everything when the market crashed – HELLO, people may be savvy investors when young but when their health fails, they AREN’T and then their children are left in horrible positions. So WHY don’t I hear this from the party?
I’m sick of the party’s self obsession w/itself. We’re getting killed out here and if the democratic party can’t off the therapist’s couch and take a stand, there won’t be a party left because people like me will leave and create a political voice that speaks for us. And if some want to call that suicide, I’d be interested to see what they’re calling right now.
1. Its not just Iowa, standing alone, that is the problem. It is Iowa, combined with the front loading of the primary process that allows a candidate to coast to the nomination (as both Gore and Kerry did) merely on the strength of Iowa and NH.
A process that worked, by contrast, is that of 1992: Iowa and NH had some winnowing effect, but a candidate who lost Iowa and NH could still win the nomination in the South.
So to get an electable candidate, the Democrats need to somehow create a process that gives the South a decisive voice. Ending the “Iowa first” policy is one way to do it but not the only way. If the Democrats can space out their primary process to reduce the influence of the first few states, that works just as well.
2. The notion that John Kerry is a “centrist” shows how utterly out of control the Democrats’ left wing is. Kerry was not a flamethrower- but he did have a solidly liberal record. To draw an analogy to the Republicans: he may not be a Tom DeLay, but he is certainly no different from a Bill Frist- someone who robotically votes the party line, even if he does not go beyond the party line. Between 1999 and 002, Kerry’s ADA rating (adaction.org) ranged between 85% and 95%.
And because Kerry (a) is from Massachusetts (unfortunately a handicap) and (b) has a 20 year voting record, he is perceived as more liberal than a Southern governor with identical issue positions would be.
3. The notion that anyone to the right of Kerry is comparable to a Democratic version of Charles Mathias is also rubbish. Joe Lieberman, the alleged conservative in the Presidential field, has had an ADA rating over 75% for each of the past five years.
4. Finally, the notion that the Democrats just need to “be Democrats again” overlooks certain historical realities.
Since 1968, the Democrats have only elected two presidents – both Southern governors who managed to be perceived as moderates.
When the Democrats nominated northern liberals, they lost again and again. Lost with Humphrey. Lost with McGovern. Lost with Dukakis. Lost with Mondale. Lost with Kerry. What part of this don’t you understand?
The problem with the recent Democratic candidates (and indeed, with the party in general) is not that they are too liberal or not moderate enough, it is that they are simply Republican-lite (or Bush-lite, if you prefer). In the 2000 debates, Gore agreed with Bush on nearyly every issue. In the 2004 debates, Kerry’s nuanced points on the most important issues (national security and Iraq) were so subtle that only the pundits could decipher the differences.
Democrats have to stop worrying about offending some “on-the-fence” voters and trust that by offering an obvious alternative, they will gain many more swing voters than they will lose. The fact is, the only way for the Democrats to get back in the ball game is to take off the Elephant coat and start being Democrats again.
Why on earth do Democrats continually talk about the need to nominate “centrist” democrats, which in the current political climate can only mean DINOs (Democrats In Name Only). If Joe Lieberman or some other conservative war hawk were nominated neither I nor millions of other democrats would bother to vote. What’s the point in trying to elect Bush-lite? If people support the Republican position on issues then they vote Republican. They don’t want an imitation “me-too” Democrat who doesn’t know where he stands.
Bush gets millions of votes from people who don’t even agree with his positions on issues – because they believe he’s solid and firm and they know where he stands, and that he’ll follow through on what he believes. This election proved that being strong and wrong is better than being perceived as wishy-washy and right.
You never see the Republicans rolling over and becoming liberals when they lost elections! We need to have the moral courage to stand up and say “this is what we believe and we’re not changing” to provide a real alternative to the slash and burn politics of the right. Otherwise the Democratic party might as well change its name to the Whigs.
“Finally, Howard Dean’s collapse in Iowa in 2004 was due in no small part to widespread concern among Democratic caucus-goers that Dean’s strident anti-Bush and anti-war rhetoric would make him unelectable in November.”
Funny thing about that, Ruy… It would be nice to see some figures on just how large the “no small part” was for this effect. You’d have to admit we were also told ad infinitum that it was really because of all the orange-boarded Dean outsiders who flooded the state, and after all, who’s to tell Iowans what to think? Point is, has anyone conclusively determined why Iowans rejected Dean in favor of Kerry?
Joe Lieberman is a centrist?
Anyone reading Iowa should discard the 2004 election. The Iraq War and 9/11 made this an unusual election. The judgment of the Iowa caucuses, and Democrats generally, was that the party could not nominate an anti-war candidate, that doing so would be construed as anti-patriotism (see Bush v. Dukakis) and weakness (see Nixon v. McGovern).
In this the Iowa Democrats were almost certainly correct. An anti-war nominee would not only have had to run against Hyper-Patriot Republican propaganda and the steady War Drums from the corporate press/media, but also the deeply embedded belief of the overwhelming majority of Americans in the “rightness” and effectiveness of American military power.
A large majority of Americans, without consideration of any facts at all, will support any use of military forces and call it patriotism. Anyone who opposes or even questions the use of military forces is immediately branded as unpatriotic.
This is not uniquely American, but it is an American problem because of America has a awesome military power and there are no outside restraints on its use. The invasion of Iraq, like the Viet Nam War, has almost no support outside the States, but there is really nothing anyone outside the States can do to restrain the use of American military forces.
Oh good grief. John Kerry not a ‘centrist’? He was nominated *because* he was a centrist, and his military record was thought to give him security cred.
Though I hope the Dems find more electoral success than they’ve had recently, I have to agree with Eugene Debs (who, granted, was not known for his elector success) that “I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want, and get it.”
I was willing to give Beinart more benefit of doubt after his initial post-election blatherings, but this is approaching the silly. First, as Ruy documents, his argument has the disadvantage of being false. But, second, it appears Beinart truly believes there’s some prospect of a Joe Lieberman ever getting the Dem presidential nomination — which is akin to a Republican in 1977 hoping for Charles Matthias in 1980. The party is no longer McGovernite, but it’s never going to be Sam Nunn, either (if it ever went that direction, the Green Party would overnight become a real factor in electoral politics).
Beinart ought to note a few things. First, Clinton’s success was not (as some at the New Republic like to believe) a matter of dissing the left wing, but of making all wings of the party feel part of the coalition. The sort of candidate Beinart craves would have a VERY difficult time doing that. Second, Kerry — who, by his lights, was a marginal hopeful — came within a hair of being president. Just as voters by 1976 were showing far more propensity to vote conservative than they had been just a decade earlier, so voters now are far more disposed to a “Massachusetts liberal” than they had been ten years back. Democrats have been GAINING with voters, not losing (even ’04’s bare tick backward came more from incumbency than ideology). Finally, the GOP faces major challenges in the four years ahead, with the war and the economy seemingly headed relentlessly toward nasty outcomes. A Democratic party that was barely defeated in 2004 looks to be sitting pretty to reap that whirlwind. Starting stupid intra-party fights (something even the DLC for once seems shy about) is counter-productive, and likely irrelevant.
Could Kerry have won Iowa had he (and Edwards) voted for the “$87 billion”? It would seem that they believed they couldn’t. The nature of the caucuses forced a symbolic vote that (in Rove’s words) was a gift that kept on giving to the Bush campaign. The type of committed activists that are likely to participate in the caucus system are also the ones least likely to put aside ideology even when it forces suicidal actions.
Republican control of the White House and Congress will allow the timing of votes to their advantage anyway. Why pepetuate a system that makes that easier?.