To the editor: This column highlights a flaw in California’s top-two open primary (“Too many Democrats in California governor’s race? That’s a great thing,” March 5).
Democratic Party leaders have urged non-viable candidates to drop out. They are worried the large number of Democratic candidates could split the vote, sending two Republicans to the general election. Thus, party leaders are trying to deprive voters of more choice.
The obvious long-term solution is to change our top-two primary to a top-five primary, giving voters more candidates to choose from. To make sure the winner has majority support, an instant runoff can be done in November with ranked-choice voting. Such a system with the top four in the primary and ranked-choice voting in the general election has been successfully used in Alaska.
Paul Haughey, Sonoma
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To the editor: Gustavo Arellano’s column fails to address the fundamental problem here. Thanks to the jungle primary and a crowded Democratic field, it is more than possible that we could have a governor elected from the minority party in this state and who could be expected to support the policies of a historically unpopular president.
Let’s work on ending the jungle primary.
Cynthia Hart, Culver City
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To the editor: Arellano nails it in one sentence: “It’s the latest mess created by a party that has held supermajorities in the state Legislature and the governor’s mansion for most of the last 15 years, yet has done little to make life better for its constituents while blaming President Trump for everything.”
Two candidates who might actually start working on real problems are Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee. They should declare themselves independents and draw in the many voters (myself included) who have sworn off party politics following the gerrymandering of our vote. If the two aforementioned were in the runoff, would Democrats not vote for them?
John Culbertson, Carpinteria
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To the editor: That’s just what we need, everyone taking a thin slice of the primary and two Republicans winning (“Anxiety grows among California Democrats as gubernatorial candidates rebuff calls to drop out,” March 5). When you have a Republican governor, he or she will do what the president asks. Who are we going to sue first, the president or the governor or both every day?
But first, voters have a job to do. The American public has to actually read the policies of the various candidates. What are the possibilities of the candidate actually doing what they propose to do? Is it mostly hot air? Read up on their history and read what they purpose on their websites. Do some work actually looking at the candidates, not just the little blurbs they post on marketing material. It’s your job as part of the electorate to make good decisions on who to elect.
Sidney Rubinstein, Shadow Hills
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To the editor: The important thing is not the collection of candidates, but who ultimately ends up winning the governor’s seat. This objective seems lost on the camps opposing the California Democratic Party chair’s open letter calling for its lower-polling candidates to withdraw from the California governor’s primary election in order to avoid splitting the votes, which would favor the two poll-leading Republican candidates. Anyone invoking race to mask a political reality is missing the point.
By contrast, the French snap elections in 2024 witnessed all the left and center parties tabling their differences to form a resistance to Marine Le Pen’s poll-leading National Rally party. With a voting structure similar to that of California’s primaries, these various French parties sacrificed candidates to not split the vote — and it worked, preventing majority representation for the National Rally.
Will California Democrats opposing this letter be strategic like the French? And if it’s about race, are such Democrats willing to risk losing more ground on racism and immigration to a Republican governor?
Li Wen, Los Angeles