{"id":298516,"date":"2026-05-04T01:09:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298516\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T01:09:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:09:41","slug":"a-california-dream-some-democrats-fear-harris-picked-the-wrong-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298516\/","title":{"rendered":"A California Dream? Some Democrats Fear Harris Picked the Wrong Race."},"content":{"rendered":"

The current political math in California goes like this: There are eight candidates running for governor. Only four of them are breaking double digits in polling. And there\u2019s a chance that Democrats could be shut out of the general election entirely in November.<\/p>\n

To many Democrats in the reliably liberal state, the calculus seems rather grim. Some can\u2019t help but wonder about a never-was-but-what-if variable: Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Maybe, they say, she should have run for governor instead of publicly pondering a third run for president.<\/p>\n

Sunny Hostin, a co-host of \u201cThe View,\u201d recently urged<\/a> Ms. Harris, the former vice president, to reconsider.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia, it\u2019s like running a country,\u201d she said on the morning show. \u201cI know that she\u2019s talked about being president \u2014 I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the right position for her \u2014 but my goodness, she certainly knows California.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Ms. Harris lost her bid for president in 2024, many believed that she would try to become the next governor of California. The state has a tradition of larger-than-life governors \u2014 Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gavin Newsom \u2014 who have happily used the statewide office as a megaphone to speak to a worldwide audience.<\/p>\n

But after months of speculation, Ms. Harris ruled out<\/a> the possibility last July.<\/p>\n

Instead, she has been roaming the country on a book tour, saying recently that she \u201cmight\u201d run for president again<\/a> in 2028.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to give some party loyalists heartburn. The governor\u2019s race, they say, would have been a better bet.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would have been good at it, and it would have been a good job for her,\u201d said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank based in Washington. \u201cIt would have been good for Democrats everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Mr. Bennett said, she would enter the presidential race \u201cwith a real burden\u201d of defending the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s conceivable that she could craft a message,\u201d he added, \u201cbut she\u2019s got a lot of explaining to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s nonpartisan primary has drawn a field that now includes Democrats Xavier Becerra, a former cabinet member in Joseph R. Biden Jr.\u2019s administration; Katie Porter, a former member of Congress; Tom Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire; Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose; Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles; and Tony Thurmond, the state education superintendent. Another Democrat, Representative Eric Swalwell, dropped out of the race amid allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

There are also two Republicans, Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County; and Steve Hilton, a former Fox News contributor.<\/p>\n

The top two vote getters, regardless of party, will advance to the general election.<\/p>\n

Leading Democrats in California have avoided publicly criticizing the candidates, even as many privately call the field lackluster. Rusty Hicks, the chairman of the state party, has urged candidates to \u201chonestly assess\u201d whether they should remain in the race.<\/p>\n

And while mail-in voting begins Monday for the June 2 primary, liberal activists have sent text messages urging Democratic voters to wait to cast their ballots until there is a clear party front-runner.<\/p>\n

A year ago, that front-runner was clearly Ms. Harris; a statewide poll found that 31 percent of voters supported<\/a> a theoretical Harris campaign, while no other contender exceeded single digits. Most leading Democrats wanted to stay out if she waded in, so her mulling effectively froze the field for months.<\/p>\n

Now, there are a few complications. For one thing, the deadline for making the ballot has long since passed. (Last month, a poll circulated through text message asked voters: \u201cWhat are the chances you would write in Harris for governor\u201d if she launched a campaign? The source of the poll was unclear, and the results were never reported.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps more to the point, there is little to indicate Ms. Harris was ever interested in the campaign \u2014 or the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty obvious she would have dominated the race,\u201d said Lara Bergthold, a longtime political consultant in Hollywood. \u201cIt felt like it was an easy win and an easy walk into the governor\u2019s mansion here.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Ms. Bergthold added, \u201cI get the feeling that she wants to play on the national stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Ms. Harris did not respond to an interview request.<\/p>\n

Not everyone believes a Harris win was a foregone conclusion. Still, without her in the race, the current messy contest for governor has left some voters and activists pining for the clarity of a big-name candidate.<\/p>\n

The existing field, said David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to President Barack Obama, is like a \u201chigh-stakes NASCAR race where the cars aren\u2019t going very fast, but running each other off the road before one rushes to the front at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The current political math in California goes like this: There are eight candidates running for governor. Only four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,989,4594,11471,126456,86842,4510],"class_list":["post-298516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-elections","tag-governors","tag-harris","tag-kamala-d","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}