As ballots arrive, here\u2019s how the top 7 governor candidates stack up in the polls <\/p>\n
As we kick off tonight\u2019s debate, there are a number of candidates not on stage but on your ballot. Mine arrived in the mail today, giving me the first chance to actually see all the names laid out in their fleeting glory.<\/p>\n
Yes, for those of you who haven\u2019t seen it, the ballot contains 61 candidates for governor. Tonight, you\u2019ll hear from seven of them vying for our attention before pens hit bubbles on that complicated ballot.<\/p>\n
The most notable absence tonight will be Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, who didn\u2019t make the cut. He\u2019s polling at less than 1% of voters, about the same as disgraced former candidate Eric Swalwell. Ouch.<\/p>\n
Though he has yet to drop out of the race, Thurmond has pretty much joined candidates such as Livingforgod andcountry Demott and Barack D. Obama Shaw who are clogging the ballot with no chance of winning. And in case you\u2019re wondering, yes, those are the legal names of two actual candidates.<\/p>\n
The California Democratic Party, which has been pleading and screaming for weeks for someone, anyone to drop out and clear the field, released another new poll this week that shows maybe voters are starting to choose from the better-known names, but not by much.<\/p>\n
Republican Steven Hilton and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra tie in the EVITARUS Research survey at 18% each. MAGA Sheriff Chad Bianco comes in at 14%, and billionaire progressive Tom Steyer is holding on at 12%, possibly splitting voters with the other progressive, Katie Porter, who has 8% of voters in her corner.<\/p>\n
Tech-backed San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan is still breathing, though on life support, at 7%, about where he\u2019s been stuck since Silicon Valley started pouring millions into his campaign.<\/p>\n
Antonio Villaraigosa, the former L.A. mayor, is at 2% but somehow made the stage.<\/p>\n
Tonight may be the last-best chance for one of these folks to break out. While it\u2019s not the last debate, it\u2019s the highest-profile, likely with the largest audience. But even if someone doesn\u2019t light up voters\u2019 excitement, tonight just may push at least one candidate into the company of Thurmond, Demott and Shaw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As ballots arrive, here\u2019s how the top 7 governor candidates stack up in the polls As we kick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29238,127494,7,2926,9,8,13540,26532,112708,8642,8111,2211,3239,127493,23894,218,1557],"class_list":["post-301725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-becerra","tag-black-governor","tag-california","tag-california-governor","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-candidate","tag-debate","tag-former-u-s-secretary","tag-hilton","tag-poll","tag-race","tag-stage","tag-state-supt","tag-tony-thurmond","tag-winner","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301725","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=301725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}