Like many Californians, I\u2019ve followed the race for governor wondering, \u201cIs this really the best we have?\u201d<\/p>\n
Disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell was at one point the frontrunner despite no one really having any idea what he thought about California state policy. Skilled fundraiser but otherwise unaccomplished former Rep. Katie Porter once commanded the field until she broke down when asked a follow-up question. And there were several uninspiring but high-profile names considering joining, including Sen. Alex Padilla, who was smart enough to know he has a great gig as a senator, and Kamala Harris, who still thinks she should be president.<\/p>\n
There was a brief moment where billionaire Republican-turned-independent-turned-Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Rick Caruso was figuring out if he should run for governor or mayor of Los Angeles until he realized he wasn\u2019t guaranteed to win either.<\/p>\n
So, we got who we got.<\/p>\n
As of this writing, it appears the top three candidates to watch are career politician and Democrat Xavier Becerra, Republican pundit Steve Hilton and Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer.<\/p>\n
Polling by UC Berkeley\u2019s Institute of Governmental Studies found Becerra topping the list with 25% support, followed by Hilton\u2019s 21% and Steyer\u2019s 19%. In distant fourth place is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 11%. This aligns closely with polling released by the Public Policy Institute of California, which found Becerra with 23% support, Hilton with 20% and Steyer with 15%, with Bianco at 13%.<\/p>\n
Given that California has developed a tendency to reject Republican statewide candidates with 60-40 outcomes, any scenario in which Hilton faces off with a Democrat is almost certain to follow that pattern.<\/p>\n
It seems highly implausible to me that just a year after Californians punished Republicans with nearly two-thirds passage of Proposition 50 that this is the year for a Republican revival.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s true even if the candidate is Tom Steyer, whose platform is so far to the left it\u2019s unbelievable. He\u2019s promising things like single-payer healthcare and free education from pre-k through college, while also vowing to put split roll back on the ballot once he\u2019s elected. I hate to break it to Steyer but split roll isn\u2019t going to cover all of that and California\u2019s fiscal state is such that he\u2019ll struggle to keep up with California\u2019s preexisting budget commitments.<\/p>\n
His nod to the benefits of low taxes is in his crony capitalist vow to expand tax credits for the film industry. But then he muddies even that further with his vow to waste public funds on \u201cpublic arts initiatives\u201d and pour money into apprenticeships in the entertainment sector. If he wants to invest in these things with his own money, fine, but he shouldn\u2019t be using tax dollars to prop up sectors he happens to like.<\/p>\n
Once you also account for his climate apocalypticism, Steyer\u2019s instinct toward interventionism and central planning would be particularly annoying.<\/p>\n
But with all that said, I think he still beats Hilton for purely partisan reasons. The idea that a Trump-backed Republican wins in California in 2026 seems suspect. Hilton might be able to bring Steyer down a little bit off the 60-40 pattern, but he\u2019d be lucky to replicate 2022 Republican controller candidate Lanhee Chen\u2019s 44.65%.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Becerra, who no one is really thrilled with but who has been around forever and is enough of a transactional politician that he would probably be less damaging to California than the far-left ideologue that Steyer is. For instance, Becerra has already drawn the ire of progressives amid reports he walked back his public support for single-payer as he\u2019s sought endorsements. \u201cHe said very clearly that, at this point, he wasn\u2019t supportive of single-payer,\u201d Dr. Ren\u00e9 Bravo, president of the California Medical Association, told KQED last month.<\/p>\n
Becerra has received a lot of support from Big Oil, which also angers progressives but is also probably a good thing since California still needs a lot of oil. Politico flagged one of Becerra\u2019s answers to a debate question about whether he would sign legislation to increase oil production in Kern County. \u201cVersus importing? Yes,\u201d Becerra answered.<\/p>\n
Now, this said, of course it\u2019s impossible to get thrilled about Becerra. Look up what Susan Rice, who served as director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Biden administration, had to say about him during his time in the Biden administration as secretary of Health and Human Services. It\u2019s not family-friendly but quite revealing.<\/p>\n
As Politico reported, quoting a Biden administration official: \u201cHe would go to brief the president and was not prepared at all, almost to the point where it was an embarrassment. Biden would pepper him with questions and he would not be able to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And to top things off, we can look back to his time as California attorney general, where I mainly remember him fighting on behalf of the police unions to block the release of records from officers who were confirmed to have committed excessive force, been dishonest or committed sexual assault on the job. \u201cUnfortunately, Becerra has refused to fully comply with a new statute that requires the release of police-misconduct records, even though the courts have rebuked him,\u201d our editorial board wrote about him in February 2020. \u201cIt\u2019s shameful.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, alas, it seems highly probable either Steyer or Becerra will be governor of California.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest duds of this campaign season have been San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Neither of them ever entered the top tier of candidates despite their much more sensible, back-to-basics messages. But, it\u2019s also understandable.<\/p>\n
No one really knew Mahan until he jumped into the race at the end of January. He\u2019s had to stretch his limited set of accomplishments as mayor of San Jose into more than it really is. He joined the council in 2021 and became mayor in 2023. His perpetual angling for higher office drew sharp criticism from the local San Jose Spotlight. \u201cWhile these problems persist, Mahan has posted countless times on social media about Sacramento politics, statewide issues and shared media interviews about his potential gubernatorial run,\u201d top editors editorialized. \u201cHe\u2019s redirected his focus away from the job San Jose residents elected him to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Villaraigosa\u2019s problem is that he\u2019s been out of office since 2013. He certainly did some solid things as mayor of Los Angeles, but many Angelenos remember him less as the great reformer he\u2019s cast himself as and more as the guy obsessed with press conferences and out-of-town travels. While supporters of school choice and education reform like myself are grateful for his clashes with the teachers unions at the time, that was also what effectively killed his subsequent efforts at the governorship in 2018 and now 2026.<\/p>\n
That said, I would\u2019ve much preferred either Mahan or Villaraigosa being where Steyer and Becerra are. Mahan and Villaraigosa, despite their flaws, are at least able to acknowledge their party\u2019s fixation on theatrics over substance.<\/p>\n
But, we got what we got. Becerra, Hilton and Steyer are jockeying for the top two spots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whoever wins, we can only hope they clean up the mess left by Gov. Gavin Newsom and can at least not make things worse.<\/p>\n
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many Californians, I\u2019ve followed the race for governor wondering, \u201cIs this really the best we have?\u201d Disgraced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,975,2082],"class_list":["post-340554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340554","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=340554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}