Xavier Becerra is gaining momentum in the California governor’s race

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

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Ten days ago, Congressman Eric Swwell came very close to becoming the Democratic nominee for Governor of California. But then he erupted amid sensational allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

Hours after the revelations, Swawell abandoned his campaign and then resigned from Congress and is now the subject of a criminal investigation.

Why Swawell led the field of Democratic hopefuls was never clear. His only claim to political fame was being one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest critics — which, of course, has little to do with running the nation’s most populous state.

He appears to be seen as an alternative to billionaire Tom Steyer, who has spent lavishly on TV and Internet ads while positioning himself as the progressive style of Bernie Sanders.

Those repulsed by Steyer’s ideology or his wealth seemed to gravitate toward Swawell, who held a more or less moderate line.

Swawell’s sudden departure left a vacuum that Steyer and the third top Democrat, former Congresswoman Katie Porter, hoped to fill. However, as disillusioned Swawell supporters considered their options, many apparently settled on Xavier Becerra, the soft-spoken former congressman, attorney general and Biden administration official.

The Democratic Party released theirs latest tracking survey on Monday, revealing that the two Republicans — former TV commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — still lead the pack with 16 percent and 14 percent.

The big news, however, was that Becerra shot from 4% on April 5 to 13%, ahead of all Democrats. Steyer and Porter both gained slightly in the post-Swalwell shake-up, but Becerra’s rise has been nothing short of phenomenal.

why

Perhaps Swawell’s disillusioned supporters, who clearly weren’t comfortable with Steyer or Porter, were looking for someone reliable and trustworthy — even a little boring — after seven years of Gavin Newsom’s glitzy sideshow.

It could be 1982 all over again.

That was the year a hard-nosed public servant, Republican Attorney General George Deukmedjian, defeated the wonderful Governor Jerry Brown.

Brown, like Newsom, had devoted much of his governorship to seeking national political attention, running twice for president, and the same voters who elected Dukmejian on a law-and-order platform decisively rejected Brown’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat.

Brown publicly acknowledged that he had worn out his welcome — though 28 years later, much older and wiser, he returned to the governorship.

This year’s gubernatorial campaign was the strangest in at least 80 years, including actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunning victory in 2003. For months, potential candidates dropped out and dropped out, two Republicans led the polls in one of the nation’s bluest states, Democratic leaders openly worried that the GOP might win the governorship by default with a 1-2 margin in the primary, and finally the scandal forced Swalwell to leave.

The next phase will continue the post-Swawell shuffle, with Becerra either continuing his meteoric rise or hitting a plateau, and Democrats still mired in the low single digits deciding whether to continue their campaigns.

“I continue to believe there are too many Democrats in this field,” said Rusty Hicks, chairman of the Democratic Party.

An hour before the new poll was due to be released, one of the participants, former Comptroller Betty Yee, quit her campaign in tears — understandable given her 1 percent approval rating. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (2%) and Public Schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond (2%) are on the bubble. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan won as little as 5 percent, and his Silicon Valley backers are now mounting a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in hopes of getting him into the race, with mail-in voting opening in just two weeks.

Meanwhile, it’s still theoretically possible, though unlikely, that the two Republicans could finish 1-2, thus guaranteeing a GOP gubernatorial election in November.

In a year as wacky as this, nothing seemingly impossible should be dismissed.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.