Opinion | Xavier Becerra is gaining ground in the race for governor of California

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

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This article is also available in English. Read it here.

A few weeks ago, Congressman Eric Swwell was on the verge of becoming the Democratic nominee for governor of California. But her career fell apart amid sensational allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

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

It was never clear why Swawell led the Democratic ticket. His only political notoriety 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 has apparently been seen as an alternative to billionaire Tom Steyer, who has spent heavily on television and Internet ads while positioning himself as the progressive style of Bernie Sanders.

Those who disliked Steyer’s ideology or wealth seemed to gravitate toward Swawell, who maintained a more or less moderate line.

Swawell’s sudden departure left a void that Steyer and the third Democrat in the race, former congresswoman Katie Porter, had hoped to fill. But as disillusioned Swawell supporters weighed their options, many apparently settled on Xavier Becerra, the affable former congressman, former attorney general and former Biden administration official.

On Monday, April 20, the Democratic Party released its last follow-up study which reveals that the two Republicans, former TV commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, still lead the race with 16 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

The big news, however, was that Becerra went from 4% on April 5 to 13%, topping all Democrats. Both Steyer and Porter made slight gains after Swawell was fired, but Becerra’s rise has been nothing short of phenomenal.

because?

Perhaps Swwell’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 glitterati.

It can be like reliving 1982.

That was the year a stalwart public servant, Republican Attorney General George Deukmejian, succeeded a promising young governor, Jerry Brown.

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

Brown publicly admitted that he had already worn out people’s patience, although 28 years later, much older and wiser, he returned to the governor’s office.

This year’s gubernatorial campaign is the strangest in at least 80 years, including actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unlikely victory in 2003. For months, potential candidates ran and then dropped out; two Republicans are leading the polls in one of the most Democratic states in the country; Democratic leaders were openly concerned that the GOP might win the governorship by default with a 1-2 primary, and a scandal eventually forced Swawell to retire.

The next phase will continue the post-Swale shakeup, with Becerra continuing his meteoric rise or slowing down, and Democrats still stuck in the low single digits deciding whether or not to continue their campaigns.

“I still think there are too many Democrats in the race,” said Rusty Hicks, state Democratic chairman.

An hour before the new poll was released, one of the candidates who failed to enter the race, former Comptroller Betty Yee, suspended her campaign in tears, understandably given her low support (1%). Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (2%) and state Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond (2%) are in a sticky situation. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan edged up to 5 percent, and his Silicon Valley backers are running a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in hopes he can compete for the seat as mail-in voting opens in just two weeks.

Meanwhile, it remains theoretically possible, though unlikely, that the two Republicans could finish first and second, thus guaranteeing the election of a Republican governor in November.

In a year as atypical as this, nothing that seems impossible should be ruled out.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under license Creative Commons Attribution/Attribution-Noncommercial.