Former Comptroller Betty Yee drops her bid for California governor

from Jeanne KuangCalMatters

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Former state Comptroller Betty Yee dropped out of the race for governor on Monday, saying she couldn’t see a way to get donors and additional support from undecided voters with six weeks to go before the primary.

“It was becoming clear that the donors weren’t going to be there,” she said. “Even some of my former supporters just felt they had to move on too.”

She did not immediately endorse another candidate, but said she would do so in the next few days.

Yee was one of the first to enter the race, announcing her candidacy more than two years ago. She draws on her background in government budget management and her family’s middle-class immigrant background.

A progressive who has supported continuing state mandates to reduce greenhouse gases, Yee has also emphasized her ability to balance the budget and has often spoken about the importance of growing the state’s economy and auditing state fraud programs. In recent days, she has begun presenting herself as “Boring Betty,” promising a drama-free experience in government.

But pragmatism never became a star power. Yee remained at or near the bottom of the polls, never garnering more than about 3 percent of likely voters and consistently lagging behind in fundraising.

That made her one of California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks’ unnamed targets for a public pressure campaign Democrats with lower votes to drop out of the competition. With many Democrats in the race potentially splitting the liberal vote, Democrats were concerned that two Republicans could win the first two primaries in June.

Yee, the former party vice-chairman, insisted she has grassroots support and will not be forced out of the race by a pool of wealthy male candidates. She and other candidates of color united to decry their exclusion from a USC candidate debate last month after the university used a formula based on polling and fundraising to decide who to invite. In the end, the debate was canceled.

“This has been the story of my life, frankly, as a woman of color,” she told reporters in March. “I was overlooked, I was underestimated and pushed aside.”

The odds of Democrats not participating in the general election have declined since then former Rep. Eric Swawell dropped out more than a week ago over sexual assault allegations and after President Donald Trump endorsed Steve Hilton on the Republican side.

But Yee has little money to go on, and the race is entering its most expensive phase yet with multiple candidates running television ads last week.

Her exit leaves just one woman in the race, former Rep. Katie Porter.

Like Swalwell, Yee dropped out after the March deadline to file or withdraw from the race, so her name will remain on the June ballot.

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