In the gubernatorial race, voters appear disengaged

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

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The shortage and cost of housing is, by any rational standard, one of California’s most pressing problems, which is why several thousand affordable housing advocates gathered in Sacramento this week to brainstorm potential solutions.

Housing California, the sponsor of the event, invited the gubernatorial candidates to participate in a panel discussion on how they would approach the housing crisis.

Neither Republican candidate Steve Hilton nor Chad Bianco showed up, which was not surprising given the left-wing tone of the event.

It was strange, however, that only four of the eight Democratic candidates showed up, as it was a great opportunity for them to impress a large audience of political activists with only a few weeks to go before voters start marking and sending in their ballots for the June 2 primary.

Of the four who participated in body panelonly one candidate, billionaire Tom Steyer, is in the top group of candidates, as revealed in the a new study by the UC-Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studieswith only 10% support.

The other three — Public School Superintendent Tony Thurmond, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state inspector Betty Yee — garnered a collective just 6 percent support among the sample of voters, with Thurmond and Yee at 1 percent each.

Although California is an all-blue state, the two Republicans were 1 and 2 in the poll, fueling concerns among Democratic leaders that they could end up that way on the June 2 ballot if neither Democrat gets fired up.

Among Democrats, Congressman Eric Swalwell and former Congresswoman Katie Porter were the top vote-getters at 13 percent each, followed by Steyer at 10 percent, former Attorney General Xavier Becerra at 5 percent, Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan at 4 percent.

Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, told the Los Angeles Times that he was amazed at how fragmented and disengaged voters were in choosing the state’s next governor.

“It’s historic to me,” DiCamillo said, “and especially considering that neither candidate has a really positive image among voters, also startling. I mean, maybe one of the reasons why voters are disengaged, they’re just not enthusiastic about either candidate. They’re kind of sleepwalking into this election.”

The lethargic nature of the race is also demonstrated by the failure of the California Federation of Labor to settle on one Democrat instead of endorsing four of the eight.

So it could be said that the candidates’ passive attitude to this week’s housing conference captures a broader lack of enthusiasm among candidates and voters.

It should be a referendum on how California handles not only housing and homelessness, but the many other issues that Gavin Newsom will leave behind when he leaves office next January, almost certainly embarking on a quest for the White House.

The gubernatorial campaign so far, however, has revealed very few differences among the eight Democratic candidates on these issues, nor any truly new proposals. Asked about housing, homelessness, health care and the cost of living, the four on Thursday’s panel generally said they would spend a lot more money and impose new taxes on corporations and wealthy Californians to pay for them.

Given the dearth of new ideas and overall lethargy, one could almost hope that Hilton and Bianco would go 1-2 and give the state its first Republican governor in two decades. The Capitol conflict that would ensue as a GOP governor battles a Democratic-dominated legislature would be interesting, to say the least.

That would be karmic justice for a Democratic Party that is apparently incapable of generating enough energy to power a light bulb.

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