Republicans, on paper, lead the California governor’s race

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

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The 2026 campaigns for governor, a host of other statewide offices, 52 congressional seats and 100 state legislative seats officially begin today with start of application. This could be one of the strangest election cycles in California’s 175 years as a state, albeit one that puts the state’s complicated politics in the spotlight.

There are so many Democrats running for governor that it’s theoretically possible for a Republican to win the job despite the state’s deep blue political profile, especially with the possibility of even more Democratic candidates jumping into the crowd — as they call a herd of kangaroos in Australia.

Meanwhile, both incumbents and candidates will be running in districts that have been heavily gerrymandered to further shrink the small Republican delegation as Democrats seek to regain control of Congress.

The possibility of a Republican governor, though very slim, stems from the state’s top-two primary system. All candidates, regardless of party, will appear on the same ballot for the June 2 primary, and the two with the highest percentages of the vote — no matter how small those shares — will face each other in the November election.

With more than a dozen Democrats now running and the possibility of others, it’s possible that the two Republicans in the mix so far — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former TV commentator Steve Hilton — could theoretically finish one-two with perhaps less than 10-15% of the vote each.

The Democratic cohort is unlikely to shrink over the next few months as the weakest contenders drop out because they don’t have enough money or polling support to continue. However, the lack of a natural Democratic front-runner and the seeming lack of party leadership strong enough to cull the herd increases the mathematical possibility of a GOP upset.

If former Vice President Kamala Harris or U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla had decided to run, either would be the frontrunner. But by giving up, they left a vacuum.

Former congresswoman Katie Porter currently leads the Democratic field, albeit with barely double-digit support in polls. Being the only woman running — now with Harris and former state Sen. Toni Atkins — is one reason for her lead, however slim. She also received recognition during her unsuccessful bid for a US Senate seat last year.

Billionaire Tom Steyer is currently the most visible contender, spending some of his vast fortune on television and Internet ads to portray himself as a populist who fights against “Sacramento politicians” and promises to lower electric bills — not unlike how Donald Trump succeeded.

Besides Porter, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former attorney general and Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra appear to be the strongest contenders for the Democrats. However, everyone is still waiting to see if Attorney General Rob Bonta or Los Angeles businessman Rick Caruso will get involved.

To have this much uncertainty this late in the game is very unusual. However, at some point, perhaps around February or March, when the Democratic field finally begins to narrow, it will be possible to separate the truly viable candidates from the wannabes and make some realistic handicaps.

Until then, as Willie Brown, former speaker of the state assembly and mayor of San Francisco and one of the state’s most astute politicians, told Politico:

“The field is not considered a quality that you as a Democrat would expect in California. We’re still pretty caught up in stardom, with people who have some influence… We don’t have those candidates right now.”

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