Who will blow up in the 2026 California gubernatorial election?

from Carolyn JonesCalMatters

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Preliminary exams for jobs at the state’s top K-12 schools are less than a month away, but judging by the polls, it’s debatable whether anyone is paying attention.

A whopping 32% of voters are undecided with just weeks to go June 2 primary for state head of public education, acc recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California. In the past, it was one of the hottest races in the state, with millions of dollars in spending.

Among the dozen candidates, none received more than 10% of voter support, meaning the race was essentially 10-way.

“There’s no shortage of qualified candidates, but the previous election was a rush and there was a sense that who won really mattered,” said Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at USC. “We don’t have that this time.”

A job with few responsibilities?

One reason for the malaise, observers said, may be that voters are more focused on education policy unfolding in Washington, DC. The Trump administration is in the process of disbanding the U.S. Department of Education, which could potentially disrupt funding and student rights. Another reason could be that most of the candidates agree on the main issues, so there is little to distinguish them.

Regardless, the position may be almost irrelevant when the new chief takes office. The state is ready to relieved the warden of most duties. Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed in January that the superintendent no longer lead the California Department of Education. Instead, it will fall under the control of the State Board of Education, which is appointed by the governor. The idea was introduced in his budget proposal in January and is expected to pass the legislature.

It would transfer authority over the state’s 10,000 public schools to the governor’s office. The superintendent will have few responsibilities beyond advocating for various education-related causes. The governor’s race would have more bearing on school funding, policies and other issues than the superintendent’s race.

The teachers union weighs in

The California Teachers Association, one of the biggest players in education policy, is much more involved in the governor’s race than the superintendent’s race. After Congressman Eric Swwell dropped out of the gubernatorial race, the union endorsed billionaire Tom Steyer for governor, citing his alignment with the union’s priorities.

For superintendent, the union backed Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member who was little known outside of San Diego before he won the union’s endorsement.

“The superintendent’s race is off the radar because the governor’s race has taken up so much bandwidth,” said David Goldberg, the union’s president. “While the superintendent’s impact is felt deeply by those who work in public education, it is not widely known outside of public education.”

The next superintendent will replace Tony Thurmond, who was fired and is running for governor. The superintendent position is nonpartisan and salaried $210,460. The top two candidates in the June primary will advance to the November general election.

So far, the leading candidates in the superintendent’s race include a host of education policy veterans. Among them: Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, former head of the Assembly Education Committee; Josh Newman, former head of the Senate Education Committee; Anthony Rendon, former Speaker of the Assembly and longtime administrator of an early education program; and Nichelle Henderson, Los Angeles County College board member.

“lightning rod”

Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley school board member, also ran and gained traction on the right. In the latest poll, she had the support of 7% of voters, the same as Barrera. Lance Christensen, who is running against Thurmond in 2022, predicts that Shaw will advance in the November election because the Democratic vote will be split between the other candidates.

Shaw is best known for her fiery stances on the rights of transgender students. She was thrust into the limelight in 2023 when she presided over a Chino Valley School Board meeting where guards escorted Thurmond out when he spoke over his time limit defending transgender students’ right to privacy. She has been an outspoken advocate for schools to inform parents if their child identifies as transgender, and for students to participate in teams that match their birth gender.

“They can say what they want about her, but she’s such a lightning rod that now everybody knows who she is,” said Christensen, who is now vice president of the California Anti-Union Policy Center. “I think this problem will take her all the way to Sacramento.”

Why isn’t anyone talking about charter schools

One issue conspicuously absent from the race for superintendent is charter schools. In years past, charter schools were the No. 1 issue in the race. Candidates considered themselves either “pro-charter” or “anti-charter,” with donations and rhetoric following suit. “For the Charter” is often interpreted as anti-union, leading to an avalanche of discontent on both sides.

But the public and even the unions seem to have grown tired of arguing about independent public schools. One reason is that many charter schools already have unions. Another reason is that due to declining enrollment, charter schools are no longer expanding; they seem to have plateaued at about 10% of the total recording.

The more likely reason is that voters see charter schools and traditional public schools as struggling with the same issues, said Marshall Tuck, the former CEO of the charter school network Green Dot, who ran for superintendent in 2018 and 2014. The 2018 election, in which he lost to Thurmond, was one of the costliest principal races in history, with installments over $50 million. By comparison, no candidate in the current election has raised more than $1 million so far.

Most schools – regardless of their governance structure – face teacher shortage, false scores in reading and math and low student engagement after the end of the pandemic.

“Now that we’ve done away with the charter, we can focus on bigger issues,” said Tuck, who is now CEO of EdVoice, a policy advocacy organization. “The underlying issues are the same everywhere.”

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