California’s Republican Party is so weak that no Republican has won statewide office there in 20 years. Yet there’s some danger this fall that the Golden State—where nearly twice as many voters register Democratic as Republican—will elect a Republican governor. It’s even conceivable that the general election will be a contest between two MAGA Republican gubernatorial candidates. Blame California’s top-two nonpartisan primary system, a good-government reform adopted by ballot referendum in 2010 that was supposed to weed out extremist candidates.
Let’s agree from the outset that California’s top-two primary, also known as a jungle primary, is not the only reason this year’s governor’s race is a mess. We start with the problem that the candidates have all, in some way, come up short.
Until last summer, the Democratic smart money was on former Vice President Kamala Harris. For Harris, running for governor would have been a sensible move—certainly more sensible than running again for president. But in July, Harris removed herself from consideration. That cleared the path for Representative Eric Swalwell. Swalwell was well on his way to becoming front-runner when allegations of rape and other sexual misbehavior compelled him to drop out of the race and resign from Congress. Much of Swalwell’s support then swung to Xavier Becerra, who was health and human services secretary under President Joe Biden. That took many of Becerra’s former colleagues in the Biden administration by surprise, and four of them, speaking not for attribution, told Politico last week that Becerra is kind of an empty suit.
