Crowded Democratic race for California governor could open door for Republicans

By Joseph Ax and Costas Pitas

March 24 (Reuters) – By many measures, California is the center of the Democratic Party’s political universe. The most populous U.S. state, it is home to both the party’s last presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, and possibly its future one, Governor Gavin Newsom.

But thanks to the state’s quirky electoral system and a crowded field of candidates, Democrats are suddenly facing an unlikely but unpleasant possibility: getting locked out of the general election this fall to succeed Newsom, who is not permitted to run for a third term.

Under California law, the top two finishers in the June 2 open primary contest will advance to November’s election, regardless of party. Polls show the two leading Republican candidates, former British government aide and Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, are closely bunched with three Democrats: U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, former U.S. Representative Katie Porter and billionaire activist Tom Steyer.

Those five candidates, along with Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, will clash on Tuesday at a debate due to begin at 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET/0000 GMT) that offers them a chance to break the stalemate and, for Democrats, avoid a potentially embarrassing outcome in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger served as the state’s governor from 2003 to 2011.

With more than two months until the primary election and polls showing as many as one in four voters still unsure of their choice, there is plenty of time for the candidates to separate. But some Democrats are already expressing concerns about missing out in November, when the U.S. will hold midterm elections that will determine whether President Donald Trump’s Republicans hold onto their thin majorities in Congress for the next two years.

‘THERE IS A CHANCE’

California’s Democratic Party chair, Rusty Hicks, wrote an open letter earlier this month urging any long-shot hopefuls to drop out of the race, warning that the scenario of two Republicans vying for the governorship was “implausible” but “not impossible.”

“There is a chance,” said Steven Maviglio, a longtime Democratic strategist in California. “Nobody’s been able to break through.”

The winner in November will lead a state with a roughly $4 trillion economy, which would by itself rank fourth among the world’s economies. California is often a political staging ground for progressive initiatives on issues such as environmental safeguards, worker rights and protections for minorities that are then emulated by other Democratic states and used by Republicans to attack Democrats in swing areas.

“Given that no candidate has yet broken out of the field, a debate like this one may have more import than would normally be the case two months out,” said Dan Schnur, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and a former Republican strategist.

Swalwell, a frequent guest on cable news, briefly ran for president in the 2020 cycle and built a national profile as one of the managers of Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021.

Steyer, another former 2020 presidential candidate, is a former hedge fund manager who has used his fortune to become a prominent Democratic activist and who has already poured tens of millions of dollars into his campaign.

Porter, who left Congress for an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in 2024, made her mark grilling corporate executives during her time in Congress. Mahan, who is less well known, is seen as a moderate and has been a frequent critic of Newsom’s tenure.

Several other Democrats did not qualify for Tuesday’s debate, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra; former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Tony Thurmond, the state’s public schools chief; and Betty Yee, the state’s former controller.

FOLLOWING TRUMP’S LEAD

On the Republican side, Hilton and Bianco both support Trump, though they’ve sought to focus their campaigns on state-specific issues such as crime and high taxes.

In a move that echoed Trump’s longstanding false claims of widespread voter fraud, Bianco announced on Friday he had seized more than half a million ballots in his county, part of an investigation into allegations that a 2025 special election to approve a new Democratic-backed congressional map was marred by fraud.

The state’s top election official, Democratic Secretary of State Shirley Weber, said the allegations “lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections.”

(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Costas Pitas; editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)