Polling shows Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco leading the pack, while eight Democrats split the liberal vote.
Democrats face nightmare scenario in California governor’s race
Polling shows Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco leading the California governor’s race, while eight Democrats split the liberal vote.
- A crowded field of Democratic candidates for California governor has split the vote, creating an opening for Republicans.
- California’s “jungle primary” system allows the top two finishers, regardless of party, to advance to the general election.
- Incumbent Governor Gavin Newsom has not endorsed a successor, a move some experts say could be costly for the party.
Democrats’ 2026 comeback could be spoiled by California electing a Republican governor, as two GOP candidates are leading in recent polls.
Experts forecast a potential “blue wave” in the midterm elections, as Democrats have recently overperformed in special elections, including flipping a state senate seat in President Donald Trump’s own Palm Beach, Florida, district on March 24.
But the party is facing a nightmare scenario in the nation’s most populous state, where polling shows Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco leading the pack in the June 2 nonpartisan primary. The state’s liberal majority is split among eight Democratic contenders.
The Democrats’ dilemma stems from California’s unusual election system, in which the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November general election. A Berkley ISG survey released March 18 of more than 5,000 registered voters showed Hilton, a conservative TV host, receiving 17% of the vote while Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, held 16%.
In third was Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, with 14%, then former Rep. Katie Porter holding 13%, followed by Tom Steyer at 10% and the five other Democratic candidates each getting 5% or less.
Other yardsticks show a similar trend, such as a March 18 survey commissioned by the California Democratic Party showing the two GOP candidates on top with Swalwell, Porter, and Steyer in a three-way tie for third place.
California Democrats enjoy a 2-to-1 voter registration edge over the GOP, but Golden State voters say there is a fog of confusion around the race due to the party’s failure to coalesce around a frontrunner. Olivya Reyes, a graduate student who lives in Oxnard, California, told USA TODAY the party still feels like it is trying to “find its footing” between a more moderate or progressive candidate.
“I feel like as a Democratic voter, what I would want to see from my party is clarity on who we’re supporting and getting behind,” she said.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is prevented from running due to term limits, has one eye on the presidency and hasn’t endorsed a successor or publicly nudged lower-performing candidates out of the race.
That neutrality could come at a cost, some experts say, should the two GOP aspirants prevail.
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Reyes, 29, a lifelong Democrat, said typically by the end of March she would have a strong idea of which candidate she planned to support. She was planning to back former Vice President Kamala Harris or Sen. Alex Padilla, but both bypassed running, leaving her clueless about who was running or who to support.
She has only learned about Steyer, who has poured millions into the contest, and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
“I’m going to be honest in saying that I have been getting a lot of conflicting messaging, even from my own party, about who I should put my vote behind,” Reyes said. “Right now, it seems that the party is very much trying to find its footing on whether or not we’re going for a progressive candidate or for a more moderate Democrat.”
Experts say voter apathy typically occurs in California because it’s a heavily Democratic-leaning state, and that a majority of voters don’t pay attention until after the usually low-turnout primary.
The Berkeley survey underscored how much inattention is responsible for Democrats’ lack of enthusiasm for a specific candidate. It noted that voters “remain largely disengaged and unenthusiastic,” and about 16% of Californians are undecided.
The poll found that even among the candidates who are generally better known, “significant proportions of likely voters have no opinion” of them.
That might come as a surprise, given that the top three Democrats all ran for major office before. Porter made an unsuccessful bid for Senate in 2024 while Steyer and Swalwell launched uneventful presidential campaigns in 2020.
There are other notable contenders on the Democratic side: Becerra, the former health secretary in the Biden administration who had just 5% in the Berkley poll; former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan who raked in 4%; Tony Thurmond, state Superintendent of Public Instruction and Betty Yee, a former state controller who both shared 1%.
“No one in particular has caught fire with the average Democratic voter,” said Brian Sobel, a veteran political analyst based in San Francisco. “Nobody has leapt out.”
Democrat Rick De Alba, a workers’ compensation rights attorney from Pacifica, California, said he prefers Beccera, but noted he consistently sits in the basement of the race. He doesn’t want his vote going to someone who doesn’t have a shot at winning, and wishes underdog contenders would heed state party leaders’ advice and bow out gracefully.
“I think realistically you need about $30 million to put on an effective campaign in California, and if you can’t raise that, you should step aside,” De Alba said. “California always votes Democrat, no matter what. We just need to know who the candidate is.”
Reyes, the graduate student, said she had hoped to learn more about the other Democrats running through a debate hosted by the University of Southern California, which was originally scheduled to air on March 24. But the university canceled the event at the last minute after an accusation that it purposefully left out candidates of color, casting a shadow over the event for days.
Swalwell, Porter, and Steyer are White, whereas the lower-polling candidates are mostly people of color. Becerra and Villaraigosa are Hispanic; Mahan is White; Thurmond is Black; and Yee is Asian American.
“As a person of color, it did make me take a pause, and it didn’t look good,” Reyes said. “But I feel like this was a chance for all of these Democratic candidates to kind of put their faces in front of California voters.”
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Conservative-leaning California voters such as Bud Thompson, a 61-year-old state government employee, said they are enjoying the spectacle of the usually dominant California Democrats in disarray. He was surprised to learn that the two leading candidates in this year’s races were the two GOP candidates.
“I think that you can look at California and see what a mess it is. Look at who’s been running it for the last few years,” the Sacramento, California, native said in an interview. “I am going to start seriously looking at the two Republicans. It would be a nice change of pace.”
California, under Newsom, has been one of the larger state governments that have opposed much of the Trump administration’s agenda, so having either Hilton or Bianco, who are both decidedly behind the president, would be a drastic shift.
Bianco made headlines this month when he followed the administration’s lead by seizing roughly 650,000 ballots in Riverside County, based on a tip from a citizen-led group that has been criticized for delving into conspiracy theories by local officials and other voting rights experts. He’s also made support for the president’s controversial SAVE Act voting bill one of the central themes in his campaign.
“Investigations into irregularities must happen so that the public can have full confidence,” Bianco said in a March 22 post on X.
Hilton, a former Fox News host, has also spoken in favor of Trump’s election overhaul, arguing that “(u)niversal mail-in voting must end,” in a March 26 post on X. He has emphasized allegedly fraudulent government spending and slammed Bianco for calling to work with Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.
Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno, said it’s “theoretically possible” that the two could shut out the Democrats, assuming GOP voters back their own candidates and earn enough votes from some independent voters.
But he said in the next couple of months, there will be a lot more pressure from state Democrats and others to significantly drain the pool of candidates so that the remaining contenders can consolidate support.
“I just got to imagine that pressure is really going to mount and a lot of donors to Democratic candidates may also push heavily for some Democrats to drop out,” Holyoke said.
Asked about the prospect of Republicans keeping Democrats out of the top two spots, national campaign officials who spoke with USA TODAY exuded optimism and spotlighted the party’s history of success in the state.
“We are confident that will not happen, and we are having active conversations with our partners in California about ways that we can ensure that doesn’t happen,” Johanna Warsaw, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, told USA TODAY in an interview.
She noted the group was heavily engaged in other elections that turned out well for progressives, including the 2025 redistricting ballot initiative known as Proposition 50 and the failed 2021 recall battle against Newsom.
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As the California election comes into focus, Newsom’s role in picking a successor is also being heavily scrutinized, especially given that he’s a rumored 2028 presidential contender.
Newsom served as lieutenant governor under former Gov. Jerry Brown, a longtime fixture in the state, before taking the reins in 2019. But Newsom’s second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, dropped out of the running last August.
“There isn’t a logical heir to the throne this time around,” said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Newsom’s office did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment, but he addressed the lack of a focused message among the Democratic pool when speaking with Politico’s “On the Road” podcast. The governor noted that Harris and Padilla declining to run created “a lot of chill and a lot of delay” in this year’s campaign.
“You have this condensed period of time with a lot of candidates,” Newsom told host Jonathan Martin.
Sobel, the Bay Area political analyst, said Newsom has worked with many of the top candidates in various capacities previously and might want to avoid playing favorites. The 58-year-old governor will need their diverse and wide-ranging networks of support should he formally announce a White House bid.
“He’s going to need them again, sooner than later,” Sobel said.
Many of the low-polling candidates carry significant weight within the party at the local and state level, too, and some have been running for governor as far back as 2023. They are used to fighting ugly political battles, observers say, so they won’t go away easily.
The Yee campaign, for instance, points to the state party chair’s March 3 letter urging candidates to “honestly assess (their) viability” as an example of powerbrokers trying to clear the field for a select few.
“I’m not going to let that happen. Voters are still shopping,” Yee, a former state party vice chair, told USA TODAY in a statement. “Every poll shows the race remains wide open. Californians have a right to see and hear from a range of candidates, not just the billionaire-backed voices. Let the voters decide. Anything less is undemocratic and simply un-American.”
While the race might have some Democrats biting their nails, psychologist Steve Flannes, of Piedmont, California, said he’s pleased that so many people are running for governor. He said it’s a chore examining all the candidates, but he hopes it won’t be too cumbersome in the coming weeks.
“I’m trying to narrow down the options for myself,” Flannes, 75, said. “I’ve still got a couple of months to figure it all out, right?”
