CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: A Guide to the Candidates
Following the wave of allegations against frontrunner Eric Swalwell, we decided to explain each candidate and their chances in the race.
As recently as the beginning of last month, U.S. representative Eric Swalwell was polling higher than any other Democrat in the California gubernatorial race. In fact- according to an Emerson College poll from March 7-9, he was favored to win!
In case you’ve missed it, however, that’s not going to happen anymore following the news that Eric Swalwell has been accused of sexual misconduct by four women - including allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer. The response to the allegations has been swift and destructive to Swalwell’s career - all 21 endorsements made for Swalwell by members of Congress have been pulled, and a vote may even soon be coming down in Congress to expel the once-prominent congressman.
As of me writing this, Eric Swalwell has not officially withdrawn from the governor’s race. Yet given the way that Swalwell has become persona non grata in Washington overnight, as well as the fact that top Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi have called on him to end his campaign, it’s more a question of “when” rather than “if.” And just like that, as I was writing this paragraph, I got the push notification that Swalwell OFFICIALLY dropped out of the race.
So. Where does that leave Californians? It’s important to remember that even before Swalwell’s horrific (and alleged) actions came to light, this was, to put it simply and professionally, a complete clusterfuck of a race. California’s “jungle primary,” in which two candidates regardless of partisan leaning will move on regardless of party to the general election, is happening on June 2…
And there are SIXTY names on the ballot. Twenty-four of them alone are Democrats.
Now, thankfully for those of you in California who suffer from Choice Overload, there are at most EIGHT Democratic candidates (and two Republicans) polling over 1% on average - and one of them is Eric Swalwell. Meaning that for any liberal, progressive, or leftist voters in California, there are only seven names that have a fighting chance in the June 2 primary. Apologies to Green Party candidate Butch Ware and his supporters; he will not be on the primary ballot due to the courts finding he did not file the correct tax returns on time to be on the ballot.
However, for the first time since Arnold Schwarzenegger took office in 2003 and 2006 respectively, California faces an incredible likelihood that the next Governor of California could be a Republican. Why? Because the top two candidates polling right now on average are former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Southern California sheriff Chad Bianco - both Republicans.
And due to the nature of California’s jungle primary system, if the top two votegetters are Republicans… well, I think you see how this could go. What makes this all the more frustrating is current Governor Gavin Newsom’s complete resistance to endorsing a candidate in the very crowded race. “You know my position,” he told reporters last month. “I don’t talk about this governor’s race.” But maybe, just maybe, he should change his tune - especially given that Trump stepped in to endorse Steve freaking Hilton over the weekend.
So today, instead of our usual weekend round-up, we’re going to round-up those seven candidates that have D’s next to their names and provide you with three things: a brief write-up of their platforms, the chance they have of winning, and any potential dealbreakers about the candidate you may need to know about.
THIS IS NOT ME PICKING WHO YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR; this is me providing a realistic state of the race.
NOTE: ALL POLL AGGREGATION IS SOURCED FROM NEW YORK TIMES’ POLL AGGREGATOR, UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE, LINKED HERE
Xavier Becerra
Former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary
WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE RUNNING:
Xavier Becerra is a former congressman from the U.S. House of Representatives; a second generation Mexican-American attorney and politician who was the United States secretary of health and human services and, previously, the California attorney general. In fact, in general, Becerra has one of the longest track records of any candidate for the governor’s race, with an accumulative 35 years in the State Assembly, Congress, and so on.
It’s that track record that makes it easy to understand why he can convincingly claim on his campaign page that he has focused on one thing and one thing alone:
“Doing what’s right and building lasting change for Californians.”
Becerra is running a campaign that focuses on two key promises: bringing single-payer healthcare to all Californians and disaster preparedness. Except, not in the traditional sense.
“Californians know all about disasters,” his campaign website states, “but Donald Trump is a man-made natural disaster attacking Californians every day. As California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra sued the Trump Administration more than 120 times, and won landmark victories protecting Obamacare, working Californians and Dreamers from attacks.”
Very clever, sir. Very clever.
Other campaign promises include a push for more homes built in California, fighting the affordability crisis by “standing up to price gouging and unjustified rate hikes,” and finding a way to balance the war on climate change AND keeping energy bills lower for taxpayers.
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
Despite the increasing virality of his campaign on Threads, former Secretary Becerra is having trouble catching on in the race for one very unfortunate reason: he’s stuck in the middle of a massive political scandal in which no clear consensus has arisen on whether Becerra is victim or accomplice. As reported by CalMatters, Governor Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson and four co-conspirators were indicted last year on 23 counts of bank and wire fraud. They write:
“Williamson, a longtime Democratic strategist, worked with Greg Campbell, a prominent Sacramento lobbyist, and Sean McCluskie, the former chief of staff to former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, as well as two other unnamed co-conspirators to steal $225,000 from an unnamed former official’s dormant campaign account for McCluskie’s personal use…
Williamson is also accused of falsely claiming more than $1.7 million in business expenses on her taxes. She used the funds to purchase a $15,000 Chanel handbag and earrings, a chartered jet trip and a nearly $170,000 birthday trip to Mexico, the indictment alleges. She is also accused of conspiring to retroactively create fake contracts to justify federal loans made to her company, Grace Public Affairs. Campbell and McCluskie each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and are cooperating with investigators, according to newly unsealed court records. Campbell also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
And so you might be asking: did Xavier Becerra know? According to Becerra, no, of course not. And therein lies the problem: his critics have framed these events as “blindness” to three years of deception that happened on his watch. If Becerra couldn’t even see fraud in his own office, they claim, then how could he notice it happening in the state of California?
This, on top of his alleged Hatch Act violations - in 2024, it was reported he had paid $10,000 a month for campaign consulting from a defunct state account, according to Politico. Should Becerra proceed to the general, these are very huge concerns he would undoubtedly get hit with daily.
CHANCE OF WINNING:
His virality on Threads thus far has not translated into meaningful gains for Becerra’s campaign. He has consistently polled between two and six percent all year in a number of polls. This places him as the fifth highest ranking Democrat on average in the race. As Swalwell’s support splinters to other candidates, Becerra’s virality and general affordability message could garner him more support - but with that being said, there isn’t really much allowing him to stand out compared to other candidates.
Can Threads make a political campaign happen? Time will tell. Though speaking of viral moments…
Matt Mahan
Mayor of San Jose
WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE RUNNING:
Matt Mahan is the mayor of San Jose, born and raised in California. As his campaign page states, Mahan was raised by “working-class parents: a school teacher and a member of the letter carriers’ union.” Mahan’s a different candidate in this race, as a moderate Democrat with huge ties to Big Tech, having been a part of a tech start-up in 2008 with Sean Parker, the founder of Napster.
Mahan’s main campaign promise is simple: make housing more affordable. According to Mahan, expensive housing is the “main driver” of homelessness in California, and his solution to make more affordable housing is to build more houses. In fact, ending homelessness is the main driver of Mahan’s entire campaign: under the section titled “Spending,” he outlines a 75% increase in state spending not leading to a “75% better” life for Californians - including “nearly half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population.” And under the “Treatment” section, Mahan ties addiction to homelessness.
If Mahan’s campaign could be summarized in one easy sentence, it would be: “Matt Mahan wants to end homelessness in California.” Okay, cool!
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
…unless he’s doing it because he has a problem with the unhoused community. Which I don’t think he does, but…
I didn’t really know too much about Matt Mahan before writing this article, other than the fact that he was a former start-up exec with BIG ties to Silicon Valley… and then I found the clip of his that went somewhat viral awhile back.
Because of Matt Mahan, San Jose has made it so homeless people can be arrested if they refuse shelter. It’s one of the strictest anti-encampment laws proposed by elected officials maybe ever, and it was proposed by a supposed liberal!!!
And as Associated Press puts it:
“Advocates for homeless people say cracking down on encampments is traumatizing and even counterproductive. Forcing a person to clear out sets them back in their search for stability as they could lose important documents needed to apply for work and housing, they said.
“Pushing people with mental health needs or drug addiction into incarceration — without any crime committed — is both inhumane and ineffective,” said Otto Lee, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, in a written statement emailed Monday to The Associated Press.”
On top of the aggressive campaigning against the unhoused community, Matt is strangely silent about Trump, resistant to support from California labor unions, and is running something that SOUNDS REALLY DAMN SUSPICIOUS to fundraise for his campaign. I am not accusing Matt Mahan of any crimes, but uh, according to the New York Times:
“With the June primary fast approaching, Mr. Mahan’s supporters have concocted a rather unusual campaign-finance strategy. The pitch: Help us raise $35 million by April 17, and you’ll get your money back if we fall short. The approach relies on an “escrow” account and is being described as an “all or nothing” effort, according to donor communications and pitch documents reviewed by The New York Times and confirmed by three people close to the campaign.”
It also doesn’t help that his campaign is supported almost entirely by billionaires, tech bros… and one of the co-founders of Palantir. Yikes.
CHANCE OF WINNING:
None. Mahan is polling almost universally the same as Becerra but worse, with his ceiling being around 5%. In that NYT article, it reveals that the “escrow” account, as of a few days ago, only has around $13 million in it of the estimated $35 million Mahan believes he needs. Considering that Mahan has some of the lowest name recognition in the race, it is not likely he will make it to the finish line.
Katie Porter
Former U.S. representative representing Orange County
WHO IS SHE AND WHY IS SHE RUNNING:
Judging by the demographics of the dust bunnies on my back end, Katie Porter really needs no introduction. However, in case you’re one of the younger readers who may not be familiar with Porter’s game, she was once one of the single most popular Democratic representatives in Congress.
A Yale and Harvard Law graduate, Katie Porter was a three term representative known for her sharp wit and her propensity for viral moments - usually involving a whiteboard she brought with her to congressional hearings to explain basic economic concepts as a way to shame wealthy business owners.
I mean, the whiteboard is so iconic it has its own Know Your Meme page!
Porter dropped out of the House for an ill-advised US Senate run in 2024 that she ultimately lost, with her seat ultimately going to Democrat Dave Min. So now, she’s back - running for Governor!
And what’s her campaign platform? In two words: Defending California. But in a few more words, her primary goal is Healthcare, first and foremost. Unlike Becerra, she’s not advocating for single-payer, and unlike Tom Steyer (more on him next), she’s not a proponent of Medicare for All. Rather, she wants to strengthen the system already in place and put protections in place against Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
Further down the docket, she’s advocating for affordability, bringing businesses back to California, ending homelessness, disaster preparedness, and an expansion of clean energy. Unlike Becerra, she draws no lines between affordability and clean energy, though; “I will fight to ensure that California remains on the front-edge of clean energy innovation and technology so California can be the first state to achieve 100% renewable energy output, 365 days a year,” her campaign states.
Which is pretty rad!
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
Oh boy, there are quite a few that Porter will get hit with should she make it to the general.
Once THE frontrunner for the gubernatorial race, Porter’s star has dimmed tremendously since she announced her senate race in 2023. Upon losing in a distant third place, Porter called her loss “rigged.” This set off a wave of condemnation from congressional Democrats, who drew the obvious comparison to Donald Trump’s own election denialism when condemning her.
Now, this one’s pretty quaint, in my opinion; rhetoric like this isn’t of itself destructive, and when Porter clarified that her campaign was constantly under attack from billionaires and big corporate donors, I mean… was she wrong, really? You don’t have to be a Katie Porter supporter to recognize that the rhetoric is usually acceptable when it comes from a Bernie Sanders or a Ro Khanna. And yet when it came from her…?
However, much more damning were viral clips released in the rollout of her gubernatorial campaign announcement. In one clip, Porter threatened to walk out of an interview with a CBS reporter. And in another much worse clip, she swore and berated a staff member during a pre-taped interview with a Biden administration official.
“Get out of my fucking shot,” she said.
Unfortunately, this served as confirmation of the worst for many that had been paying attention already to Porter’s career; back in 2023, Politico released an article titled “Katie Porter and the ‘Bad Boss’ Problem,” revealing that sources told them she was a “terrible…abusive and racist boss.”
“In December, text messages surfaced in which Porter scolded a staffer for giving the congresswoman Covid,” they wrote.” Dear White Staffers, a Twitter and Instagram account that shares anonymous first-person accounts and gossip from staffers on Capitol Hill, published that text exchange between Porter and the staffer, Sasha Georgiades, alleging that Porter had fired Georgiades due to the incident…After the initial text messages were published, others hopped onto the Dear White Staffers account to tweet their own anonymous complaints about Porter. Their stories have not been verified. One message said she was rage-prone and had a tendency to disparage staffers. Others suggested her expectations were wildly unrealistic. One message accused her of making racist comments.”
Although some of her former staffers chimed in to deny the allegations against their boss at the time, these videos relitigated an old conversation at the worst possible time.
It doesn’t help that misogynistic framing will always do half of the work for a scandal like this anyway; as former comms director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign Jennifer Palmieri told Politico in regards to a similar scandal that faced Amy Klobuchar, “I, like others, doubt that a male candidate with similar staff complaints would have seen them become the lead narrative of his presidential announcement…We too often embrace the notion that working for demanding men shows how tough we are. It shows we can handle life in the big leagues. It makes us cool. Working for a difficult and demanding woman isn’t seen as cool. Working for a difficult and demanding woman is seen as humiliating.”
CHANCE OF WINNING?
Once upon a time, Katie Porter was GOING TO BECOME the Governor of California. Until the scandalous clips dropped, Porter led a very crowded field, beating all Democrats AND Republicans. In one poll, she was doing better than every Democrat COMBINED. Now, Porter is polling between 7 and 11% in most polls - third in line behind Swalwell, or second in line behind the now presumed frontrunner Tom Steyer.
It is possible she could make a comeback, especially if she can overcome the “Bad Boss” optics, owning her behavior while reminding voters that narratives like those are indeed rooted in misogyny. But considering the way no discussion of Katie Porter is complete without this narrative attached, it’s not looking good for a politician once deemed the future of progressivism in America.
Tom Steyer
Billionaire entrepreneur and former presidential candidate
WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE RUNNING:
Tom Steyer is an interesting guy. That’s both praise AND criticism. He’s somebody that’s quite easy to forget until he makes himself known again, given that his political campaigns are often self-funded. He’s a billionaire, but one who claims to be on more of an “ethical” path than other billionaires. He promotes higher taxes on the rich - is one of the hugest donors to Democratic candidates and causes ever - and has dumped tens of millions of dollars into climate change initiatives.
You may even remember a viral clip from his 2020 presidential campaign when he got stuck in the middle of a heated moment between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren:
But what is he running on that sets him apart from his peers? Shockingly, Steyer has one of the most progressive platforms of the entire gubernatorial race. He is focused on closing the Trump Tax Loophole, and using the money from those taxes to invest in affordable home ownership for all Californians. He is focused on closing ALL tax loopholes, in fact, to make sure corporations pay their taxes in California. Most interestingly, he is promising to break up corporate monopolies, such as the ones held by Southern California Edison, to lower energy bills.
Universal free education - pre-K through community college. Addressing “environmental justice” by penalizing companies that pollute and terrorize communities of color. Single payer healthcare. And there’s a sizable section I’ve seen on no other candidate’s page that Tom addresses regarding “reasonable guardrails for AI,” acknowledging that AI is a global phenomenon, but one that is deeply unregulated.
“As governor, Tom will ask voters to approve the creation of the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund, a dedicated investment vehicle funded by a “token tax” on corporate AI use – a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed by Big Tech,” the campaign site states. “Tom will make sure everyone benefits from AI, not just a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires. These dollars will help ensure everyday Californians share in the AI boom, through cash dividends, investments in education, training, and job opportunities to help workers succeed, and strategic investments to ensure broad-based economic growth so every Californian can get ahead.”
He is even openly calling to “abolish and demolish ICE,” which he can’t do, but WOW.
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
So there was the praise. Now here’s the criticism.
Put simply: Tom Steyer is a billionaire. And despite his adoption of more progressive messaging (some of which he has indeed lived up to), he’s one who likely did not make his wealth in all that ethical a way.
Case in point: the LA Times reports that Steyer’s hedge fund, Farallon Capital, had invested in countless fossil fuel projects, as well as the Corrections Corp. of America - now known today as CoreCivic, the number two operator of private prisons and immigrant detention centers in America. It’s something he’s attacked for often, including by his opponents in the race.
“Before he was a progressive, he made millions off of companies that operate ICE detention centers, that operate private prisons that incarcerated young children,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction and fellow candidate Tony Thurmond said during an interview with Mrs. Frazzled, as summarized in the LA Times.
To Steyer’s credit, he sold his stake back in 2012 and has repeatedly owned up to Farallon investing in CoreCivic, but always insisting that he made them sell once he became aware of it. LA Times states that at a town hall last month, he said about CoreCivic:
“It was a mistake, and I sold it over 20 years ago, thinking, not that it won’t be profitable, it’s just a mistake. I don’t want to be in that business. But let me say this, it wasn’t just a mistake. It was also a big wake-up call that I was in the wrong place, that I was in a business that was taking me to places I absolutely didn’t want to go. And there’s a reason I walked away from that business and walked away from a ton of money, because I felt like that is not the life I want.”
Still: this is how Steyer made his fortune. One of the things voters will have to grapple with come June is whether Steyer has changed… or if this is all an act to win a seat at the table.
CHANCE OF WINNING?
Given Swalwell’s dropping out of the race, Tom Steyer is now loosely considered the frontrunner of the pack, strangely. The data as it stands tells two stories, however: in all polling prior to Swalwell’s departure, Steyer was polling between 10 and 13%. In some cases, he was within a percentage of reaching Swalwell. In others, he was almost two whole digits behind.
And yet according to betting markets like Kalshi, Steyer has actually become the frontrunner - and it’s not even close. This is not reliable data for measuring politics, in my opinion - but it’s reliable data for understanding why people are calling him the presumed frontrunner despite no polling supporting that.
Tony Thurmond
State superintendent of public instruction
WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE RUNNING:
Tony Thurmond is probably the most obscure candidate on this list. His mother was a school teacher and a Panamanian immigrant who tragically passed away when Tony was only six years old. As he explains on his campaign website, “When Tony was dropped off on his cousin’s doorstep, it was the first time they had ever met.” It was this, and growing up in poverty, that influenced Tony’s foray into social work and, later, politics.
Thurmond is a bit of an enigma; he doesn’t have a Policy section on his campaign website, so it’s not clear what he stands for. His Wikipedia page lists accomplishments like adjusting court fine incarceration credits for inflation, protecting due process rights for immigrant defendants, and expanding tobacco restrictions on school property, but this doesn’t tell us much. One of his most widely reported remarks politically relates to his faith; his family converted to Hebrew Pentecostalism early in his life, and when asked about the topic of Palestine, he stated that teachers should avoid “imparting their personal view” as it has led to “Jewish students…targeted and isolated, and ultimately, some have left those districts.”
Which leaves us really with his bio on Public Policy Institute of California to figure out how he could govern:
“Tony Thurmond is State Superintendent of Public Instruction, responsible for the largest public school system in the nation, with nearly 6 million students and over 10,000 schools. Since taking office in 2019, he has created and championed historic initiatives to close the achievement gap, support student mental health, and improve equity, access, and opportunity for all of California’s public school students. He has integrated new programs and strategies into K-12 public schools, including securing a historic $4.13 billion investment in community schools to ensure an equity-driven approach to public education; supporting teachers through a $1.5 billion investment in professional learning for educators; championing the $2.7 billion Universal Transitional Kindergarten program to expand quality preschool; and fighting to increase Expanded Learning funding to $4 billion ongoing to add opportunities for students throughout the summer.”
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
With obscurity comes a lack of possible controversies, so Thurmond is mostly set in that regard… mostly. Because there are two things that would undoubtedly put him on the defensive if he were to make it to the general:
In 2021, Thurmond hired a “superintendent of equity” who… did not live in California. He had never lived in California. And he was paid nearly $200,000 annually to consult on issues related to California. https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/12/11/he-was-hired-to-fix-california-schools-while-running-a-business-in-philadelphia-1398697
He is currently a defendant, alongside Gavin Newsom, in a First Amendment lawsuit from the Council on American Islamic Relations regarding statewide restrictions to what students could learn about Israel and Palestine in a classroom. https://truthout.org/articles/lawsuit-charges-that-ca-law-illegally-muzzles-students-and-teachers-on-palestine/
Still, neither of these have made much of a splash on Thurmond’s campaign, and when I googled “Tony Thurmond controversy” earlier, I found a video with over 100,000 views on YouTube where Thurmond was thrown out of a school board meeting… for defending trans children when the school board tried to pass a bill “outing” kids going through gender transitions. Soooo controversial.
CHANCE OF WINNING?
Tony Thurmond has never polled higher than 2% in any poll he’s been included in. In some occasions, he has polled at 0%. There is little chance Tony Thurmond will make it through the primary.
Antonio Villaraigosa
Former mayor of Los Angeles and former Assembly Speaker
WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE RUNNING:
From 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa was the mayor of Los Angeles. As mayor, he expanded subway transportation, and set the foundation for the America Fast Forward program eventually passed by Congress. He’s a lawyer, and as a politician has always been a “tough-on-crime” negotiator - even in his gubernatorial campaign, he boasts of hiring “nearly 1,000 new police officers, invest[ing] in crime prevention and gang intervention strategies that became a federal model, spearhead[ing] anti-domestic violence efforts, and [taking] illegal guns off the streets – from his first year as mayor to his last year in office violent crime plummeted 48%, making Los Angeles one of the safest big cities in America.”
Villaraigosa has what can perhaps be called the most “California” platform out of any candidate - this is a good thing to more immediately reach voters. He calls to stand up to Donald Trump, but also improve the energy grid and transportation. Unlike Steyer, he does not call to abolish ICE - but he has an “ICE Accountability Plan” that states he will sign a series of emergency executive orders ensuring that “misconduct is documented, investigated, and addressed, and that ICE enforcement actions do not endanger lives nor compromise our basic civil rights.”
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
The truth is, ever since leaving office in 2013, Californians simply do not like Villaraigosa.
Back in 2018, Villaraigosa ran against Gavin Newsom and placed third - Newsom, in fact, received 20% more of the votes than him in total. Ouch. It doesn’t help that he used the office of Mayor to become a consultant for Herbalife (yes - the alleged “pyramid scheme”) and Banc of California afterward, making himself a millionaire in the process. And it also doesn’t help that as mayor, he faced countless ethics violations for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in tickets to Lakers games and Academy Awards galas. He certainly didn’t make himself many friends when he publicly divorced his first wife during his first term due to an affair he held with a TV reporter.
But there’s also the fact that his second divorce became… a copyright dispute. Where his now-ex could not use the name Villaraigosa (a portmeanteau of Antonio’s original surname Villar and his first wife’s maiden name Raigosa) for “branding” reasons. He was also petty enough to include his Netflix account in the divorce????
Look, the truth is: Villaraigosa does not have the best reputation. And judging by the next section, it shows.
CHANCE OF WINNING?
He hasn’t polled in the double digits since the middle of last year, when he only had four opponents - and he still didn’t come within spitting distance of then-frontrunner Katie Porter. It’s worth noting, in fact, that in September 2024, a poll from University of Southern California/California State University Long Beach Center for Urban Politics and Policy/Cal Poly Pomona conducted from September 12 to 25, 2024 posed a hypothetical…
Would you vote for Tony Thurmond, Betty Yee, or Antonio Villaraigosa?
Villaraigosa ranked second at 7%.
The winner, at a whopping 17%, was “WOULD NOT VOTE.”
yikes.
Betty Yee
Former state Controller
WHO IS SHE AND WHY IS SHE RUNNING:
Betty Yee, to put it simply, is the new Katie Porter: a pragmatic progressive who is obsessed with the numbers game. Her campaign promise, for god’s sake, is “Let’s make California ADD UP for All of us.” When she was a child, she claims she was the accountant for her family’s dry cleaning business, which is cited as the reason she eventually became Controller for “the world’s fifth-largest economy.”
Betty Yee has the most unique platform out of any candidate, with an “immigrant-first” agenda that understands embracing immigration is embracing America. She very cleverly states that climate change is THE issue of today… but one that, by ignoring it, is losing Californians money.
“Betty understands the relationship between the public’s anxieties about the environment and affordability,” states her page. “She also recognizes the lack of powerful and thoughtful leadership to effectively undertake needed actions — leadership with a laser-focused commitment to making climate change a priority on every front. It is the smart thing to do; it is the fiscally responsible thing to do.”
It’s this same clever sort of connecting that leads Betty to state she will increase wages in all sectors (by highlighting the ways Black and Brown voters are affected by the wealth gap), make education attainable for all (especially when it comes to bilingual students), and perhaps most ambitiously, she wants to make preventative support available to hard-working Californians at risk of becoming homeless.
“A recent UCSF statewide survey found that the vast majority (82%) of people experiencing homelessness believed a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000 would have prevented them from becoming homeless,” her page states. “A state fund should be established and made available to those below a certain income threshold for periodic access when they need it. These small investments are well spent to prevent one from becoming homeless, with costs spread across a myriad of public institutions. Statistical modeling through AI can help identify trends on who is most at risk, such as those exiting institutions or have heightened health risks. This can be instrumental in serving veterans, older adults, foster youth, and others.”
POTENTIAL DEALBREAKERS?
Even if you dig reeeeeeally deep, you won’t find any meaningful controversies with Betty Yee that would kill her campaign. She was involved in a massive pandemic-era mask deal that may have been fraud, but it was dealt with and she was never found liable of wrongdoing. She was accused of a politically-motivated audit on the City of Industry, but she denied it - and there was never evidence of that being the case.
In fact, the only meaningful controversy in Betty Yee’s career is happening now: she is being pressured daily to drop out of the governor’s race, despite being “loved by insiders.”
CHANCE OF WINNING?
She is consistently polling at 1%. No matter how much people love Betty Yee, the voters simply do not know who she is.
In conclusion: the state primary is June 2. There are going to be a lot of names on that ballot, but just remember: if you want to vote for somebody to make it in that has a chance, these are the seven names that have the best chance right now. As the ramifications of Swalwell dropping out continue to evolve, the polling will evolve as well; that’s why even though Thurmond, Yee, and Villaraigosa have been consistently polling in the single digits, I included them.
Because that was the race then.
What do we think the race is going to look like NOW?
I follow politics closely, and live in California (granted only for 2 years). This is such a confusing election. I literally do not know who to vote for. I’m leaning towards Porter, but I wish the dems would all really behind someone so we don’t lose.
Villaraigosa, Thurmond, Mahan, and Yee have absolutely no business running at this point. They clearly don’t care about the future of Californians or they would drop out because they are just making it likely that we’ll have a two Republican race. It is just selfish to continue. I don’t care how good they might be as governor because it doesn’t matter if you can’t win.
Becerra…that’s a tough one. His polling numbers are pretty pathetic. He’s got the financial scandal that even if he knew nothing about, why didn’t he? So, could he win?
In a race between Steyer and Porter, there’s no question that Steyer has the more progressive platform, personalities aside. I am really pissed off that it looks like I might have to vote for a billionaire and an older white guy.