(NEW YORK) — The ballooning field of Democratic candidates to succeed the term-limited Gavin Newsom as governor of California has political operatives stunned.
“This is as wide open as I’ve ever seen anything in 25 years,” said Steven Maviglio, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist.
The challenge for those running will be proving to voters they can tackle California’s cost-of-living crisis, as well as fill the high-profile void Newsom will leave behind as a national leader in Democrats’ fight against President Donald Trump.
Last week, Rep. Eric Swalwell, who made a name for himself as an anti-Trump firebrand in the House of Representatives and launched a short-lived bid for the White House in 2020, announced his campaign for governor on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” telling Kimmel that California “needs a fighter and a protector.”
Billionaire Tom Steyer, who also ran an unsuccessful campaign for president in 2020, announced his campaign the day before. Steyer, who is well-known in progressive circles for his environmental advocacy, spent millions backing Newsom’s recent Proposition 50 redistricting push.
“Everyone in this race is going to talk about affordability, but what Californians care about is results, and who’s going to be able to deliver when it comes to lowering costs. And Tom has a record of getting things done for California, even when the real politicians couldn’t,” a spokesperson for Steyer said.
Both Swalwell and Steyer join a crowded field of prominent Democrats, such as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
“I am a proven problem solver,” Villaraigosa told ABC News in a statement.
“As the Speaker of the California Assembly, I extended affordable health care to millions of children and I passed the toughest assault weapons ban in America. As Mayor, I reduced crime by 50% and increased our school graduation rate by 60%. No other candidate for governor has delivered results like those,” Villaraigosa added.
Villaraigosa is jockeying for position among other California politicians, including former Rep. Katie Porter and former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who was also secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration.
“Secretary Becerra is the only candidate in this race to take on the Trump Administration and win, suing 122 times to protect Californians as Attorney General. He delivered affordable care for millions and he negotiated lower drug prices to save California families thousands of dollars,” a Becerra campaign spokesperson told ABC News in a statement.
Strategists are surprised that no candidate has clearly established themselves as a front-runner, signaling some instability in the race to lead a state of nearly 40 million people.
“It’s one of the most consequential races in the entire country that nobody’s ever heard of yet,” Democratic strategist Danielle Cendejas said. “There is a lot on the line who the next governor is.”
“A historically weak field”
Democratic strategist Matt Rodriguez believes the reason the primary is so crowded is because no one candidate is very strong.
“I think it’s a very weak field, a historically weak field,” he said.
California employs a “jungle” or “top-two” primary, in which there is one nonpartisan primary for all candidates, with the top two candidates in the primary moving on to a runoff in November, regardless of party.
Rodriguez said having so many Democratic candidates in a jungle primary “definitely gives an advantage to a Republican getting into the top two. At some point, there’s just only so many Democratic voters to split up here.”
Maviglio said two Republicans ending up in the general election is “possible, not probable.”
“We’ve only seen it in legislative races a couple of times, where the party that actually has the majority doesn’t make it into the November election because of strangeness like that happening,” he said.
Slim chance for a Republican candidate
GOP strategist and former executive director of the California Republican Party Jon Fleischman said that even if a Republican makes it to the general election, they would have a slim chance at winning the whole thing.
“Maybe the most important thing to remember in California is that if you have a general election between a Republican and a Democrat, unless some massive scandal of epic proportion were to strike the Democrat, we’re a blue state,” Felischman said.
“The only time it gets maybe more interesting is if two Democrats make the runoff,” Felischman added.
There are currently two major Republican candidates in the race, one of whom is former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
“A crowded Democratic field means those candidates will spend months fighting each other and defending the status quo, while Steve Hilton is focused on changing it,” Hilton campaign manager Matt Ciepielowski told ABC News in a statement.
“Californians are tired of the highest poverty in the nation, sky-high housing costs, failing schools, and a government that serves special interests instead of working families. Steve is running to make California affordable, safe, and full of opportunity again,” the statement continued.
The other major Republican running is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is emphasizing his law enforcement background to define himself as someone who will be tough on crime.
“Each Democrat running is hoping to be a more liberal version of the narcissist that is currently the Governor and Californians simply cannot afford to have that happen. Sheriff Bianco offers a new way forward and the public polling proves that his campaign is resonating with voters,” Rick Gorka, a spokesperson for the Bianco campaign, told ABC News in a statement.
A still-unsettled race
Others might still jump in on the right, like tech entrepreneur Jon Slavet, who filed FEC paperwork Friday and told ABC News he plans to launch his campaign early next month.
Maviglio characterized the race as “unsettled” and “a revolving door.”
Vice President Kamala Harris was mulling a bid following her defeat in last year’s presidential election, but she announced in July she was no longer considering running. And U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — who strategists say might have cleared the field had he launched a bid — decided against a run earlier this month.
“We’ve had people say they’re running and exit out of the race. We’ve had people that were lured into thinking about running, like Padilla and Harris, and then opting not to. So it’s really hard to track,” Maviglio said.
Two politicians — California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former president pro tempore of the California state Senate Toni Atkins — initially announced their candidacies, only to exit the race shortly thereafter.
Another rumored potential Democratic contender is billionaire Rick Caruso, who lost the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race to Karen Bass. While Caruso has deep pockets and some name recognition, he was a Republican until 2019, which could alienate the progressive wing of his new party.
And while both Steyer and Caruso have the cash, strategists say they would have to use it wisely to mount successful campaigns.
“Self-funders do not do well here. It doesn’t mean they can’t, but they typically don’t,” Rodriguez said, pointing to the failed bids of Michael Huffington in the 1994 Senate race, Al Checchi in the 1998 gubernatorial election and Caruso in 2022.
Trouble for early front-runner
Porter, the initial front-runner and only major female candidate in the field, seemed to have momentum after gaining backing from the progressive PAC EMILY’s List and several statewide labor unions. Cendejas acknowledged that Porter likely had an early advantage due to her name recognition and the fact that she is “beloved in a lot of progressive circles.”
“Katie is a fighter, a single mom of three, and a ruthless champion for working families who took on the Trump Administration and self-serving CEOs in Congress — and won,” Peter Opitz, a spokesperson for the Porter campaign, told ABC News in a statement.
But recent controversy surrounding Porter’s conduct has tightened her initial lead, indicating she may not be as strong of a candidate as was originally thought.
In a video that went viral online last month, Porter had a contentious interaction with a journalist, going so far as threatening to end the interview. Another video surfaced shortly thereafter showing Porter yelling at a staffer.
“What goes up must come down,” Cendejas said of Porter.
In her first appearance after the videos emerged, Porter apologized for the outbursts.
“I want people to know that I understand that what I did was not good,” Porter told an audience at the UC Student and Policy Center in Sacramento in October. “I’m not going to mince words about it, but I also want people to understand that I am in this fight because I am not going to back down and give one inch when people are hurting Californians. And both of those things can be true at the same time.”
Rodriguez expects that the ability for a candidate to successfully define themselves as someone who can lead California in going toe-to-toe with Trump will be “the whole thing.”
“I think Trump is going to be gigantic here,” Rodriguez added. “Everything is going to be Trump.”
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