Are these candidates for governor the best Democrats can do?

Ca Post Editorial Board

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24.02.2026

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Are these candidates for governor the best Democrats can do?

California Democrats failed to agree on a candidate for governor at their party conference — and it’s no wonder why: There is no clear leader in the bunch.

Instead, there are at least half a dozen candidates with big egos and big enough war chests to split the vote among them.

Eric Swalwell led the pack — with a paltry 24%. He has framed himself as the most anti-Trump of the candidates, after serving as a House impeachment manager during the second failed effort to remove the president from office.

Not to be outdone in the Trump-hating department, former congresswoman Katie Porter simply held up a whiteboard reading, “F—k Trump.” She has the backing of former mentor Elizabeth Warren, and was the frontrunner until she blew up at a CBS reporter last October.

But that wasn’t enough to move Porter into double digits at the convention. She was in fifth place, behind former state controller Betty Yee at 17% and former attorney general Xavier Becerra at 14% — neither of whom are doing well in polls of the voting public.

Billionaire Tom Steyer came in fourth place, with 13% — a familiar result for him. He only won 11% of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina in 2020, finishing third and dropping out of the race.

He has money to spend on advertising, though, and has hired Zohran Mamdani’s strategists, so don’t expect him to leave anytime soon.

Schools superintendent Tony Thurmond finished sixth, in single digits, as did former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Both lost to a candidate named “No Preference.”

But they each seem to believe they have a case to make. Thurmond is the only African-American candidate in a state that has never had a black governor. And Villaraigosa, who lost to Newsom in the 2018 primary, seems to believe he is the heir apparent.

San Jose mayor Matt Mahan was not on the ballot at the convention, having joined the race too late to qualify. He has Silicon Valley money lined up behind him, but his moderate message is struggling to gain traction with the party’s base.

While there are plenty of candidates, there are no new ideas — at least none big enough to seize the imagination of the electorate, let alone the party delegates.

The theme was “affordability,” but nothing the candidates proposed would deliver it.

The only real idea on display was on Katie Porter’s whiteboard — and that has already been the theme of Gavin Newsom’s administration for the past year.

It ought to be embarrassing that a party that controls every level of power in the nation’s biggest and most important state cannot think of a single new policy and settles for opposing the president.

Swalwell announced that he will join Sen. Adam Schiff in boycotting Trump’s State of the Union address — an immature gesture by two legislators who were both kicked off the House Intelligence Committee for abusing their access to information to smear Trump.

California Democrats: You can do better, can’t you?

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Are these candidates for governor the best Democrats can do?

Ca Post Editorial Board

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