Former Rep. Katie Porter’s experience puts her in the best position to be a governor who would pursue evidence-based solutions to California’s problems, the editorial board says.

What do Californians want in a governor?

You don’t have to be a pollster to see that this state over-indexes for charisma.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide poll numbers spike when he has something to yell at President Donald Trump about — and mostly plummet when he’s forced to focus on governing.

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Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host whose top credential might be his genteel English accent, is the current Republican front-runner. And how else to explain the earlier rise of disgraced Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, whose routine appearances on MSNBC were the main calling card in his otherwise shallow campaign?

California suffers from crippling housing costs, homelessness, drug and mental health crises, perennial budget woes and childhood math and reading outcomes that are worse than in Mississippi.

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We don’t need an entertainer in charge. We need someone locked in on California, with the ideas, savvy and political guts to fix things.

Two candidates in the June primary election have the potential to rise to that challenge.

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Current Democratic front-runner Xavier Becerra isn’t one of them.

The former California attorney general and U.S. secretary of health and human services certainly has the best resume of anyone in the race. But, despite his experience, Becerra isn’t particularly fluent in several key policy arenas. When the editorial board asked for specific details about his housing agenda, such as how the state should regulate expensive inclusionary zoning mandates, he had few answers.

“I try to stay out of the way of the experts when it comes to the mechanics, how they actually make that machine run,” he said.

We’d find this position more believable if  Becerra’s campaign weren’t loaded with the kind of populist bombshells experts hate. His biggest housing idea was down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, which only drives up prices in a tight market like California’s. He also proposed eliminating the California Public Utilities Commission — with no thought to how to continue providing rural communities with electricity — and freezing insurance rates at a time when companies are at risk of fleeing the market.

Since our interview, under pressure from YIMBYs, Becerra has introduced a housing plan that many experts describe as thoughtful. He’s also backed off his promise to aggressively pursue universal health insurance — in an apparent bid to win the support of the California Medical Association.

Ultimately, Becerra seems more interested in chasing votes than offering honest solutions.

Becerra shares that impulse with the other top-polling Democratic contender, billionaire Tom Steyer — whose showy, self-funded........

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