San Francisco, California – A fiercely competitive primary is pushing the Democratic Party to the brink of being completely shut out of the race for governor of California, a state long considered safe for the party.
California, along the U.S. West Coast, is famously tilted toward the Democrats, with registered Democratic voters nearly double the number of Republicans. Since 2011, no Republican has won the governorship or any statewide office.
But a sprawling field of candidates, combined with the state's idiosyncratic primary system, has made what was once unthinkable possible: a governor's race with no Democrat in the final round.
“We have never seen anything like this before,” said Dan Schnur, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
California uses a nonpartisan “jungle” primary system in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Tight races can make margins razor-thin. No fewer than 24 Democratic candidates will appear on the primary ballot to succeed Governor Gavin Newsom, and none has emerged as a clear standout.
“There has never been a gubernatorial race in modern political history with a field this large, or with a group this hard to sort out,” Schnur said.
Meanwhile, voter surveys consistently show two Republicans — former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — at or near the top of the pack.
A March poll gave Hilton 17 percent support and Bianco 16 percent, the highest among all candidates.
The race raises existential questions about Democratic strategy and leadership. Can the left-leaning party fail to qualify for the general election in a state with more than 10.3 million registered Democratic voters?
