If the CA gubernatorial primary were to be held today, the result would be a general election featuring two Republican candidates, shutting out the Democrats.
Based upon the current polling average at RealClearPolitics, if the California gubernatorial primary were to be held today, the result would be the funniest thing possible in American politics: a general election featuring two Republican candidates, shutting out the Democrats.
The current average:
Steve Hilton (R): 15.5 percent
Chad Bianco (R): 15.5
Eric Swalwell (D): 12.5
Katie Porter (D): 10.5
Tom Steyer (D): 8.5
Xavier Becerra (D): 4.5
Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 3.0
Tony Thurmond (D): 2.0
Betty Yee (D): 1.5
Under California’s jungle primary system, all the candidates from both parties are thrown into a single primary, and the top two finishers advance to the general election. So, just based on the poll averages as they stand today — and they’ve been like this for the past few months — the general election would be between Hilton and Bianco, the only two Republicans in the race, even though the total Republican vote in these polls is 31 percent.
California Democrats would deserve that, and not only because they’ve run the state into the ground and because their candidates are a rogues’ gallery of some of the worst people in politics, including two failed presidential candidates, a failed Senate candidate, and a member of Joe Biden’s Cabinet. Jungle primaries are stupid, un-American, unnecessarily complicated, and rooted in racial segregation. They have been used in California to strangle the GOP: Republicans went a decade between 2012 and 2022 in which they did not have a Senate candidate on the November ballot (this has yet to happen in a gubernatorial campaign). That has downballot effects on fundraising and turnout.
It would also be a particularly galling result for Gavin Newsom, presently gearing up a bid for national office, to be replaced by a Republican entirely due to his party being a circular firing squad operating under ridiculous election rules.
Of course, it is extraordinarily unlikely that the primary will actually go this way. The Democrats collectively account for 41.5 percent of the vote, which leaves about a third undecided or backing even more minor Democrats. Most of those voters are likely to settle on a Democrat. Also, the primary isn’t until June, and if this result persists, there will be intense pressure on the lower-polling candidates (currently including the only two ever to win statewide office, Becerra and Thurmond) to drop out. It’s merely a fluke of Republicans having precisely two candidates while Democrats have seven (more than that, but seven registering support in the polls). But the problem with jungle primaries is that so much hinges on the relative structure of the two parties’ candidate fields in ways that create all manner of perverse incentives. Sooner or later, if it’s not this race, an election somewhere in California will result in the minority party having the only two candidates on the general election ballot. And it will be sad for the voters, but hilarious for the rest of us.