Incumbent Gavin Newsom handily won Tuesday night’s California gubernatorial primary just one year after facing recall, setting himself up for what should be an easy victory over Republican State Senator Brian Dahle in November’s general election.
As of early Wednesday morning, with 44 percent of precincts reporting, Newsom had received 56.6 percent of the vote to Dahle’s 17 percent. Michael Shellenberger, a former progressive activist who ran on a pledge to address soaring homelessness in the state’s major cities, came in third with just 3.7 percent of the vote.
The two advance from a field of 26 candidates — though Newsom’s support dwarfed that of all of his challengers.
Newsom is seeking a second term less than a year after he survived a recall election, with 62 percent of California voters electing to allow the Democrat to remain in office in September.
While Newsom has been plagued by voter concerns over his handling of the pandemic, as well as homelessness and public safety, he notched support from half of likely voters in a poll conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies late last month, while Dahle, his closest challenger, received support from just 10 percent of likely voters.
Dahle, who represents a district in the Sacramento area, was boosted in a crowded field of candidates by an endorsement from the California Republican Party.
Shellenberger is an author who catalogued San Francisco’s failure to address homelessness and drug addiction in a recent book titled San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. He trailed Dahle in pre-election polling but had hoped to appeal to liberal Californians who were concerned about homelessness, but would not be likely to elect a Republican.
Californians are largely united in their concern about the state’s growing struggle with homelessness. A Public Policy Institute of California poll taken in March revealed that 68 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Independents say that homelessness is a “big problem” in their part of California.
Shellenberger broke with the liberal orthodoxy on homelessness known as “housing first,” which prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness. He argued instead that “Housing should be earned, shelter should be an entitlement.”
Shellenberger proposed a plan to establish a centralized statewide system called Cal-Psych. He argued the problem can’t be solved at the county level and must be solved at the state level.
Cal-Psych would establish both voluntary drug treatment and psychiatric care, but would also work alongside the courts and law enforcement to enforce involuntary care through assisted outpatient treatment and conservatorship, according to Shellenberger’s proposal.
Along with Cal-Psych, Shellenberger believes it will take a crackdown on open-air and online drug markets, a ban on illegal camping, and some “tough love” to fix the problem.
“Republicans can’t do it, Republicans also just more practically, they can’t win in California,” Shellenberger told National Review. “Republicans thought that Larry Elder, who ran in the recall, was going to shake up the system. But he was just too conservative.”
Dahle, whose campaign slogan is “Restoring California,” may draw support from the 24 percent of Californian voters registered as Republican in November, but is ultimately unlikely to defeat the incumbent Democrat in a heavily blue state. Newsom has thus far demonstrated a massive financial advantage, having more than $23 million cash on hand through May — most of which was raised last year during the recall, according to NPR. Dahle had $392,485 in the bank at the end of May.
For his part, Newsom recently proposed a new plan to create mental-health courts in each of the state’s 58 counties. Called CARE courts, they would bring treatment to those with severe mental illness through a court-mandated plan.
The measure would still need to be approved by the state legislature, after which all counties would be required to launch a mental-health branch in civil court and to provide comprehensive and community-based treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis. If approved by the court, the participants would be required to accept care, lest they face any pending criminal charges they may have incurred or become subject to an involuntary psychiatric hold or conservatorships.
“At this point there are a million questions and a million things that could go horribly wrong,” said Kevin Baker, director of government relations for ACLU California told PBS. He attributed the problem to skyrocketing housing costs and argued, “We won’t solve homelessness, mental health, or substance abuse problems by locking people up and drugging them against their will.”