🔒🗝️ Could Democrats get locked out of California’s gubernatorial race?
How a perfect electoral storm could elect a Republican governor in one of the nation's bluest states
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Today’s newsletter features:
Opening Bell: Must-read items about elections and politics.
The Frontrunner: How Democrats could get locked out California’s general election for governor.
Around the Corner: Upcoming elections we’re tracking at DDHQ.
🔔 Opening Bell 🐏
Must-read items about elections and politics.
President Donald Trump appears unlikely to endorse incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary runoff for Texas’s U.S. Senate seat. Right after the March 3 primary, reports suggested that Trump would back Cornyn, potentially giving the incumbent a critical lifeline in his race against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. But in the days since the primary, Trump has held off on endorsing, even saying in mid-March that he likes both candidates “very much.” Pushback from Paxton supporters and MAGA elements of the GOP appears to have stifled what had seemed like a probable Cornyn endorsement.
The potential 2028 Republican presidential candidate field continues to take shape. Some Trump-aligned conservatives seem increasingly open to backing Secretary of State Marco Rubio rather than Vice President JD Vance: At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Vance only defeated Rubio 53%-35% in a straw poll of attendees. Additionally, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is considering a run, hoping to bring together a coalition of libertarian- and business-minded elements to counter the GOP’s populist turn.
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📈 The Frontrunner 🥇
The perfect electoral storm that could lock Democrats out of California’s race for governor
Quick summary:
A combination of factors has created an opening for two Republicans to advance to California’s general election for governor. Democrats might find themselves locked out due to state’s use of a top-two primary system, a crowded field of middle-tier Democratic contenders, and two prominent and evenly-matched Republican candidates.
While a Democrat will more likely than not advance to the general election, internal party conflicts and an inability to winnow the field have endangered the party’s prospects about two months out from the June primary.
Thinking about writing a politically-focused story entitled The Perfect Storm? Boy, do we have a great narrative twist for you. Instead of spotlighting a group of wayward Gloucestermen tragically caught in a terrible nor’easter in 1991, this tale would center on the very real chance that two Republicans — and zero Democrats — advance to the general election in California’s 2026 gubernatorial race.
To mix metaphors and put this in terms that Californians better understand, this 9.0 earthquake of a result would ensure the election of a Republican in one of the nation’s bluest states. Now, one Democrat will, more likely than not, make it out of the primary and be favored to win in November. Yet with two months until the June 2 primary, the race remains as murky as the La Brea Tar Pits, thanks to the state’s use of a top-two primary system, the crowded field of middle-tier Democratic contenders, and two prominent and evenly-matched Republican candidates.
Three storm systems converge
The polls readily demonstrate the danger Democrats face in California. In Decision Desk HQ’s polling average of the gubernatorial primary, two Republicans — former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner Chad Bianco — sit in first and second, with about 17% and 14%, respectively. Although Bianco is effectively running about even with Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell for second place, the average makes it clear that very fine margins could determine which two contenders advance out of the primary.
Let’s return to the weather analogy to lay out how this situation arose. Simply put, three storm systems are converging to create the conditions whereby a Democrat could fail to advance to the general election.
Fundamentally, the first storm front is California’s “top-two” primary system. California is one of only a handful of states that does not use partisan primaries to nominate candidates for general elections. Instead, it is one of two (along with Washington) that uses a top-two primary in which all candidates regardless of party run together on the same ballot, and the leading two vote-getters advance to the general election. This allows for the possibility that two candidates from the same major party will move forward, “locking out” the other major party from a spot on the November ballot.
In practice, lockouts usually occur in congressional or state legislative districts that are safe for one party. In those seats, the dominant party has a large vote share, which makes it more likely that two candidates from the same party will garner enough support to finish first and second ahead of the leading candidate from the minority party.
Because California is heavily Democratic, its statewide primaries function in much the same way. Since the state began using the top-two system in 2012, voters have weighed in on 26 statewide primaries. On average, Democratic candidates have combined to win 57% in those contests, compared with 36% across all Republican candidates. With such a Democratic edge, it’s understandable that no statewide top-two primary in California has yet advanced two Republicans to a general election. Across those 26 races, 22 have resulted in Democrat-versus-Republican general elections, three in all-Democratic contests, and one in a Democrat-versus-independent race.1
The second, less predictable contributor to this perfect storm is the crowded field of Democratic candidates, who are significantly fragmenting their party’s primary vote. All told, a whopping 61 candidates qualified for the gubernatorial primary, of which 10 can be realistically called “major” due to their polling position and/or history of elected office. Eight of those leading contenders are Democrats, while just two are Republicans.
Seven of the eight major Democratic candidates are current or former officeholders capable of raising money and attracting support. Three hold or previously held statewide posts: former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, state Superintendent of Education Tony Thurmond, and former state Controller Betty Yee. Two are current or former mayors of two of the state’s largest cities: San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Two are current or former members of the U.S. House of Representatives: former Rep. Katie Porter and Rep. Eric Swalwell.
The eighth Democrat, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, has never held office. Yet he mounted a notable presidential campaign in 2020, and he has far more personal wealth to invest in this race than any other candidate — which he has done aggressively. As of Friday, AdImpact reported that Steyer’s campaign had spent or reserved nearly $90 million worth of ads, more than seven times the $12 million booked by pro-Mahan forces and around 20 times more than the $4-to-$5 million reserved by committees supporting Swalwell and Villaraigosa. Not coincidentally, Steyer’s support in the polls has grown from the low-to-mid single digits at the start of 2026 to north of 10% — a meaningful shift in such a crowded race.
But Steyer’s spending has only served to reinforce the Democrats’ lack of an out-and-out frontrunner. Instead, the eight candidates constitute a group of B- and C-tier aspirants who appear incapable of clearing the field and reducing the chances that the party’s primary vote will be sufficiently divided to allow two Republicans to finish first and second. One such field-clearing candidate might have been former Vice President Kamala Harris, but last summer she decided against a gubernatorial bid.
And because a Democrat in a California general election all but guaranteed to win, the muddled situation has helped disincentivize candidate withdrawal. After all, a breakthrough for a lower-profile candidate does not need to move the polls that much to give that person a real chance of becoming California’s next governor.
Lastly, the third electoral storm front converging on California involves the presence of two noteworthy Republican candidates who are dividing most of the GOP primary vote. Although the GOP will win a clear minority of the primary vote, Bianco and Hilton could produce a lockout because they are attracting nearly all of the Republican primary vote and splitting it fairly evenly.
That either Republican could become governor is remarkable considering neither would have a shot at defeating a Democrat in the general election. Bianco leads law enforcement in the state’s fourth-most populous county and has attracted notice with his appearances on Fox News and podcasts hosted by conservative pastors. Bianco has also played to Trump-driven conspiracies about voter fraud, recently impounding more than 600,000 ballots cast in last November’s redistricting election due to alleged “irregularities.” Hilton, meanwhile, is originally from the United Kingdom and spent years working for former Prime Minister David Cameron and the Conservative Party. In the mid-2010s, he became more involved in U.S. politics, hosting a show on Fox News and developing a public policy organization focused on California’s housing shortage.
Cloudy with a chance of lockout
Democrats have understandably become increasingly worried about the chances of a gubernatorial lockout. In early March, the chair of the state Democratic Party called for candidates who lacked a “viable path” to end their campaigns. But this call was met with derision from some lower-polling contenders, and not just because no Democrat is vastly outrunning the field. The trailing candidates have also raised questions about the representativeness of the three leading contenders, all of whom are white, and their relative qualifications compared to those of the four candidates of color.
Swalwell, Steyer, and Porter are all polling just above 10%, but all are white and none has held a major executive office. Conversely, four of the other five notable Democratic contenders are people of color who have each served in statewide office or as mayor of the state’s largest city. Becerra and Villaraigosa are Latino (Becerra is the son of Mexican immigrants, Villaraigosa a grandson), Thurmond is Black, and Yee is Asian (the daughter of Chinese immigrants).
Moreover, a sizable majority of California Democrats are voters of color. In 2025, the Public Policy Institute of California found that 41% of Democratic likely voters identified as white, 35% as Latino, 12% as Asian, 6% as Black, and 6% as multiracial or something else. All told, a party that’s about three-fifths nonwhite faces the possibility of choosing mainly among a trio of contenders who are white.
Concerns about representation have vexed Democrats ahead of the primary. In late March, a planned debate was canceled amid blowback over which candidates had qualified. The organizers used polling and fundraising criteria to determine the participants, which resulted in invitations for the six major white candidates — the three leading Democrats, the two Republicans, and Mahan, the low-polling mayor of San Jose who has quickly raised millions from Silicon Valley donors following his late entry into the race. This sparked outrage in many corners of the Democratic Party and among the four candidates of color, eventually prompting the debate organizers to cancel the event.
Given the crowded candidate field and this turmoil, just how likely is a Democratic lockout in the gubernatorial race? In February, Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell — who drew the state’s new Democratic gerrymander — released a primary simulator in an attempt to estimate the chances of a lockout. Including the 10 major candidates in his forecast and altering no other base inputs, Mitchell’s simulator currently gives the GOP about a 1 in 5 shot of pulling it off. (You can tweak many aspects of the race, such as campaign finance, polling, and more, so go have fun playing with it.)
This suggests that, more likely than not, at least one Democrat will find a way to advance to the general election. However, it would not be unusual for an event to occur that is assigned about a 20% chance of happening. In fact, that’s marginally higher than the chances of rolling a seven when you roll two six-sided dice (6/36 or about 17%, the most likely outcome). Plus, unlike rolling dice or flipping coins, estimating the probability of a single electoral event involves far more uncertainty.
Even if it is somewhat unlikely, a Democratic lockout in California’s gubernatorial election would be the most significant failure by a major party in a top-two primary. Although Democrats have never been locked out of a statewide race in California, they have suffered this fate once in Washington, which has used the top-two system since 2008. In Washington’s 2016 primary, two Republicans advanced to the general election in the race for treasurer, even as three Democratic candidates combined for around 52% of the vote and the two Republican contenders garnered about 48%.
That result ranks as the worst lockout a major party has suffered in a statewide or congressional top-two primary on turf that leaned toward that party or was at least somewhat competitive. In the 2012 presidential election, Washington state had voted about 11 points to the left of the nation. So, ahead of the 2016 general election, the Democrats’ lockout in Washington’s state treasurer contest was a poor result. But based on the 2024 presidential race, California is now about twice as Democratic-leaning as Washington was then, which would make a lockout in the 2026 governor’s race a dramatically worse outcome.
In 2012, the first year California used the top-two primary, Democrats also suffered an embarrassing lockout in a U.S. House seat that many expected them to win. The newly-drawn 31st District had leaned about 9 points to the left of the country in the 2008 presidential election, but Republican Rep. Gary Miller still sought reelection. And in the top-two primary, Miller and fellow Republican Bob Dutton led the way over four Democratic opponents, with Dutton edging out Democrat Pete Aguilar by about 2 points for the second-place spot. Miller then won the all-GOP general election. Aguilar later flipped this seat in 2014, though he once again almost failed to advance out of the primary.
Less embarrassingly, the other two races in the table above were lockouts for a party that was at least a slight underdog in a potentially competitive seat. In 2014, Democrats failed to advance a candidate in California’s light-red 25th District. And in 2020, Republicans came up short in Washington’s blue-leaning 10th District, where two Democrats advanced.
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We will obviously keep a close eye on California polls in the weeks to come. A Democratic lockout in the gubernatorial race would have all sorts of consequences, potentially hurting Democratic turnout in the 2026 midterms and having at least short-term governing consequences for the Golden State. Undoubtedly, Democrats would quickly pursue a recall election that might well succeed. But a Republican governor elected in a blue-leaning midterm electoral environment would be a remarkable turn of events — borne of a perfect electoral storm.
📆 Around the Corner 📌
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April 7, 2026
April 16, 2026
April 21, 2026
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The latter case involved a Republican-turned-independent, Steve Poizner, who effectively ran as the lone Republican candidate in California’s 2018 race for state insurance commissioner.