Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – California is reckoning with the possibility of what has long seemed improbable: a Republican in the governor’s mansion. The Golden State has been a Democratic Party lock since action star Arnold Schwarzenegger moved on from the state’s highest office in 2011 and returned to Hollywood. But as voting in the primary election is set to begin, two Republicans lead opinion polls over a large and lackluster field of Democratic candidates, raising the tantalizing prospect that no Democrat will advance to the general election in November. That’s because, unlike most other states — where each party has its own election to choose a standard-bearer — California has a so-called “jungle primary” that pits all-comers against each other.
As things stand right now, that could mean Chad Bianco, the mustachioed sheriff of Riverside County, versus British-American political strategist Steve Hilton. “It’s going to be he and I going to November,” Bianco intoned at a recent televised debate, nodding towards Hilton. Their styles might be different — Bianco has the careworn swagger of a frontiersman, while Hilton has an immigrant’s enthusiasm for his adopted homeland — but both are capitalizing on a vein of deep disgruntlement running through California.
Home to Silicon Valley and some of the world’s most successful businesses, America’s most populous state has a huge economy — the world’s fourth largest if it were a country. But many Californians complain bitterly about the cost of living, squeezed by sky-high housing prices and the most expensive gas in the country. There’s also the very visible, and seemingly intractable, problem of homelessness, which inflicts misery on the thousands who suffer it and scars the streets of great cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. “When voters are unhappy, the party in power is usually the one that’s held responsible,” Sara Sadhwani, a political scientist at Pomona College, told AFP. But with the June 2 polling day still a month off, Sadhwani believes there’s still plenty of time for the landscape to shift. Around a quarter of all voters tell pollsters they have not made up their minds yet, so the idea that no Democrat could make the top two seems “overblown,” she said. “At the end of the day, California is a majority Democrat state,” she said.
More than five dozen people are registered as candidates for governor, 24 of them Democrats. Only a handful have achieved any kind of name recognition. All are jostling for primacy with similar platforms: promising to make housing more affordable, improving the healthcare system, and standing up to President Donald Trump, who is very unpopular in the state. But with a huge field spreading votes so thinly, there are growing calls for the no-hopers to drop out and allow one or two candidates to float to the top. The current frontrunner among Democrats is Tom Steyer, a billionaire financier who proudly demands the rich pay more taxes. During a recent visit to Los Angeles, he told AFP he wouldn’t be urging anyone to leave the race. “I think it would be the height of arrogance for me to tell somebody else what to do,” he said.
Next in the polling is Joe Biden’s former health secretary, Xavier Becerra. He has benefited most from the recent defenestration of US Representative Eric Swalwell, forced out of the race after being accused of rape and sexual harassment. Former congresswoman Katie Porter is not quite into double digits, but still ahead of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, both of whom are polling at less than five percent. All will take to the stage for a nationally televised debate on CNN on Tuesday evening, expected to be a rowdy affair. An unenlightening spectacle last week saw Porter float above the fray, wearily raising her eyebrows over the squabbling among her competitors. “This is worse than my teenagers at dinner,” she sighed.
© 2024 AFP
