California has been a droning machine of leftist lunacy for so long that it is quite unusual to be surprised by anything that happens in politics there. Well kids, the Golden State has decided to make things weird with its 2026 gubernatorial election.
Let's start with a little background for those who are unfamiliar with California's way of perverting statewide elections. The state has an open "jungle" primary which has the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party. When this became law, Republicans were no longer doing much in the way of winning state elections. Democrats figured that they could use their overwhelming numbers in California to flood the primaries and ensure that two of their own were facing off in every general election. The intent was the complete disenfranchisement of the Republican Party in the most populous state in the union, and it's mostly worked out for them.
Thankfully, this primary lunacy doesn't apply to presidential elections, but you just know that they're working on that up in their evil towers.
This gubernatorial election has exposed the weakness of the Democratic bench. In the race to replace Gavin Newsom in the Democrats' Sacramento insane asylum, the strongest candidate they could offer up was Eric Swalwell, a guy so unlikeable that his bathroom mirror rejects him every morning. When he dropped out of the race last week Swalwell was running second or third in most polls, leaving Republican Steve Hilton at the top. Professional mean girl Katie Porter is also in the mix, as is Xavier Becerra, former California attorney general and head of Health and Human Services under Joe Biden. Other recognizable Dem names are billionaire enviroloon Tom Steyer, and Antonio Villaraigosa, who hasn't been relevant since he left the Los Angeles mayor's office 13 years ago.
Those are all very recognizable names to California voters, but most of them haven't been able to get any real traction thus far. That may not seem like much this far out, but we're in the Trump Derangement Syndrome era. The fear of all things MAGA should be enough motivation for the state's Democrats.
What the Dems are looking at, however, are some polls where two Republicans — Hilton and former Riverside County sheriff Chad Bianco — are at the top. Some historical context reveals just how stunning that is. It has been 20 years since any Republican was elected to a statewide office in California. In 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor and Steve Poizner insurance commissioner. Arnold began his tenure with good Republican intentions, but California politics and proximity to the Kennedy family had basically turned him into a moderate Democrat by the time he won in 2006.
In the two decade dry spell since then, no Republican has come close to upsetting the Democrats' apple cart for the governor's office. Yes, the primary isn't until June, but the mere fact that we're even having a conversation about a Republican advancing to the general election is stunning when one thinks about all that California has represented politically during the Newsom years.
Steyer has made a move in the polls since Swalwell dropped out, and he has enough personal wealth to buy his way into office in a corrupt state. California politics is dominated by two thoroughly evil labor unions — the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Both will no doubt go hard to get Democrats to the polls for the primary election, whether those Democrats are in the country legally or not.
Still, there's something in the water in California for this election. The fact that Hilton and Bianco have been able to outpoll a list of pretty big Dem names could signify any number of things. There have been rumblings from the left coast that libs of all stripes are sick of the urban crime, which might explain the slight red-ward shift we saw in California in 2024. San Francisco recalled their soft-on-crime Soros DA and Los Angeles voted theirs out. My good friend and partner in thought crime Stephen Green wrote earlier this month that San Francisco has gotten back in the business of actually prosecuting criminals and is having great success in reducing the city's hideous crime problem.
Another very real, but less likely, possibility is that many of California's Democrats have grown weary of Newsom's self-aggrandizing, attention whoring ways and are overcome with apathy. Maybe even ennui.
We could chalk it up to the polls being garbage, but I don't think that's the case here. Polling that favors Republicans isn't really a California thing. For those who think the pollsters might be trying to skew things to fire up the Dems, I'd say that's not happening either. The need to do that has been so unnecessary for so long there, it probably never occurred to any pollsters.
I wrote in Wednesday's Morning Briefing that Virginia is the Mother of All Cautionary Tales when it comes to how quickly the political fortunes of one party can change in a state (or commonwealth, pretentious people). California is another one. When I first moved there in the 1990s, Republican Pete Wilson was in his first of two terms. Wilson had succeeded another two-term Republican governor, George Deukmejian. That was 16 years of Republican leadership in California to close out the 20th century. Democrat Gray Davis followed Wilson, but was impeached at the beginning of his second term and gave way to Arnold. Eventual squish or not, Arnold was still a Republican.
Almost 24 years of Republicans in Sacramento in a 28-year span looked pretty good for the GOP, yet here we are.
If Hilton or Bianco can get to the general election and there is even the slightest chance that either can get across the finish line, it will be the first few rays of sunshine in a long time for the stubborn Republicans who are still in California. I only have a handful of conservative friends left there, but I'll be on a party plane right away to see them if they can pull this off.
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