California’s June 2 gubernatorial primary is five weeks out, mail ballots drop in a matter of days, and the field of 61 candidates is doing remarkably little to resolve itself.
Ten candidates claim to be serious contenders. Most of them appear to be waiting for someone else to move first.
The Democrats’ Standstill
Three Democrats have held a loose grip on the top of the polls for weeks: former Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Eric Swalwell, and billionaire investor Tom Steyer. Each is pulling roughly 10 percent support, a figure that illustrates the problem more than it resolves it.
California’s top-two primary system places every candidate on a single ballot regardless of party. The top two finishers advance to November. With a field this large, a candidate who clears 20 percent will almost certainly punch through. That means each of the three frontrunners needs to roughly double their current support before voters lock in their choices. And with mail balloting beginning soon, that window is closing fast. Every ballot returned is a preference set in amber.
The urgency of that math has not produced urgency on the campaign trail, at least not from most of the field.
Steyer is the exception. He has spent millions on television and digital advertising and maintains an active schedule of in-person appearances across the state. A substantial portion of his messaging targets Swalwell directly. The two appear to be competing for the same constituency: the most progressive slice of the Democratic electorate.
Swalwell has a different set of assets. He secured backing from the California Teachers Association, one of the most powerful institutional players in state Democratic politics, along with other significant union support. He has also benefited from an unexpected source of visibility. The Trump administration’s FBI revived public attention to the federal investigation of Swalwell’s past contact with a woman identified as a Chinese intelligence operative. Whatever the legal or national security dimensions of that story, it has kept Swalwell’s name in circulation among Democratic primary voters who view federal attention toward him as a mark of partisan targeting.
Porter, meanwhile, is running a quieter campaign. She holds name recognition built during her 2024 Senate run, a race she lost. She is the only woman among the three leading Democrats, and her operation appears to be banking on both factors to carry her into one of the two November slots without a costly air war.
Five additional Democrats fill out the field below the top three. Democratic Party leaders have been candid about wanting them gone. The concern is simple arithmetic. If five lower-polling Democrats continue drawing votes in single digits, the combined Democratic share of the primary vote gets diluted. That creates an opening.
None of the five shows any sign of stepping aside.
The Republicans’ Opportunity, and Their Problem
The opening created by Democratic fragmentation belongs to Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco. Party strategists believe a 1-2 Republican finish in the primary, which would guarantee a GOP candidate in the November general election, is genuinely possible. California has not elected a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s second term ended in 2011.
The mechanism for that outcome is straightforward. If eight or ten Democrats split their party’s vote, and two Republicans consolidate a unified GOP base plus attract enough decline-to-state voters, both Republicans clear the Democrats still standing.
But Hilton and Bianco are not cooperating with that scenario. The two have spent recent weeks attacking each other, pulling resources and attention away from the broader electorate and into an intraparty skirmish. Political operatives in both parties have noted the irony: the GOP’s clearest path to relevance in California statewide politics in a generation is being complicated by the two candidates best positioned to walk it.
What the Calendar Means
The practical problem for every campaign in this race is time. Mail balloting in California begins weeks before the June 2 primary, and turnout patterns in the state mean a significant share of the final vote will be cast before most voters pay sustained attention to the race. Campaigns that have not already built name recognition or run substantial advertising have a narrowing set of days to do so.
This article draws on reporting from CalMatters.
For the leading Democrats, the strategic bind is obvious. Attacking each other directly risks suppressing the eventual Democratic nominee’s general election support. But staying passive risks letting a Republican pair slide through on a fractured vote.
For Steyer, the math argues for spending harder and faster. His television presence is already the most visible in the race. Whether it is enough to break the three-way logjam and establish clear separation from Porter and Swalwell before ballots come back is the central question of the primary.
For California Democrats watching from the outside, the deeper worry is structural. The top-two system was designed to produce competitive general elections, not to prevent them. But a fractured primary with no consolidation can produce exactly the outcome the party’s leadership fears most: a November race with no Democrat on the ballot for the first time in this century.
The calendar will force a resolution. The candidates have not yet forced one themselves.