This year’s statewide campaigns have given California’s political obsessives no shortage of drama to chew on — gerrymandered congressional maps, the spectacular flameout of a gubernatorial frontrunner, and an ongoing clash with President Donald Trump over voting rules. For those of us more interested in whether our elected officials can actually govern, though, the season has been a letdown.
Water reliability, budget shortfalls, homelessness and the relentless rise in the cost of living have barely come up on the campaign trail, let alone been addressed with any real substance. Democratic candidates have largely stuck to a familiar script: pin the state’s troubles on Trump, even though California was grappling with these problems long before he entered politics. Republicans, meanwhile, knowing their odds of winning statewide office are slim in a deeply blue state, have spent their energy blaming outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom for issues he inherited when he took office back in 2019.
Recent polling shows Californians are frustrated — anxious about affordability, skeptical of the economy, and generally unhappy with how things are going. Yet that frustration hasn’t translated into an appetite for real change. Voters appear to prefer familiar faces to political gambles, a dynamic playing out clearly in the two marquee races on this year’s ballot: governor and mayor of Los Angeles.
Xavier Becerra, a longtime fixture in California politics who once served as state attorney general, was polling in the low single digits for governor as recently as last spring. At the time, Rep. Eric Swalwell was considered the clear favorite until multiple women came forward accusing him of sexual harassment and assault. Swalwell not only exited the governor’s race but also resigned his congressional seat entirely.
That left billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer and Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco as the only candidates with any real polling traction. But party leaders and labor unions balked at all three, instead rallying quickly around Becerra as the safer, more predictable choice. Given California’s overwhelming Democratic voter registration advantage, that backing all but assured Becerra’s path to the governor’s office — and it still does.
Since then, Becerra’s campaign has leaned almost entirely on anti-Trump messaging while steering clear of specific proposals for tackling the problems he’s likely to inherit from Newsom. He understands he doesn’t need to stake out bold positions to win, so he hasn’t.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass finds herself in a similar “status quo” posture at the city level, but unlike Becerra, she’s not coasting. Bass is still contending with the fallout from her handling of the devastating wildfires that tore through Los Angeles and surrounding communities early last year. She was traveling in Ghana when the fires broke out, despite forecasts warning that dry winter winds could spark dangerous conditions. In the aftermath, she deflected blame, dismissed the city’s fire chief, and was later accused of trying to reshape an official account of the city’s emergency response.
Bass remains deeply unpopular, but she’s positioning herself as the known commodity against city councilmember Nithya Raman, whose more progressive platform represents the riskier alternative for voters wary of upheaval. Recent polling suggests the race is now a toss-up.
At least the barrage of attack ads, overblown promises and mailers clogging our inboxes will soon come to an end. Once the votes are counted Tuesday — and in some close races, that could take weeks — we’ll find out who comes out on top. The losers will lick their wounds, the winners will celebrate, and the rest of us will keep hoping, perhaps naively, that they spend less time plotting their next political move and more time actually solving the problems facing California.
Original source: CalMatters
