For a candidate who polls show is the clear front-runner in November’s gubernatorial race, Becerra’s reluctance to commit to specifics traces back, he says, to a lesson learned more than three decades ago.

In 1993, as a freshman congressman representing the Los Angeles area, Becerra had campaigned against the North American Free Trade Agreement. He ultimately voted for it after being convinced that added labor protections and a domestic lending program would cushion American workers and small businesses from foreign competition. Within a few years, he watched American jobs disappear anyway.

That experience, he told CalMatters, became a defining lesson of his political career: never commit to something without being certain of its outcome.

“No one gets my vote unless I know what I’m voting for completely,” he said.

Becerra went on to serve 12 terms in Congress, rose into House Democratic leadership, became California’s first Latino attorney general, and later the first Latino U.S. secretary of health and human services. Now, as he seeks the governor’s office, that same instinct for caution is shaping his campaign — sometimes to the frustration of voters and reporters looking for concrete plans.

He rarely lays out detailed policy proposals and often deflects when pushed to commit to specific goals or numbers. Instead, he points to his long record in government as evidence that he can be trusted to lead, framing his candidacy around steady management rather than sweeping promises.

On the state’s public health programs, he says he’d target administrative waste, inefficiency and fraudulent billing to save money — but hasn’t specified how or how much. On housing, he has criticized fellow Democrats for promising unrealistic goals like 2 or 3 million new homes in a single term. Even though he’s weighing a more modest target, such as roughly doubling the state’s current annual output of about 106,000 units, he’s hesitant to make it official, worried it might turn into “an inflated promise.”

No incentive to take chances

The contrast with his rivals is notable. During the primary, Democratic opponents pitched specific ideas, and Republican nominee Steve Hilton has rolled out an aggressive platform that includes $3-a-gallon gas and slashed electricity bills through deregulation. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the term-limited Democrat Becerra hopes to succeed, campaigned in 2018 on ambitious goals — millions of new homes, universal preschool, single-payer healthcare and tougher climate rules — many of which remain unfulfilled.

While other candidates this cycle focused on curbing insurance regulations or reining in utility spending to address the state’s high cost of living, Becerra proposed declaring a state of emergency to study why electricity and insurance rates are so high — effectively putting off any decision on what to do about it.

He’s also been noncommittal about whether he would uphold California’s mandate to end sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

“If we invest in it, it absolutely is feasible,” he said during an appearance at a Politico event last week. “If we don’t invest in the infrastructure, then it’s not feasible.”

He suggested there’s “a lot of room to expand” California’s regulation of artificial intelligence and floated the idea of the state purchasing “some equity in AI to make sure that we all gain from having this new technology.” But when reporters followed up afterward, he backed away from endorsing it as policy, saying only that “if there’s something along those lines, it wouldn’t be totally far-fetched.”

Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College, said Becerra’s vagueness reflects a familiar campaign strategy.

Given California’s heavy Democratic registration advantage, Becerra is likely to defeat Hilton regardless of how detailed his platform is. His main task, Michelson said, is simply to keep Democratic voters engaged enough to turn out before Election Day — not to win over skeptics with bold policy pledges.

“He doesn’t have an incentive to go out on a limb” on policy, she said. “You don’t want to mess up, you don’t want to do anything crazy.”

Yet Becerra’s aversion to specifics appears to run deeper than campaign strategy. Pressed onstage last week to name a single concrete commitment voters could expect from him as governor, he declined.

“I would prefer not to run on inflated promises,” he said. “I will run on my record.”

A career built on deliberation

Becerra, 68, was born in Sacramento to working-class Mexican immigrant parents and later attended Stanford Law School. He emerged as a political figure during the surge of Latino political activism in the early 1990s, first winning an upset Assembly race in the eastern Los Angeles suburbs in 1990, then a safely Democratic congressional seat two years later that he’d hold until 2017. He and his wife, OB-GYN Carolina Reyes, raised three daughters while living in Washington, D.C., before eventually returning to Sacramento.

Former staff members describe Becerra as meticulous — someone who would flag typos in memos and insist on tracking even minor costs as potential “fiscal impacts” when reviewing legislation. They say he consistently weighed how policies would affect immigrants and working- and middle-class families.

“I think he always kept people like his parents in mind,” said Sirat Attapit, who worked in Becerra’s congressional office and later served as his legislative liaison when he was attorney general. “You always knew based on the kinds of questions he asked, that was always in the back of his mind.”

Attapit said his reputation for taking his time on decisions reflected careful, inclusive policymaking, even when it meant hearing out people who strongly disagreed with him. In the early 2010s, Becerra was part of a bipartisan group of House members who met privately to work on immigration reform.

“He was thoughtful and methodical to the point where perhaps some of his colleagues thought he mulled things over or took too long to make a decision,” Attapit said. “Whenever he made a decision, you had to get to a point where he had educated himself and heard from all of the stakeholders. Everybody who had a perspective, he wanted to hear from.”

That same instinct shaped one of the more controversial episodes of his tenure as attorney general. In 2019, he declined to release police misconduct records despite a new state transparency law requiring it, as local police unions challenged the law in court over officer privacy concerns.

Becerra opted to wait for further court guidance on whether the law applied retroactively — even after an appellate court had already ruled the records were public. Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, said he appreciated Becerra’s caution.

“He just wanted to make sure that it was a clear direction on what needed to be released,” Marvel said.

But David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, called the delay “baffling,” saying the law’s requirements were clear. News organizations sued, and courts ultimately ordered Becerra’s office to release the records and pay more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees.

“In fairness, I suppose, it was a brand-new law,” Snyder said. “But I can’t recall a time where an agency simply refused to interpret the law itself and said, ‘We don’t know what the law means until a court tells us.'”

Asked whether his cautious style might work against him as a decisive executive, Becerra pointed to moments when he acted swiftly — such as suing the Trump administration to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or intervening in litigation to defend the Affordable Care Act.

A pragmatic brand of progressivism

Should he win in November, Becerra would take charge of a state Democratic Party trending further left — even as he positions himself as its most cautious standard-bearer.

Supporters like Amanda Renteria, who worked with Becerra in the U.S. Senate and helped draft portions of the federal health care law, argue his understated approach masks genuinely progressive instincts. He was an early advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and universal health care, and throughout his time in Congress he consistently defended asylum seekers and immigrants’ access to public benefits — sometimes putting him at odds with fellow Democrats.

“He can work between two worlds,” Renteria said, describing his knack for operating within Democratic leadership while still “pushing the progressive agenda where he sees it’s possible.”

Becerra himself resists that framing when it comes to his gubernatorial platform, describing himself instead as a “pragmatic” progressive with a deliberately flexible agenda.

When President Joe Biden nominated him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he made clear he opposed single-payer health care — and Becerra, despite being a longtime supporter of the idea, accepted the constraint and focused instead on boosting enrollment in Medicaid and ACA marketplaces. During the primary, he reportedly told the California Medical Association he would not push for single-payer health care as governor.

“Just because I didn’t get single-payer, doesn’t mean I’m not a progressive, and just because I didn’t fight for single-payer doesn’t mean I am establishment,” he said. “At this stage of my life, at this stage of my career, I just want to get things done.”

That philosophy — favoring what’s achievable over what’s ambitious — extends to smaller proposals as well.

Last week, Becerra floated a “power hour” concept that would give low-income utility customers two hours of free electricity each day during peak solar production hours, when supply often exceeds demand.

Asked by CalMatters whether that idea rises to the level of a campaign promise, he walked through his reasoning in real time: he’d still need to consult stakeholders including utility companies and the California Public Utilities Commission. But because low-income households are already enrolled in existing discount programs, delivering the benefit would be relatively simple — and since it wouldn’t apply to all ratepayers, it likely wouldn’t strain the grid.

“I’d like to make it a promise, because it’s not pie-in-the-sky,” he said. “Is it realistic? Can I make it into a promise? I probably can, because I’ve limited it.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Becerra Treads Carefully in Governor’s Race, Steering Clear of Bold Promises appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Jane Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor, is betting that California voters are hungry for the kind of political upheaval that recently propelled Zohran Mamdani to the New York City mayor’s office and pushed Abdul El-Sayed into a competitive U.S. Senate race in Michigan. She’s making that bet even though the California Democratic Party has thrown its support behind her rival, state Sen. Ben Allen of Santa Monica.

How the race plays out may hinge on several factors: how much attention voters pay to a down-ballot office many people know little about, how much weight disillusioned Democrats give to the party’s official endorsement, and how voters respond to the wave of mailers and advertisements likely to arrive before the November election.

Kim and Allen are competing to become the state’s next insurance regulator, a job that oversees California’s massive insurance market. Kim wants to create a state-run natural disaster insurance program available to all residents and expand low-cost auto insurance to every driver in California — proposals that echo progressive priorities like Medicare for All. Allen, by contrast, is focused on stabilizing and strengthening the existing private insurance market, which has struggled for years with availability and affordability problems driven largely by wildfire risk and a string of catastrophic, deadly fires.

Kim’s pitch appears to be resonating. She led the June primary field of 11 candidates with more than 27% of the vote, while Allen finished second with just over 19%.

“Kim and Allen represent a microcosm of the split happening within the Democratic Party nationally,” said Shauhin Talesh, a UC Irvine law professor who studies insurance and consumer protection. “Both agree insurance companies should be regulated. The real question is how aggressively California should intervene, and what role government should play.”

Allen recently secured the California Democratic Party’s official endorsement — a development Talesh said wasn’t surprising, given that the senator is widely viewed as the more establishment-friendly candidate.

Kim, whose past accomplishments include securing free community college for San Francisco residents and helping create the state’s first $15 minimum wage, previously led the California Working Families Party, a progressive-aligned political organization. She has also picked up the endorsement of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, having worked on his 2020 presidential campaign.

“Is this going to turn into another situation where voters push back against the establishment through their ballots?” Talesh asked. “At what point does the Democratic Party take notice?”

Kim’s challenges extend beyond the lack of a party endorsement. The insurance industry has voiced skepticism about her plans to expand the state’s role in the insurance market, and even some consumer advocacy groups have raised concerns — including Consumer Watchdog, whose founder helped write the 1988 ballot initiative that established California’s current insurance regulatory framework.

Jamie Court, the group’s president, warned that a state-run disaster insurance fund — which Kim says would be financed through a portion of premiums policyholders already pay — would require tens of billions of dollars just to get off the ground, and could be wiped out by a single catastrophic wildfire.

Kim has acknowledged her proposal needs further study but argues that critics are overlooking the need for broader public debate and greater community input on reforming the system.

“I don’t think letting insurance companies keep raising rates is the answer,” Kim told CalMatters in an interview. “People will lose their homes or go without coverage entirely. And that will devastate the economy.”

Allen, for his part, told CalMatters that his opponent’s disaster fund proposal “is effectively a massive subsidy for wealthy homeowners,” since their properties are more expensive to rebuild after a fire.

Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said Kim’s momentum reflects “a populist wave, not necessarily a progressive one,” sweeping the country. He noted that early results showed Kim performing well not just in liberal strongholds but in traditionally conservative areas like the Inland Empire and Central Valley, as well as in Los Angeles County — which includes Allen’s own district.

Given those results, Jorge Contreras, the Working Families Party’s California director, called the state Democratic Party’s endorsement of Allen a sign of being “out of touch with reality.”

Some Kim delegates complained that their votes hadn’t been properly counted during the endorsement process, prompting Kim to request a recount.

“The votes were counted,” said Robin Swanson, a spokesperson for the party. “And recounted. The outcome was the same.”

Contreras noted that the California Labor Federation endorsed Kim the very next day.

Not everyone agrees with the “moderate” label often attached to Allen — including at least one of his own supporters.

“Ben is a progressive through and through,” said RL Miller, former chair of the California Democratic Party’s Environmental Caucus, who also runs the political action committee Climate Hawks. While the group doesn’t typically weigh in on California races, Miller said she personally backs Allen.

“He has supported us and authored landmark climate legislation over the years,” Miller said, adding that “the tribal nature of Democratic politics these days” may explain why Allen gets cast as the more moderate option.

Allen does have a substantial environmental record, including work on Proposition 4, the $10 billion bond measure voters approved in 2024 that includes wildfire prevention funding. He also authored legislation aimed at reducing single-use plastics.

Allen’s voting record has also aligned closely with some of the same groups now backing Kim, including the California Labor Federation. According to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database, his legislative history generally has not sided with business interests.

Although both candidates have pledged not to accept campaign money from the insurance industry, Contreras said it’s worth tracking where their funding actually comes from.

Business groups spent $1.5 million opposing Kim’s primary campaign, according to Digital Democracy, with most of that money coming from JOBSPAC, an employer coalition backed by the California Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile, Contreras pointed out, “Ben Allen has taken cryptocurrency money, which clearly paid off for him in the end.” Campaign finance records show that Ripple co-founder and billionaire Chris Larsen donated $1 million in May to a PAC sponsored by California Environmental Voters — the largest outside contribution supporting Allen’s campaign.

Contreras predicted that billionaires will continue pouring money into moderate candidates this election cycle. “Why? Because they want things to stay the same. Now Jane is going to be painted as the villain.”

Kim’s largest campaign donors are the California Working Families Party and the California Teachers Association, which have contributed roughly $365,000 and $150,000, respectively.

One key difference between this race and similar contests unfolding elsewhere in the country is that many California voters simply don’t know what the insurance commissioner actually does, said Kevin Liao, a Democratic political consultant who briefly worked on Allen’s campaign before joining Tom Steyer’s gubernatorial primary bid.

That knowledge gap could push voters toward shortcuts — relying on endorsements, like Sanders backing Kim or the state party backing Allen, to make up their minds. Liao said the race may ultimately come down to which candidate does a better job persuading undecided voters directly.

“We’re at a moment where voters — certainly the Democratic Party’s base — are fed up with party leadership,” Liao said.

Still, progressive candidates haven’t always found success this cycle. In California’s gubernatorial primary, progressive contender Tom Steyer failed to advance to the general election. And in Wisconsin, moderate Democrat David Crowley recently defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong in that state’s gubernatorial primary by less than a single percentage point.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Will California Voters Back a ‘Progressive’ Candidate for Insurance Commissioner? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The most obvious reason is the fight for the House of Representatives. Last year’s redrawing of California’s 52 congressional districts, engineered to favor Democrats, has put as many as five seats in play. Given that Republicans currently hold only a slim majority in the House, what happens in California this fall could tip the balance of power in Washington.

But there’s a second, less obvious layer to this year’s contests. In several reliably Democratic districts, the real fight isn’t between the parties — it’s within them. Progressive candidates are squaring off against more centrist Democrats in races that echo the ideological tug-of-war playing out nationally within the party.

Take the East Bay, where state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive, is competing against Melissa Hernandez, president of the Bay Area Regional Transit board, for the seat once held by Eric Swalwell, who resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations.

In San Francisco, the race to succeed retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become its own study in intra-party tension. State Sen. Scott Wiener and City Supervisor Connie Chan both identify as progressives, yet they diverge sharply on housing policy. Wiener has built his career pushing to make it easier to build homes, a position that puts him at odds with much of San Francisco’s left, where resistance to development remains a deeply held value.

Then there’s Proposition 40, a ballot measure that has captured attention well beyond California’s borders. The initiative would impose a 5% tax on the wealth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, and its implications reach far past state lines.

On one level, Prop. 40 represents a test case for a taxation model that could eventually spread to other states or even shape national policy debates. It has already drawn commentary from national political figures, including progressive stalwart Bernie Sanders, and coverage in outlets well outside California.

On another level, the measure has exposed real fractures among California Democrats — fractures that mirror the broader ideological split within the national party. Progressive lawmakers view the billionaire tax as a natural extension of long-standing efforts to make the wealthy pay more. But more moderate Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and his likely successor, Xavier Becerra, worry that such a tax could push high earners out of California altogether, straining an already fragile state budget.

Even labor unions, typically united on tax issues, are split. The measure is backed by SEIU-UHW, a healthcare workers’ union, and would direct most of the resulting revenue toward healthcare programs. But that very focus has drawn opposition from the California Teachers Association and other major unions, which argue the money should be spread more broadly.

Prop. 40 now joins a short list of California ballot measures that have reshaped debates well beyond the state. Proposition 13, passed in 1978, ignited a nationwide tax revolt that reshaped conservative politics for decades. Proposition 187, approved by voters in 1994 before being struck down in the courts, previewed the immigration battles that continue to dominate American politics today. And Proposition 209, passed in 1996, banned affirmative action in public hiring, contracting and college admissions — a policy fight still unresolved in courts and legislatures nationwide.

Should Prop. 40 pass, it could similarly ripple outward, inspiring or discouraging similar wealth-tax proposals elsewhere. But its fate remains far from certain. With mail ballots set to go out in just seven weeks, opponents — many of them among California’s wealthiest residents — have poured significant money into defeating the measure.

The latest survey, conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, found support at 48%, opposition at 41%, and 11% of voters still undecided. In other words, the outcome remains genuinely up for grabs — and so, potentially, does its influence far beyond California’s borders.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California’s Midterm Vote Could Tip the Balance in National Political Battles appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Jane Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor known for championing free community college and the state’s first $15 minimum wage, is hoping to tap into the same anti-establishment energy that helped propel Zohran Mamdani to the New York City mayor’s office and Abdul El-Sayed into Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. Her opponent, state Sen. Ben Allen, recently landed the California Democratic Party’s official endorsement — a sign, political observers say, that party insiders view him as the safer, more conventional choice.

The outcome may hinge on factors that are hard to predict: how much attention voters pay to a down-ballot office many know little about, how seriously they take the state party’s endorsement, and how they respond to the wave of campaign mailers and advertisements likely to arrive before Election Day.

Kim and Allen are vying to lead oversight of California’s sprawling insurance market at a moment when the system is under intense strain. Kim wants the state to create a public disaster insurance option available to all homeowners and to expand low-cost auto insurance statewide — proposals that echo other progressive priorities such as Medicare for All. Allen, by contrast, wants to shore up the existing private insurance market, which has been rattled by soaring wildfire risk and a string of catastrophic, deadly fires in recent years.

Kim’s pitch clearly found an audience in June’s primary, where she topped an 11-candidate field with more than 27% of the vote. Allen finished second, with just over 19%.

“They’re a microcosm of the fracture going on in the Democratic Party across the country,” said Shauhin Talesh, a UC Irvine law professor who studies insurance regulation and consumer protection. “Both agree insurance companies need oversight. The real question is how aggressively the state should intervene, and what role government should play.”

Talesh said Allen’s endorsement from the state party wasn’t surprising, given his reputation as the more traditional of the two candidates. Kim, meanwhile, previously led the California Working Families Party, a progressive-aligned political organization, and worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. The Vermont senator has since thrown his support behind her bid.

“Is this going to become another situation where people are speaking with their votes against the establishment?” Talesh asked. “At what point does the Democratic Party recognize it?”

Kim’s challenges extend beyond the party’s snub. The insurance industry has voiced skepticism about her push for a larger government role in the market, and even some consumer advocates have raised concerns. Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog — a group founded by the author of California’s landmark insurance regulation law — warned that a state-run disaster fund, which Kim says could be financed through a portion of existing policyholder premiums, would require tens of billions of dollars just to get off the ground, and could be wiped out entirely by a single major wildfire.

Kim has acknowledged her proposal needs further study but argues that critics are ignoring the need for broader public dialogue about reforming the insurance system. “I don’t think just allowing the insurance industry to raise rates is the solution,” she said in an interview. “People will lose their homes or go uninsured. And that will wreck the economy.”

Allen has pushed back hard against Kim’s disaster fund concept, calling it “effectively a massive subsidy for those who are rich,” since wealthier homeowners typically face higher rebuilding costs after a fire.

Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, argues that Kim’s appeal reflects a broader national mood. “This is a populist wave, not a progressive wave,” he said, pointing out that Kim performed strongly not just in liberal strongholds but also in traditionally conservative regions such as the Inland Empire and the Central Valley — as well as in Los Angeles County, which includes Allen’s own district.

Given those primary numbers, Jorge Contreras, the party’s California director, called the state Democratic Party’s decision to back Allen “out of touch.” Some Kim delegates raised concerns that their votes weren’t properly counted during the endorsement process, prompting Kim to request a recount. Party spokesperson Robin Swanson said the votes were tallied twice, with the same result both times.

Not everyone accepts the “moderate” label that has been attached to Allen — including some of his own backers. RL Miller, former chair of the state party’s Environmental Caucus and head of the political action committee Climate Hawks, said she personally supports Allen despite her group not making endorsements in California races.

“Ben is a progressive by any standard,” Miller said, crediting him with authoring major climate legislation over the years. She suggested the “tribal nature of Democratic politics these days” may explain why he’s being cast as the more centrist candidate.

Allen’s legislative record includes work on Proposition 4, the $10 billion climate and wildfire prevention bond voters approved in 2024, as well as a law curbing single-use plastics. His voting history, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database, aligns closely with labor groups — including the California Labor Federation, which endorsed Kim the day after the state party backed Allen — and has generally not favored business interests.

Both candidates have pledged to refuse campaign contributions from the insurance industry, but Contreras said the broader flow of money in the race tells its own story. Business interests spent roughly $1.5 million opposing Kim in the primary, much of it funneled through JOBSPAC, a coalition tied to the California Chamber of Commerce. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple, donated $1 million in May to a political committee sponsored by California Environmental Voters — the largest outside contribution supporting Allen’s campaign.

“Why? Because they want the status quo,” Contreras said of wealthy donors backing more moderate candidates this cycle. “Jane is now going to be the bogeyman.”

Kim’s largest financial backers include the California Working Families Party, which contributed about $365,000, and the California Teachers Association, which gave roughly $150,000.

Democratic strategist Kevin Liao, who briefly consulted for Allen’s campaign before moving to Tom Steyer’s gubernatorial bid, said one key difference sets this race apart from other high-profile political battles: most voters simply don’t know what the insurance commissioner actually does. That knowledge gap, he said, could push voters toward using shortcuts — like Sanders’ endorsement of Kim or the state party’s backing of Allen — to make up their minds.

“We’re at a moment when voters, certainly the base of the Democratic Party, are fed up with the party establishment,” Liao said.

Still, insurgent candidates haven’t swept the board this election cycle. Steyer’s progressive run for California governor failed to make it past the primary, and in Wisconsin, moderate Democrat David Crowley narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong in that state’s gubernatorial primary by less than a percentage point.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Voters to Decide: Does the Insurance Commissioner Race Signal a Progressive Shift? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

This November, Californians will select a new governor, decide other statewide races and fill 152 legislative and congressional seats. Few doubt that Democrats will once again dominate those contests, continuing a run of control that stretches back three decades. The real question heading into the fall is narrower: whether the party can flip all five additional congressional seats it targeted through last year’s voter-approved redistricting overhaul.

But beneath that likely victory lies a warning, says veteran strategist Paul Rivera, who authored the Democratic National Committee’s post-mortem on the party’s 2024 losses. When the DNC released a condensed version of his findings in May, it left out a section that criticized then-President Joe Biden’s late withdrawal from the race and the hurried elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris, a Californian, as his replacement on the ticket.

Rivera has since published a far more expansive account of his research — a 564-page reassessment arguing that Democrats have drifted away from working-class voters, become too reliant on wealthy, insulated political consultants, and allowed a class of operatives to grow “generationally wealthy off politics” while the party’s grassroots infrastructure withers.

His critique doesn’t spare the party’s overall strategic posture. While Republicans wage a near-constant campaign against Democrats, Rivera argues, Democratic organizing tends to surge only in election years, when money floods into competitive races at the eleventh hour after months of inattention to community-level organizing.

“The difference is right-wing interests take a longer-term approach and amplify polarizing Democratic messaging and candidates with the intention of ‘othering’ all Democrats,” Rivera writes. “Without aggressive pushback and tactics, it works.”

California’s primary, in Rivera’s view, illustrates exactly the kind of structural weakness he’s describing. He notes that the state mails ballots automatically to every registered voter, yet turnout among younger residents remained strikingly low.

“The data from the 2026 California primary, a state where all voters are proactively mailed their ballots, should be a critical warning sign for Democrats everywhere,” Rivera writes. He points out that only 21% of voters under 35 cast ballots, compared with 58% of those 65 and older. Turnout gaps by race were similarly pronounced: 26% among Hispanic voters, 34% among Asian voters and 37% among Black voters, all lagging behind the 43% turnout rate among white voters.

“Will Democrats win California in November? Of course,” Rivera writes. “Yet in these unprecedented times, why is there not more energy in opposition to the status quo? If these patterns play out in battleground states and districts — where younger Americans and non-white voters do not participate to support Democrats — it will be very difficult to win the House or Senate or build power in the states.” He adds that Republicans are likely to outspend Democrats nationally this cycle for the first time since 2018, making superior organizing all the more essential for Democratic success.

Rivera also frames California as a preview of broader demographic shifts working against the party. He points to sluggish population growth — or outright decline — in Democratic strongholds such as California, New York and Illinois, contrasted with steady gains in Republican-leaning states like Texas and Florida.

Those trends carry long-term political consequences. When congressional districts are redrawn following the 2030 census, California and similar states are expected to lose presidential electoral votes, while growing red states stand to gain influence.

“This should bring sharp focus to the scope and scale of the challenges before Democrats,” Rivera writes. “Without change, Democrats will be locked out of power. National neglect is what led Democrats to this moment — more of the same is not the answer. None of this will be easy, but moving past talk and into action on some or all of these takeaways can make a massive difference in outcomes for the party and for the country. It’s time to get to work.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Democratic Party’s National Struggles Mirrored in California Primary Results appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Over the past 21 months, California’s governor has cycled through several distinct political personas, each one seemingly calibrated to whatever version of the Democratic Party he believes can actually win back the White House.

In the months following Kamala Harris’ defeat to Donald Trump, Newsom leaned noticeably rightward. He warned that Democrats needed to conduct a real “autopsy” of the loss, arguing the party had lost touch with voters across the middle of the country and the South.

That shift became unmistakable when Newsom launched his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” and chose conservative commentator Charlie Kirk as his very first guest. During that conversation, Newsom sided with Kirk on a contentious issue, agreeing that transgender women shouldn’t compete against biological women in athletics.

Newsom pointed to a Trump campaign ad that used footage of Harris expressing support for gender-transition surgery for prison inmates, calling it evidence that fairness concerns in sports were legitimate. “So I completely align with you,” he told Kirk. “And we’ve got to own that. We’ve got to acknowledge it.”

The comment infuriated transgender rights advocates but succeeded in nudging Newsom’s public image toward the center.

He doubled down on that message not long after, telling a crowd at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit that Democrats had grown too consumed with “woke culture” and needed to reconnect with everyday concerns like immigration and rising prices. “We have to be more culturally normal,” he said. “We have to be a little less judgmental.”

That was the Newsom of last year. This year looks different.

As progressive Democrats have notched a series of high-profile victories and tensions have flared between the party establishment and its more left-leaning base, Newsom appears to be recalibrating once more — this time swinging back toward the party’s activist wing.

Speaking in May at a conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, alongside other Democrats weighing their own presidential ambitions, Newsom effectively announced the pivot. “A year ago my sense was, in this country, that our path back as Democrats … was through the center,” he said. “Increasingly, I’d argue, it’s through the fight. And people want fighters. People want people with conviction and clarity.”

From there, Newsom laid out an economic vision that borrowed heavily from progressive critiques of corporate power and wealth inequality. “You cannot save democracy unless we democratize the economy,” he told the crowd. “The whole system has to be reimagined.” He floated the idea of a “universal basic capital” system that would use profits generated by artificial intelligence to help workers displaced by the technology.

There’s a wrinkle in this latest leftward turn, though. During his more centrist phase, Newsom actively opposed a ballot measure that would slap a 5% wealth tax on California’s billionaires, even lobbying the healthcare union backing the proposal to abandon it. That effort failed, and the measure will appear before voters in November as Proposition 40.

Unable to reverse course entirely, Newsom has instead tried to soften the political damage by pushing for new federal taxes targeting the wealthy — an attempt to appear aligned with the tax-the-rich sentiment without fully embracing the state measure he once fought.

Whether this is the final version of Newsom that voters will see on a national stage remains an open question. Recent developments have added new complications to his public narrative, including a tell-all article detailing an affair he had with a staffer — the wife of a close aide — during his tenure as San Francisco mayor, as well as the release of his personal tax returns. Both are likely to keep fueling speculation about who, exactly, Gavin Newsom is trying to be.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom’s Presidential Balancing Act: Which Persona Wins Out? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Less than four months after announcing his reelection campaign, Walz said Monday that he could no longer devote the energy necessary to win another term, even as he expressed confidence that he could win.

Walz said in a statement Monday that he “can’t give a political campaign my all” after what he described as an “extraordinarily difficult year for our state.”

“Donald Trump and his allies – in Washington, in St. Paul, and online – want to make our state a colder, meaner place,” Walz said, referring to the Trump administration withholding funds for the programs. “They want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors. And, ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in America to raise a family.”

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is considering running for governor, according to a person close to her. The person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Klobuchar has not made a final decision.

Around a dozen Republicans are already in the race. They include MyPillow founder and chief executive Mike Lindell, an election denier who is close to Trump. They also include Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring; Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator from Chaska who was the party’s 2022 candidate; state Rep. Kristin Robbins, of Maple Grove; defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor Chris Madel; former executive Kendall Qualls; and former Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann.

Walz is a military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.

Vice President Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate after his attack line against Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance — “These guys are just weird” — spread widely.

Walz had been building up his national profile since his and Harris’ defeat in November. He was a sharp critic of Trump as he toured early caucus and primary states. In May, he called on Democrats in South Carolina to stand up to the Republican president, saying, “Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner.”

Through two terms as governor, Walz has moved a liberal agenda through a closely divided legislature. In his first term, he navigated a Democratic-led House and a Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, health care and roads. But he helped broker compromises.

He used the office’s emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools, prompting Republican pushback.

Republicans also were critical of Walz over what they saw as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

In his second term, Walz worked with Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers to chart a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus. Minnesota eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

That, combined with Walz’s rural background and experience representing southern Minnesota in Congress, landed him on cHarris’ radar as she considered potential running mates in her 2024 presidential bid. After a whirlwind search, she opted for Walz over other candidates including North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Walz got a warm welcome from Democratic voters but drew mixed reviews for his lone debate against his Vance.

Minnesota has leaned Democratic in presidential and statewide contests in recent decades. Walz won his second term in 2022 by nearly 8 percentage points, but Trump narrowed Democrats’ advantage to less than 5 points in 2024.

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Porter, a former Orange County congresswoman and a top candidate in California’s 2026 governor’s race, said that she “could have handled things better.”

“I think I’m known as someone who’s able to handle tough questions, who’s willing to answer questions,” Porter told Nikki Laurenzo, an anchor on FOX40 in Sacramento. “I want people to know that I really value the incredible work that my staff can do. I think people who know me know I can be tough. But I need to do a better job expressing appreciation for the amazing work my team does.”

Last week, a video emerged of Porter telling a separate television reporter that she doesn’t need the support of the millions of Californians who voted for President Trump, and brusquely threatening to end the interview because the reporter asked follow-up questions. The following day, a second video emerged of Porter telling a young staffer “Get out of my f—ing shot!” while videoconferencing with a member of then-President Biden’s cabinet in 2021.

Porter on Tuesday said that she had apologized to the staffer. She repeatedly sidestepped Laurenzo’s questions about whether other videos could emerge.

“What I can tell you … is that I am taking responsibility for the situation,” Porter said.

Porter’s behavior in the videos underscored long-standing questions about her temperament and high staff turnover while she served in Congress.

The most recent polls showed that Porter held a narrow lead in the competitive race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term as governor. After the videos emerged last week, several of Porter’s rivals criticized her behavior, including former state Controller Betty Yee, who said she should drop out of the race.

On Tuesday, Yee argued that Porter’s temperament could imperil Democrats’ efforts to pass Proposition 50, the Nov. 4 ballot measure to redraw congressional districts in California to boost their party’s numbers in the House.

Yee, a former vice chair of the state Democratic party, warned that a Republican could potentially win the governor’s race and Democrats could lose the U.S. House of Representatives because of Porter’s “demeanor.”

“I don’t relish picking a fight, and it’s not even a fight,” Yee said during a virtual press conference. “I’m doing what’s best for this party.”

Porter is also expected to address the issue Tuesday night during a virtual forum with the California Working Families Party.

Prior to her statements on Tuesday, Porter had released one statement about the 2021 video, saying, “It’s no secret I hold myself and my staff to a high standard, and that was especially true as a member of Congress. I have sought to be more intentional in showing gratitude to my staff for their important work.”

The UC Irvine law professor has not responded to multiple interview requests from the Times.

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And that’s not a question to be answered based strictly on her prospects for winning.

Initially, at least, the former vice president would be the heavy favorite to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom — although, eventually, she could find herself in a tough election fight next year.

Rather, the answer should be determined based on what strengths, goals and ideas she would bring to the table — her specific plans for fixing California’s enormous problems, her eagerness to fight even political allies to achieve her objectives and her own desire to lead the state’s comeback.

She shouldn’t view the job as a consolation prize after losing the presidential election to Donald Trump. Voters would smell that and, anyway, Harris would be miserably bored in the state Capitol dealing with budget minutiae and relatively inexperienced legislative leaders.

So far, since returning from Washington to her native state, Harris, 60, has displayed none of the above criteria that California needs in its next governor.

But neither did she previously in any noteworthy way as a U.S. senator or — particularly — state attorney general. As attorney general, Harris refused to take positions on important ballot measures, including those dealing with her role as California’s so-called top cop — propositions to stiffen criminal sentences and both abolish and expedite the death penalty.

Harris has a record of being overly cautious about taking positions that could alienate interests she deems important to her political career.

Sure, Harris isn’t running for anything right now. So, she deserves a pass on issuing 10-point plans to patch up the state.

But, look, you don’t need to be a gubernatorial candidate to express concerns about your state. Any resident who’s conscious should be alarmed.

“Home prices have skyrocketed as supply slumped over the past three decades,” the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California noted in a report last week.

California’s median home price in March was $884,000 — very tough if not impossible for many middle-class families. The housing shortage is largely due to over-regulation, tangled red tape that slows issuance of building permits and abuse of California’s environmental protection laws.

There’s a strong move in the Legislature to ease regulations, but it’s highly controversial. Does Harris have a thought on this?

Homeowner insurance rates are rising fast in the aftermath of wildfires. And in many fire-prone regions, traditional policies are impossible to obtain. The next governor needs to fix this.

California’s poverty rate is the nation’s highest when the cost of living is considered, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Despite our spending many billions of dollars and regardless of ugly finger-pointing at each other by Newsom and local officials, 187,000 Californians are homeless — a 35% increase in 17 years. That’s the highest in the nation — only partly because we’ve got the largest population.

Gasoline prices are roughly $1.60 a gallon higher in California than the U.S. average. And two oil refineries are planning to shut down, invariably hiking pump prices even higher.

We’re a high-tax state, a fact Newsom is in denial about. We lean too heavily on the wealthy for tax revenue and that produces roller-coaster budget deficits and surpluses depending on the stock market. It’s ridiculous. State taxes should be modernized. But no politician has the guts to attempt that.

Then there’s California’s historic problem of not enough water for its thirst.

Does Harris have anything to say about any of this? She hasn’t so far.

Of course, the seven leading announced Democratic candidates have been practically mute themselves on matters that risk aggravating party interest groups.

One exception is former Los Angeles Mayor and state Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been bolder than most of his rivals.

Harris has said she’ll decide by the end of summer whether to run for governor in 2026. Maybe she’ll seek the presidency again in 2028 or retire from politics and make a bundle in the private sector.

But Villaraigosa already is taking shots at her — including last week for allegedly helping to cover up former President Biden’s cognitive decline while in the Oval Office. Villaraigosa included in the attack another gubernatorial candidate: former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.

Harris is a lot more vulnerable than Becerra on the issue.

But it’s a cheap shot. How many people would publicly accuse their boss of being mentally incompetent? And Harris would have instantly been blasted for being self-serving by plotting to push the president aside so she could grab the Democratic nomination.

Harris could help herself and California’s voters, however, by occasionally voicing some anxiety about her home state.

The little we’ve heard from her this year are attacks on Trump. She also has been lending her name to anti-Trump fundraising appeals by the Democratic National Committee.

But the last thing California Democrats need is another politician — especially a potential governor — telling them that Trump is an evil, ignorant con artist. They’re fully aware of that. They need someone who can tell them how their state can be fixed.

If she ran, Harris would be the initial favorite because of her broad name recognition, past election successes in California and fundraising ability. Some current candidates would probably drop out.

But there doesn’t seem to be a public clamoring for her to run.

Harris needs to start showing people why she should even consider seeking the job. Because, so far, she’s sounding more like a 2028 presidential retread.

The post Harris hasn’t shown much interest in being California governor appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

He’s facing several hundred ecstatic voters huddled outside a suburban Detroit high school — the group that did not fit inside the high school’s gym or two overflow rooms. The crowd screams in delight when he tells them that a combined total of 9,000 people had shown up for the rally.

“What all of this tells me, is not just in Michigan or in Vermont, the people of this country will not allow us to move toward oligarchy. They will not allow Trump to take us into authoritarianism,” Sanders yelled. “We’re prepared to fight. And we’re going to win.”

At 83 years old, Sanders is not running for president again. But the stooped and silver-haired democratic socialist has emerged as a leader of the resistance to Donald Trump’s second presidency. In tearing into Trump’s seizure of power and warning about the consequences of firing tens of thousands of government workers, Sanders is bucking the wishes of those who want Democrats to focus on the price of eggs or “roll over and play dead.”

For now, at least, Sanders stands alone as the only elected progressive willing to mount a national campaign to harness the fear and anger of the sprawling anti-Trump movement.

He drew a crowd of 4,000 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday night. He faced another 2,600 or so the next morning a few hours away in Altoona, Wisconsin, a town of less than 10,000 residents. And his crowd of 9,000 in suburban Detroit exceeded his own team’s expectations. By design, each stop was in a swing U.S. House district represented by a Republican.

Sanders, who was just elected to his fourth Senate term from Vermont, conceded that this is not the role he expected to play at this stage of his career.

In fact, his team intentionally waited in the early weeks of the Trump presidency to launch what they are now calling his “stop oligarchy tour” to see if a high-profile Democrat would fill the leadership void. Instead, Sanders — who is not a Democrat himself despite allying with Senate Democrats and running twice for the party’s presidential nomination — has people wondering if he’s considering another White House bid.

“This is like presidential campaign rallies, isn’t it? But I’m not running for president, and this is not a campaign,” Sanders told The Associated Press. “You gotta do what you gotta do. The country’s in trouble and I want to play my role.”

The divided Democratic resistance

Since losing the White House, Democrats across Washington have struggled to coalesce behind a consistent message or messenger to stop Trump’s aggressive moves to slash the government workforce, weaken federal oversight and empower tech titan Elon Musk to execute his vision.

There has been no centralized movement to organize the anti-Trump resistance.

“You look around — who else is doing it? No one,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said of Sanders’ efforts. “My hope is that the dam will break in terms of Democrats going on the offense … We need to take the argument directly to the people.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a longtime Sanders ally, said she would join him on the road in the coming weeks. She’s also planning solo appearances in Republican-held congressional districts in Pennsylvania and New York — and perhaps others in places where Republicans have declined to hold in-person town halls where they might face protests.

“It’s not about whether Bernie should or shouldn’t be doing this. It’s about that we all should,” she said. “But he is unique in this country, and so long as we are blessed to have that capacity on our side, I think we should be thankful for it.”

Beyond Sanders’ tour, angry voters have so far relied on grassroots groups like Indivisible to organize a series of local protests. They have been effective in pressuring Trump’s allies in some cases. A number of House Republicans facing angry questions have criticized Musk or questioned the cuts being carried out at his allies’ behest.

Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, who has been critical of many Democratic leaders, praised Sanders for stepping up.

“I wish more Democrats were traveling the country, including to red states, to rally the the majority against Musk and Project 2025,” Levin said. “Sure as hell beats (House Democratic leader Hakeem) Jeffries traveling the country for his children’s book tour during a constitutional crisis.”

During last month’s congressional recess, Jeffries made two appearances to promote a children’s book about democracy. He has also traveled to support House Democrats. This past weekend, he was in Selma, Alabama, to mark the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

The truth is that few, if any, Democratic leaders have the capacity to draw such crowds on short notice or organize the related logistics on a national scale. The party’s nascent class of 2028 presidential prospects, a group that includes California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, have limited national profiles and they have been reluctant to step too far into the national spotlight so far.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, among the more outspoken Trump critics in Congress, said that Democrats must be better organized.

“People are desperate to be plugged into action right now. People see the threat. They are anxious and angry and motivated and they want to be sent in a direction to help,” he said.

Murphy acknowledged that Sanders still has plenty of detractors within the Democratic Party who view him and his progressive policy ideas — replacing private and job-based health insurance with a government-funded “Medicare for All” plan, free public college, and the “Green New Deal” on climate policy — as too radical.

Indeed, it was just five years ago when Democrats coalesced around Joe Biden to effectively block Sanders from winning the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

“There still are a lot of folks who view Bernie as a danger to the party,” Murphy said, “whereas I see his message as the core of what we need to build on.”

Sanders was a staunch supporter of Biden over the last four years but criticized the Democratic Party in the aftermath of Kamala Harris’ loss last fall, declaring that Trump’s victory was possible only because Democrats had “abandoned” the working class.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who introduced Sanders in Michigan, said more Democrats need to “follow his lead to focus on working-class people and working-class issues.”

“They’ve got to take a hard look in the mirror, in my opinion, and decide who the hell they want to represent,” Fain said of Democrats. “We’ve been clear as a union, if they aren’t looking out for working-class people, we’re not going to be there for them.”

The voters speak

The voters who packed venues across Wisconsin and Michigan over the weekend composed a diverse group, including some who did not support Sanders’ past presidential campaigns. Most said that Democratic leaders have not done enough to stop Trump.

“I’m here because I’m afraid for our country. The last six weeks have been horrible,” said Diana Schack, a 72-year-old retired lawyer who attended her first Sanders rally on Saturday. “I am becoming a more avid Bernie fan, especially in light of the work he’s doing traveling around the country. These are not normal times.”

In Kenosha the night before, Amber Schulz, a 50-year-old medical worker, demanded that her party “step up and do something.”

“Bernie is the only politician I trust,” she said.

Tony Gonzales, 56, an independent from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, said he’s worried that Trump will “dismantle historic American standards” and try to stay in office beyond this term. The Constitution bars presidents from serving more than two terms, even as Trump has suggested he deserves a third.

“It’s a dangerous time right now,” Gonzales said. “What Bernie has to say — and the turnout — is important. His voice is still being heard.”

Sanders delivered the same fiery populist message over the weekend that he has for decades, seizing on the nation’s economic inequality to call for free health care, free public higher education and stronger social safety net programs. Sanders was especially focused on the team of billionaires Trump has appointed to serve as leaders in his administration, including Musk and a half dozen others.

“They want to dismantle the federal government and cut programs that working people desperately need,” Sanders warned.

“Yes, the oligarchs are enormously powerful. They have endless amounts of money. They control our economy. They own much of the media, and they have enormous influence over our political system,” he continued. “But from the bottom of my heart, I believe that if we stand together, we can beat them.”

It’s unclear how long that Sanders, an octogenarian who was hospitalized for a heart condition during his 2020 campaign, will continue in this role. A spokesperson said Sanders hasn’t had any health issues since the 2019 episode.

He is not expected to slow down anytime soon. Sanders is leaning on his 2020 presidential campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, to organize his stops, backed by a handful of former presidential campaign staffers working on a contract basis.

Shakir, who lost his bid to become the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, acknowledged strategic differences within the party about how best to combat Trump.

Last month, veteran political strategist James Carville penned an opinion piece calling for Democrats to “roll over and play dead,” betting that Trump and his party would ultimately suffer a political backlash from voters for going too far.

“One theory is you can play dead; you can strategically retreat,” Shakir said. “Or, you play alive, and you go out to people and you talk to them with conviction and integrity.”

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