Transcript: Inside the Wild, Unpredictable California Governor’s Race
California’s top-two primary nearly handed the governor’s race to two Republicans until Trump and Democratic consolidation stepped in, revealing how machine politics, not voters, still call the shots.
Donald Trump’s endorsement of Steve Hilton over Chad Bianco may have accidentally rescued California Democrats from their own top-two primary system. The feared scenario, two Republicans advancing to the general while Democrats split their votes among eight candidates, had been looming large. With 62 names on the ballot and no write-ins allowed, even a 65-35 Democratic electorate could have faced a Republican-only choice for governor.
That danger receded after Trump backed the former British government adviser and Fox commentator over the Riverside County sheriff, an admitted Oath Keeper. Polls shifted, lifting Hilton and opening space for a Democrat to sneak into the top two. At the same time, Eric Swalwell dropped out and Betty Yee exited to endorse Tom Steyer, narrowing the Democratic field and easing the fragmentation.
The beneficiary of this consolidation has been Xavier Becerra. After a year of near-invisibility, Becerra suddenly gained buzz the moment Swalwell left the race. The shift was not organic. Swalwell had been the choice of the Newsom-aligned consultants, Bear Star Strategies and the network that has run California politics for Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Alex Padilla, and Jerry Brown. When Swalwell exited, those operatives, including Newsom’s own digital director, pivoted instantly to Becerra.
Becerra fits a surface-level profile: the leading Latino candidate in a heavily Latino state, with recent experience as California attorney general and Biden’s HHS secretary. He has run against Antonio Villaraigosa, who last held office a decade ago, for a quarter-century. Yet the record that matters most is one of weakness. Becerra proved an ineffective HHS secretary, presiding over the sprawling agency at its least aggressive on corporate accountability, the very policies the Biden White House claimed to prioritize.
The episode exposes the mechanics of California’s permanent ruling faction. Swalwell himself was described by supporters as lacking deep ties to state politics; a CNN clip captured him mistaking Sacramento Capitol reconstruction for new condos. He functioned as a consultant-driven placeholder. Becerra now inherits that infrastructure, not because of voter enthusiasm but because the machine moved its pieces.
What remains is whether this top-two rescue holds. The fear of two Republicans in the general election has lessened but not vanished. More telling is how little actual voter preference appears to drive the frontrunners: the race is still being shaped by Trump’s intervention on one side and the Newsom consultants’ handoff on the other.
Original reporting: The New Republic.
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